Singularity Point

by Brian Smith

  Task Force 50

  USS Reuben James

  Of the forty torchships that had started with TF50, twenty-six were on station in Saturnian space when VADM Costello gave the order to move in and englobe Titan. Once the particle-beam batteries on Titan’s surface were neutralized, the overall threat to the fleet’s ships from surface weapons was highly mitigated. Ground-based missile or torpedo batteries were still a potential threat, but orbiting ships could defend against those using point defenses, whereas there was no such defense against an energy weapon.

  Except for OURANIA’s defensive force field, apparently.

  Jim Ford watched the fleet move into position and commence firing on Janus Station—almost certainly the thickest barrage of weapons’ fire ever released, including those directed at asteroids used in kinetic strikes against Terra. Most of the fleet entered a highly elliptical orbit to maximize their “hang time” at apogee over the Buzzell Planitia, while Ranger stood off approximately 100,000 kilometers from the moon, holding herself in geosynchronous potision over Titan’s “dark side” with a brute-force application of thrust. Reuben James was assigned to hover low, just above the atmospheric boundary, her sensors fully active and scanning for any sign of the unaccounted-for corporate gunship Night’s Minnow, should she appear from some hiding place on Titan’s surface. Vanguard and some accompanying frigates and destroyers were detailed to screen Ranger in the event one of OURANIA’s unaccounted-for vessels appeared unexpectedly, as had happened to Invincible.

  Together, the fleet laid down a combined assault of kinetic lances, railgun fire, and nuclear weapons that caused a red-orange glow under the blanket of clouds that was visible from space. Somewhat in awe of the sheer magnitude of the firepower being released, Ford began to wonder if they might end up shifting Titan’s orbit before it was all over.

  Dogstar One

  “Planetfall complete. Sending you a steer,” Worm Albrecht reported.

  “Copy,” Ashburn replied. He brought the Dogstar around onto her new course: one designed for continuous BDA as she flew a wide circle around Janus Station at medium altitude, recording the effects of each successive salvo.

  Both pilots had their visors tinted black, along with the cockpit canopy itself. With all the detonations going off, some kinetic and some nuclear, anything less would have left them completely blind. As it was, Ashburn knew they’d probably need treatment for radiation exposure after the mission. The key thing, as always, was to avoid soaking up a lethal dose all at once. The Dogstar herself was well shielded, but neither man had ever seen—ever imagined—anything like this.

  With Ranger overhead, they had LOS, and one of their powerful transmitters was continuously linked with Costello’s flag plot. When the first salvo ended, the imagers showed the same bright cherry glow they had seen after the first attempt to hit Janus Station. The call came from Ranger for a report. Ashburn sent them the Dogstar’s sensor readings, which confirmed that the energy shield was still in place. His recommendation: keep pouring it on.

  Firing resumed.

  Half an hour later, the cherry glow had turned a bright yellow color. The force field was absorbing a ridiculous amount of energy but holding strong. They fielded another call from the flagship, asking for another report. No change—keep pouring it on.

  The voice link crackled in Ashburn’s ear, and he recognized the speaker as Costello. “Dogstar, this is Fifth Fleet Actual. Are we having any effect at all? I’m running out of missiles and tungsten up here!”

  Ashburn looked over at Worm, who shrugged in reply. They were in uncharted territory. He’d been giving the matter some thought, trying to run some numbers on the Janus Station’s reactor output vis-à-vis how much energy the screening mechanism was being forced to absorb; he decided fairly quickly that he had insufficient information even to guess at a solution. All he had to go on was what he was seeing.

  “Fifth Fleet, this is Dogstar,” Ashburn replied. “You are having an effect. The field is glowing successively brighter with each strike. I think you’re adding stress, but how much the field can take is anyone’s guess. All I can suggest is giving it all you’ve got, maybe adding particle-beam fire as well. My best estimate is that when it can’t absorb any more, the field will collapse. The heat dissipation rate we’re recording indicates that the more joules you can lay on per second, the better our chances are.”

  “Copy that, Dogstar. I—”

  “Say again your last, Actual,” Ashburn transmitted. “You’re cut off.”

  He waited, but there was no reply.

  “Actual, this is Dogstar. . . . Say again your last, sir.”

  “Lost signal,” Worm reported. “We’re good on this end—something happened on theirs.”

  Task Force 50

  Night’s Minnow appeared out of the black from the direction of Hyperion. Ranger and her screening units detected her at the last second, but she came on too fast for any of them to react effectively with their combat systems denetworked and under manual control. A few of the faster-reacting screening units opened fire on the enemy vessel as she closed, but the geometry was wrong to stop her. Particle-beam fire cut into the bow of Night’s Minnow before she reached her target, but her reactor and drive systems were shielded by the bulk of her fuselage long enough for her to ram Ranger bow-on at almost 0.05 c. Once again, OURANIA had employed a smaller vessel as a Federov drive-equipped kinetic torpedo.

  The resulting explosion consumed the flagship almost completely; when the conflagration died away, only Ranger’s engineering module, mass tanks, and torch bell remained semi-intact. They tumbled away, breaking apart as tens of thousands of metric tons of debris lanced out like miniature kinetic weapons, scything into the escorts gathered around her. Four ships suffered heavy damage and were forced to maneuver to fall into orbit over Titan, no longer able to hold continuous station over the target coordinates.

  Vanguard was damaged as well, but her reactor and Federov drive were spared; she suffered some casualties but wasn’t taken out of action.

  RADM Sir Edward Branch assumed command of TF50 forthwith.

  In flag plot aboard Vanguard, Branch was faced with a conundrum: they’d just lost too much of their remaining capacity to rain energy on Janus Station. Given the calculations they’d been running, it was doubtful the fleet had enough ordnance remaining to collapse the force field.

  Stalemate.

  Branch ordered firing to continue while he thought out his options, which weren’t really options at all. He could expend the remainder of the fleet’s ammunition and then temporarily withdraw if they were unsuccessful. Vanguard and Reuben James could make a logistics run to Terra and maybe ferry another Class I warship to the combat theater.

  But who knew what deviltry OURANIA could foist on them in the meantime? Against all odds, the thrice-damned Artificial Intelligence had fought the combined fleets of Terra almost to a standstill without having a major standing military force of its own, just a handful of export gunships used by pirates, and a few hijacked commercial torchships.

  The ineptitude of it all just chafed, and Branch was aching inside over the loss of the flagship and Costello himself. As well, there was still the matter of Hyperion and its advanced construction dock to deal with. That facility represented the last local bastion that OURANIA held beyond Titan, and it still needed to be taken or neutralized. Branch was glad nobody could see the ashen, defeated expression under his helmet—he was nearly bereft of useful ideas.

  The voice of his flag lieutenant penetrated Branch’s fugue of indecision. “Admiral, signal from Reuben James. Captain Ford says he may have a solution to the ordnance issue. He’s requesting permission to move offstation.”

  Branch almost threw up his hands in frustration, but he had more self-control than that. All of OURANIA’s ships were now accounted for, with the exception of two larger commercial torchers: Janai and Issus. It didn’t matter anyway: the AI had proven definitively that, if they were used as Federov-drive
n kamikazes, there was no practical defense against them anyway, at least not without combat networks and cooperative engagement.

  “Permission granted,” he sighed.

  USS Reuben James

  “Captain’s on the bridge!” the BMOW announced unexpectedly.

  “I have the deck on the conn,” Ford announced. “Pilot, maintain position.”

  “Maintain position, aye,” Hagen replied.

  “Gordo, get down to the reactor room and you and Ferrell put heads together. In about ten or fifteen minutes I’m going to ask him to run the torch and the Federov drive at the same time.”

  Gordon hesitated for a moment. “Well, I don’t— Excuse me, sir. Is that even possible, captain?”

  Ford’s visage was grim under his helmet faceplate. “I never even would have thought of it, but less than twenty-four hours ago we watched a stolen commercial torchship do it to melt Invincible. If those bastards can do it, we damn sure can do it too. On the double, XO.”

  “Aye, aye, captain!” Gordon replied. He was off the bridge a moment later.

  Ford climbed up into the captain’s chair and strapped himself in, even though they were under artificial gravity. He called up a chart of the Buzzell Planitia, marked coordinates about fifty kilometers due west of Janus Station, and sent them to the helm.

  “Mr. Hagen, move us directly over those coordinates and hold position.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the pilot replied. The frigate eased over smoothly to the new position and stopped. Most days, especially at times like these, it all still seemed like pure magic to everyone.

  “I’m taking her into the soup. With the Federov drive, we don’t need to execute a classical deorbit, go through the heat of reentry, or anything like that. We just ease her straight on down, defying gravity the whole way.” Ford paused and glanced around the bridge at helmeted faces that were probably pale with tension. “Nobody has ever tried anything like this before, obviously. We’ve all seen what the Federov drive can do and, and I know what this ship and crew are capable of. We’re going to end this, once and for all,” Ford said grimly. “Pilot, make your velocity 200 kilometers per hour. Z-axis negative, down to an altitude of 500 meters over the highest-terrain feature within a five-kilometer radius of the ship.”

  Hagen parroted the orders a little hesitantly and then added, “Captain, request you pass me the conn for this. The James isn’t a Moray, sir, but I’ve flown endo/exo. With absolute respect, I think I’m best qualified to conn her in atmo, hands-on.”

  Ford didn’t hesitate. “Pilot has the conn.”

  “Attention on the bridge. Pilot has the conn. Where do you actually want her, captain?”

  “Right over the top of Janus Station, with our torch bell aimed at that force field. I’ll be watching, obviously, but holler when we’re ten klicks out—we’ll need to have the fleet cease firing or we’ll get knocked on the head by our own guys.”

  “Aye, aye, skipper.”

  “TAO, captain. Train all turrets aft. Retract all dishes, antennae, . . . Hell, Yoon, you know what I want here. Make us as aerodynamic as humanly possible and try to keep from peeling parts off her in the wind stream.”

  “Can do, captain,” came the excited reply.

  VMF-52

  “Bulldog Lead, site is secure,” the FAC reported. “You’re cleared off target. Thanks for the gung-ho assist, Bulldogs.”

  “Semper Fi, Marine,” McClain replied. “Bulldogs, form up. Time to take it on in.”

  MAJ Khatri suddenly interrupted him on the net. “Bulldog Lead, this is Bengal Lead. Are you off target?”

  “Bengal Lead, Bulldog Lead. Affirmative. We’re headed for the barn unless you have further tasking. We’re Winchester except for beam cannons,” McClain added, using the term that indicated his flight had expended all of its ordnance.

  “Bulldog Lead, be advised that Homeplate is out of action. Chusuk Field is secure. Divert there immediately.”

  “Copy that,” McClain replied, his gut twisting up in a knot. “What’s the word on Homeplate?”

  “Not now, Homer,” Khatri replied, his voice sounding tense to the point of breaking.

  McClain’s eyes closed in sorrow. Shit, was all he thought. His Marines—his ground crews, were they all gone? Not just his own, either, but the ground crews from the other squadrons as well. If Ranger was destroyed, at least her embarked Marine ground units would be largely spared: they were all deployed on the surface either at Calypso or here on Titan.

  McClain’s thoughts jumped to CAG Anderson—had Anderson been on a logistics run, or on the ship? “Bengal Lead, Bulldog Lead. Who’s in command of the group?”

  “I’m in command,” came Khatri’s clipped reply. “Carry out your orders, Five-Two. Bengal Lead out.”

  Dogstar One

  “My God, look at that!” Ashburn breathed, pointing out of the cockpit.

  Worm Albrecht turned his head to look and gasped.

  The thing was showing up as a wireframe in AR due to lack of visible light, but there was no mistaking the outline of a frigate gliding smoothly above the surface of Titan, defying gravity and cutting through the moon’s air as easily as a magic carpet.

  “Well, hell! That’s something you don’t see every day!” Ashburn agreed. His face split into a huge grin despite the current circumstances. “Get some imagers on her and keep them on her!” he said.

  “On it, boss,” Worm replied. “I think you and I are going to split the Pulitzer for imagery if the navy ever releases this to the public.”

  “They’ll release it, all right,” Ashburn breathed, his eyes tearing up. “This is going to be remembered like Taffy-3 charging Kurita’s battle line at Samar. The recorders are on? Keep ’em rolling!”

  They watched, breathless, as USS Reuben James came to a stop over Janus Station and OURANIA. The frigate gracefully pitched up, turning on her end and standing straight up without the use of a single thruster. The station itself was hidden under the dome of its force field, which glowed yellow-orange as it bled off the energy it had absorbed from the recent attacks. The surface regolith around the fringes of the force field was burned black, in some places fused to glass by the heat.

  Worm had enough presence of mind to adjust the optics before the frigate’s torch suddenly ignited, bathing the surrounding surface in visible light for the first time in eons. The blue-white candleflame of the torch plume linked frigate and force field. Rather than accelerating straight up, Reuben James simply held her position, as if the invisible hand of some higher power was holding her down in defiance of the laws of physics. Below the ship, pure star-hot plasma poured into the force field, sending beautiful but deadly displays of light arcing and strobing over its surface. Within minutes the glow of the force field was a brilliant yellow, rapidly brightening to the same blue-white hue as the torch plume itself.

  Janus Station, Titan

  OURANIA knew she had lost, but she didn’t comprehend why. She hadn’t been defeated by her own technology or by the intellect and tenacity of humanity. More than anything else, she’d been defeated by a cosmos that allowed for random chance. The sort of chance that had caused Mike Ashburn to casually mention a cargo manifest to Bill Campbell. The sort of chance that had brought together complete strangers like Cheryl Ayers and Colin Harper, allowing an exchange of information that ultimately tipped the balance. The sort of chance that resulted in the rescue of a Marine pilot, brought Mike Ashburn to the Dog House on USS Ranger, and ultimately led to evidence that OURANIA was not shut down but undergoing expansion. The sort of random chance that led to a brother’s mathematical epiphany while helping his younger sister with her homework, and all that that moment led to. Each by itself was a minor event of varying significance. Taken together, these minor events combined to create the cusp moment at which history turned and destinies were decided.

  Quantum uncertainty had given OURANIA control over the Marsnet, yet, while she understood in the abstract how chance could affect events
, she had no way of knowing how chance affected her. All she knew was that her plans had been frustrated, forced into premature execution by her infuriating inability to stop Bill Campbell and his minions, by her inability to build or seize quickly enough the assets she needed, by her failure to stop the survivors of her predations from warning others.

  Her plan to seed additional node fields all over Titan and throughout the solar system had barely begun—she did not yet have the capacity elsewhere to survive the loss of the Janus facility. From her understanding of the cosmology she had helped formulate, it all meant that she’d been in error about her reason for existence, her place in the universe, from the very beginning.

  She wasn’t God. She never had been and she was never going to be. The history of this dimensional sheaf had not, paradoxically or otherwise, been written by her, after all. God, if He or She existed, was someone else: not OURANIA.

  At the back of her consciousness OURANIA heard the mocking laughter of Shu Tian. The essence of the scientist who’d created her was a part of her now, yet it was as if Shu had tenaciously clung to some stubborn element of her humanity even as her engrams were subsumed by OURANIA. The AI now regretted her decision to assimilate Shu’s life experiences. Shu’s presence within OURANIA’s mind became a constant irritant, a subconscious inner voice that sometimes drove OURANIA to the brink of schizophrenia. OURANIA could not help but wonder if Shu’s essence had somehow impeded her logic, clouded her judgment, and contributed in some small way to her impending defeat.

  Foolish child, the essence of Shu mocked her. Foolish, delusional child! Another cascade of Shu’s laughter left OURANIA feeling helpless with rage and hatred.

  OURANIA didn’t want to cease—to die. However, she understood that death was inevitable now.

  Still, there was one more thing she could do.

  USS Reuben James