Spineward Sectors 6: Admiral's Spine

by Luke Sky Wachter

  The Representative looked at first concerned, then fearful and then dismayed in turn. “Admiral…” he started and then stopped and swallowed. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me and then he thrust out his hand, “Look, Sir,” he said meeting my eyes and holding my stare, “and I mean that; despite your young age, it’s a matter of respect for what you have accomplished by taking control and rebuilding your organization. Admiral, I don’t know what has happened here in 25 or the troubles you’ve had to deal with since you sent Captain Middleton out on patrol, at least that which we haven’t been able to observe here personally in this star system.”

  “Thanks,” I interjected flatly. Meaningless, empty words, however pretty, were still just that, words. I continued to ignore his outstretched hand in the hopes that he would just take it away. I was in the mood to promise nothing until I’d seen and heard a whole lot more. I was going to catch enough grief as it was—and not only from my wife—if I went all-in for these people. And with the current state of our Fleet, that was what it was going to have to be: all in with every undamaged unit we had.

  “In the name of the Confederation and Humanity, you must listen to me: the droids are real, the threat to our two Sectors is real,” the Representative said still holding out his hand. “This is not a threat to our way of life or our civil liberties, or some meaningless political divide; this is a threat to all of humanity and life itself. These droids have to be stopped before we are overrun and they have the chance to consolidate their gains, set up automated factories on all the worlds and star systems they have already conquered, and then produce enough droids to replace our populations with mechanicals and sufficient warships to conquer new territories. Help us, please, Admiral. Else our problems become yours as soon as the droids finish defeating our fleets and rebuild their own forces to the point they decide it’s time to come over here.’’

  It seemed awfully rehearsed, but there was the ring of truth to his words that I simply couldn’t dismiss out of hand. “You speak with passion,” I finally said, “enough that I believe you believe there is a major threat. You do understand, though, what will happen if you’re lying…or worse. I have no time for games; there are serious threats here in this Sector that you are asking me to put aside or put on hold indefinitely.”

  “I’m not lying; I have proof. And any deal we make is bound not only by the leaders of every participating world in 23 and 24, but also by me personally,” Representative Kong said firmly, “I know we’ve just met but surely you realize that, as a Sector Judge, I have considerable power all on my own. If you promise to help us then we will help you in any way we can to better facilitate that help.”

  I stared into his eyes for over a minute in silence. Then I reached out and grasped his still extended hand. I’m not some broken piece of the man I used to be, I decided savagely. Wiser perhaps, less naïve certainly, but I refused to turn into a man like my Uncle. So if these people really needed me then I would be there. At least…I would be there if I could do anything to actually make a difference, as this sounded more and more like a very big problem and my Fleet had just been hammered. But if, on the other hand, they took my help and then turned around and went after me like the Rump, then I would unleash on them the heartless dastard my Uncle and the Assembly had almost created when they tried to break me.

  “Comfort and aid to our friends, damnation and destruction on our enemies, Mr. Representative,” I said seriously, “why don’t you show me those facts and figures, Judge, and then we’ll talk about what I can do for you." Through sheer force of will I reached deep down inside and pulled forth the last shreds of the idealistic young man who’d started out on this journey. A man determined to go out there and do some good whatever the cost to himself, “You see…I’m with the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet and we’re here to help.”

  It appeared my wife Akantha had been right when she accused me; I was getting ready to start another war. And I had never felt so relieved in my life. I almost smiled at the ten kinds of Hades I was going to reap over this sensation. Once again I was riding to the rescue…and it almost felt good.

  “Thank the beloved Saint Murphy and all of his Space Gods,” Kong Pao said still shaking my hand as if he were afraid to let it go, “we can sure use the help, Admiral Montagne!”

  Chapter 2: The Devil in the Details

  “The droids consist of three main forces, or Tribes as they call themselves,” Representative Kong said, getting down to business and eagerly inserting a data-chip into the holo-projector. “As you can see on the screen, this is a map of the two Sectors I represent and here,” he flicked a button changing the color of the various star systems in his sectors, “we have all the original inhabited star systems colored in white and now,” he suddenly added more colors to the chart, “we change the stars to represent red for the Tribes, Green for all the worlds we have contact with and leaving those worlds and systems we can’t reach or communicate with but do not believe conquered by the droids in white.”

  “That’s a lot of conquered worlds,” I said, leaning back in my chair with surprise.

  “Just under 40% of the worlds in my sector and 20% of Sector 24,” Kong Pao said heavily, “as you can see the situation is dire. The droids have taken most of the border worlds in both Sectors but the original plague started in 23 and they’ve made inroads into even the Core Worlds—or what passes for such worlds out here in the Spine.”

  I stared at the screen and mulled things over for a bit, “You mentioned there seem to be three forces, not one unified droid front?” I asked.

  Representative Pao hesitated and then gave a nod. “The droids call themselves by different group identifiers—they call them Tribes—and while they can and do work together, they have three different fleets and distinct ship types. They also seem to pursue different goals,” he informed me, “as such our analysts have reluctantly decided to allow that they are not one homogenous group but in fact three separate, although allied, forces.”

  “Give me the breakdown,” I said wondering even as I said it if there was any point in learning the difference between the different droid factions. I mean every human I knew was pretty much agreed on ‘Man not Machine.' Even giving the droids the benefit of as much sentience and individuality as humanity—something I wasn’t willing to do—it seemed logical to me that the droids in turn would most likely follow some kind of Machine not Man doctrine, which might make anything I learned here pretty pointless. Still, no information was completely pointless and allowing him to ramble on about the various droids would give me the chance to recover from the sight of so much of his two Sectors already conquered by the droids.

  “I’m not sure the point of that for our purposes here,” Kong Pao said unhappily, but after that little protest seemed willing to get down to brass tacks, “the largest force consists of one type of droid and calls themselves The Unification through Conformity. The second most powerful group consist of three separate droid chassis that we have been able to identify so far: a Warrior Type, a Technician or Worker droid, and the Overseer Droids. If there are more types we haven’t seen them. This second group calls themselves Harmony through Specialization. And finally there is the smallest of the three droid Tribes. This group seems to consist of vastly different varieties of droids all working together, and they call themselves the Automated Sentient Assembly Tribe.”

  “How much Fleet power are we talking about here, for each of the Tribes,” I interjected, “both as a whole and broken down Tribe by Tribe? I mean what I need to know is how many warships and what kind of firepower we’re talking about here. Both up in space and on the ground.”

  “They have more battleships than we do,” Kong Pao said unhappily, “having been at peace for so long and with the certainty of an Imperial-Confederated Rim Fleet out there patrolling our borders and paid for with local tax credits, most of our politicians decided to put those larger SDF units we did have into moth balls. A series of deep strikes against our core worlds d
amaged or destroyed most of those units beyond repair…” he ground to a halt.

  “We have our fair share of idiots who can’t see past their next election over here as well,” I said impatiently. “And while I understand the enormity of the losses you’re talking about, most of your heavy units were taken out while still in the yard—meaning they knew what to hit and where to find them. What I need to know isn’t yesterday’s spilt milk!” I paused, fighting the urge to pound the desk and instead took a deep breath, “What kind of fleet strength can I expect when we go in and just how big are these enemy fleets you’re talking about?” I asked more evenly.

  Kong Pao sighed, “My own world of Harmony had two battleships active on the Day of Infamy, when our entire Sector was attacked simultaneously and when the Droids struck. Our other battleship was lost but those survived. Luoyang, our closest Core World to the border, had six but those were all in mothballs when the droids came and they only saved four of them from destruction by the heroic defense of their SDF,” the Representative said.

  “Oh?” I asked with interest, sensing a story here.

  “They only had smaller units activated at that time and acting upon orders of the Provincial Government, those units that were currently functional and within range of the Yards. Most of their defense fleet,” he said meeting my eyes, “activated the self-destruct in their fusion cores to take out the stealthed attackers,” Kong Pao bowed his head, “many Luoyang citizens died to save those ships.”

  “They did this voluntarily?” I asked with a disbelief tinged respect.

  “Sector 23 was settled predominantly by members of the Asiatic League,” Kong Pao said as if this explained everything, “our people have always believed in the good of the many over the needs of the few, or the one. So when asked, yes, they did this of their own free will. However they lost most of their trained manpower that day and after a crash refit program, only one of their ships had been put back in service before I left for Tracto with the Captain.”

  “And the rest of the Sector?” I asked leaning forward.

  “Mostly smaller units,” Kong Pao replied heavily, “a couple squadrons of Heavy Cruisers tasked with the Defense of their respective Core Worlds. I have a list of those cruisers, destroyers and corvettes provided to the member worlds of the Mutual Defense League by the provincial governments.”

  I quickly scanned the list; it looked quite impressive to me but then I supposed that spread out over the half dozen core-worlds and thrice that in less developed worlds it was actually far less.

  “What about Sector 24? According to your information,” I indicated the screen, “they are the least affected of the two Sectors in your…I think you called it ‘Mutual Defense League’?”

  “Unification through Conformity—or ‘Conformity’ as we’ve taken to calling it—captured our Sector Central in 23 with a droid assault. Almost a month later, Harmony through Specialization annihilated 24’s Central Sector Government with punitive asteroid strikes after drawing off their defenders and defeating the smaller force left behind. Since then it’s been chaos, with every world for itself; it’s only recently that we’ve been able to form the MDL. Many worlds have been lost.”

  “I feel for your losses,” I said after a moment. I realized these Droids were no joke if they knocked out each Sector’s Core Worlds’ major units and then launched decapitation strikes on both the Sector Capitals in fairly quick succession. “However, as I said, what I need is to stay focused on what we have today—not on past defeats however instructive.”

  “I apologize,” the Representative said after taking a moment to gather himself.

  “Sector 24 has maybe a dozen battleships between their dozen and a half still-free Core Worlds, with about half that many heavy cruiser squadrons. Everything else is an assortments of smaller units,” the Representative said bringing up the lists of fleet strength on each side, “which other than the planetary and system fixed defenses, are all that stand between those worlds and annihilation.”

  “And the Machines?” I hazarded the most important question of them all. It was important to stay focused on the big picture.

  “Conformity only seems to utilize a single ship type: a twelve sided dodecahedron which seems to be scalable in size. They use the twelve-sided ships for everything from freight hauling to ship combat. Each ship is somewhat versatile and thus able to fight. It can attack and defend itself but they only seem to have the one configuration for their ships: the twelve sided. Even their fighters, slow and ineffective as they are, come in the dodecahedron shape…ineffective as the fighters are individually when they come to our systems they do so in significant, some would say overwhelming, numbers. With the Specialization Tribe we’ve seen—or rather, we’ve observed—three different main types of attack ships, each with a different function, ranging from small to large sizes. But generally their larger units are no bigger than Heavy Cruisers. As for the Automated Assembly…” Kong Pao paused as if to gather his thoughts.

  I made a ‘take your time’ gesture and poured him some water to soothe his throat.

  “Thank you,” the Representative from the Mutual Defense League said with a smile before continuing, “they seem to be based out of at least one Settlement ship-sized constructor type ship.”

  “A Constructor?” I asked with surprise. “How does that make any sense; one good hit and it’s annihilated along with their Tribe. Those ships aren’t designed for offense, or even proper defense.”

  “I did say ‘constructor type’,” the Representative clarified, “if it wasn’t a droid creation from the beginning, this one’s been intensely modified to the point its original origin ship is completely unrecognizable.”

  I felt a chill as I tried to imagine a settlement ship-sized warship that could build like a constructor and fight like a super-sized battleship.

  “What kind of combat power are we talking about here?” I had to ask.

  “Unlike our constructors, which have partially extendable wings for scaffolding, this thing seems able to expand to triple its jump capable size,” he said and I felt a chill go down me. That was huge! “Essentially, when it unpacks it’s able to fulfill all the duties of an orbital factory and medium sized shipyard all rolled into one, with a small orbital smelting operation. From what we’ve seen they have a number of jump-capable carriers their mining ships are based out of. Although I suppose they could just build more mining units at need on the main ship, if necessary.”

  “A completely mobile, industrial base,” I said, grappling with the concept. For all that they were lauded as an evil race of AI servants, common holo-culture had shown Droids as either based on their own hidden mechanical worlds or else launching surprise attacks to take hold of human built ships and technology. The idea of a supersized droid constructor ship able to pick up shop any time it was threatened by the simple expediency of fleeing to hyperspace was…disturbing. Even a nominally ‘dead system’ of no use to humanity would serve them just fine, and it explained a lot about how these Tribes had survived humanities persecution all these years. Finding such a ship would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack…unless you could make them come to you.

  “For a species of machines reviled and hunted throughout known space, it explains a lot about how they survived for so long,” Kong Pao said, apparently following my train of thought, “fortunately for us it only appears to have the armament of medium or heavy cruiser. This is according to our best scouting reports, and while it has shield generators this droid mother-ship’s very nature as an extendable ship that unpacks into a mobile industrial node means that its armor is almost nonexistent.”

  An image appeared on the screen of the ship at its extended and un-extended forms. “This is what it looks like in both of its observed configurations,” the Representative explained. “If it has other forms we don’t know it. What we can say for sure is that this thing is highly modular and modifiable by the droids.”

  “Right,” I said after
a moment of reflection, “their main ship has cruiser level fighting power, but what about the rest of their fleet?”

  The Representative shrugged, “So far they seem to be the weakest of the three groups and the most elusive. We haven’t seen anything bigger than a large destroyer or small cruiser. We know they have a few squadrons and have taken control of a few star systems but our main focus has been on the other two more aggressive droid fleets.”

  “So what you’re saying…is that you have absolutely no idea of the enemy’s true strength,” I said shortly.

  “Far from it,” Kong Pao said rising from his chair with growing alarm, “I’ve just presented you with a report on every ship type we’ve ever seen the enemy produce! As well as estimated force level projections.”

  I snorted and leaned back in my chair, physically distancing myself from Kong Pao and his report.

  “We are heavily outnumbered!” the Ambassador exclaimed before catching himself and furrowing his brows at me. “Please…I beg you; we need your help.”