The Code

by Doug Dandridge

  The green range was in another room, a one hundred by five-hundred-meter chamber with many obstacles. Two squads faced off against the other two, stepped down weapons signaling when they got hits. Fire and maneuver, attempting to get a good shot at the enemy without giving the opponent the return shot.

  Unfortunately it didn’t go well on either side. After ten minutes of fire and maneuver thirty-seven of the men were marked as casualties. Most were marked as dead. In a way it was a fair result, equal numbers with equal equipment going head to head, but it wasn’t acceptable to their officer.

  “Pitiful,” he called out through his breathing/speaking orifice, his eating orifice slammed shut in disapproval. “Now, form up again. And this time, be smart.”

  He expected for them to still mostly end up dead, but if it took a little more time, and if less of his people got killed doing stupid crap, he would be satisfied. He doubted any of the other platoons could do better than his. That wasn’t good enough either. He wanted to have the best platoon in the company. Hell, best in the battalion. And he wanted his people to come through the next real fight, if there was one, without the trauma of losing a sibling striking many of them.

  That night he slept well, exhausted. Up until the morning, when the nightmares struck again.

  * * *

  GORGANSHA SPACE: MARCH 29TH, 1003.

  “That’s the last of them, ma’am,” said Captain Lyndsey Quan, the fleet tactical officer.

  Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk nodded as she watched the holo that showed their wormhole gate. It was open in a far orbit around the habitable planet of this system, Jrasstra, and ships had been coming through for the past couple of hours. There was another gate in the Lonnsar system, which was also accepting its contingent of allied ships. Another holo, fed through a com wormhole, showed that gate.

  The ship that came through looked more like a work of art than a warship, all beautiful curves and subdued colors, definitely of Elysium construction, from the mind of the Brakakak. The ships were not as tough as Imperial vessels, though a little faster and much more maneuverable. They carried just as many offensive missile tubes, and actually a few more counter launchers. It featured laser rings similar to those on Beata’s battleships, if not quite as powerful, as well as some laser domes for close in protection. The Brakakak went for protection in a much bigger way than the humans.

  The Elysium Empire had sent her fifty battleships, along with forty of their heavy scout cruisers, and a hundred of the light picket variety. They had sent no destroyers, a class they didn’t use all that often. That was fine with Beata. She needed the heavy units to bolster her line of battle, and had plenty of escorts.

  The Crakista ships were due to arrive in a couple of hours, once they transited from their fleet base to the Donut and made their way to one of the two she had open to that space. Crakista ships were not as graceful as the Elysium variety, or even the Imperial type. They were more like globes, a logical way to construct a ship, with the least amount of surface area to internal volume. The armor they carried had a thicker cross section to area, giving them greater resistance to hits. On the converse, the lesser surface area gave the ships a more cramped weapons loadout. The reptilians were also sending fifty battleships, along with a hundred light cruisers and two hundred destroyers.

  Neither power was sending any ground forces to augment what the humans and Gorgansha already head, except for the Marines they all carried in their normal complements.

  “Admiral Klarakak is on the com for you, ma’am.”

  “Put him on my side holo.”

  The face of the Brakakak looked out at her from the holo hanging in the air. Like all of his kind he was beautiful, with a light layer of feathers framing his face, multiple subdued colors that did not clash.

  “Admiral Bednarczyk,” said the being in very good Terranglo. “Have you decided how you are going to deploy us. And remember, we prefer to fight as a unit if possible.”

  “I understand. But please understand, we need your units added to my battle forces, without having to shuffle too many ships around.”

  “And your solution?” asked the Brakakak. He looked away for a moment as a series of chirps and squawks sounded behind him. He let off a similar series, then looked back at the human.

  “I think we will split your force into two equal divisions, one to each of two of my forces. I will propose the same thing to the Crakista. That way your ships can fight under their own commanders, but we can still use them effectively.”

  The Brakakak admiral had showed what looked to be an expression of distaste at the mention of the logical reptilians. Beata felt distaste herself for his reaction. Bigotry had no place in the alliance.

  “That might work,” said the alien admiral, feathers rising around his face “And I expect you to not misuse my command.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I do not want to see my ships fed into a grinder to protect your own. I understand that you might have to use my ships in dangerous situations. But I expect you to have the same courtesy for the safety of my people as you have for yours.”

  That’s going to be difficult, thought Beata. Not that she planned to use the allies in a manner that destroyed them to save her other ships. Sean wouldn’t like that. But if the situation came up where she needed to throw all of the allied ships into the fire to save her fleet and win the battle, she would do it without hesitation.

  “I will treat your people and your ships as I would my own, Admiral. I hope that’s good enough for you.”

  The Brakakak didn’t speak for a moment, staring at her out of the holo, obviously trying to decide the meaning of what Beata had said.

  An hour later she was on the holo again, talking with Admiral Ssrista, the Crakista commander, about basically the same things. She hoped it was worth it bringing allies out here. It might have been better to have substituted them for human ships on another front, but she hadn’t been given that choice.

  * * *

  “We have more Machine ships moving into the system, ma’am,” reported the destroyer commander over his Klassekian com tech.

  Where in the hell are all of these ships coming from, thought Mara Montgomery. She had ships picketing all the Machine systems her scouts had located. Which she had thought meant all of them, but obviously not. They kept coming out of seemingly nowhere, until the forces they were building up could only be called awesome. Or horrible might be a better word.

  “That comes to what? Three thousand of them?”

  “Thereabouts, ma’am. I’m just hoping that they don’t discover us. There is no way we’re going to get away from that many ships.”

  Mara doubted the Machines would send that many ships after the pair of destroyers sitting a light week outside of the system, monitoring everything that entered or left hyper. Probably no more than a hundred ships, all hyper VII, they would still eventually run down the destroyers due to their greater acceleration.

  “Your best bet is to stay where you are and not give off any kind of emissions, Commander. If I could I would send you some help. But anything I sent you would be detected, and then the game would be up.”

  The commander was silent for a moment. “Understood, ma’am.”

  Mara looked over at her senior com officer. “Any word from Gulf Alpha Seven?” she asked.

  “Not a thing, ma’am,” said the officer, looking over at one of his Klassekian com techs, who shook his head.

  “Are you still in contact with your brother?” Mara asked the Klassekian rating.

  “No, ma’am,” said the alien in heavily accented Terranglo, his face confused.

  “What happened to him?” Mara was confused herself. Each of the com techs was linked to all of their siblings, six to eight of them in most cases. When one died, the others showed distress. But this rating acted as if nothing had happened.

  “Nothing happened to him, ma’am.”

  Mara felt her eyebrows rise. Something was not right here. The Kl
assekians were always in mental connection with the members of their birth group. No matter what. Nothing could have happened to his brother without him knowing. And if that brother had died, he would have gone into traumatic shock. This rating had exhibited, nothing.

  “Sergeant at Arms,” yelled Mara into the com, connecting her with the Marine sergeant in charge of bridge security. “Take the com tech into custody and escort him to med bay.”

  The Klassekian sat there, silent, unmoving, looking like he was not going to cause any trouble. The Marine, in the light armor such troopers wore when they were on a ship not in a battle zone, walked over, reaching for the Klassekian. No one expected any trouble. In retrospect, they should have.

  The Klassekian exploded into motion, one of his tentacles lashing out, striking the bare face of the Marine, knocking him back. Two tentacles wrapped around the throat of the Marine. If the man hadn’t been wearing light armor, and his throat had been exposed, the Klassekian might have strangled him, if not broken his neck. The tentacles on his left side reached to the right-side holster of the sergeant and pulled his pistol out of its holster.

  The alien was now out of his chair, the stunner pointing around the bridge. A pull of a small tentacle tip and it fired, sending a blast of sonic waves out. Several people fell over on their stations, the sonics knocking them out. Mara dove away just in time. The alien looked at her and advanced, raising and pointing weapon at her.

  The whine of a sonic cut through the noise of people yelling and trying to get to some kind of weapon. The Klassekian’s eyes rolled up and it staggered. With a grunt it righted itself and again raised the pistol, only to fall over as the sonics, now in the hands of bridge crew, hit it again.

  “Get him to med bay,” ordered Mara, picking herself up and walking up to stand over the Klassekian.

  The alien coughed up, then stiffened, before falling completely limp.

  “He’s dead, ma’am.”

  “Get on the com to all ships,” order Mara, a chill running up her back. “Every Klassekian com tech is to be evaluated by medical staff.”

  “What the hell is going on, ma’am?” asked the com officer.

  “I don’t know. But I don’t like it.” She looked down at the deceased alien once again. “Get me Admiral Bednarczyk on the com. She needs to know about this.”

  * * *

  The Machine AI hadn’t really expected the intelligence windfall to last as long as it had. By good fortune or luck, things it didn’t add into its calculations, it had lasted long enough to gain some information about the humans. The plan to capture the destroyer had worked to perfection. The stealthed probes, coasting in until they touched the hull, had allowed them to penetrate and stun the entire crew. Everyone had gone down in less than a second, no time to issue any kind of warning. It was not something that would work that very often, if ever again, but it had worked the first time.

  The captured ship had given the Machines a windfall of tech. Not all that useful, since they already had hyper VII. There were some computer upgrades that the AIs could use, but little else. The ship had contained little in the way of strategic data, only what a scout needed to know.

  Finding the Klassekian had been the prize. The Machines had invaded its mind with nanites before it could come back from being stunned. It was then able to monitor the brains of its siblings, actually taking partial control of their brains as well. Getting a real time look onto the bridges of seven of their ships. Watching, listening. Getting a windfall. And locating several other ships that had been monitoring its systems.

  Now its capture of the Klassekian had been found out. It activated its control over the others, which had accomplished little, except removing them from the board before the humans could examine them. But it did have the locations of some more of the human scout ships, which meant it could send ships to take them out.

  The AI activated the hyper com, sending its orders out, of course leading off with the header that told the other AIs that it was what it claimed to be.

  * * *

  “We’ve picked up over twenty hyperwave transmissions in the last fifteen hours, ma’am,” said Commander Jessica Walters, the com analyst working on deciphering the Machine code. Walter was actually reporting to Admiral Chuntoa Chan, who was working on the problem of shutting the Machines down in one fell stroke.

  “The same header every time, their identification,” said the commander, “followed by another string that we can only assume is the original header they brought with them from the Empire.”

  “Twenty transmissions sounds like a lot,” said Beata, looking at the sine wave playing on a screen behind the commander, as if she could actually make sense of it.

  “Yes, ma’am. It seems they are getting ready to do something. And your tactical analysts have already been given that information. What we see as important is the use of the same header. It’s really bad communications security. As if they really don’t understand that we might be able to use it against them.”

  “And how often do they change it?” asked Lyndsey Quan, also staring at the sine wave.

  Beata had to suppress a chuckle. People had to look at the raw data, even when there was no way they could make sense to someone who wasn’t a trained hyperwave scientist or engineer.

  “The last time they changed it was two weeks ago. Before that it was three weeks. They change it in a manner that suggests randomness, but a study over the last four months shows that it follows a pattern. And the second string is never changed. Never. Like it is hardwired into their com protocols and they can’t change it.”

  “That should work to our advantage, yes?”

  The commander looked like she wanted to give a positive answer, then shook her head. “It could. But it might not. If they change the header in a transmission, sending the new one within the body of the message, and we don’t catch it, we could end up transmitting something that they don’t respond to. If they notice something is wrong, they might shut down their receivers altogether.”

  “That would still work to our advantage, wouldn’t it?” said Quan. “I mean, if they can’t communicate over a distance?”

  “In the short term, yes,” said Beata, thinking about the implications. They might give the humans a small advantage, but the large fleets would still sail and would still hit systems with the intention of killing everything in them. Short term wasn’t good enough. If Admiral Chan was correct they would have one chance to shut them down forever. If the Machines closed down the conduit into their command code, the humans might never be rid of them. And that was unacceptable.

  “Keep monitoring their transmissions. Of course, pass the information onto Chan, but I want a full report on anything you learn.”

  Bednarczyk knew from the information she was receiving from Montgomery that the Machines were on the move, and would soon be attacking, somewhere. Probably soon. And she would have to make sure she was ready for them. She couldn’t afford to miss covering any of their targets. Any she missed would mean millions, possibly billions of dead. She would feel responsible for every single one of those deaths.

  “Well, so far they are still gathering in their own systems,” said Quan, looking over at the region plot on the central holo. “We might actually catch a break on this and be the ones to attack.”

  That would be nice, thought Beata. If the Machines would stay put for another month, she would have her forces ready for an offensive. She didn’t think she would be that lucky.

  Chapter Three

  All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. Sun Tzu

  GALACTIC SPACE. APRIL 28TH, 1003.

  The Machines fleet, over fifteen hundred ships, moved above the galactic disc, heading for the asteroid base that was so important to the humans. The Machines were not very imaginative. They based their tactics on what they knew of history. Tactics that had been formulated by living creatures who had developed them with the
ir imaginations.

  The destroyer they had captured the month before had been a windfall of intelligence. They had taken the ship so quickly that the crew had not been able to wipe its memory banks. So they had the complete tactical history of the New Terran Empire. Including their raid on the home system of the Ca’cadasans.

  The humans had sent ships up above the galactic disc, where the enemy was unlikely to have patrols. They had made it through, and had used a wormhole to launch a successful attack on the capital of their enemy. They had only used three ships, gating the rest in by wormhole. The Machines didn’t have wormholes, nor the means to produce any. So they had to send everything they needed for the attack through hyper.

  Not all of the ships were battleships, though there were about a thousand of that class. There were also cruiser class and scout/escort class. And many fighters, hangared on most of the ships. The magazines were filled to the brim the newest missiles, half the size of the human version, capable of similar acceleration. They had smaller warheads, and would hit with only half the kinetic energy of the human weapons, but there were a lot of them.

  Also aboard were fabber units that would turn most of the ships into factories. There would be no resupply, but if they needed something during the fight they might be able to manufacture it.

  The primary AI communicated with its other vessels, asking for data on anything unusual. They were looking for any other ships that might be in range to track them. The home system AI had calculated that the odds were against the humans having anything that high up above the disc. After all, they didn’t have unlimited ships, and had a lot area to cover.