Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  Part of the vast room had been modified to include a deep balcony where more work stations were set up, increasing the usable floor space by at least 30 per cent. Whoever had engineered this change took advantage of the fifteen-metre ceilings and built a mezzanine level leaving four metres of headroom for each level.

  The walls of the portion of the room still at full height were set up with huge screens that wrapped around the room and displayed views of factories all over the planet as well as on at least three of the motherships.

  As I stood there with my mouth open catching flies, I heard a short sharp bark and the room hushed. All of the occupants stopped whatever they were doing and turned towards me and bowed or did whatever their physical forms would let them do as a form of salutation. After a moment, they all went back to whatever they were doing. Serena and Shadow each grabbed a cuff of my shirt and dragged me forward and towards a set of work stations in the centre of the room backed up to a pillar supporting the mezzanine.

  While I was at dinner, my office was moved, and I noticed that several other desks were in small office clusters radiating out from mine in tiers. Sitting at one of the desks in one of the first clusters was Ishmael accompanied by his mate, Jacky, and several other Weasels. In the next clusters, outboard were representatives of both client races busily tracking factory activities on their screens, which were also mirrored on the large wall screen.

  Ishmael and his mate, both grinning, come over to us and Ishmael said, Jacky and I spoke after you left the other evening and she told me you needed more help than you would ever let on. Jacky is what you would call a psychic in your culture. In mine, they are quite rare, and they are real. Her talents lie in detecting what be troubling people, but more than that, she can determine the best course of action to help them truly. From her point of view, you were burning out. She wanted to put out the fire metaphorically speaking, so she worked with your Elders and gathered resources from all around the fleet to build you this support centre. Jase, every one of us wants you to succeed, we also want you to survive.

  “Time is short, so anything that can help ensure our success will be done regardless of what it is. To do less is to doom us all. My cousin, the emperor, took an interest in your species when we first started receiving your broadcasts many kilocycles ago. He has abilities much like Jacky’s, and he and his councillors spent much time and effort studying Terrans. They concluded that your species would be the catalyst that would truly bring us together, changing the alliance to a confederation and giving us the ability to eliminate the Plague instead of running from it. You and your friends, both here and on Terra, are the spark that will ignite a firestorm that will burn the Plague from the universe. We have seen it, now we have to make it so.”

  I turned to Tuxedo, “Did you all know about this?”

  “Yes, we did. Ginger and I helped early on, and several of our friends and subordinates worked in our stead while we were absent. Your Cohort sweeps bugs from the entire building and keeps it monitored. Even a couple of the Elders have played a part although one wasn’t an Elder at the time. Most of the upper staff in the militia, particularly Fleet Command were on board and those that were not have been replaced. The same is true in the warriors. The Immunus community was instrumental in that.

  “For the first time in over a megacycle we are building up relations with the Weasels and their friends, and even the Squids are less reserved. I know you want to learn more, but it can wait for a few decas. For now, let us go back to the dining room and have a small celebration and then a good night’s sleep. Things will still be running along properly in the morning.”

  The following morning I went to the fifth floor where I met with my core staff who have divided up the tasks necessary to prosecute the Plague war into several lines of discipline. These include Intelligence, Operations, Logistics, Personnel, Communications, Resource Management, and Civil Affairs. Ishmael must be part mind reader like his mate because before I could voice my confusion, he handed me a simple high-level outline showing the seven categories, and each category has a list of general responsibilities, In some cases, those break down to more specific responsibilities. He smiled and said, “I was confused by this, being a visually oriented person, so I drew up this table to assist me in understanding who is responsible for what.”

  “Thanks, Ishmael, this helps a lot. I have trouble keeping lists straight in my mind and prefer organization charts or tables such as this. I, too, am a visually oriented person. If you give me a picture of something to make, I can make it, but if you just give me a verbal description, I’m lost. Can I have a copy of this?”

  He responded, “I left one on your desk.

  “If you will look at the big board, I will walk you through the layout and what you can get from it.” He started with the left-most display and said, “This is the Intelligence display panel, and like the world map in your situation room, if you select the main panel it will drill down to the next layer. I tend to leave the outline portion as the first page because I know what each panel does, and it cuts a step out of the menu. The next panel over is operations followed by logistics.

  “On the other side of the room starting at the back is Civil Affairs, Resource Management, Communications and Personnel. This is the condensed view which leaves the front screen for displaying maps and other visuals that can help plan strategy and tactics as well as following the battle itself. We also can drive a holographic projection of an operation based on the logs and gun cameras from ships in the theatre of operations. For example, here is the Tiger’s mission, first encounter.”

  First, I saw a view of the Centauri system showing the three stars. As I watched, our view moved towards Alpha Centauri A. As our point of view approached the star, it changed to show the view from Tiger’s bridge and a swarm of Plague ships was attacked by her fighters. The view changed again, and we appeared closer to the action, the scrolling text below told me I was looking through Sol Rosenblum’s gun camera. I watched in fascination as the battle progressed, then Ishmael toggled a control, and the whole display jumped into three-dimensional being in a high-resolution hologram that helped me understand the battle by giving depth to the flat images I’d been watching just ticks before.

  “Unfortunately this is only useful from a historical perspective now, but when we have developed our FTL communications more it is conceivable we could watch the battles real-time giving us the ability to see our weaknesses earlier, perhaps in time to actually do something about them,” Ishmael explained.

  After my walk-around, I went over to my desk and sat. I decided to call up the resource management category on my work station screen and explore it. It didn’t take long before I saw the stats on the number of ships being built by type and by factory and I was astounded to see the number of fighters being produced. I was wondering where I was going to put them when an update came through from the Weasel factories showing me the number of carriers completed and what stage of their trials have completed. Russia, India and the Eastern Consortium, with Israel, were producing most of the subassemblies, leaving the Weasels free to build more hull sections quicker than initially predicted, six completed hulls are leaving the ways every two cycles. It took another three cycles to finish the interiors, and those assemblies were coming up from Canada and Europe. As long as the supply chain kept functioning, we would be seeing six completed Mammoth-Class carriers every five cycles.

  Russia was building fighters and bombers in their factories and those combined with the Weasels production would fill up the carriers almost as soon as they are ready for their shakedown cruises.

  I ran some predictions and saw that in half a Terran year we would be able to put some serious hurt on the Plague and within two, with luck and smarts, stop their advance towards Terra. Much of this was going to depend on keeping conditions on Terra from getting any worse, but I was sure they would. Murphy was out there somewhere—he just hasn’t shown his ugly mug yet.

  13


  Ginger

  MY FLOTILLA OF FIVE HUNDRED ships dropped out of FTL just ahead of the moderately sized swarm of Plague ships. Our tactical computers agreed with the estimate of four-hundred and forty-five thousand enemy vessels, including two trios of the giant globe ships that were today’s primary target. For the last kilocycle we have been nibbling away at every swarm we had discovered, this one was found just a few cycles ago approaching Terra from north of the galactic plane and only a little more than a half light-kilocycle from its target. Jase’s war committee decided it was worth the risk to commit two thousand ships to try and eradicate the menace before they got any closer to Terra and was personally leading one of the four attack elements.

  The other three elements materialized on either flank and behind the enemy formation which was spread out in a rough cylinder almost three light-ticks long with a front roughly half a light-tick in diameter. Our three quantum Communicators started clacking, giving us the disposition of the other flotillas who were launching their fighters and bombers in preparation for the battle. My fleet, like Jase’s, is heavy on bombers with our one hundred Mammoth-Class carriers carrying mostly bombers armed with Cracker-2s and the new Goblin guns that shoot the same missiles as Tuxedo’s shotgun launcher which by themselves are capable of taking out most of the enemy ships smaller than the big harvesters with one shot.

  Each Goblin had two drum magazines each containing a hundred missiles, and each bomber carried four of them mounted on the front of the “wings” that carry the Cracker-2s. A Goblin could fire both magazines dry in a half centa, but most of our gunners have learned to lock out the fully automatic mode and tended to use bursts of two or three depending on the target. An additional Goblin rested in a gimballed mount just behind the armoured life support capsule the crew rode in and was controlled by a second gunner who was seated facing aft. The pilot flew the ship and launched the Cracker-2s while the gunners provided suppression fire for the few ticks it took the pilot to aim and fire the Crackers. Once the Crackers were gone, the fighter-bombers would link up in three ship elements and hunt targets of opportunity.

  While the attack was happening, the carriers and other escorting ships would launch thousands of Dopey Joes towards the oncoming Plague swarm. All of our missiles were equipped with FoF sensors as are our targeting systems for Goblins and pulse weapons. Having weapons capable of distinguishing between friend and foe have almost eliminated losses to friendly fire. This was another development by the Three Musketeers who followed up on one of Rusty’s ideas to prevent accidents and have become the darlings of the warm-blooded lizard race building most of our ordinance. They were still in school but were rapidly getting to the end of available curricula and would soon have to start studying directly with our research scientists.

  The FoF capability also makes it easier and safer to integrate Weasels and other the two lizard species with our Terran and Mmrrreeowwn flight crews. All of the fighters and bombers were equipped with warning klaxons that sounded when an attempt was made to fire on a friendly vessel. Even in the height of battle, the Weasels didn’t hear any more alarms than their Terran and Mmrrreeowwn counterparts. I had suspected for some time the Weasels have gotten an undeserved reputation for being unstable in battle. Their battle rage is no worse than ours and a little less intense than the Terrans.

  The first flights of fighter-bombers short jumped into the Plague swarm, and the trio of globe ships immediately went defensive hurling thousands of missiles at the small, manoeuvrable ships but most missed and went on to hit nearby Plague ships, they were killing more of their own ships than we were. In the first five ticks of the attack, we lost over a hundred of our fighter bombers before the onboard AIs worked out the pattern of fire and deftly moved the small ships out of harm’s way using short jumps and Goblins while the pilots lined up their Cracker-2 shots. The gunners on the bombers were having a field day as they bagged hundreds of Plague ships and they were killing almost as many as the globe ships through their indiscriminate fire. It was hard for me to stand off with my fleet while the main battle was being fought by the small and comparatively defenceless ships.

  Suddenly there was a huge bright flare that momentarily blacked out the screens facing the plague swarm. When the screens gave us a view again one of the globe ships was just an expanding ball of fire and debris; not all of our bombers were able to short-jump away in time, and our casualty numbers climbed some more. This development must have caused some confusion aboard the other two globes ships and a momentary pause in their firing let our bombers have the time they need to launch their Cracker-2s and jump to safety before the other two huge targets also exploded.

  The Communicator from Jase’s ship came alive with the message “scrap three”, and the operator responded with an acknowledgement and sent “scrap three” on our four communicators informing our other flotillas that our globe ships are destroyed and it was time to clean up.

  Our bombers shot their magazines dry and were headed back to rearm, so I launched our second wave of bombers, all armed with Goblins in place of Cracker-2s. Everything about the bombers and fighters we got from the Weasels is modular, it only took centas to change out the weapons packages, and we had all the hands we needed to perform the task. Even the aircrews helped out—nobody sat on their hands while a battle was being fought.

  As we launched the second wave the deck crew cleared the Cracker-2s from the deck and returned them to the magazines while some of our warriors brought out more Goblins and magazines positioning them on the deck where they could be quickly installed while the small ships were refuelled and the aircrews could take care of their personal needs.

  Many of my carriers reported losses in the first wave between 5 and 35 per cent while a few had no losses—yet. My flights reported no casualties, but while we still have close to half a million fighters and bombers in each of our flotillas, the enemy still had north of two-hundred and fifty-thousand ships and our losses were sure to go up. We also didn’t have an unlimited supply of pilots.

  The second wave short-jumped to the edge of the swarm and started killing Plague ships by the hundreds and the Dopey Joes started going active in amongst the Plague formation. This provided a timely diversion and allowed our kill ratio to go up while our losses went down, but the enemy was also getting smarter. They were now contracting their fleet to concentrate their fire, making it harder to get clean shots at any but the outermost ships. I had my flotilla launch half of our remaining Dopey Joes and made a note to myself to see if we could make them smarter so that dozens of them didn’t go after the same target. If they could communicate with each other and limit the number attacking each target, we would have better results.

  After the first wave was rearmed, I ordered half the carriers to retrieve their second wave and stand their crews down for a deca. We were two light-ticks away from the Plague swarm so we could hold position without fear of the swarm catching us. At their present speed, it would take at several decas to close with us. The other carriers would continue flying sorties then stand down while the rested crews resumed the slaughter.

  It took almost two cycles before the battle was over, but even then we had to linger in the area for a couple more cycles while our pilots chased down Plague ships whose commanders were trying to flee. We knew from Rusty’s research that the escape of even one ship would mean that we would have to go through this again when the survivors rebuilt the swarm. The delay in leaving gave our warrior SAR teams time to perform a thorough search for life support pods of destroyed fighters and bombers. We were able to recover almost all of the pods, but only a little more than half had living crews and many of them would be healing for cycles before they could return to duty.

  Thermopylae rendezvoused with us while the mop-up was going on. Jase came aboard Tiger, and we review each other’s logs. We were joined shortly by Leopard with Chocolate commanding and Destiny commanded by Blue, Chocolate’s former executive officer. After all the records were reviewed, Jase
asked, “One-at-a-time, please tell me what you think could have been done better—in other words, what worked and what didn’t. Let’s start with you, Blue.”

  Blue thought for a minute then answered, “I think a higher ratio of bombers to fighters may have decreased our casualties by a third. The fighters are good ships piloted by good and courageous crews, but they just don’t have the punch of the bombers against the larger ships. The extra Goblins the bombers have made a huge difference for my flotilla. If we were going up against the Swift Fang or shuttle clones the fighters would be more than adequate but those big harvesters are hard to kill, and their beam weapons are pretty powerful. A number of my fighters died because they have no aft firing weapons.”

  Chocolate went next, “What Blue said, and this observation from my CAG; the extra gunner helps. The bombers all have three crew members so the gunners can fight the ship while the pilot can concentrate on avoiding getting hit. The bombers also have a little more power with the dual wingtip engines and can perform some amazing manoeuvres the fighters simply can’t.”

  The other two commanders agreed, and when Ginger mentioned making the Dopey Joes as smart as the Cracker-2s, there was a chorus of agreement from the others around the table. Another suggestion is to add target seeking capability to the Goblin missiles which right now are ballistic weapons. I can see where even a limited amount of steering would be a help during melees like the one I’ve witnessed for the last few cycles.

  When Jase broached the topic of the globe ships, all of us asked for Cracker-1s with the Cracker-2 guidance module.