The Code

by Doug Dandridge

  Gorgansha capital ships had been improved up to near Imperial standards, though most were still hyper VI. They couldn’t keep up with the newer Machines in hyper, and could only come close in normal space. But they could fight. They could fire missiles and light amp weapons. Unfortunately, they were only half the size of her standard battleships. Still, they were missile platforms, and targets for the enemy ships. Which was all she could ask them to be.

  “Machine force will emerge into normal space in two hours,” said Quan, looking over at the admiral. “Estimate time for the emergence of the Gorgansha force, five hours, eleven minutes.”

  Beata looked at the system plot, which showed the enemy forces, their vector arrows, and their estimated arrival times. Not only would the Gorgansha fleet arrive more than two hours after the Machines, they would arrive in a position on the other side of the system star, not able to intervene until they had moved through normal space. She still wasn’t sure why they were heading for that emergence point. She had her suspicions, but nothing she could prove.

  We need those projector ships, thought the admiral, pacing the flag deck as she continued to stare at the plot.

  She was tempted to give Chan another call, but wasn’t sure what that would get her. The science maven knew what was at stake, and she had orders from above to get them out here as fast as possible. Would it be fast enough?

  Chapter Twelve

  But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Ernest Hemingway

  BOLTHOLE SYSTEM:

  Four hundred warp fighters moved across the space of the Bolthole system, heading toward the three wings that had already been deployed there. The warp fighters had come through the gate first, since they were closest to the portal and were able to move across normal space at many times the speed of light. The problem came when they actually had to transit the gates. They couldn’t warp through, since their compression field essentially died when it touched the strange surface of the wormhole. Fighters had to move through on their limited thrusters, starting off far enough away that it took minutes to get through. A couple of minutes on the other side and they were warping away, heading for the next gate, until they arrived in the Bolthole system, ready for combat.

  Next through, after a fifteen-minute delay, were the squadrons of home fleet that Sean had been able to cut out. Six squadrons of battleships, three of battle cruisers, a total of thirty-six capital ships. Smaller vessels came through before the ships of the allies reached the gate. Almost a hundred cruisers and destroyers.

  Henare watched them all come through. Compared to the fleets on the Ca’cadasan front these were small scale forces. A total of less than twenty thousand warships on the entire front between all the allies, compared to the hundreds of thousands deployed for operations against the Cacas. It was a tiny front. But it was his front, his responsibility, and he had to battle to defend his system.

  “Machine ships are down to Hyper I,” called out one of the control center officers.

  They’ll be in normal space in less than a half an hour, thought Henare, staring at the plot.

  “We have the first of the allied ships transiting.”

  Henare pulled up the view of the portal again. This time the ship that came through was obviously not of human construction. Still heavy as any well armored ship, but with curves and projections that made it more a work of art than anything humans would build.

  “Admiral Bralalkrak is on the com, sir.”

  Henare smiled as the being appeared in a holo. Brakakak were beautiful creatures, said to be birdlike, though they were from a different evolution. They didn’t even use the same nucleotides, though they used almost all the same amino acids to make their proteins. The reason they could eat and drink all human consumables.

  The alien admiral bowed his head and gave his species version of a smile, beak open while his head bobbed up and down.

  “I am at your service and command, Admiral Henare,” said the being, bowing his head again.

  “How many ships in your command, Admiral?”

  “Twenty battleships, forty cruisers, ninety destroyers. Half of our capital system defense fleet.”

  All your government was willing to give up, thought Henare, forcing the smile to stay on his face.

  “Welcome, Admiral. I would like you to deploy to my right flank, to the other side of the Bolthole asteroid.”

  “Ah yes. The asteroid.”

  The admiral knew what the alien commander was thinking. Bolthole had been top secret through most of its development. The intelligence services of all of the other powers had, of course, found out about it. They had already had their suspicions about it, but very little in the way of facts. They definitely didn’t know its location, the whole purpose behind the industrial base. Henare was sure that many of the ships in the Elysium force were using their sensors to take recordings of all of the stars around them. Now they would know the exact location of Bolthole. Since they had com freedom through the wormhole, they would be sending encrypted messages back, and their governments would know the location of the system. Elysium was an ally for the moment. That might not always be the case.

  “We will, of course, move to where you want us.”

  “Thank you.” Henare watched as the promised battleships came through. It took five minutes for the capital ships to move across, one every fifteen seconds, spaced out so that they wouldn’t run into each other. Twenty seconds after the last battleship was through the first of the cruisers came across. The first twelve were the heavy variety, almost two million tons and made to strike at other heavy ships. They couldn't really stand in the line of battle against capital ships. But they could add considerable offensive and defensive firepower to the battle line. After the last of the heavies were through the first of the light cruisers were popping out of the portal. These were slighter smaller than those of the human Empire, about seven hundred thousand tons versus eight hundred thousand. They were also just as useful in the defense, pitting their hulls and their weapons against incoming missiles.

  When the cruisers had finished transiting, the destroyers started through. They came through in pairs, able to maintain more space between their smaller hulls. These were also slightly smaller than the human equivalent, one hundred and fifty thousand tons versus two hundred or more for Terran escort class.

  “Machine vessels are dropping into normal space sir. We have two thousand, seven hundred and fifty-four vessels.”

  The admiral still wondered why they even bothered calling the Machines ships, since they were just uncrewed Machines. As far as numbers, that was about what Henare was expecting. He waited a moment while the tactical staff did a count on the makeup of the enemy fleet.

  “We have warp ships separating from the enemy fleet,” called out one of the tech staff monitoring the sensor returns. “Six hundred of them so far, on a heading toward Bolthole at fifteen lights.”

  So they aren’t quite as fast as ours, thought the admiral, grimacing. It was to be expected if this was their first iteration. At least they hadn’t quite gotten up to the capabilities of human fighters. Or at least they weren’t showing that yet.

  “We have missiles in space,” called out one of the techs. The woman nodded, then looked back. “They’re our weapons, sir. They’re coming from the mines.”

  “How many?” asked Henare, wondering why those defensive platforms out at the asteroid mines had opened up so soon. Maybe because the managers out there weren’t really military people, but they had command and control of the launching platforms.

  “Three hundred,” replied the tech.

  Which left almost seventeen hundred more. From where the mines were located the Machines would come into a close attack range of most of them if they headed toward Bolthole.

  “Enemy fleet is moving in, changing vectors to come at Bolthole.”

  That made sense as well. The Machine AI had calculated that the majority of the defense would be deployed around
the asteroid and its hundreds of orbiting platforms. If it could beat that, it could destroy the rest of the system at its leisure. Henare breathed in relief as he saw their deployment. They could have taken the opposite tac and gone after everything else in the system, forcing the humans to either sit back and watch as their other industrial assets were destroyed, or moving penny packets out to defend everything. If they sent out a large enough force to take out one Machine probe, the rest could flock to the asteroid and destroy it. It wasn’t a move of genius, since the Machines didn’t possess that attribute. But they could do calculations and statistical analysis and come up with the obvious. It was a relief that they were heading into his strength. The question still was whether his strength would be strong enough.

  “Have the Crakista signaled their crossing yet?”

  “No, sir. They’re still moving toward the gate to here. Estimating twenty-two minutes before they start transit.”

  Shit, thought the admiral, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. It couldn’t be helped. The Crakista had one more gate to transit to get to the one that led here. If the Empire had been thinking they would have already had the ships in place to move here at the first sign of trouble. They hadn’t been thinking ahead, and had figured that the Machines would not be striking at Bolthole until they had taken care of Bednarczyk's fleet. And command had thought it more likely that Bednarczyk would have taken care of them first.

  “We have missile launch, sir. Twenty-eight thousand weapons heading in.”

  “Vector?”

  “Fifteen thousand heading for us, Admiral. The rest are scattered among all the other targets in the system.”

  “Shit.” That was very bad news. If they took out every other asset in the system, while almost all of his defensive platforms were around Bolthole, they would essentially wreck the system and still kill about ten million sentients. That highlighted the impossibility of defending a system with a less than equal force. If he had the same strength he could have met them at the barrier, forcing action as soon as they emerged. Unfortunately, he had what he had, and what little was still coming his way. And that was all he had to fight the battle with.

  “All ships are to fire on the weapons that aren’t heading for us. Warp fighters are to vector onto those streams and take them out.”

  “What about the weapons coming at us, sir?” asked one of the duty officers, eyes wide.

  “It will take them over eight hours to get to us,” said the admiral, walking over and standing above the lieutenant. “Keep it together, woman. We’ll fight the battle the way I want to fight it.” And I hope I’m smart enough to somehow win this thing. If the projection ship came in time they might win it without losing too much. If it didn’t, he would be looking at massive loses.

  Don’t worry, your Majesty, he thought, looking at the Elysium force on the plot. If I lose this fight, the loses will be evenly distributed. We’ll all be dead.

  * * *

  The Machine Prime AI examined the system as the AIs of the other vessels swept their sensors across the space and reported in. As far as it could tell, looking over all the data, it was just as expected. All of the major bodies were in their expected places, all of the minor orbiting bodies were there as well. There were a few score more industrial platforms, many more antimatter sats. The huge heat plumes of supermetal production facilities showed on frozen moons around a couple of gas giants, as well as one free orbit ice planet.

  Next it checked for the presence of warships. Several were under way, their grabbers shouting out their presence. Mostly smaller vessels, the size of their escorts, maybe of slightly less mass. A number of larger vessels were on visual near the industrial asteroid. There were too many shadowed areas, and the heat signatures of industrial platforms could cover up a plethora of other sources.

  Moments after dropping out of hyper the warp signatures of many hundreds of fighters appeared. They were moving toward the Machine fleet, which was waiting to drop its own warp fighters. The AI realized that its rendition of warp craft were still inferior to those of the humans. Still, they could attack and cause loss to the enemy force, degrading the human's response.

  Alarms started to go off all over the fleet. Human weapons were close by in space, launched from stealthed platforms that had just begun to appear on the sensors microseconds before they launched. Large, capital ship missiles were now streaking through space at fifteen thousand gravities, heading for the nearest targets. Three hundred of them. The cybernetic reflexes of the ships let them blow over four fifths of the missiles out of space before they could get near their targets. The same kind of reflexes put the remaining missiles into avoidance patterns that still allowed closure, while not exposing them quite as much to defensive fire. Eleven hit, and eight Machines exploded into plasma as their antimatter stores breached. It wasn’t a devastating hit, more of a pinprick, but enough to make the AI just a little more cautious.

  After running a statistical analysis the AI made its determination and sent its commands off to the other ships. It took a second for the command to reach all the ships and the evolutions to be carried out. Half of the warp fighters the fleet was carrying were released, dropping into space and going into their bubbles as soon as they had separated. They oriented and went on vectors that would bring them into close proximity to the human fighters.

  Other calculations, other actions, and tens of thousands of their newer, smaller missiles were fired into space. Over half were targeted on the asteroid base and its satellite platforms. The rest targeted the many other facilities across the system. A minute later the AI knew that it had hit the target, the planning of the enemy, when the human fighters started changing their vectors and going after its missiles.

  A grav pulse command and all of the Machines fighters were on a heading toward just one of the human fighter wings. They would overwhelm that wing, then go after another, taking them out in detail.

  After another moment the main fleet, reinforced by the last thousand ships dropping out of hyper, was on a heading for Bolthole, accelerating at fifteen hundred gravities, well above the capabilities of most human vessels. Not having organics aboard allowed the ships to boost at a thousand gravities past the capacity of their compensators. A clear advantage that the AI was able to take advantage of when its statistical analysis indicated it was useful. In fact, there were very few situations it could calculate were its superiority in acceleration was not advantageous.

  The human ships fired, sending missiles out on vectors that would intersect all of the Machine missile streams. Some of those missiles didn’t hit the profile the AI had for those type of human weapons. That was not so important. What was important was that every launching ship had just highlighted itself on the Machine sensors. Now it had a clear count of the enemy, and calculations showed that victory, while not certain, was a very highly predictable event.

  * * *

  “Orders, sir?” asked the officer in charge of fighter operations, a captain by the name of Emily Gustav.

  “The warp fighters will continue with their missions,” ordered Henare, letting out a breath. We have to stop those missiles first, or all of those platforms and bases are gone. There were defenses in place at each of the facilities. At most it wouldn’t be enough. The supermetal facilities had enough firepower to stop a large task group. The mining facilities had the defensiveness of their hard crust asteroids. Antimatter sats and other small platforms basically couldn’t fight back. They might take out a couple of missiles before one generated a hit, and that was all.

  The admiral didn’t like the idea of his fighters being swamped by massive numbers. Six to one. His fighters appeared to be superior, but by a factor of six? He didn't think that was going to work out in his favor.

  He looked over the plot, picking out the fighter force the enemy warp birds were going after.

  The planet, he thought with a sinking feeling. While the world they were terraforming was probably the least important region of t
he system for production, it held a soft spot for the people who worked here. A future living world, a place where people could walk through the woods or play on the beach. Something everyone was looking forward to. Attacked during the last Machine incursion, and now at risk again. If it was taken out it would be a morale breaker.

  Though, thinking about it, if he could get the Machines to fire every missile they had at the planet, he would do it. It would lose the living world, maybe for the centuries it would take to cool down, but it would save a lot of people and the facilities needed to prosecute the wars.

  * * *

  “Karen. We need to get to the shelters, now,” yelled Johnny Nakajima, the lead terraforming engineer for the project.

  Nakajima corporation was one of the largest terraforming works in the Empire, with over four hundred living worlds to their credit. This was the young man’s, the grandson of the company patriarch, first chance at doing one of his own. Of course, Margold, as they had decided to name the planet, had started with some advantages some others didn’t. It was in the Goldilocks zone, but it had been a living world in the past, before a huge asteroid had rammed into it and killed off all of its life. It had cooled down over the last fifty thousand years since the catastrophe, and possessed a fine blanket of air, if not the proper mixture of gasses, along with large oceans of salty water. All it had needed was a little bit of human care to become a living world once again.

  “This isn’t fair, Johnny,” cried Karen Nakajima, his wife and assistant, carrying a cage containing the first of the small herbivores they had planned to release in the next week.

  The atmosphere was essentially breathable, with only a small proportion of caustic gas still in the air. The airships were still scouring the atmosphere, their automated systems driving them across the blue sky. The verdant soil was swarming with plant life, forests, grasslands, even jungles in the equatorial zones. The oceans were populated with algae and seaweeds, while the first schools of small fish were establishing themselves in the coastal waters.