Obsidian Ressurection
Page 102
Helen sat at the beautiful wooden table made of a kind of fine grained blond wood from New Carthago. She looked about at the Navy Club which had once been a sleazy bar catering to off work miners returning from the asteroids. How much had changed she thought and even more would change in the future.
After they ordered from the extensive menu and a pitcher of Old Nelsons beer with four icy mugs was place on the table Abel poured the frothy brew.
Lifting his mug Abel called out 'Skol', and they all took a sip.
Abel continued, "I read your dispatches carefully Helen and my major concern is both the number of dumbbells seen entering Dong Son and where their new base might be situated. I think your speculation that the base is at Maya is probably correct. In which case Polis, Himmer, and New Horizons are in great danger. Further one of our two approaches to New Horizons will be effective blocked by a fleet at Maya."
Helen nodded in agreement.
Abel continued, "As much as I hate buying those missile engines from the dictator in Polis, we really cannot let that system fall. Those missiles and caster assemblies you found at Eleos will really help, but without a means to manufacture them here in Jamon we will eventually be in a tight spot." Abel paused a moment, "As for New Horizons they fully deserve our support, but I am not sure what we can do to prevent their downfall.
"Your right Abel, and our combat advantages are slipping away," replied Helen
Abel responded, "Yes, and eighty of those Megra dumbbells, all of which seem to be the new design, may make it impossible to support either Polis, Himmer, or New Horizons. The advantages we had in past combat is evaporating. They no longer fire anti-matter torpedoes if our casters are in range. And those slow missiles and their seeker mines make in close combat problematical and that was a primary advantage we had in the past. The high speed head on attack seems to be gone as well. We are going to need new tactics and perhaps new weapons designs." Abel took a long look at Emmitt.
Helen responded, "How long on Nomi's gravity bomb idea. That is, when can we test it?"
Here Emmitt shook his head. "Two years. Perhaps three. Perhaps never. The thing is so dangerous and unpredictable we may never master it. And remember once we have created the apparatus, we must then manage the 'thing' which will make the jar. And I am not even sure exactly what the 'thing' is or how to manage it."
Abel continued, "And then we have to send it out to Obsidian and figure out a way to retrieve it. There are some clever ideas proposed, but none have been tried. All seem to involve a slingshot approach to Obsidian and a return to our system. The issue is that on the return this 'thing' and its' jar will be travelling at such a high speed that we will never catch it."
Emmitt spoke up, "Helen what about that small ship you discovered. That dispatch ship. How fast is it?"
Helen responded, "Well, it is probably very fast however how fast we don't know until we test it. The ship seems sound and was newly built at Eleos. She is small, delta shaped for atmospheric entry, and she has 32 fusion engines and a great deal of reaction mass storage. Her crew's quarters are really cramped. There is room for an astrogator, pilot, and what we think are two supercargo who can sleep in the recovery beds of the doc-box. But I would not want to fly in it, the crew space is tiny. And then there is the problem that the ship has no armor and no weapons. Seems it was designed for speed and that speed seems to be its only defence. The mass to GWP ratio is probably so low that the ship is blindingly fast, but still probably not fast enough to capture that thing as it returns from Obsidian."
"And that repair ship?" asked Abel.
"The repair ship is sound and the crew that flew it back with us said apart from its' sluggish speed and dull helm response they had no problems."
"Do you think we can put it into service immediately. Repairing ships?" asked Emmitt.
At this point Farn who had been quiet spoke up. "We still have some damage on New Hildr. At the least we need it checked out."
"We will do what we can Farn. Both the comps on the repair ship seem good including the repair management comp. However the ship was sitting for almost 200 years so there are bound to be some issues. Also the ship is constructed in a really odd fashion, unless you consider its' purpose. She is 1800 meters long and in her current configuration about 1600 meters wide. But she is built in 16 sections. I had a look at its' Principles of Operation, its' POO, and apparently when she is needed to repair a ship the sections separate on some kind of extending arms to surround the damaged ship. When fully extended the sections could well be three kilometres apart. More than enough to surround even Greayson's largest ships. When deployed droids, automatic plasma welders, automata, and other equipment sets to work on the repairs. Human management is minimal, but the ship needs to be fed basic stocks in order to effect repairs. It needs things like titanium, steel, carbon and such. It does not need the finished product like plate steel or electrocene circuits. Those it makes from the feedstock we provide it. In some sense that's it's only limitation."
Emmitt asked, "Could it repair a dreadnought?"
"Possibly, but Emmitt let's face it, our dreadnoughts in the forbidden zone are so badly damaged that only a fully equipped yard could even begin repairs and then the answer would be to scrap the things. SAR's however are another matter."
Soon their lunch arrived and the conversation changed to what was Naval gossip. Who was recently promoted and who was leaving one ship to join another. As lunch was finished Abel asked Helen, "Can that repair ship work on the other repair ship. The one with the slagged comps?"
Helen thought a moment. "I don't see why not. The one thing I had checked out very carefully was the ability of the ship to manufacture new comps and it appears that it can. So with those slagged comps replaced that second repair ship should be serviceable."
Emmitt thought for a moment, "Two repair ships would be a real advantage."
"Indeed," replied Farn.
Abel looked to Helen. "I think we need to set the repair ship first to repairing the other one. If only the comps need replacing and perhaps some other minor fixes it should not take too long. Then I want to find those SAR's which are not currently serviceable due to damage, and select the least damaged ones for repair. We can start with the training vessels we have now. Those two ships are capable of flight but the damage to their armor is simply too significant to put them into combat service."
Helen responded, "So we have taken all the SAR's that are serviceable and recommissioned them? There are no good ones left?"
Abel nodded.
"What about that other damaged Crusher?" asked Farn.
"Well, let's concentrate on the minimally damaged SAR's first. I have no idea how long it will take to repair those SAR's. But there are at least twenty or so that can probably be returned to service. As for that Crusher and that other Destructor we might be able to repair them or we might not. But about the SAR's I am fairly certain and we need those ships now.
Abel looked up at the old fashioned clock which stood on one wall of the Navy Club. The clock had been found among the things given to the Commonwealth by the Theans and although it needed constant winding and resetting given it lost a minute every day or so, it added a point of interest to the club.
"All right. Silvi will be landing soon," Abel said. "And tomorrow at 07:00 we are having a combat captains meeting and I want all of you to attend. And that includes you Emmitt. Emma Gunnulf from the Banshees and Sam Olderhausr from Iceland will join us as well. We need to discuss tactics and the new Megra threat."
Chapter One Hundred Four
Jamon System - Collegium, Naval Wing - Year 3248 August 25 ET 07:00
Farn and Helen had arrived early and were well into their second cup of coffee as Emma Gunnulf Captain of the Banshees' ship Sváva and Captain Sam Olderhausr from Iceland arrived and immediately sought coffee. Helen followed as did Abel.
"Silvi will be a bit late as will Emmitt," said Abel. Abel walked to the ever present coffee urn and filled a
large mug with the brew.
"How is Silvi?" asked Helen.
"Fine, with so many ships in station docking took some time. She didn't get to sleep until late and I told her I wanted her fresh," replied Abel.
"My agenda is simple," said Abel as he sat at the conference room table. "I want us to review changes in Megra ship design, tactics, and capabilities. Then I want to hear from each of you your thoughts on what might be our successful tactics against these capabilities. Additionally I want some discussion of how we can continue to support Wu and our knot line allies as well as some way of taking the war to the Megra. Defence is no way to win a war."
Sam Olderhausr asked, "How about our new weapons. Will we discuss those?"
"Of course," replied Abel. "But Nomi's gravity bomb is still years away so that is really off the table. Emmitt, when he arrives can speak to some mods we are making to our current weapons and I am open as always to suggestions on new systems."
"And those reconditioned SAR's, now that we have the repair ship," asked Emma. "When might we see those?"
Helen responded, "Not for weeks. We have no idea how long it will take to make those damaged SAR's battle worthy. Now we have crews available, green crews, but we first need to get both repair ships up and running before we can even estimate the time needed to restore the SARs."
Abel looked at the wall clock. "I guess while we are waiting we might hear from Emma about their recent trip to Moschus."
Emma stood. "I think most of you have read our dispatches from our journey to the Moschus system, but the unusual nature of the culture was hard to summarize, so let me start from the beginning. Emershan Abara proved most valuable and without his advice we might well have been completely baffled by our discussions with the AIs. He chose to return to Wu and tending bar. But he is a rather intelligent and thoughtful man."
"But let me begin. Moschus was founded over four hundred years ago and built upon a system that had once been occupied by a remote Epigoni colony. The newly arriving human colonists found most of the Epigoni infrastructure decayed and useless, but they did find a few technologies that they quickly adapted for their use. The most valuable of these technologies was 'pellucid lattice' computing engines. Equipment for the production of these advanced computing system had been discovered in orbit around the planet and although it took almost 50 years to fully understand what they had, they finally were able to produce very fast and very complex artificial intelligence engines."
Emma paused a moment to sip her coffee. "Now this is the weird part. Humans built AI based on Epigoni tech. But I don't think they quite realized that what they had built in the AI systems' software was not entirely human in nature. Don't get me wrong, it was humans that coded the systems, but still somewhere in the hardware the ghosts of the Epigoni remained."
Silvi entered the conference room, grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down in silence.
Emma looked about the room and at Silvi.
Emma continued. "Those AI systems allowed the human colonists to rapidly develop the planet, which was one of over a hundred in system. The humans prospered and the AI directed the building of drones to perform daily tasks such as farming, construction, and other tasks normally performed by humans. The human population simply had no real work to do and they spent most of their time in cultural and artistic pursuits. As the colonists retreated into leisure the AI's assumed greater and greater management of human affairs and at this point the AI's run the entire system. Humans think they have input, but in fact they have no influence on the AI's. The AI's simply know best."
"Now don't misunderstand this system. The AI's provide protection and sustenance to the population and without the AI's life in Moschus would be hard indeed. The blue giant sun which hangs above the planet is rather unforgiving as a sun and its' coronal discharges resulting in cosmic storm disturbances might well have wiped the colony out had not the AI's developed systems to mitigate the risk."
Helen interjected, "And the AI's built comps for trade with other systems? Like Diana?"
"Yes. As we all know Diana produces weather modification systems that are highly effective and those systems could not be produced in the Moschus system. The AI's entered into a trade agreement with Diana for that equipment as well as orbital stations, atmospheric flyers, and heavy lift equipment. These systems from Diana are controlled and operated at Moschus entirely by the AIs. In exchange the AIs provided to Diana computer systems needed to more effectively manage her weather control systems. The trade was mutually beneficial and has been going on for over three hundred years."
Silvi looked pensive and then spoke. "You know those emissaries from Diana at Wu, just before the Fourth Battle of Wu, were acting rather strange. As if they were only proxies for someone else. Is it possible that the AIs traded for weather modification systems by the Moschus AIs had somehow subverted Diana's governance?"
Emma thought a moment. "Given what we saw at Moschus and now knowing the power to subvert and control human systems, I suspect that even Diana is now under the control of the Epigoni AIs. In my opinion the AIs are clever, ambitious, and determined to rule and control. Emershan Abara shares my assessment."
Silvi responded, "Toni Hamilton in her dispatches comments about the Diana emissaries needing details about the OCN. They insisted on information that we simply could not provide given our state of war. Then as the Fourth Battle of Wu began they simply left the Wu system unsatisfied with the data we provided them. However they must have seen the battle before they left and any doubt that Megra were enemies to human kind must have been apparent."
Emma replied, "Yes. The AIs seem to need data. Far too much data for a human to make a decision, and when the AIs can't get the data they want they simply refuse to continue discussions. The AIs seek certainty before action. We saw that at Moschus when we tried to purchase comps capable of guiding our missiles. The AIs wanted so much information and in such detail that to provide it to them was not only impossible but dangerous. I personally had no confidence that what we might tell them would never reach the Megra. Not that they would betray humanity, but that they seem to have no concept of information security."
No one spoke for over a minute. Then Abel asked, "And Emma your dispatches are rather vague on how you left our proposals for obtaining comps for our home grown missiles. What was the AIs reaction to our request?"
Emma responded, "That's the confusing part. If I didn't know better I would say that the AIs were uneasy about remaining neutral in this war. I often felt that we were negotiating with two separate factions. One faction wanted detail after detail after detail. How many ships in the OCN? What was our kill ratio? What were our training systems? The list went on and on. Even if I was willing to answer the questioning it might well have gone on for weeks. But that much information was a danger to our security so after a few questions I simply told them that to reply was a breach of our security that I was unable to countenance."
Emma took a sip of her now cold coffee. "And then the AI's sometimes seemed alarmed by the Megra. Clearly they knew of the Megra attacks on human space and they often asked how the Megra might be defeated if they attacked Moschus. Of course without the OCN in system I could not give them any advice. However I sensed a whiff of desperation. To be frank, I suspect that the AI is not a singularity but a committee or commune of artificial intelligences which seem to have opposing opinions."
"And how did you leave it with the Moschus AIs?" asked Helen.
"Not well. On occasion the AIs seemed to want an alliance with the OCN but only on the condition that we establish a substantial presence in their system. At one point they demanded that we place two dreadnoughts, four crushers, and dozens of SARs in system before they would even agree to providing comps for missiles. Such a request was absurd, but it did reveal that they fully well knew we were a fleet based on Greayson technologies."
Abel chose to summarize the situation with Moschus before attending to the remaining agenda items. "So Moschu
s seems paralyzed in the face of the Megra. They can see the threat, but they cannot decide a course of action because the lack data."
Emmitt spoke up. "That's an AI system for you. Always wanting certainty before action, while we humans often take too little data before we act. In either event, their quest for certainty is likely to get themselves and their human charges nothing more than death and extinction."
Emma continued, "Emershan explained that AIs need maintenance and that they occasionally fail. So decisions are made by committee among the AIs. They don't exactly vote, but they need all of the AIs to agree to a course of action. If one AI is outvoted then they call for maintenance on the offending AI. It's a system designed for slow decision making."
Abel then returned the discussion to the major item at hand; an assessment of Megra ships and their adaptation to OCN warfare. Abel then asked Emmitt to summarize the new weapons seen during the Fourth Battle of Wu.
Emmitt described the Megra's new missiles, their slow speed and the slow cycle time from their single tube. However he pointed out that since they had begun to innovate we might well expect more tubes, reduced cycle time, and faster speeds. He went on to a detailed description of their swarming mines. Emmitt used the vid screen to display the attacks at Wu and Silvi found herself painfully reacting at the destruction of the SARs Skuld and Róta at Wu as the swarming mines simply obliterated the two ships.
Emmitt's conclusion was simple. Close in attacks were to be avoided. Megra missiles although slow might well become effective at short range. The swarming mines were even a greater danger, but it seemed that the widely spread mines seemed to need to coalesce before moving on to an attack on the OCN ships. This indicated to Emmitt that they were not independent but rather relied upon some central intelligence to guide them to their target. Emmitt advised that when seeing Megra seeking mines that casters be fired at a distance, but if they were in too close that 'K's be fired and then for the OCN ship to reverse course and run. Another tactic suggested by Emmitt was that the in close SARs be covered by a further out ship. Once the mines coalesced, the further out ship could fire casters with enough distance that they would reach maximum speed, and then take out the clustered mines. The mines themselves seemed to be rather slow in the attack and relied upon the high speed attack of the OCN, and the ships momentum, to carry the ship to within detonation range. A two ship combination, one in close and the other farther out with caster range could defeat the Megra seeker mines.