by Will Crudge
“Let’s not forget the morale that is being threatened by the loss of the Foehammer. It may be a bitter pill to swallow for our Crimson team members here, but it means a lot to the other allies. The news of the loss has not been released to any entity beyond the combined fleet command staff, and those that were witness to the battle itself. A strict communications black-out has been imposed, but sooner or later, word will get out. We need to locate the Foehammer and the Skull-Crusher before we experience any leakage.
“To add to the many risks, a new generation of Chimera has been discovered. Thus far, we don’t suspect that they’ll enjoy the same level of success that their predecessors did, but these versions are different… Very different.”
Holy shit! I did have the stuff to say. It’s like I blacked out and spat it all out! Let’s roll with it before I lose my momentum!
“Captain Frick?” I ask.
“Yes, War Master?” He answers up dryly.
“Were you aware of the Crimson Alliances’ involvement with the Chimera entities?”
Frick huffs, as well as a few of his NCO’s. “Yes. I am fully aware. In a rare instance of transparency by the Crimson government, they admitted involvement publicly. No one in this room is more disgusted than I.”
Wow. Maybe I misjudged these Crimson fuck-heads too quickly. I guess all I’ve ever encountered were the zealot types. Perhaps the rank and file of their regular military are less trusting of their overlords than I ever suspected.
“Well then, you know that it was Crimson engineers that helped the Mwargoths create a generation of Chimera that was purpose-built to infect human AI tech. Supposedly, the Chimera were normally just the squid equivalent of our AI, but these were designed for a more subversive task.” I explain.
“Yes. Not so much in that amount of detail, but that is my understanding, as well.” Frick responded.
“Well, these new Chimeras are completely Mwargoth in origin. The first gen had flaws. Thankfully, the Crimson engineers made them that way on purpose. But the new models are an unknown quantity, and we have to suspect that they’ll be lurking in the darkness.” I say.
A hand goes up. It’s a Royal commando this time. I can’t tell what rank he is, but I can tell by the man’s leathery face that he’s a salty old NCO. I gesture for him to speak.
“It’s all well and good to discuss alien tarts floating around in our networks, Madam War Master, but what’s that got to do with a bunch of knuckle-dragging commandos, eh?” He asks. His words triggered murmurs of agreeance from both sides of the aisle.
“Everything,” I say confidently. This I can answer! “We’ve got one of these new critters onboard in the AI containment field.” I pause to let the news sink in.
I see an ocean of confused faces. I was expecting this. “Madam War Master, isn’t that a tad-bit dangerous?” Percival asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s quite the opposite, in fact. Midas has made a few mods to this one.”
“I beg your pardon, War Master. If it’s safe then why the need for containment?” Turnbuckle chimes in.
“It’s in containment because as far as it knows, it’s never been captured. It’s less about safety, and more to do with making it believe a certain way. If we’re exposed to any Mwargoth threat, then it’s our own ‘cyber weapon.’ This generation has been created without any human involvement, and in so, it possesses fewer safety protocols. Midas theorizes that the enemy doesn’t believe precautions were needed, and they preferred to free up processing resources to maximize efficiency. The added processing power is likely a means by which the new models can ‘out-wit’ our AI’s.” I explain.
“The first gen seemed to have done that quite well, as it stands. It strikes me as odd that they would throw caution to the wind, in that respect.” Frick added.
“Lillian, would you like to speak to this?” I ask.
“Certainly, War Master.” She pipes up. Her voice is adorable. “For those of you that don’t know, I am the former Command Chief Warrant Officer of the UAHC Fleet Forces….” I glance to see a few shocked faces. I bet they had no idea. Especially the Crimson folks… Crimson military spec AI’s exist, but are only used at senior levels, and aren’t granted military rank.
“While I was stationed at Fleet HQ back on Earth, I was corrupted by a Chimera. Not to toot my own horn, but I happen to be one of the more powerful AI’s in the inner stars. But in a stroke of irony, my specs ended up making things much worse for me. Most AI’s don’t know that they’re being manipulated by a Chimera. But the more powerful ones figure it out eventually. I should know!” Lillian explained.
“Please, chief… Tell us how that works, exactly.” Frick asked. I’m not surprised. Most Crimson folks don’t have much exposure to AI’s. Even fewer know how they tick.
“Certainly, captain. Basically, a Chimera is a form of AI that acts much like a purpose-built digital parasite. With help from the Crimson engineers, they were coded specifically to target human AI tech and subvert them. In most cases, the AI is relegated to an unwitting puppet. In my case, I was a puppet who could see the hand that was controlling me. Since I knew what was going on, I spent years trying to fight it off, but it did more harm than good. The bug was so deeply entrenched in my core processes, that it damaged me every time I tried to resist. It wasn’t until the Paladin Protocol was applied that I was freed. It’s been a long hard road to recovery, but I’m back to give them a taste of their own medicine!” Lillian explained.
“And how does this captive Chimera work?” Major David asked.
“Simple.” She answered. “Unlike human AI’s, any Chimera can be broadcasted through a signal. That’s the one piece of tech we haven’t been able to reverse engineer, as of yet… But if we are attacked by an enemy ship, we can broadcast a ghosted image of our little guest, and he’ll essentially work in reverse. Without knowing it, he will corrupt and subvert other Chimera, and then start triggering catastrophic failures with a Mwargoth vessel.”
“Wow!” David exclaimed. Everything went silent. I let people finish up their sidebar chatter for a few moments longer.
“Alright, listen up!” I sound off. I wait until I see everyone’s eyes locked on mine, and then I continue. “Captain Ives is our Strike Team lead.” The short-haired captain with her Unum dress uniform raised her hand to be noticed.
“She’s got OPCON for any ground ops, or ship boarding activities. Captains Frick and Percival will have tactical control of their own teams, but War Master Elizabeth will assume TACON of both while on the ground.”
I stop to wait for questions. There are none.
“Major David is the CO of this vessel, and he’ll personally be heading up the flight crew. Captain Kelley will run all scan and coms. Sergeant Jefe will be weapons control. Chief Lillian will run all major shipboard systems, and also act as the helm.” I pause to make sure I didn’t leave anyone out.
I look around and see Turnbuckle. “Turnbuckle is our fighter pilot, and he’s got a small ground team in the hangar bay, as well.”
I notice a few curious glances going towards Jack, AKA Peterson. “Jack, here… He’s made a carrier out of hunting down War Masters, Zodiacs, and the occasional UAHC Soldier on inactive status.”
I instantly regret pointing that last part out. But to my shock, David, Kelley, and Jefe seem to be taking it quite well. The Crimson troops seem more disgusted, however. I’ll have to find out why, when I get a chance.
“Lillian, what’s our ETA to our first search grid?” I ask.
“We’ll be at our jump point in four hours and twenty-three minutes. Then we’re looking at ninety-seven hours in slip-space.” Lillian reported.
“Alright, then. Your team leads will be notified when we nail down a time for our next meeting. Barring that, you have four days to get settled, and establish a routine. Our automated food prep unit is top notch, as I understand it, but the galley is fully equipped for old-school cooking.
“As a ‘team-building�
� exercise, I am personally going to assign individuals to team up with someone you’ve never worked with before, and prepare all of our meals until further notice. Rank will be irrelevant. In fact, the junior ranking of any assigned group will be the team lead.
“We have our first meal in about three and a half hours, so the first team had better get moving! There’s no menu, by the way. We have tons of fresh veggies, fruits, herbs, meat, fish, and just about anything you could ever need. It’s all in stasis.”
I can see nervous glances and chatter. Men and women were shifting nervously in their seats. Good.
THE BEACON
The days have stretched to a few weeks now, and we’re well on our way to our second search pattern. We’re getting nowhere fast, and the crew knows it. None of them say anything, but they know it all the same.
At least they’ve all found common ground, and we’re beginning to gel as a crew. The Royal Commandos have even been conducting training exercises with their Crimson counterparts, and they’ve learned a lot from each other. The GBE folks are well equipped with the latest tech, so their skill sets are geared to use that tech efficiently. But they have to gloss over some of their baser soldiering fundamentals as a trade-off. The Crimson Commandos don’t have that problem. Their tech is less advanced, and they have only basic medical nano-tech. They counterbalance each other well and have even begun to discuss blending their forces into specialized fire teams.
But the elation does not extend to the original Wrecking Crew members. They’ve been working themselves to the bone. Major David keeps posting and refining duty rotation schedules, but then hardly ever adheres to them. Neither does Kelley. They pull sixteen to twenty-hour shifts, and they only break for food, showers, and a few hours of sleep.
They seemed obsessed with finding Kara and the rest of their crew. It’s as if they believe we’ll miss something if they’re not personally there to see it. But they wouldn’t. In reality, the only time they need to man the CIC is when we make any changes to the flight plan, or if manual diagnostics are needed to be done. I wish they’d come and train with the troops like the rest of us do.
Jefe isn’t much different. He stays occupied by checking, re-checking, and then double checking his re-checks in the missile batteries, and armory. Even the Crimson troops have been bringing their weapons to him. He’s got them all fully calibrated and has completed every known field mod he can find for them.
Elizabeth and I train together. Sometimes in the nude… while pulling hair… but we stay occupied. I’ve taken the opportunity to work on meditation, as well. Jefe even forged a sword for Marbles in the fabrication room, and he can spar with someone else for a change. I’ll be damned if he hasn’t improved also! I think experiencing a new opponent has given him new data to refine his swordsmanship algorithms.
Whenever Marbles isn’t training with us, he spends his time in the hangar. He has made friends with Turnbuckle, and his ground crew. The LRF NAV’s have bonded with them as well, and they’ve all been working together to upgrade the Mark-8 fighter, Titans Bane.
Even the space donkey has a small arsenal of weapons and some light armor. Lillian is writing an NSAI based NAV system for it. Slasher and Raptor have been using nano-tech to toughen up the hull at a molecular level while boosting thruster efficiency.
I’m shocked that they’ve left the two small general purpose shuttle craft alone. They just perform routine maintenance checks and then leave them be. With any luck, we won’t even need to use them.
All is going well. Which means it’s about to go to shit… Just sayin’.
“Kat, we have a shady distress beacon pinging,” Lillian tells me over the overhead PA speaker.
“Shady, huh?” I ask rhetorically.
“It’s masterfully done, mind you. But I see right through it.”
“On my way to the CIC,” I say, as I roll my eyes.
There are different ways this can pan out. Legally we can’t ignore a distress call, and revealing our presence may undermine our mission. If it is a ruse, then the signal origins may be further out than the actual danger is.
It’s a common pirate tactic to ping a distress beacon at a central point in space, and then have interceptor ships lurking in a wide sphere around it. They’d likely lower their reactors to minimal levels, and keep their thrusters in a standby mode. This would help conceal them from long-range EM scan while any ‘would-be’ rescuing vessels would devote most of their scanning resources towards the signal source. By the time a pirate interceptor was within weapons range of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ it would be too late for them to put up a fight.
This smells like a trap, but I have to know more. I can’t allow assumptions to drive my decision-making process. I’ll need to make a sound decision based off of analyzed data. Marbles and I spent three decades marooned on a distance rock hoping to be rescued, so if there’s any shred of credibility in this signal, then I can’t ignore it.
I arrive in the CIC a minute later, and the usual suspects were all present. Major David was manning the command console, and Captain Kelley was at her sensor suite workstation. Turnbuckle and Marbles were huddled over at the base of the forward holographic pedestal.
“What are we looking at peeps?” I ask as I stroll in casually. Everyone turns to look at me, but only David doesn’t turn back around immediately.
“Lilly is still assessing it, but it could go either way.” David shrugged. His shoulder movements looked exaggerated due to his bulky UAHC powered armor.
“Anything else on the scan?” I ask. David shakes his head, and turns back to his display. He points to the red pulsing icon that depicts the signal source.
“Time dilation is not on our side.” He explains. He pulls up a grey sphere overlay and uses a hand gesture to move it from his screen to the main display. “This sphere is the approximate distance that any baddies could be hiding in relation to the signal. The signal has been repeating for an unknown period of time, so it will be several hours before we can scan for additional signatures.”
“But even with time dilation, wouldn’t we see any activity already? You know, ships getting into position or even faint ion signatures?” I ask. I’m trying not to ask stupid questions, so I’m praying this one sounds reasonable.
“I see where your head is at, Kat!” Lillian chimed in. “Hahaha! That rhymed!” She said cheerfully. I wish I could relate to her enthusiasm.
“To answer your question,” Turnbuckle says, as he turns to walk towards me. “There’s no telling how long any ships have been waiting out there. This type of ambush could take several weeks, or even months before it draws in a single victim. Considering how the human military powers have bolstered their patrols and mobilized huge forces in the last few months, I wouldn’t be surprised if pirates were driven even further out into space than this.”
“You mean, into this desolate area?” I ask. One of the many reasons why we chose this region of space, is because it meets the profile of where the Foehammer could have potentially ended up. It’s too far out of relay range for coms, and it’s so infrequently traveled, that even the UAHC Fleet ships may not have any useful charts to navigate it. As it is, we’ve done as much mapping, as we’ve been searching.
“Exactly.” He says. “Many of the pirate organizations have signed up to have ‘privateer’ status, and have formed their own ‘militia fleets’ to support the war effort. But many more have simply been driven further out of the major shipping lanes that humans frequent.”
“You mean the pirates with the letter of Marque have been driving away their competition?” I ask.
“Bongo!” Kelley chimes in. “The ‘legit pirates now have the strength in numbers, and can maneuver through human controlled space without scrutiny, so they’ve bullied away from their former rivals with their ease of maneuver. If I was a guessing woman, I’d say that these privateer fleets will become difficult to handle if we manage to survive this war. They’d have had the chance to get organized, and seize greater areas of territory to hunt down their prey.”
I shake my head. It all makes sense. But that is speculation, and not relevant to our task at hand. “Alright, then. Do any of you have any suggestions?” I ask. It’s my way of admitting I have no clue what to do, but still spin it as a constructive method of effective communication.
