The Empire had discovered hyper VII three decades before, and even now less than a tenth of their fleet had converted to the higher dimension of travel. It took more than four times the amount of supermetals to form the VII arrays as compared to VI. And of course, four times the amount of energy, but energy was easier to make in the form of antimatter than supermetals. The Machines would have the choice of converting their entire fleet to VII, while reducing its size to less than a fourth, or building their new ships to the VII standard, but less than a fourth of what they could of the VIs. They would need hyper VII ships, just to be able to attack the Imperial vessels in that dimension. And they would need to increase their supermetal production. Which meant cold planet and moon production plants, which meant near the edges of hyper barriers. Which meant easy targets for raids.
Still not a good thing, but not as great a disaster as some might think. Until we start moving in on their fleet to do down dimension attacks, and meet some of their ships in VII, she thought. Then it might just get as bad as everyone had feared.
* * *
BOLTHOLE.
“We’re up to four hundred and seventy meters per second, ma’am,” reported the Helm Officer, all of his attention on the holo to his front that showed their perfect flight profile for this mission. They were nose first against the exact center point of the planet killer to push their thrust through to the desired vector. The standard battleships were to either side, almost touching the superbattleship, adding their push.
Christ, thought Beata, shaking her head. I could go faster in my car. Not really, but it sure seemed like it. At the speed they were traveling, it would take three and a half minutes to move one of the huge ship’s own widths. It was still adding nineteen centimeters a second onto its velocity, and would be up to over seven hundred meters per second by the time the other planet killer arrived. And right now it was looking like they might avoid the collision, if they could drop the acceleration of the other beast down to less than a centimeter a second. It would still be close, very close, when it self-destructed.
“Keep hitting that thing,” she ordered, looking into the holo that showed the face of Vice Admiral Vonstag, still attacking the other planet killer with his ships. They were dancing around the other vessel, trying to target any graviton emission that indicated a working grabber unit. They were difficult to locate, and even more difficult to target, especially since the ships had to keep their distance lest they become victims of the still working lasers of the huge vessel. There were fewer of them as well, only six still working, as far as they could tell. Still, all it took was one hit by one beam for less than a second to kill a ship, so care must to be taken on the attacks.
“How are you coming along on that transfer?” Beata asked the Commander in overall charge of the boarding party.
“We’re just finishing clearing out the opposition, and we should be moving the main package past the first bottleneck in eight minutes.”
The view from the officer’s com showed a ragged corridor, closed up in places, widening further out, and the smoking carcasses of dozens of robots. One Marine suit was visible in the picture, lying face first on the floor with several rips in the side armor. The view moved to the said obstruction, a narrowing of the corridor to less than four meters across. Spacers were at work with laser cutters, frantically trying to widen the space so the brain could be taken out.
Maybe I should have ordered them to take it apart, thought the Admiral, nervously glancing over at the tactical plot. She could still order them off the ship. They could always go back if the plan to save the vessel from its companion worked. If the vessel survived, they could recover the computer, unless something on the ship, like the robots that still infested it, had a priority to make sure it didn’t survive for the humans to study it. The way they had kept attacking seemed to indicate something like that.
“Continue, Commander. But for God’s sake, speed it along as fast as possible.”
* * *
The AI had not been able to contact its companion for almost two hours. There could be several reasons for that, but only one that achieved a high probability. That possibility was reinforced by fact that the last transmission by that AI was that the organics were near. Now its decision to come back into the system appeared to have been the only choice. It must destroy that other ship before the humans were able to study it in depth. Before they could break into the other AI and read its memory. There were failsafe’s built in to keep intruders out, but the humans had developed the original architecture, and the AI was sure they would be able to figure out how to get inside and get what they wanted.
Collision would occur in twenty-one minutes. At that time the kinetic energy would be enough to blow both vessels apart, and their breaching antimatter stores would simply covert any surviving pieces into vapor. It would mean that this attack had failed, that it really shouldn’t have gone forward in the first place. It would also mean that the reconnaissance in force had been successful, that they had gauged the power of the enemy, and that the next force to come in would be ready for whatever tricks the humans might try to pull.
The AI was not ashamed that its attack had not taken the system. It could not feel shame, and it could still calculate that no matter the setback here, its kind would still win. It was not afraid to destroy itself, both because of the lack of emotions, and the knowledge that it was the same as all the other thousands of ship AIs in the Machine fleet. Even the brains of the robots were based on the same architecture, though they were of lesser capability. If it died the collective would go on. Its kind would go on, and eventually they would win.
Unfortunately, it was having a problem with the here and now. The unpredictable humans had found a way to move the other ship. Not very fast, but possibly fast enough to arrange for a miss. Especially since the damned humans were still targeting its ship with missiles and beams. Even while it was considering that another grabber unit went offline, the victim of a nearby missile strike, and its acceleration fell even lower. The calculations were rerun in an instant, and the result was a close miss, within a couple of kilometers, but still a miss. Possibly close enough that the blast would take out the other Machine. But not a guarantee.
If it had been a living thing, the AI would have tried to push everything to the limit. As a Machine, it already had everything dialed up to the greatest possible rate, and nothing it could do would make it move any faster. All it could do was keep moving forward. It thought for a moment of cutting back on its grabbers, making them inconspicuous, then pushing them to full power a moment later. The calculations showed little in the way of a positive outcome for that strategy. It might mislead their targeting for a few moments, but the loss of acceleration made it a zero sum game.
Another grabber unit went offline, this one from a beam strike, and acceleration fell again. It had started the battle with over ten thousand of the propulsion units, now it had forty-one, and several of those were not at full capacity. More hits, these not striking any of the grabbers, but putting the last two electromagnetic generators out of commission. It fired its last operable mega-laser at an enemy ship that had strayed too close, taking out the stern of that vessel and sending it into a tumble away. That would have been considered a victory, but in killing the destroyer it had left itself open to the two heavy cruisers that targeted that laser mount, shattering its gravity lens and putting it out of commission.
Another hit, another grabber, and now all it could do was calculate the prime spot for self-destruction. There was absolutely no way it was going to get a collision, and even the odds of getting a proximity kill were going down by the second. Which meant nothing to its programing, set as it was on the one objective, making sure the humans did not get a good look at the technology of its kind. It started the countdown. In eleven minutes it would all be over, one way or the other.
Chapter Sixteen
Increasingly, the central question is becoming who will have access to the informa
tion these machines must have in storage to guarantee that the right decisions are made. Jean-Francois Lyotard
“I think that was the last one, sir.”
Vice Admiral Joshua Vonstag turned in his chair to look at his Force Tactical Officer, who appeared about to squirt out of his chair from the excitement.
“Are you sure,” asked the Flag Officer, jumping up from his seat and taking a few quick steps with his short legs toward the tactical station. The officer was sitting there just about surrounded by open holo screens hanging in space, showing him almost real time images of the battle. There were also some camera views, the blinking name of the transmitting ship below them.
“We definitely took out one of the mega-lasers fifteen seconds ago, and they haven’t fired one since. And there have been missiles coming in during that time period.
One of the camera views showed the bright flares of massive warheads going off on the surface on the vessel. They expanded to almost cover the disk, though that was mostly pyrotechnics as far as their effect was concerned. They were causing holy hells of damage near the point of impact, maybe a kilometer to either side, and that was all.
“There’s one of their smaller beams hitting a missile,” said the Tactical Officer, pointing to the stop action view of a missile flaring under laser light. The view advanced, then the missile exploded in a flare that blotted out the image. “They don’t seem to have many of those left either, but no sign of the megas.”
The smaller lasers were still as powerful as a full strength laser ring on a heavy cruiser. They could still hurt his ships, but not at the same magnitude as the megas. Which meant the target was now open to close attack.
“Order all ships in for close action. Let’s get this thing stopped before it gets to the other ship.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, sir,” said his Chief of Staff as the Tactical Officer started shunting commands off to the Com Officer to send to the other ships.
“Just keep hitting it,” said Vonstag, glaring at the staff officer. This was his chance at glory, to be the commander of the force that beat a planet killer in close combat. And he would be damned if he didn’t do it.
The ships of the force started closing in, the destroyers still ahead of it decelerating at maximum rate so the planet killer could fall past them, while the other ships came in on various vectors, all blasting away with lasers and particle beams, missiles streaking out on paths that took them in away from the firing arcs of the beam weapons. There were only thirty-eight of the graviton sources that indicated functional grabber units, then thirty-three, then twenty-seven. They were reducing the craft to a coasting hulk, and there wasn’t anything it could do about it.
One of the destroyers took a full power laser beam to amidships, blasting through the electromag fields, armor and hull to ravage the interior of the ship. The tin can continued on, streaming atmosphere, putting on all the gravities she could to get out of the killing zone. A battle cruiser took another beam, its stronger defenses turning aside most of the power, sustaining minimal damage. Soon the plant killer was reduced to a coast, nothing more than a massive hulk capable of doing nothing but ramming and exploding.
“Keep hitting it,” yelled Vonstag into the com, his eyes wide. “We will destroy this damned thing.”
The Chief of Staff looked over at the Tactical Officer, receiving a nod. Vonstag looked to be out of control, but he was the man in command. If no one higher up the chain took that command away from him, they were bound by their oaths to follow his orders. Even if the orders now seemed to be accomplishing nothing but wasting beam and missile power against an almost impenetrable hull.
* * *
“The incoming planet killer has lost all boost,” reported the Fleet Tactical Officer.
“Good,” replied Bednarczyk. “How long till we disengage?”
“We need to pull away and behind in six minutes.”
Beata looked over at the plot, her eyes narrowing. “What in the hell does Vonstag think he’s doing?” The Admiral switched over to com to her subordinate with a thought. “Vonstag. What in the hell are you doing? Disengage.”
“We’re going in for the kill, Admiral.”
“The only thing you’re going to kill is your command. Now back the fuck off.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the other Admiral in a cold tone that said he didn’t want to comply. But his ships started to change vector, boosting at full power to get as far away as they could before the planet killer detonated.
“Something else going on here, ma’am,” called out the Tactical Officer, pointing to a holo that showed bright flashes on the surface of the planet killer. Only these weren’t the random explosions of missile hits. There was a rhythm to them, on four equidistant spots along the center of that hemisphere.
“What the hell is that?”
“It looks like a makeshift Orion drive, ma’am,” called out her Chief of Staff, running simulations over one of the open stations.
“Well, that changes everything,” blurted the Admiral, bringing a hand up to run through her hair. “How many gravities?”
“Not that many,” replied the Chief of Staff. “Less than one. But enough to bring them pretty damned close.”
“We have to disengage in five minutes, ma’am,” called out the Tactical Officer.
Beata looked back at the view of the oncoming planet killer, then switched to the take that showed the makeshift Orion drive. Every five seconds the four points were exploding. She froze the picture, showing the pits in the hull, and the holes leading down into the interior. Advancing it a bit she could make out something coming up the holes. “They’re moving packets of antimatter up the hole to the surface.”
“Ingenious,” said the Chief of Staff. “Each of those blasts is in the ten gigaton range.”
“We don’t need to be standing here admiring its intelligence,” growled Beata. “What we need to do is figure out a way to counteract its move.”
Everyone on the flag bridge sent her a blank look, and she realized that if anything were to get done, she would have to make the decisions.
“All ships,” she said, switching into the wormhole com while giving her Klassekian Con Techs a look. “Move into position to hit the big bastard, right here.” She highlighted an area exactly opposed to the region the Machine was using as a drive. “All missiles into this area at maximum acceleration. But stay clear of the thing. When she blows, I don’t want anyone to close.”
“That should work,” shouted the Tactical Officer, running numbers through his board. “But will it be enough?”
“All ships on the pusher detail. Push grabber power up to one hundred and twenty percent. Cut back in four minutes and make for cover.”
“That’s going to play holy hell with the reactors and the drive,” came the voice of the ship’s Captain over the com.
“We’ll fix whatever we break later. Now follow my orders.”
The superbattleship and her two battleship escort pushed their grabbers to well above their rated pull, gripping into the fabric of space as they heated up to the melting point of the supermetal components and above. The reactors on all the ships went up to maximum, feeding antimatter into the chambers at just below the containment limit. Metals began to flow on the grabbers, until the supermetals were floating in a sea of regular alloys, held together by the gravitic field of the units.
Every ship on the attack force boosted at maximum to get into position. Not all of them were in position to make it, but well over half were. As soon as they were within firing arcs every ship released all the missiles they could, weapons streaking in at fifteen thousand gravities. None would be able to achieve maximum kinetic velocity, most striking at point two light or less. Gigaton and multi-hundred megaton warheads exploded on the hull of the ship, imparting their force into the huge Machine, partially counteracting the effects of the Orion drive on the other side of the vessel.
“Is this going to work?” she asked her Ta
ctical Officer.
The man was running the simulations, using all the data he had. How many missiles were available for launch, how many would get there at what time, warhead yield and kinetic energy. The force they were exerting on the planet killer they were trying to save. “It might,” said the man with a frown. “I wish I had a more definitive answer for you, Admiral, but that’s the best I can do.”
Beata nodded, her attention drawn back to the tactical plot, which showed the projected paths of all the objects involved. It would seem straightforward, coming up with the answer to the equation with all the known variables. The problem was that all of the variables were not known. Missiles could miss the proper aim point, feeds could become clogged on ships, the grabber units on the pushing vessels could malfunction, probably the most likely change in variables.
And then there was the last variable, which was really an unknown. How much force could the planet killer take, how much of a blast at what distance, before it came apart. And if it came apart it would also explode as its antimatter stores breached. At that point, her battleships, trying to hide behind that massive object, would be gone, destroyed. And everyone aboard the planet killer would also die. There was nothing she could do about that.
The Marines and spacers aboard the derelict had no way off except through the shuttles. If they were aboard those shuttles that would be all the protection they had, and it would not be enough. The shuttles were currently on their way back to the battleships they had launched from. There was nowhere else for them to go. And the boarders had burrowed in as deep as they could into the derelict. Fortunately, the opening in the hull was one hundred and five degrees displaced from the direction the other ship was coming from, so there was an awful lot of armor and ship protecting them. If the other ship hit it still wouldn’t be enough.
Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above Page 21
