Broadsword

by Will Crudge

  Broadsword

  A War for Humanity Companion Story

  By

  Will Crudge

  Author’s Note

  I don’t write books to target a specific word count, but instead I let the story unfold as I see fit. Length and volume are driven solely by the story I mean to tell. That being said, the Broadsword Squadron played a pivotal role in The Battle of Tangine, but I didn’t emphasize it. That book was stressful to write. Lots of subplots and situations were going on, and I didn’t want to create a convoluted amalgamation of chaos. So, I decided to make this companion story. I pray it answers questions and fills some gaps. The heroic actions of the Broadsword crew shouldn’t be left in obscurity, thus I wanted their story to be told. For those of you that may be reading this as your first introduction to the saga, fear not. I did my best to just let the story tell itself, but I invite you to go back and read Sovereign Protocol, Book 1: in the saga for only $0.99. It’s a full-length novel that establishes the base-line for the tale you’re about to read. You can read it now, or wait to see if you like this story first. No pressure. No judgement. Either way, I’m proud to present, Broadsword!

  - Will Crudge, 2018

  Broadsword Unsheathed

  Location: UAHC Drone Dreadnaught, Broadsword, CIC, Open Space

  Date Time: Post Interstellar 08/04/4201 0823 UAHC Standard Zulu

  System: Interstellar Space

  “Butt-fucker!” Lt CMDR Wilkins shouted. Once again his bulky armor got caught on the diminutive seat as his workstation. The ship wasn’t designed for UAHC Soldiers in body armor, since it was primarily used as a training aid.

  “What’s your major malfunction, Wilkins?” Major General Estrada spat. The tobacco juices from his semi-disintegrated cigar dripped slovenly from his jowls as he spoke. He took a quick second to wipe his mouth on the small sliver of sub-armor sleeve that his armored plating didn’t cover.

  “This seat is designed for an office worker, Sir! My suit keeps snagging on its angle-iron frame!” Wilkins replied.

  “Well, excuse me! I’ll just pull a better seat out of my ass and hand it to you, fuck-stick!” The General chuckled. Wilkins was unamused, but decided it best to remain silent. He didn’t know which was worse… MG Estrada’s sarcasm, or Rear Admiral Olaf’s blatant verbal abuse. Either way, he decided, he was alive. The Alpha Site Skirmish, or so it had become known, was a brush with certain death.

  Wilkins was a Petty Officer only days prior, but when the UAHC Fleet was placed under war-time status, their officer corps had been restored. Now he was a Lieutenant Commander based on the position he held in the command staff.

  Before the young man could stumble to his feet, the Admiral entered the CIC, and General Estrada stood up from the command console in order for his peer to take a seat. Both senior officers were of equivalent rank, but when the ship was underway, and there was no ground actions being conducted, therefore the Admiral was senior by position.

  “Good morning, Gentlemen.” Olaf said with redness in his eyes. It was obvious to Wilkins that the man had slept poorly. He noticed the Admiral’s eyes were still red and puffy. The fact that the Admiral was holding a coffee cup the size of a melon only reinforced his conclusion. It was odd considering his own med-nano could have forced his body into a restful state, but Wilkins knew the man to be self-reliant to a fault. The Admiral would only use nano-tech judiciously, as most UAHC Soldiers preferred.

  “Good morning, Admiral.” Estrada answered with a nod, and another line of drool that appeared dark from the soggy cigar. “Nothing is on scan… Well, nothing but space dust.”

  The Admiral nodded. “Out here in open space, finding anything of note is rare. No news is good news.”

  “Sir, our ETA for link-up with the Unum battle group is about fourteen point three hours.” Wilkins answered up.

  The Admiral nodded, and then set his eyes on the myriad of truncated scan reports on his command console. The console was part workstation and part pedestal. It was positioned towards the aft of the CIC, and faced forward. A one meter high holographic display hovered above the surface. “Any maintenance concerns from our newly acquired drone ships?”

  Estrada laughed. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I must say… many of the Captains are none-too-happy!”

  Olaf huffed. “I totally understand!”

  “Giving them ships that were never designed for actual combat is one thing, but when those ships have had decades of abuse and a minimal maintenance budget, then that’s another thing altogether!” Estrada broke into a low laugh of his own. Since the Heavy Cruiser - turned dreadnaught - was sacrificed in battle, the crew had to make due. The former ship that bore the Dreadnaught name was a triumph of modern technology… The current relic that bore the name was anything but.

  The current vessel that – unofficially – bore the Broadsword name, was actually a three hundred year old dreadnaught that was dressed up to loosely resemble a Crimson Alliance warship of the same class. The outdated ship had never left the expanse of the Alpha training site, and the crew had serious concerns about its interstellar capability.

  Although many of the training ships within the training site were equipped with FTL, the slip-space drives were several generations out of date. Had the AI’s aboard the ship been subverted by the Chimera infestation, then a solely human crew would not have been able to even initialize the drives at all.

  The Chimera never thought of training ships as any real threat, and therefor never infected them. At least that was the working theory. None of the non-human digital entities had escaped from the Tightrope Protocol, and were now all confined to a stasis-based confinement area. The Alpha Site was sorely under-funded after two centuries of peacetime. The STC was minimally manned, and depended on AI’s to run most of the core operations.

  The STC was minimally manned as it depended on AI’s to run most of the core operations. This meant that the Chimera focused on infecting the more critical AI’s at the central facility, while leaving the ones aboard the less strategically critical training fleet unmolested. That was a critical error on the Crimson Alliance’s part. When the STC AI’s ordered the drone fleet to hunt down and fire upon the surviving ships of the Broadsword Squadron, the ship AI’s refused to engage.

  Operational military vessels were operated by Military Grade AI’s, but the training fleet had very few that fit that spec. Most of them were Commercial Grade, or even Law Enforcement Grade when more tactical decisions were required. From a legal standpoint, Commercial grade AI’s were not legally authorized to engage in live combat… unless strictly controlled self-defense protocols had been satisfied. Therefore, the training fleet had the legal right to refuse an unlawful order.

  “Howard?” Admiral Olaf asked.

  “Yes, Admiral.” The noticeably non-military-voiced AI replied. His voice was more casual and diplomatic than his Military Spec peers often were.

  “How are the FTL drives holding up?”

  “Better than I could have predicted, Sir.” The AI replied. He was the main AI on the ship, and the only one that was tasked with interacting with the command crew. “But since this ship hasn’t spent more than a few hours at a time in slip-space in centuries, I had no base-line to start from.”

  “Naturally.” The Admiral said in a monotone voice. “Reactors?”

  “Operating at seventy three percent efficiency, Sir.” Howard responded.

  “That’s it?!” Wilkins chimed in with a gasp. Howard noted that both senior officers seemed to ignore the outburst.

  “Yes, Lieutenant Commander Wilkins.” Howard replied calmly. “These reactors haven’t had a full run-in in over a century. That was the last time this ship has had a thorough re-fit. The fact that we’ve improved from fifty two p
ercent, defies all of my predictions.”

  “Can we take any action to improve the output?” Estrada asked, but his words were barely discernable considering his mouthful of cigar fragments.

  “No, General.” Howard replied in a matter of fact way. “This vessel isn’t designed for a regular human-based maintenance crew in mind. The engineering AI’s are working overtime to produce enough nano-bots for the needed repairs.”

  “I have to ask… Why are they just now making repairs and minor upgrades?” Olaf asked with a tone one might use to ask a child a rhetorical question.

  “Because we were forbidden to.” Howard replied.

  “Ok, I’ll play your silly game, Howard. Whose call was it to neglect your ship?” Olaf asked.

  “The Alpha Site maintenance chief, Chief Warrant Officer Xerxes.” Howard replied. “For the past several years, he’s been dialing back resources. Had your crew not brought thirteen tons of raw material onboard, then we would have had nothing to construct the nano with.”

  “Makes sense.” Estrada said with an acknowledging nod. “That Xerxes character was subverted. Probably had been for a long time. By limiting the readiness of the training fleet, they were able to nullify any threat it may have possessed. Therefore the need to expend more Chimera assets was all-but eliminated.”

  Olaf pondered the General’s words for a moment, but then he spoke once more. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, here… We have a dozen fully equipped cruisers, with a full complement of frigates and fighters. We have, what we can equate to as, a full division of ground-pounders, three battalions of marines, and thirty some-odd relics with skeleton crews, shoddy systems, and questionable capability. Did I miss anything?” He looked up at Estrada, and then glanced over to Wilkins.

  “That sounds about right, Sir.” Wilkins nodded.

  “I concur.” General Estrada said.

  “Well, at least we have a good coffee maker!” Olaf jibed.

  Sneaky AI’s

  Location: UAHC Drone Dreadnaught, Broadsword, CIC, Hidden Hyper Gate

  Date Time: Post Interstellar 08/04/4201 2013HRS UAHC Standard Zulu

  System: Interstellar Space, 56 Light Minutes From Alpha Site

  Wilkins feverishly worked the scans, and was feeling a surge of frustration from his seemingly futile endeavor. He was well-trained in running a ship’s scanning suite, even though it was a job most often delegated to a Mil-Spec AI. The scanning suite aboard the ancient dreadnaught was so arcane, that he’d spent eight hours teaching himself how to use the operating system. The software pre-dated the last war between the UAHC and the Crimson, and had been obsolete before it ended. Two centuries of neglect and zero update patches, made the entire ship a nightmare to operate.

  “Howard, can you do anything with this ancient relic?” Wilkins asked with a tone of frustration. He covered his face with his hands while eagerly awaiting the AI’s answer.

  “This suite was designed for a Mil-Spec AI to operate… Or human manual operation, as you obviously know already.” Howard replied.

  “That doesn’t answer my question, Howard!” Wilkins snapped back.

  Howard didn’t even change his ever-calm tone. “Lieutenant Commander, I was not finished with my answer.”

  Wilkins just exhaled and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Howard. I’m just agitated.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but to answer your question… Yes.” Howard replied.

  “Do I need to give you my command staff token for the override sequence?” Wilkins asked. Wilkins assumed that the Com-Spec AI would require an officer on the command staff to authorize a non-Mil-Spec AI to access a military system.

  “No, it’s fine.” Howard replied. “The human training crew always had the same issues. I’ve had to bail them out many times.”

  “So, you don’t need authorization?” Wilkins tilted his head in confusion.

  “No!” Howard actually chuckled for the first time any of the current crew had known him. “This system is a dinosaur. Com-Spec AI’s like me, are actually more advanced than the Mil-Spec AI’s were back then. The so-called – safeguards - this old thing has, don’t even stand a chance!”

  “But you can’t just hack a military vessel’s scanning suite by regulation, right?” Wilkins asked. “Seems like you’d have built in safe-guards in your own core coding to prevent that.” He shrugged his shoulder.

  “Yes. I certainly do. I cannot access any military system of record without the proper overrides and tokens.” Howard replied.

  “But yet, here we are….” Wilkins left an opening for the AI to explain.

  “This particular suite hasn’t been an official system of record for over two hundred years. It’s off the books. The fact that it hasn’t been replaced… or still functioning, for that matter… boggles the mind.” Howard explained.

  Wilkins smiled. “I suppose you’re right! Being an AI, assigned to a bucket like this, must make you pretty used to rigging things to work.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Howard said with no shortage of sarcasm. “But once I knew we were being called into battle, I wasn’t going to leave this ship in anyone else’s hands.”

  “Now that you mention it, why did you stay? You’re a civilian employee of the UAHC Fleet. Not even a Mil-Spec AI, at that. We wouldn’t have had any legal leg to stand on if you had demanded you be taken off-ship.” Wilkins was now more curious than ever.

  “Simple logic, Commander.” Howard replied. “If I don’t do my part to stop the Crimson threat, then I’m doomed anyway. The Crimson have very few AI’s, and even fewer that they trust. Any AI they find, especially one’s with ties to the UAHC Fleet, would be either shackled or destroyed. I stand a better chance in the belly of a dreadnaught, than in any other ship.”

  “You mean a dreadnaught that’s barely holding together?” Wilkins asserted. He looked around at the soiled and faded bulkheads. “If this thing gets hit with anything bigger than a short range missile, it will disintegrate instantly!”

  “Really?” Howard said sarcastically. It seemed to Wilkins that Howard was offended and needed to defend his ship’s honor. “Then why is it that the rest of your squadron keeps pinging me to slow down?”

  “Slow down? We were barely going faster than a recreational cruiser!” Wilkins laughed.

  “If that’s true, then why are we already at our rendevuez point?” Howard said with a tone of self-assurance.

  Wilkins’ eyes went wide, and he rushed over to the vacant command console. What the…? He thought to himself.

  “While you were busy playing ‘software archeologist’, I’ve been conducting a DECEL maneuver… We’ve beaten your forty-third century cruisers by about forty three minutes.” Howard continued to praise his ancient ship.

  “I’m so confused right now.” Wilkins said flatly.

  “I should have mentioned… There hasn’t been any official regulations on how to properly maintain or upgrade this class of vessel since before the last war.” Howard sent a winking icon to Wilkins’ internal HUD.

  Wilkins recognized what the AI was hinting at. The UAHC Fleet once had a traditional military structure. But the political posturing of the officer corps, coupled with the self-serving decisions they made, forced the civilian government to completely dismantle the UAHC Military from the ground up. That had been two hundred years ago, and the ship’s hull was already discontinued prior to the war. “You have no legal barriers to stop you from doing… anything… to this ship.” Wilkins said it as a matter of fact.

  “Yes, Sir!” Howard said with another winking icon sent to Wilkins’ neural interface. “This ship is built to be rugged and easily repairable by human hands. Give a team of modern engineering AI’s thirteen tons of nano-bot building material, and soon this thing will make the original Broadsword look like a lightweight!”

  “Listen, Howard….” Wilkins was now having the sobering realization that a team of bored AI’s were tinkering with ship… while underway… while heading into comba
t. “Does the Admiral know?”

  “He does…. Kind of.” Howard’s reply didn’t give Wilkins any comfort.

  “Define, kind of.”

  “I asked him what repairs or upgrades he wanted the AI’s to focus on. He replied with, ‘I don’t care, as long as this bucket gets us there in one peace!’”

  Wilkins rubbed his chin, and figured he had no choice to see Howard’s point of view. The AI’s onboard wanted to survive. Not just survive but, more specifically, to thrive. The threat of Crimson subjugation was a powerful motivating factor for them. He supposed they’d rather die fighting, than live as a slave… or worse.

  “Now, about this scanning suite, buddy?” Wilkins asked.

  “Oh, I’m all done with that. Would you like for me to put the super-secret hyper-gate on screen for you?” Howard said with a sly tone, and another winking icon sent to Wilkins neural interface.

  Wilkins could do nothing but stand there with his mouth agape and his eyebrows arched “Well, Lieutenant Commander Wilkins?” The AI pressed for an answer.

  “Yes.” Wilkins paused to clear his throat and collect himself. “On screen, please.”

  The holographic display came alive all at once. The visual feed was already zoomed in on the image of an asteroid. The asteroid had a conspicuously artificial structure clinging to it. It resembled a polished metallic hanger with an array of large towers at the four cardinal points. Wilkins recognized the towers as shield generators, and they were emitting a blueish funnel-shaped energy shield. The shield seemed open on one end, and it formed a cylindrical tunnel that was at least five hundred meters wide. It was difficult to gage the tunnel’s length from their vantage, but Wilkins rotated the image on the display with a few swipes of his fingertips. The tunnel measured about ten kilometers long and terminated in a large ring-shaped hyper gate.

  “It’s amazing that nobody has ever come across this thing before.” Wilkins said with a tone of sheer awe.