Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  “What’s up, Rusty?”

  “I was talking with Ishmael last cycle. He was asking how small we can make the new AI control modules and if they could be fitted to the fighter designs, we dropped in favour of the larger bombers. I think he wants to install them in fighters and equip them with EMP missiles and a couple of Goblin guns. His engineers have designed a new wing for the fighters that allows the Goblins to be mounted in the wing root and the magazine is held within the wing making it possible for the fighters to carry four EMP missiles and two Goblins with three hundred and fifty rounds each. He says he can even mount more missiles or additional Goblins on the wing top. He believes they would be ideal for missions such as the last where we lost so many AI Swift Fangs.

  “He took the idea to Sol, but Sol didn’t seem too interested because they are unpiloted. I think they are a good idea and thought I would bring it to you. Ishmael won’t because he doesn’t want to distract you from your planning for the big battle coming up. I think you need to know of this capability because this might be the extra edge we need to defeat the Plague once and for all.”

  “Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Rusty, but I can tell you have another concern, and I would like you to voice it.”

  “Well, this is going to seem like it is out there, but here goes. Silky and I were talking the other night. She was asking me how we will ever be sure that we have killed off all of the Plague after the big showdown. She often asks me questions like that, and I can usually answer them, but this time, it seemed like all I was able to do was wind up in a circular argument. Then after the ethics meeting the other day, she brought the issue up again. It got me to thinking that the only way to be sure is to visit all of the systems they have travelled through and check for lightyears around each system they have destroyed for signs the Plague is still there.

  “Another thought that occurred to me was, considering the production capacity each globe ship has, there should be way more ships in each of the swarms we have encountered. The Plague’s purpose is to stamp out all biological life in the universe. The most efficient way to go about it would be to periodically stop, and churn out as many globe ships as possible from the materials at hand then seed them with some breaker/sorters and harvesters. The Plague would send them out on courses perpendicular to the base course. As the new globes found systems with materials, they could use they could build more of the ship types they need and then repeat the process over, stopping once in a while to produce more globe ships that perform the same cycle.

  “That would give them an almost geometric expansion. By that logic, the only thing limiting the Plague from a quick annihilation of a galaxy is their limited speed. They know this, so they destroy virtually everything in their path to prevent any survivors from going around them and then down the back-trail populating systems they didn’t destroy. We have sent scouts back along our course, and the only systems that they have found more or less intact are those no biological life could use.”

  “You paint a terrifying picture there Rusty. Perhaps we should take this to the Elders. I’ve thought about this myself, but I haven’t taken the time to go talk to the scouts we have sent back. Perhaps that has been an error in judgement on my part. Let me think about this and see if I can get some time for us with the Elders.

  ◆◆◆

  Elder three said, “I see your dilemma, and it has been an almost constant topic of discussion amongst the Confederation Council. So far, no one has come up with a remotely viable solution because we have had to concentrate on gathering materials and fuel then running some more. To be fair, we also haven’t had the fortune of an ally who could so effectively fight the Plague until we encountered your world. The closest we came was the species we had to remove from the alliance, they almost took the Weasels with them.

  “Speaking of the Weasels, Elders One, Four and I have been meeting with the Weasel guiding council and we have met twice with their monarch. We have come to an understanding that promises the best relationship we have had with them in megacycles. They are all impressed with the openness and cooperation they are receiving from the Terrans, particularly in your willingness to integrate elements of their militia with ours.

  “You may not know this, but the Weasels have committed almost two-thirds of their production capacity, and the capacity of their client races to the war effort and much of their reserve materiel has also been committed. Ishmael himself has committed all of his assets to the war effort, and all of his people from factory workers to warriors to mothers with babes are in support. The monarch told me that this is the first time in thousands of generations they have felt confident that we can finally defeat the Plague and get about the business of re-establishing ourselves on a planet somewhere.”

  “No pressure there, Elder Three,” I respond. “Now I know what I’m going to do after we win this war.”

  “What is that, Jase?”

  “I’m going to take a ship, my mate and my cats and find a lush little planet somewhere, build a nice little cabin for us to live in and spend the rest of my life letting the universe care for itself.”

  Elder three just shook his head sadly.

  Rusty and I got up to leave and headed for the lifts that would take us down to the corridor leading back to headquarters with Serena trotting along in the lead. As he walked with me, he seemed deflated, and he held Silky close to him and stroked her. I knew he did this when he was upset by something, and I asked, “Will you and Silky join Elaine and me in the lounge?”

  He nodded but said nothing.

  Elaine met us in the lounge, she had Ginger and Tuxedo with her as well as Edgar. We sat, and I briefed them on what occurred in the meeting and summed it up saying, “I like Elder Three and the rest but they remind me too much of politicians on Terra—they talk a lot but say very little. I feel it was pretty much a waste of our time, and I’m thinking more and more on what I told Elder Three.”

  “What did you say?” Tuxedo asks.

  “I’m going to take a ship, my mate and my cats and find a nice little planet somewhere, build a nice little cabin for us to live in and spend the rest of my life letting the universe care for itself,” I replied. “I told him exactly that, I don’t think he was too happy about it. I’ve since amended that statement in my mind to include all of my closest friends. I would invite them to join us and help set up our own colony somewhere.”

  I looked over at Rusty and saw his eyes had grown bright. He looked at me and blinked, and I saw a tear roll out of the corner of one eye. “Silky and I would go with you,” he said, quietly.

  Tuxedo rumbled that deep laugh I hadn’t heard in a while and said, “I know of a Cohort that would chase you down and beat the crap out of you if you didn’t at least invite them. You better be thinking of a pretty large ship—like a Leviathan maybe. With all of the mates and families, you would have at least a few thousand who would want to come, by the time this is all over probably ten times that number factoring in the Weasels, their clients and let us not forget the Squids. It will have to be a pretty decent star system.”

  Elaine noticed Rusty’s reaction and said, “Rusty, Jase thinks of you almost as a son. He would not leave you behind unless you truly didn’t want to go. I feel the same way, and I would miss you terribly if you weren’t with us.”

  She put her arm around him and gave him a long gentle hug and a nuzzle. When she let him go, he was smiling, and Silky had perked up too.

  I looked over at Tuxedo, “That Leviathan idea of yours is a pretty good one. It has tons of room for carrying raw materials as well as shuttles, support vessels and the facilities to manufacture just about anything we may need. We could even enclose a couple of layers above the core and house more people if that many wanted to join us. We are going to have to give this some serious thought.

  “In the meantime, we have much to do to get ready for the battle with the mega-swarm. If we win, a great evil will be destroyed, if we lose, we will be destroyed by that
evil. I’ve never been one to believe in the biblical idea of a battle between good and evil until now. What we face is an evil of a magnitude never conceived of by the minds of Terrans nor any in the Confederation.”

  21

  Ginger

  TASK FORCE NINE, CONSISTING OF seven carrier groups, dropped out of FTL fifty-five cycles later behind a Plague swarm of over a million ships including three trios of globe ships and their usual assortment of breaker/sorters, harvesters and the most extensive collection of Swift Fang clones and shuttles we had seen so far. Our battle computer estimated close to a half million harvesters with the other three ship types more or less equally represented by the other half million. There was no way to know how many ships were being carried by the globe ships, But I was sure we would find out when the battle commenced.

  “Have groups Bravo and Charlie go north and south of the galactic plane. Delta and Foxtrot are to jump ahead of the swarm and spread out across their path, launch all of their Dopey Joes in staggered intervals. Once they are deployed, they are to go Silent Night,” I ordered. TF-9 knows what to do, we have been practising the various approach scenarios on simulators since the AI refit began, but I issued the order anyway. The only thing we haven’t drilled is releasing the AI-equipped ships to do their job.

  “Rusty, what is the status of our AI ships?”

  “Everything reads ok here, Ginger. They are all communicating with their squadron leaders, and the leaders are communicating with my control staff. If I didn’t know better, I would think I have several thousand copies of you talking to me.”

  I didn’t know if it was a curse or flattering that Rusty chose Chocolate’s, Missy’s and my engrams to use when building the personality of the new AIs. His reasoning was; the three of us were the leaders he knew best, he trusted our thought processes.

  When I asked about Tuxedo or Jase, he said, “If these were the bombers I would be more likely to use warrior engrams, but for this task, I needed a more maternal point of view. I’m not trying to sound sexist, but it is my observation that the female mind views protecting the species a little differently than the male mind. You play a much deeper game when you engage an enemy. I’ve tested hundreds of pilots of both genders from all our species, and I’ve found that females test higher when it comes to winning a battle and surviving it as well. We need survivors.”

  I did know from my own experiences that I fought to win and survive, so my daughter could survive. This seemed to be true with the Terran and Weasel females I had spoken with as well.

  A deca later, I got the final signal that all are in position. Silent Night calls for closing to one light-tick and deploying all bombers and support craft while the rest of the fleet trains remain at a distance of two light-centas from the enemy at all times. Then the carriers and their bombers would go completely silent and wait for the signal to engage.

  Standard doctrine is to wait until the leading edge of the swarm is approaching the tail end of the Dopey Joes and let them do their job before my bombers jump into the middle of the swarm. I’m not good at waiting, so I try to keep myself occupied until I see the first Dopey Joes go active on the tactical plot in the centre of the bridge. The Dopey Joes take nearly fifty centas to complete their mission, the count of active harvesters and breaker/sorters dropped almost in half.

  “Bombers, first wave, attack!” I waited for ten centas then ordered, “Fangs, first wave attack!” then sat and watched the battle on the tactical plot feeling helpless. One of the first things I noticed was how different this battle was going—the Fangs, Plague Swift Fang clones we have captured and equipped with Rusty’s new AI modules, are performing exceptionally well. They have accounted for hundreds of the enemy without a single loss. The bombers have done well, there are almost twenty-nine thousand in the fur-ball I watched on the tactical plot although they were starting to rack up losses.

  As I looked at the outer edges, I saw bombers coming in from all directions and engaging the Plague swarm as it tried to break free and run. We had them englobed, and that is not going to happen unless they tried something new. Of course the minute I thought that they would do something new, they did.

  The trios begin disgorging ships, they were all Swift Fang clones. Each globe ship took on the characteristics of the hornets nests Jase had described to me while he told me of his childhood summers on his uncle’s farm. These Fangs appeared better armed than the ones we had previously encountered, and I immediately told Rusty to order our Fangs to deploy EMP weapons around each globe ship.

  Tactical reported the first wave of bombers was headed back for rearming. “Bombers, second wave attack! Tactical, have the first wave rearm with EMP missiles and go for the globe ships! Comms, signal TF-9 to rearm their first wave with EMP missiles and focus on the globe ships!”

  As I watched the tactical display, I drilled down to a close view of the nearest globe ship in time to see several of our Fangs dive through the five huge launch ports and detonate all of their EMP missiles at once. I saw a ripple of energy crawl across the globe ship and as it did the lights on the vast ship started going out until it just sat there in the dark, engines off and no more of its ships emerging.

  I shifted my point of view to another globe ship in time to see a similar occurrence. As I pull back to the higher layers of the display, I saw only one of the globe ships still launching, and it soon succumbed to the fate of its sisters.

  Many of the Plague Swift Fangs were too far away to be affected, but at least the number of ships we were trying to kill had been stabilized. We lost over a hundred of our AI Fangs during the operation to shut down the globe ships, but we still had a few thousand operational and I had the second wave in reserve. All of the AI Fangs now knew which tactics to use on the swarm’s Swift Fang clones, and they were proceeding about it with a vengeance. Half a deca later they were rejoined by the rearmed bombers from all seven groups, and battle finally took a turn in our favour. The AI Fangs have discovered or developed a tactic that uses two Fang elements, one to shield while the other sets up the EMP shot. We stopped loosing so many AI Fangs and took down the Plague’s Fangs at an unbelievable rate.

  The battle went on for four more decas, I had to stand down my first wave for a half deca while the pilots got out of their craft and shook out the kinks before climbing back into their life support pods and going out again. The second wave was just getting ready to go back out when I got reports of attempted breakouts by a few of the remaining harvesters. The drones flying the harvesters had several breaker/sorter ships docked to any surface that would hold them and used them as shields as well as extra guns for cover. They were flying in groups of three and attempting to ram our ships with two harvesters while the third one tried to break out.

  “Comms, signal the fleet trains to deploy half their Swift Fangs with Cracker-2s and engage in search and destroy. Tell them to make sure none escape.”

  It wouldn’t be enough and if the mega-swarm got information about our weapons and tactics the fight was going to be more difficult and more costly than we ever dreamed. Jase told me again and again that this was likely to happen, and every mission I went on might be the one where some get out and inform the others. Chocolate and our other task force commanders all know it is a crap shoot and just a matter of time, but no one wants it to be their battle that lets the cat out of the bag.

  Jase also said, “The battle isn’t over until the last shot is fired and the last body buried.” In this case, I took it to mean I shouldn’t start beating myself up before I know for a fact, some of our enemies have broken out. That was harder for me to do than fighting the battle itself.

  During the following cycle, the last of the Plague ships were either disabled or killed, and the mop-up began. We did better than I had any right to expect. We lost a little under 10 per cent of our bombers, about the same in our conventional Swift Fangs and only 3 per cent of our AI Swift Fangs. We were able to recover over half of our downed bomber’s life support pods, most
of the crews were in good shape.

  Best of all, we captured nine more globe ships intact, each one was still half full of Swift Fang clones. Adding those to the ones we can salvage from the battle we had almost a hundred thousand ships we could convert to AI.

  The techs from the fleet train were already working on getting the globe ships up and running again, and the warriors were systematically going through each and every compartment removing “dead” drones and running them through shredders converting them to reaction mass for the fusion drives. The estimate is it would take nearly twenty cycles to get our treasure home to the Sol system.

  Fourteen of the enemy ships managed to break out, and fourteen pairs of Swift Fangs were in pursuit. We would know before we left this space if any got clean away. It was not optimal, but it was what it was.

  ◆◆◆

  We recovered all we could salvage of damaged ships and were glad for the materials. Recycling the hull metal will save us precious time and resources, we were fortunate the composition of the hull metal hasn’t changed since the rift between the Squids. What little that isn’t usable is shredded into pellets used for reaction mass.

  Our fleet trains that accompanied each carrier group were doing double duty. After repairs and resupply, many were empty or near empty, and their loads were consolidated freeing up nearly half of the cargo ships to haul the salvaged materials as well as tow strings for disabled vessels back to the massive shipyard orbiting Sol near Saturn. Our engineers assured me it would take less time to retrofit the ships than constructing new ones, and we didn’t have to worry about any hidden drones—the EMP bursts had cleared the decks on all but the ships farthest away from the battle. Those were killed by Cracker-2s and our pulse cannons. Ships that didn’t explode were deloused by teams of warriors and cat scouts before being assembled for our return flight.