"Are they all kids?"
"No. Mixture of ages so far."
"Log me in with a system tester type username, and pop me up the screen and controls."
"Confirmed."
Dreamwalker turned out to have what I called a gamer skill level, with much the same flying and fighting ability I'd had on day one in the real universe. He got in one good shot against me as we went head to head, since his guns were converged way too far in front of him to be useful for dogfighting a fighter this maneuverable, but perfect for the unwary unskilled pilot, accounting for his kill score so far.
I took the hit to find out where he'd set his gun range, juked out of the line of his second salvo, and continued juking all the way in. He managed a few stray pulses on me after that, but we flashed past each other without me having fired at all. I pulled the speed off, flipped the bird right over, and made the kill up his rear before he even knew I'd turned.
The request for a rematch came in immediately on the in-game message system. I indulged him another four times, each with a quick but different ending. The request for a sixth came in immediately after, but I’d seen enough, and logged out.
"Jane, add in all the fighters we've used in the last 2 years, excluding the Excalibur and the other Privateers. Phase them in according to kill score, in order of class. When someone selects the Brawler, they cannot fly against anyone except another Brawler, unless they step down a ship. Once there are enough Brawler pilots, give them the Privateers to play with, and once enough of them, the Excalibur."
"Confirmed."
"Also, we're going to need dropship pilots, couriers, and maybe even recon pilots, so we need scenarios to test for those skills. Alpha team want a dropship pilot now, so get that scenario in as soon as you can. And as well as scoring kills, count successful missions, and anything else which can be tested. Kills are not the be all and end all, and we should frame the game around being an all-round useful pilot. In fact, we want an impossible mission, with a highest percent completed indicator, and number of attempts count."
"Will do."
"Get Lacey, Miriam, Greer, and maybe even George involved. Grace might be interested as well. Miriam and Greer flew medium and heavy fighters, and can advise best on how to build real tests for pilots. Better reserve all active call signs, in case they actually want to participate in the future, and so no duplicates are possible, since a gamer username will most likely follow someone if they join the military later. Maybe even let the new trainee pilots use it as well. Down the track, we can make it available for the active pilots to evaluate potential cadets or midshipmen, or even help train them. If a gamer can take enough of our pilots, we could use it as a basis to offer a cadetship."
This was all sounding very familiar, but wouldn’t be the first time I'd used ideas in fiction in the real world. But if we were condemned to a war lasting years, we'd need new recruits. Any idea at this point was a good one. No matter where it came from.
"Confirmed."
Aline poked her head around the door at this point, and I went out to find everyone had left. Angel demanded some attention, so I rubbed her up the wrong way for a bit until she purred really loudly, and I was in danger of my suit triggering to protect me from over excited teeth and claws.
In bed later on, I asked Aline how team hunting was coming.
"Dick has a shortlist of twenty now. Mostly security people, some from Thorn's end of space. I'll get to interview them when we finish taking Crossroad."
"You think we'll have to?"
"Don't you?"
"I'm still hoping."
"Well stop. Get your head in the game. What were you doing while we were watching B5?"
"New recruiting tool Jane is working on."
She shook her head sadly.
"The girls were right."
"Right about what?"
"You not functioning right. What is the plan for tomorrow?"
"I don’t know."
"My point exactly. You've always had a plan. Well you have tomorrow morning to make one. Annabelle will have a station take down plan for you, but you need a fleet action plan. Or a set of them. At the very least, I think we're going to have to take three of the four stations,…"
"Five."
"What?"
"Five stations. The Trixone have one. Jane is still looking for it."
"Four out of five then. And the same number of fleet actions."
"You think one of them will withdraw?"
"Me? No. But the consensus of opinion is you scored points with the Roo, but not the other two. If so, we still have three Keerah targets and a Trixone one. And you need your head on straight."
I made an effort to straighten my head on the pillow, and she laughed.
Forty Three
The next morning, there was only one military ship heading the direction I wanted them to go.
Jane pointed out the Keerah courier to me, and the fact the general I’d talked to was on it. In some ways that was a good thing, as his survival meant I had a point of contact once I proved I could do what I said I would do, militarily anyway.
On the other hand, it meant we had to destroy them and take the station. Like it or not. I wasn’t going to like it, but I'd spent the morning training time getting my mind focused on what had to be done. Until we proved we could be an effective offensive force, none of them were going to take me seriously.
It had to be done. It wouldn’t solve much, wouldn’t stop them continuing to come, but at least it would put buffer zones in place, and instead of a three way war, it would become a three front war. At least in Crossroad.
I needed a better solution, but for the life of me there wasn’t one.
Now we had to fight, and be seen to be fighting.
I approved Annabelle's station assault plans mid-morning, and she went off to organize everything at her end. And immediately after, we all started moving to our ships in Redoubt.
Galactica came through the rift from Haven shortly after eleven, Enterprise a half hour later, and Prometheus on the dot of midday. With all captains showing up as hollos, I reordered them by ship type.
"Ooh, that tickled," giggled Miriam, causing most of them to laugh.
Angel followed my moving them around, and with George now showing next to her, she batted at him with her left paw. He reacted by shifting into his gorilla suit, and taking up a fighting stance, trying to intercept her paw and bat it away. Those who weren't laughing, quickly were. I turned the hollos off as a way of getting Angel to stop.
I let everyone have a leisurely lunch, as even though the Keerah deadline had passed, I had no intention of hitting them when they were most expecting it. Especially since they'd moved their fleets in expectation of us appearing behind them.
Instead of seven fleets of twelve ships each, all pointing at the jump point down lane, there were only two. The rest had been divided up into groups of eighteen ships, with a group pointing to the rear, one pointing up, and the other pointing down. In this way, they had most directions covered for firing with only seconds needed to bring guns to bear.
In theory, this was enough. However, we now fielded thirteen ships to their eighteen, on any bearing, but we had the firepower to hit all eighteen ships at the same time, with battleship guns and capital ship missiles to spare. And I certainly wasn’t going in the front door.
Jane and I plotted out where we were going in, and who took which ship. And suddenly I was chuckling uncontrollably.
"What's up chuckles?"
I pulled the display out into a full three dee, and started turning it across the dimensions, looking to verify what I’d thought I’d seen. Jane's puzzled look became a grin when I stopped.
"Oh."
The Keerah admiral had done a great job of covering all the angles. But he hadn't been paying attention spatially.
We started again.
The wait for my go signal was interminable for just about everyone, but eventually the courier ship with the Keerah
general was approaching the jump point out. I gave everyone a two minute warning, and with all hollos showing and everyone ready, I opened a huge rift.
The fleet was in two lines, one dangerously close above the other, but allowing us to move all the ships through at once. I let the rift close behind us, letting captains and Jane control the shooting. Syrinx was standing next to me, and her hand came down on my shoulder. My awareness expanded, and rifts started appearing inside the Keerah station.
By the time all our marines were deployed, the nearest line of ships was debris, and the next line was already coming apart.
The Keerah admiral had made a serious error. He'd lined up four of his fleet groups, the two pointed at the jump point, the group pointing up, and the group pointing down, so from the exact direction we'd appeared from, all four were in a straight line for our guns. Pulses which missed the first line, impacted a ship on the line behind.
And because only the closest line were anywhere near pointing at us, most of the Keerah ships didn’t get a shot off before they disintegrated. Only the line pointed away from us managed to get shots off, before they too vanished into debris, and although we took a lot of hits from them, none of our shields were in any way adversely depleted.
It was a turkey shoot. Or what came to mind was more like a firing squad. But that was what you had to do, when you didn’t have the numbers. I didn’t need to like it, I just had to keep doing it.
The salvage droids went out to clean up the mess, SR droids went looking for survivors, while Jane ensured no ships would be jumping through from the other side anytime soon.
Lacey began launching fighters, and with Unassailable's drones, they set out to cover the entire system looking for any other Keerah ships, since we didn’t have comnavsat coverage of the whole system yet. This would be rectified as some of Jane's drones dropped comnavsats in key places, including the jump point on the other side of the system. Behind the fighters, the non-carriers followed along different paths, just in case fighters found something they couldn’t handle.
The general's courier was visible because Jane had managed to infiltrate it from the station. I noticed the ship was now stopped, not far from the jump point. Obviously the general wanted up to date information before leaving.
Attention shifted to the station, and within half an hour, all defense had ceased. Ten teams of marines in combat suits, and several hundred combat droids, had swept through the station like a tidal wave. No-one surrendered, and no-one was in fact killed. The new stunners had proved effective, even against Keerah body armour. There were a few injuries from suit fist usage, but none life threatening. The Keerah nut was a hard one it seemed.
With the station taken, my awareness returned to normal, and I ordered the Scimitars to dock, along with BigMother. Annabelle began organizing the transfer of prisoners to the ships, while Jack started identifying civilians capable of running the station docking operations now the Keerah military was no longer in charge. Surprisingly, it turned out there was a lot of civilians on board, and some of them were Keerah.
I opened a rift to Haven, and Dick Burnside, D-Jane, and a large security team walked through, and took charge of sorting out who were genuine civilians, and who were not. Since most of those needing sorting out were stunned, the combat droids had moved them all into secure storage before they started coming around. How long they were out seemed to depend on how many hits they took.
There were a lot of other species present, mostly also stunned, and Jane quickly found traders from Keerah space had been offloading here, and only species known on the other side of the jump point had been shuttling loads through the jump point. There were also several crews of orange skinned humans here, and these went into proper detention until it could be determined if they were acting as spies for the Keerah, as well as final destination traders. Dick and Jane had a lot to do here it seemed.
I didn’t have to wait much longer for the vid I was expecting. The Keerah general had waited to see the whole show, before finally leaving. The courier jumped before I was able to open it.
"Admiral Hunter. I salute you."
He did the Keerah salute.
"You did exactly what you said you would. And you did it faster than anyone on my staff predicted, in a way no-one expected."
He paused.
"You obviously have technology we don't, as you said. Your guns are not yet up to our standards, but you know exactly how to use them, and seem to be capable of aiming and firing them far faster than we can."
He paused again, the look on his face indicating confusion. But it cleared quickly, and the face became stern.
"It seems you're a bigger threat than anyone has anticipated. As such, you have gained my respect as an adversary, and this will be recognized at some levels over time. I note you have brought new and bigger ships to battle this time, but have you brought all you have? Or did you bring just what you needed to? An interesting conundrum I will present to my superiors."
"I look forward to seeing your next encounters with our people, who, unless you are attacking them right now with another fleet, will be forewarned of the tactics you used here. I do not think your next attack will be won so easily. But then, no-one thought we'd lose here at all. Suddenly you make life interesting again. I don’t mind admitting it has been a long time since we have come across a worthy opponent. It will be interesting to see if this was a one shot wonder, or the start of something we really need to worry about. In any case, I have no doubt I will be speaking to you again soon."
He ended the vid with another salute.
Forty Four
Now I had a decision to make.
Did I move on immediately? Or did we sort out this system, and let the Keerah stew as to when and where we hit next.
After due consideration, I decided to sort this system out, and let them stew. It might allow them to get another fleet or two into position, but none of the other systems had as many ships in them as this one had.
What I did do was wait until all the military prisoners were moved into prisoner cells on board the carriers, Dick had enough security droids to keep the peace after the marines left, and I’d connected the station to the nearest node on the network, before removing the rift Dick had used to get here, and opening a ship sized one to return to Redoubt.
The ships left behind had orders to rendezvous at the jump point on the other side of the system, and hold there until we established when the Keerah were likely to turn up there in force again. Jane took a Lightning through into the next system, and found nothing there but a courier ship on its way across the system. My gut told me there was a Keerah fleet somewhere close by though.
She left a comnavsat at the jump point, and shot after the courier. Buzzing the general with a flyby just for the hell of it might seem a bit childish, but I thought just one more demonstration of superior tech might sway things. In any case, I wanted that system fully covered with comnavsats while we still had uncontested access to it, as this would undoubtedly change soon.
By now back in Terminus system, having opened a rift on each ship to the ground, where a new prison facility had been made out of the colony buildings now abandoned, I watched the flyby in real time. Sure enough, a message came through from the general shortly after. It was one word.
"Showoff!"
I grinned to myself, and continued watching what was happening elsewhere. The first thing I noticed was the Ralnor's next fleet had stopped before the jump point into Crossroad, and taken up defense positions there. The last of their ships in Crossroad had begun to retreat back to their space, but I didn’t give them much chance of making it, giving how damaged they were, how far they'd been drawn away from their jump point, and the number of missiles aimed at them. The Keerah and Trixone continued battling it out in there.
The system itself was beginning to look like a nebulae. Essentially a giant dust cloud now, covering an area bigger than the space between the jump points, but dotted with areas of major d
ebris. Even the down jump lanes were cloudy, although not bad enough to effect shields too much. All the same, the longer a ship was in the system now, the more its shields were eroding just due to the dust and debris constantly impacting them.
Which was generating some interesting effects too. Shields were creating long tunnels in the dust behind each ship on the move, with the endings filling well behind the ship as the dust reasserted itself. The dust was going to be a problem needing solving, before I could deploy stations in there.
The next issue was what to do about consolidating the new system, and preventing the Keerah from taking it back as soon our ships left. But there was really no alternatives, and I gave Jane the order to move the battlestations to the new jump point. This involved attaching station tugs to each one to move it, me opening a rift, and the stations being moved through one by one, and then repositioned.
At the same time, we sent tugs through another rift to my new station, and moved it to a position about fifteen minutes travel time by the fastest of the freighters we knew of, from the jump point on the other side of the system. I was quite amazed to find the rifts connecting it to the network didn’t sever while the station moved, even going through another rift. By the time it was there, Walter had sent an operations team to control ship movements. The comnavsat on the other side of the jump point began sending out a repeating message advising the system was open for civilian traffic, which was not allowed past the station.
Very shortly after, a squadron of AI controlled Brawlers docked with the station, in case any ship did attempt to head into the system past the station.
The rest of the day passed waiting for things to be completed, and just before dinner, Walter and Dick dropped past my ready room on BigMother, and we sorted out what was needed for the next stations we were about to take, so they could be ready to deploy as soon as we took them.
Dinner that night was full of stories about the fight on the station, and the new penal colony. The joke was, we'd very soon have a planet of angry tigers within our own space, who'd eventually want their own representation. I let the girls laugh about it, but I was still hoping we could secure a peace, and return them all home.
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