Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

“Well, I was impressed, Sol. The ships performed well, and the pilots and crews executed everything flawlessly as far as I can tell. Since we recovered most of the damaged fighter is there any chance it can be repaired?”

  “I don’t know, Ginger. My maintenance crew chief is looking it over now and should have an assessment for me by chow time. He will also have an armaments report giving me an idea of how many sorties we can fly before we have to go home and refill our magazines. Of course, those numbers are only meaningful if all of our confrontations go like this one.

  My crew and I spent the next two cycles hunting through Alpha Centauri-A looking for more Plague but came up dry, so we set course for Alpha Centauri-B and decided to cruise in quietly. It worked last time, and we hoped it would again. It was going to take us a couple of cycles to get there, but we didn’t relax our vigilance, not wanting to get jumped by the Plague. Tiger’s systems were working flawlessly, and the ship was a joy to fly—she practically flew herself.

  The two injured fighter crew were returned to duty towards the end of the first cycle, and their primary concern was their ship. When they got to the maintenance bay, they were surprised to find she was almost repaired. I spent some of my time in the hangar looking at the small ships and felt some degree of envy when I saw the pilot and his gunner walking around their ship inspecting the repairs.

  I appreciated the thought that went into the design of these craft. They lack the beauty of the Swift Fang design and the brutal handsomeness of the Talon or Leopard ships but in their ugliness resides their beauty. There was nothing here, but what needed to be. The central spine and “wings” of these little ships were constructed of hull metal tubes and were nothing more than space frames upon which everything else was mounted. Some of the smaller or more delicate parts were actually placed inside the frame, but most of that space was taken up by fuel tanks. Everything else was hung on the outside where it could be easily detached and repaired or replaced. I was most impressed by the life-support capsule which mounted on top of the frame somewhat forward of the wing and was self-contained although there was an umbilical to supplement power and environment while the ship flew.

  The capsule was designed to detach from the frame if the ship lost structural integrity and some manoeuvring jets that could be used to move the capsule away from the framework if natural forces didn’t. Watching these two walk around their ship and lovingly touch her brought home the concept of designing for survivability and put question to the idea that a race that could design a machine that gave its crew such an advantage could be looked down upon by mine. Tuxedo had also expressed some concerns about this kind of thinking and related it back to Jase’s words about what makes a human.

  As we approached the end of the second cycle on this course I was alerted by the bridge that they had contacts on the sensors. I quickly made my way to my command couch and brought up the images forwarded by several of the sensor operators. I activated the holographic tactical display and populated it with the images from the sensors. The images were quite small so I expanded the image by a factor of ten and soon half the space in front of my couch was filled with a three-dimensional view of the space around Tiger showing all of the ships detected. The display was now receiving data from the sensors real-time, and the display was constantly updating.

  The limited AI running the hologram had done a count on the number of ships so far and also identified them, colour tagging each type so we could see the swarm’s composition. Our targeting AI took over and graded each cluster of ships making recommendations based on kill probability. CAG was getting that feed now and forwarding it to each ship in the flight and his escort. The AI identified the cluster closest to us as the most vulnerable and also the most dangerous to us and gave it the target designation T-Alpha.

  I passed the order to prepare for battle, and the hangar doors opened on the darkened bays with the crew already in their ships. “Launch as we did in the last encounter with the off-side launching and assembling first then the near-side.

  “All hands, once all fighters are clear close the bays and stand by your weapons. Shields up and prepare to engage enemy,” I commanded over the implant broadcast system. My words are still echoing in my ears when I saw the fighters had cleared the off-side bay and the near-side bay was nearly empty. The hangar doors were closed except for the Elsie hangar where all of the Elsies were manned and ready to launch if needed. Because there are over two hundred ships on the tactical display, all of the squads in the Century had mounted up except one squad that would stay behind and provide security for Tiger.

  “Helm, bring us about to face T-Beta and stand by engines. Sensors one through four monitor T-Beta, sensors five through eight, monitor T-Charlie. Remaining sensors monitor T-Alpha.”

  As I watched the main holographic display, I saw T-Beta start to close on T-Alpha, and it appeared the intent was to assist repelling our fighters. There were twenty-two ships in this formation, two harvesters and eighteen of the Swift Fang type ships the Plague had just started deploying. “Weapons, target T-Beta, select cracker-2s and fire at optimal,” I commanded. Our fighters had about fifteen centas before T-Beta could close and be a threat and I wanted to neutralize T-Beta before they became a problem.

  “Weapons, select Dopey Joes and send a spread of one hundred towards T-Charlie,” I heard the command go out and Tiger rocked a little when the salvo of Dopey Joes left the launchers.

  Dopey Joes were a combination of missile and space mine. They would run out in a spread pattern halfway to their target and then shut down their engines and coast. They didn’t have much engine flare, so we hoped the Plague found them hard to detect. They would coast along towards the enemy until they were a few klicks away and then sprint like hell and detonate their cracker-2 warheads when they contacted the enemy’s shields or hull. If the enemy tried to run, they would simply coast until the all clear was given at which time they would start pinging for pick-up. If they weren’t retrieved within a cycle of pinging, they would self-destruct.

  I looked at the hologram and saw that half of T-Alpha had been destroyed and good progress was being made on the other half. T-Beta stopped their acceleration towards T-Alpha and was just hanging there about two hundred klicks off our bow. We were still ballistic and closing with T-Beta, and while we could fire now, I wanted to wait until there was an indication we had been spotted.

  Looking at the hologram, I saw T-Charlie heading straight towards the Dopey Joes, and I waited for what was about to happen. Suddenly I saw a cluster of yellow sparks appear on the display and then the display flared brightly for a tick before it settled again, and the target counter on T-Charlie dropped from one hundred and twenty ships to thirty-five. I was pleased with those results, 85 per cent of my missiles found a target, and it is likely several of the ships were hit by more than one missile accounting for the other 15 per cent.

  Ahead of us, T-Beta seemed confused about what to do; first it turned towards T-Charlie then as quickly, it turned back towards T-Alpha. This repeated twice before I finally ordered weapons to put them out of their misery. I hate stupid robots. By then our fighter force was killing the last three Swift Fang clones, and they had lost five ships. They went up against eighty ships this time, but their kill/loss ratio had dropped to an unsustainable rate. I just hoped the pilots could be recovered.

  When I looked for T-Beta it wasn’t there any more so I focused on T-Charlie which was moving towards us at a good clip. At that speed, the targeting computer told me they would be on us in less than ten centas. “Weapons, give me a firing solution and as soon as they hit optimal range take them out. Have guns stand by to assist with any survivors.”

  A few ticks later weapons loosed thirty-five cracker-2s on T-Charlie and a few ticks after that all thirty-five ships disappeared in actinic blue flares.

  Cracker-1s were the original planet killers we took with us on the last mission. They were a bit of overkill, but they had the advantage of being almost impossible t
o stop. Immediately after they acquiring a target, they would go FTL until a proximity detector and timer brought them back sub-light a tick before impact. The bad guys never saw them coming. Cracker-2s are smaller versions of Cracker-1s. They are faster and also smarter, they would tell each other which target they were going for so multiple hits on the same target wouldn’t happen. Of course, we could set them the other way too.

  Some of our officers considered their use dishonourable but Jase has taught me there was no honour in war and the only thing dishonourable is getting yourself killed when you had the tools to prevent it.

  Sensors detected no more Plague in our vicinity, so I sent out the Elsie teams with a priority on finding and recovering our missing crews and their fighters. Two decas later they reported they found all of the life-support capsules and had recovered all of the damaged fighters. The bad news was two of the crews didn’t survive.

  Later, when I spoke with Sol, he told me, “My crew chief assures me he can get three fighters back together out of the five and some spares. With time he can repair the other two fighters as well, but since I’m two pilots down there didn’t seem to be much point. The crews that survived are in good shape and in good spirits and tell me they can’t wait to get back out there and even the score.

  “I’ll be sending them to see our mental health specialists before sending them back out. That is the kind of attitude that plays well in war movies, but in the real world gets pilots killed unnecessarily. My father taught me long ago that there are only two kinds of pilots, old pilots and bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.”

  He handed me the thumb drive with the after-action reports, logs and cockpit telemetry and headed for his bunk. I sat for a while, thinking about what he had said.

  12

  Ginger

  THE CYCLE AFTER HOMECOMING I had to report to Fleet Command and file my after-action reports and all of the records from the mission. I went up to Jase’s office first and placed the originals in a drawer in his desk then walked to the opposite corner of the floor to give copies to Johnny who was still in his offices in the Terran Intelligence Directorate. He had passed his intelligence duties off to the new director but hadn’t moved across the floor yet. He greeted me with a smile and said, “Welcome back, Ginger and thanks for these,” as he glanced at the thumb drives I handed him.

  “I am sorry to hear about your losses on the mission, that is the part I hate most about war. The noise, confusion and terror can be adjusted to relatively easily, but losing friends and team members? That is the part that hits most of us the hardest. You know where to find me if you want to talk about it.”

  “Thank you, Johnny. I am beginning to understand you and Jase a bit better now. I don’t know if I will ever be able, but I think I can learn to live with it.”

  He smiled a sad smile then said, “Neither of us will ever forget. I know you have felt Jase’s nightmares—you have mentioned that to me in the past. Our upbringing and training, the lens we use to view the world around us, is very different from yours. We can compartmentalize our experiences and manage the memories because we were taught to, but we never forget them either. One thing both he and I have learnt is not to let the things we cannot change rule our hearts or minds. None of us can change the past only how we deal with the present. The only advice I can give is to be around those you love and those you are Bonded to. I think that will help you a lot.”

  I thought about Johnny’s words and the story he told me when I first met him. I looked at him and asked, “Is it possible to feed both wolves? The good one and the bad one?”

  He smiled again and said, “Yes, you can, but you must be careful that the evil one does not take the other’s food.”

  When I got to Fleet Command, I sat down with another officer who read my after-action report. Once he scanned the contents of the thumb drives, he said, “Thank you, Commander. If anyone needs clarification, they will contact you. Enjoy your down-cycles, from the looks of things you have earned them.”

  I stood and left. On my way out the hatch, I commed Tuxedo and told him, “I am going to see Squirrel Paws. I will meet you in the dining room later. Do you think we could get together with Jase and Elaine for dinner?”

  “I don’t see why not, I’ll comm him and set it up. I’ll see you then, love.”

  When I got to the creche, I saw Squirrel Paws just hanging out with her friends. They have formed quite a posse, and two more youngsters seemed to have fallen into their orbit, a Terran boy I haven’t seen before and a Mmrrreeowwn boy who has been an off-and-on companion of Squirrel Paws for at least a kilocycle. When Squirrel Paws saw me, she calmly got up and said something to her friends before heading towards me.

  She was starting to grow up, instead of running and leaping into my arms, she calmly walked up to me and clasped my hand in hers and nuzzled it. I looked her in the eyes, and she pulled slightly on my hand to get me to bend to her. When I did, she nuzzled my cheek and greeted me whispering, “Welcome home, Mother. I’ve missed you these last twelve cycles you were gone. I missed father too. He comes to see me or at least calls me every day, but it is lonely when both of you are gone.”

  “Well, let us go get some lunch and sit, then I can tell you all about our trip and my new ship. I even have some pictures I can show you.”

  ◆◆◆

  Jase

  I got to my office and found I’d missed Ginger by about ten centas. I looked in the secure drawer I have set aside for my people to drop reports and found the info she left me. I read her reports and reviewed her personal log and the official ship’s log. Then I scanned the images from the holographic tactical display on the bridge. Finally, I got to the gun camera images and only stopped viewing them long enough to eat the soup and sandwich the cook’s staff now routinely sent up to me when I’m on Mother of Glory. If I’m not here, they leave it with my assistant who is grateful for the interruption. He gets so absorbed in his work. I usually have to remind him to go eat. I’ve got the same problem, which is why I have my lunch delivered every day.

  I finished my day reviewing the gun camera files while enjoying a new IPA Benji and his people were brewing, it is the best yet. It also has a bit more punch than I’m used to and I’ll remember to have just one the next time I decide to have an ale with lunch. I skimmed most of the image files, but the images from the ships hit and damaged by Plague fire are of particular interest to me and from the logs I know which tapes to watch and what battles they were in.

  I played the CAG’s tape on one of my screens which gave me an overview of the battle while I synchronized the gun camera tape of a stricken ship to it so I could see the disposition of the enemy from two perspectives. It’s a technique I learned from Johnny, and it works very well in trying to determine if the enemy just got lucky or if they had twigged to our tactics and we’d become too predictable.

  In several cases, it was a simple matter of the Plague being lucky, but there were a couple of instances I made notes on. I’d have to wait and see if CAG noticed and remarked on the same events. It will probably be the next cycle or the one after that. He has family visits to make on behalf of his casualties and those take time and a toll. I had to make a bunch of those visits some years back and didn’t want to have to do it again.

  At last, it was time to go have dinner with Elaine, and we would be sitting with Tuxedo and Ginger tonight. It has been almost thirty cycles since we ate together as a group, our schedules never seemed to synch up, and Elaine had complained more than once since I took control of the Plague offensive that we never seemed to get together for meals any more much less socialize with our friends like we used to. I promised to remedy that, but life kept getting in the way. The only way I could see to shed the load I was under was to find more assistants I can trust to delegate critical tasks to and stop micro-managing everyone working with me. It was a work in progress, albeit a slow one.

  When we got to the dining room in Terran HQ, Tuxedo and Ginger were sitting
at a small table and have our drinks waiting for us. Tux knew I liked to sit where I could watch the activity in the room but he had deliberately seated Ginger and himself in the seats with the best view and Elaine’s wine is sitting such that the only place left for me was with my back to the room. He clearly wanted me to pay attention to our table and not distract myself with what was going on across the room, clever bastard.

  I sighed and sat where he wanted me to, and before I can pick up my ale glass, he and Ginger raised their glasses forcing me to quickly grab mine and the four of us toasted to a relaxing meal in good company. I heard Serena over my implant, “Consider this an intervention, Dad!” Edgar, accompanied by Serena, Shadow and Stealth, chimed in, “You are working too hard and getting too close to the problem to see the obvious solutions. We are going to work with you to slow you down so you can enjoy life a little more and spend time with those who love you and are loyal to you. For tonight, enjoy yourself and learn to be kind to yourself.”

  When I looked around, I could see the cats sitting in a semi-circle behind Tuxedo and Ginger, it was hard to look at their pleading eyes. I replied, “I’m trying, kits, I really am, but I feel such a need to protect you all.”

  Edgar said, “We all know that Jase but you must remember we are stronger together than we are apart and all of us here are willing to lay down our lives for each other. We are a family, that is what families do. Now, let’s eat.”

  Tuxedo smiled, it reminded me of the first time we talked, and I helped him pick out his Terran name. He said, “The evening is still young, so let us eat and then take a tour of the fifth floor. We have something we want you to see. You are going to love it.”

  The last time I was on the fifth floor of our headquarters was when the last of the cats had found homes and the facility was being mothballed against the time it might be needed again. When I stepped off the lift, I was shocked and amazed to see a hive of activity that included Terrans, Mmrrreeowwn, Weasels and Squids. When I looked closer, I could see sealed ship-suits inhabited by the two reptilian client species of the Weasels and over in one of the workstation clusters were several transparent tanks that Escargot lived in when they left their Mothership.