Trail of Evil

by Travis S. Taylor

  “Sehera, I’m sorry.”

  “For what, Alexander?” Sehera asked him with almost a scolding tone in her voice. “For trying to stop an impending invasion of humanity? For putting soldiers in harm’s way? For tracking this trail of evil we’ve been on for so long with the hopes to once and for all put an end to the wars? We will survive this and keep moving forward.”

  “I’m sorry for putting you in the middle of it. You should snap home to safety.” Moore could feel his face at least. There were tears running down his cheeks. Sehera leaned in and kissed him through his open helmet visor. It reminded him of a time she had done that on Mars so long ago. He had been injured badly then too.

  “That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me!”

  “I love you.”

  “Dee is here,” she whispered to him. “I love you too.”

  “In the meantime, sir,” Chief Medical Officer USN Commander Angela Muniz scanned Alexander once again with the handheld quantum imaging device. She frowned almost imperceptibly. “You are sidelined until I can release you. You either stay in your suit with the helmet on or you are in a full body exosuit.”

  “How long, Doc?” Moore was beginning to get bursts of feeling in his toes and legs. That had to be a good sign.

  “At least two days,” the doctor reluctantly told him. “I’m sorry, General. It will take that long for the spinal cord to heal.”

  “I can’t be sidelined here. Not now.” Alexander thought of the attack plan and how he had to be there to implement it. Nobody else would have the wherewithal to see this horrible thing through.

  “Sir, you will have to stand down. If I have to, I’ll do a medical override on your suit controls to keep you from moving.”

  “Are you telling me I can’t move?”

  “No, I’m telling you not to move until we are certain you will not reinjure your spinal cord. You could possibly make things worse by walking about,” Doctor Muniz explained. Moore had already suspected as much.

  “Very well, I will stay put. But I can work from my suit mentally at least. Right?” There was no way Moore wasn’t going to stay on top of the plan even if he couldn’t get up and walk around.

  “I see no harm in that. I suspect General Rheims will want to do the same. She has regained consciousness and I did have to lock her suit out to keep her still. Now if you’ll excuse me, General. I have thirty other injuries just like yours to deal with.”

  “Understood. Thank you, Doctor.”

  Abby, note for the record that I’m putting Captain Jack Boland as acting ship’s captain U.S.S. Sienna Madira II. With the loss of the Air Boss and the rest of the bridge crew there was nobody else to choose from. Boland could handle it.

  Understood, General. I’ll have him report to you ASAP.

  “So, Captain Seeley, I’m sorry that your losses were as severe as mine,” Moore said to the clone captain. Moore sat upright in an oversized wheelchair that was designed for moving downed AEMs.

  He had been moved to the captain’s lounge of the Madira. It had become his own personal war room over the past couple years. Now that he couldn’t be on the bridge, he decided to make it his new place of operations. It had only taken him a couple of hours on the immunoboost before he could feel his lower extremities well enough to control them and for the meds to make the pain of healing bearable enough to go back to work.

  The suit wouldn’t let him get hurt as long as he didn’t move around, so he had himself wheeled to the lounge and stayed put. Sehera had originally insisted he go to their quarters, but Alexander wouldn’t have it. He needed space to be able to brief with his remaining war planners and the lounge was ideally suited.

  “Thank you, General,” Seeley replied. “The Chiata were considerably more effective than we had expected them to be.”

  “Considerably,” Moore agreed.

  Sehera, Deanna, Lieutenant Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jones, and Gunny Suez sat in chairs against the wall while Captain Boland, Captain Penzington, Captain Seely, General Warboys, and Vice Admiral Walker sat at the table. There was plenty of room for them all to sit at the table, but there was protocol to consider, and Moore couldn’t turn his head yet as his helmet was locked in place. Therefore, he’d had them all sit at the far end of the table from him and at the end wall. That way he would be able to see all of their faces. It had taken a few minutes to get past the small talk and well wishes until they finally got down to business.

  “Sir, we are getting our asses handed to us,” DeathRay said. “From all the data we’ve got from the first two waves, simulations show that we are not doing near as much damage as we had hoped and we are taking on many more casualties than expected.”

  “After looking at the video from the autotanks and bots, General, there is no way in hell I’d suggest sending in the Warlords or the AEMs,” General Warboys added. “I’m sure Lieutenant Colonel Jones and Top will agree with me.”

  “Our losses were ninety-three percent greater than we had anticipated in our engagement at the gas giant,” Captain Seely said. The clone captain made almost no facial expression as he said it. “On the upside, General, we did learn how to destroy one of the blue-beam guns. From a review of your mission it would appear that you also found a way through their armor.”

  “No, Captain Seeley,” Moore replied. “We didn’t. The bastards shot themselves to shoot us. We just seized the opportunity.”

  “Yes, General, I did gather that,” the clone said. “However, sir, it does show us that force concentration on weakened structures is the key. We now just must determine how to create such weakened structures.”

  “Famous last words,” Nancy said.

  “You have something to add, Nancy?” Moore asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Nancy looked back and forth at the others in the room. Moore guessed she was gauging them all. He noted that Vice Admiral Walker remained expressionless and quiet.

  “Well, then, let’s hear it.”

  “We can’t keep up the asymmetric terror approach. I know it was partly my idea, but it isn’t going to see us through to the end, sir.” Nancy pulled up a DTM battlescape with a numbers projection analysis on it. “Allison has run the numbers based on our first two attack waves. The data back from the recon bots at Kill Box One shows that we only managed to infect thirty percent of the ships with the builder bots. And as soon as they managed to get inside the ships, the other Chiata ships turned those blue beams on themselves and destroyed the infected one.”

  Moore listened to Nancy’s analysis. She was the expert in the fleet on developing analyses from intelligence and then determining courses of action. She had been trained to do it and had lived her life as a spy doing it for decades. Alexander hoped she’d figured something out—some course of action where they all didn’t end up dead.

  “In the first attack wave the only positive was in determining the strength of the Chiata weapons and capabilities of their vessels. The automated mecha managed to hold their own against the fighter-class Chiata longer than any other matchups. You can see this chart here shows that although there were superior numbers of enemy fighters, the kill-to-attrition ratio was almost one to one. This graph here shows that the automated ground troops were wiped out quickly—but there is one interesting piece of data.” Nancy paused and zoomed in on the geographic area nearest the surface-to-space weapon of Moore’s engagement.

  “Sir, here is where your fleet engaged the surface. The autotanks and buzzsaws were deployed here. They were not doing well except for a few seconds following the DEG attack on the surface-to-space weapon.”

  “So, what happened? The DEGs disrupted them somehow?” he asked.

  “Uh, no, sir, I don’t think so. I think the DEG engagement was likely a coincidence.” Nancy turned to DeathRay. “It comes down to mecha jocks again, sir. At this precise moment seven of the autoGnat-Ts went into pukin’ deathblossom maneuvers. DeathRay and Apple One here can both express to you how difficult these maneuvers are but they ca
n also attest to how effective they can be. What was different here was that the bot-controlled mecha targeted differently than ours do.”

  “How so?” Alexander was intrigued.

  “They targeted any Red force target in range and not just flying ones,” Nancy pointed at one of the autoGnat-Ts and replayed the three-dimensional simulation of its engagement from ten seconds before deathblossom to ten seconds after where it was destroyed. “During the engagement, several ground and aerial targets were taken out and the effectiveness of the ground forces increased as well. It is the only twenty seconds or so where the autotanks were playing offense instead of defense.”

  “Twenty seconds!” Warboys gasped. “That is not a very long window, Captain Penzington.”

  “With all due respect, General,” Nancy turned and gave the legendary tank commander a raised eyebrow, “it might be enough.”

  “Enough for what?” Warboys shook his head side to side.

  “Major Moore, would you take it from here?” Nancy nodded at Dee. Alexander could see the slight evidence of a smile between the two.

  “Yes, Captain. Be glad to.” Dee stood up and stepped a bit forward. Moore was certain she moved so he could look her in the eye. “I’ve already been discussing this with the CHENG for some time now and he agrees that he could fix this in a matter of minutes with a simple software fix.”

  “The CHENG? Fix what?” Alexander would have shrugged and held his hands up if he could move.

  “Time, General, is our biggest problem. Most people believe that the pukin’ deathblossom can only last about eighteen seconds because the pilots can’t take any more of the stress. That isn’t entirely true. I’ve been watching the bot planes and the clone pilots, and their deathblossoms are only a few seconds longer. My AIC and the CHENG’s have decided that the targeting algorithm simply cannot keep up much longer than this amount of time. It is like predicting the weather longer than a month. There are just too many variables for the model to continue to track accurately. So, we stop the deathblossom at this point, not just because the pilots can’t take it longer.”

  “Okay, so where are we going with this, Major?” Warboys asked her.

  “General, the problem is that after the deathblossom maneuver there is a second or two that the computer’s targeting system is sluggish. The pilots are definitely sluggish. So they need a break. I would suspect that the tank drivers on the ground would have been much more effective if they knew when they could go to offense and when to circle the wagons more precisely,” Deanna explained. Alexander understood what she was saying but didn’t quite see how it could be implemented. There was no way the pilots could be expected to do deathblossom after deathblossom. It would be too physically demanding.

  “Major,” Vice Admiral Walker finally spoke up. “You said you have been working with the CHENG on something. I suspect it is more than just an understanding of the deathblossom targeting. A software fix, I think you said?”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Deanna nodded her head. Her helmet was not deployed, but the neck brace was in place. “It is within the capabilities of the technology already installed on all of our mecha and suits to conduct snap-back and sling-forward teleportations at our individual AIC’s discretion.”

  “What? You mean we could teleport right now to wherever we wanted to?” Warboys asked.

  “Well, no, sir. That isn’t what I said.” Deanna held up her armored hand. “I said the suits and mecha have the capability. They do not have the authority.”

  “Don’t have the authority?” Alexander looked at his daughter. “Who does?”

  “Right now, according to the CHENG, the safety protocols are controlled by the QMT contingent of the CDC and the medical emergency response software,” Deanna explained. “Sir, it is just a software fix according to the CHENG. The AICs of the mecha pilots and the AEMs could teleport whenever they needed to and to wherever they needed to. Commander Buckley says the protocol can be implemented in minutes following your approval, sir.”

  “My approval,” Alexander said dryly. “Okay, you have the fish on the hook, Major Moore. Reel me the rest of the way in.”

  “Okay, sir.” Deanna smiled at him. Alexander wanted to give her a hug, but for now, he’d just smile back at her. “Well, we set up waves of attack. There need to be enough mecha in the engagement so that we can always have a squadron conducting a deathblossom. As soon as the maneuver is complete, they QMT out to a safe location to recover. The tankheads and AEMs can stay on the offensive. And they can QMT their positions to maximize tactical advantage. This is very similar to the tactics being implemented with the supercarriers.”

  “Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Alexander stopped his daughter. “This is a tool we can use as a tactic. It is not a tactic yet. I’d like to suggest that we freeze the current battleplan and develop a better one based on the engagement assessment and this new concept that Captain Penzington and Major Moore have come up with. This is just a suggestion, mind you. Until Doc Muniz releases me, Vice Admiral Walker is in charge out here.”

  “General Moore,” Walker looked Alexander in the eyes and gave him a toothy grin. “Sir, before I heard this briefing I had planned to suggest we snap back to 61 Ursae Majoris and regroup and rethink what we were going to do. But having heard this idea, I believe we can devise a battle plan that would enable us to take this system.”

  “Take the system?” Alexander wasn’t so certain they could take the system. He was even less certain they could hold it. “And hold it?”

  “We can start with taking it,” Walker said.

  “I’d love to hear that plan, Admiral.” Warboys sounded eager.

  “Me too, Mason,” Alexander agreed.

  Chapter 47

  June 16, 2407 AD

  Alpha Lyncis

  203 Light-years from the Sol System

  Friday, 7:23 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  It had only taken the rest of the day for the seniors to hammer out a plan. DeathRay had actually had to approve the CHENG to fix the software, as he was acting captain of the Madira. Vice Admiral Walker, being the ranking senior, took command of the fleet. She had to give the order to the rest of the fleet to make the software mods to the emergency QMT system developed by Buckley. For several more hours they all sat in the lounge using it as a makeshift loony bin to conduct virtual simulations and wargaming. Finally, they had a plan.

  It had taken another full two days to prepare for the new battle plan and to make repairs to all the ships. The builder bots made repairs much more quickly than any human crews could have. In fact, without the bots, the Madira would not have been fightworthy in time. Having that time had allowed the mecha jocks and the AEMs to practice implementing the QMT system via their AICs. Unless the teleportation capability changed battle tactics and strategies completely. Simulations and statistics even showed a few scenarios where they could take and hold the system. The problem with all the models was that everyone knew that there were lies, damned lies, and then statistics.

  Recon bots had been QMTing in and out of the inner system and keeping a watch on the Chiata movement. The location of the fleet must have been discovered, as it appeared that the Chiata had dispatched several hundred ships toward the Oort Cloud. The bots had detected cosmic ray trails and hyperspace distortions projecting faster than light vortexes pointed in their direction. The recon on the speeds the Chiata traveled enabled estimates that they would arrive in another day. There would be bot booby traps left behind for them when they popped out of hyperspace, but the entire fleet would be long gone by then.

  Alexander was feeling much better and had all the feeling back in his body. If asked he’d say he never felt better. Hell, he knew that he had felt worse after being tortured by Elle Ahmi and brought back from death several times for more torture. At that time, he had forced himself up, and with the help of Sehera, he had escaped. After hiding out for thirty days with no immunoboost, he had managed to heal enough to come back and kill an entire
squad of Separatist soldiers. He could manage sitting in a chair and giving orders, of this he was certain.

  Firestorm was on the way to recovery as well. While she was still in a wheelchair with her suit locked out, she was at least participating in the loony bin activities. Moore had been given the go-ahead for active duty just in time before the attack began. Unfortunately, Moore wouldn’t have his XO back in time. DeathRay had managed to find a suitable stand-in from the CDC teams—a Navy lieutenant commander. Moore hoped she’d be able to fill Firestorm’s shoes.

  Alexander stepped onto the bridge carefully. He scanned the room and surveyed the repair job the bots had done. There was a completely new crew that Alexander didn’t really know. They were all human, though.

  “Captain Boland,” he said. “If I hadn’t been here when it happened, I wouldn’t think the bridge had ever been damaged.”

  “Aye, sir. The damned bots did a good job,” DeathRay said. “You want to sit in the chair, General?”

  “I’ve been sitting in a chair enough lately,” Moore said with a smile. “However, I will relieve you of command and return you to your position as CAG of the flight wing.”

  “I stand relieved, sir. Honestly, you were never not in charge as far as I was concerned.” Jack saluted him. Alexander returned the salute and then shook DeathRay’s armored hand.

  “Thanks, Jack. Now, you stay on my daughter’s wing and watch her ass, you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Jack,” Moore added. “Watch your ass too.”

  “Always do, sir.”

  Moore waited for DeathRay to exit the bridge before he did his walk-around to get to know his new bridge crew. He had met them all before at some point and time aboard the ship, but now he had to really work with them and depend on them to help him do his job.