“And how does that effect our drone pilots?” Delany asked.
“They’ll never be at risk, not directly. In combat, they’ll know if their ship’s destroyed another will be assigned.”
Delaney had her eyes on the floor as she said absently, “Interesting…”
Captain Donovan said, “Vice president, I—”
She held up a finger. After a moment, she asked, “What value does lack of fear play? I would imagine fear inhibits performance, and a lack of it could be a benefit.”
Jeffrey nodded, saying, “In certain situations, that’s true, but these aren’t office workers. The average person will be shut down by fear, but the average person wouldn’t be able to face the Sthenos. To take down something that vicious, one needs obsessively competitive people so driven to be the best they would rather die than capitulate. Only those obsessives will be able to stand a chance. Again, we cannot truly know who they are until we put them fully in harm’s way. Also, there is another issue…”
Donovan rolled his eyes as the vice president asked, “Which would be?”
“Their physical separation from the machine creates… problems.”
“We have a system,” Donovan said, “that lets them feel as though they are in the craft—”
“It isn’t enough. It goes beyond visual clues, beyond gauges. It’s…” Jeffrey thought for a moment before saying, “…harmonics. To fly right, a pilot has to be able to connect with the machine. A good pilot can feel if a nuclear drive has an imbalanced injector or a slightly misaligned drive plate.”
Donovan said, “That’s all well and good, but the systems we have in place are proven to work.”
Jeffrey didn’t enjoy poking holes in Donovan’s work but knew that holding back to protect feelings could get hundreds, if not thousands, killed. “There’s another problem.”
Donovan let out an exasperated breath. “Which is?”
“Distance. At times, those ships will be several thousand miles away from their pilots. The milliseconds it takes for visuals to get back and commands to get to the drones is too much.”
“I can’t believe milliseconds would make that big of an impact.”
“I’m going to make a believer of you on this one,” Jeffrey said and motioned for one of the Marines standing behind the vice president to come forward.
Delaney scowled but motioned for the Marine to do as Jeffrey asked.
Jeffrey indicated the Marine should face him. “Fifty years ago the Hammerheads were subjected to modifications with two key ends: increased G-force tolerance and reaction time. The purpose of the G-force mods is clear, but the reaction time is even more critical. The difference between winning and losing a dogfight can happen in milliseconds.”
Jeffrey patted the Marine, who stood a few inches shorter, at perhaps six-foot-three, on the shoulder.
Jeffrey asked, “Your background is in hand-to-hand combat?”
“Yes sir, among other things. I specialized in VIP protection after basic training.”
“So you’d say you’re at a pretty high level when it comes to striking.”
His tone stoic, the Marine said, “Yes, sir.”
Jeffrey held out his hand. “Hit my hand. Just tap it.”
“Yes, sir.” Stepping back into a casual boxing stance, the Marine flicked his lead fist out in a blur, touching Jeffrey’s hand with a light slap.
“Again.”
The Marine’s fist fired. Tap.
Another position. “Again.”
Tap.
“He’s very fast, don’t you think?” Jeffrey asked Delaney, who nodded her agreement, her expression somewhat bored.
“Human nerves carry impulses about 30 to 100 meters per second. This means, in the short distance from eyes to brain and then to muscles, targeting a punch only takes a fraction of a second, but as people train at skills, the pathways they use for those skills become more efficient. As we use pathways in the brain, myelin wraps those pathways, increasing efficiency as much as one hundred times. There’s a big difference between one hundred meters per second and 10,000 meters per second. But that applies to the brain. The rest of the nerve structure stays fairly slow even as we train. The increase in speed is developed in the brain. One of the key modifications beyond vascular strengthening to the Hammerheads is corporeal nerve enhancement. Nanites lace graphene into the nerve structure. The inefficient nerve no longer carries the signal, the graphene does. Graphene is an excellent conductor, so electrical impulses move along it at close to the speed of light. The impulse is slightly slowed over synapses and so on.” Jeffrey touched his arm. “My nerve fibers translate messages not at the highest human capacity of 100 meters per second, but at nearly 300 million meters per second.” That means, while I am much older, I can see his strikes and process and deliver a reaction far faster. By the time his hand is one-quarter of the way to my face, I have processed the strike and am adjusting.”
He looked to the Marine again and said, “Hit me.”
The Marine stared at him.
“Hit me,” Jeffrey said, motioning with his hand for the Marine to come at him.
Delaney, her expression unimpressed as if Jeffrey were only trying to prove he was still strong in old age, asked, “Captain Holt, is this truly necessary?”
“Give me this moment. I guarantee no one is going to get hurt.”
“I can’t give that same guarantee, sir,” the Marine said. “I won’t hit you.”
Jeffrey smiled at the Marine and said, “That’s true. Now throw a punch, or I’ll have you down for insubordination.”
“Captain Holt,” Delaney said, anger tinting in her words, “we do not need to see this.”
“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “you do. The point I’m about to make will illustrate why the drones won’t work. He looked to the Marine, “Now hit me Marine.”
The Marine squared on him and shot out a slow jab at Jeffrey’s chest.
Jeffrey slapped the jab aside. “You call that a punch? How’d you make it into VIP protection?”
The Marine’s face reddened.
Jeffrey smiled. “Make it real.”
The Marine fired his fist harder, and Jeffrey slipped the punch past his right ear. He pushed the soldier backwards. “Come on kid, go for it. What’s the problem, don’t have the stomach for it?”
The Marine’s eyes narrowed.
That’s right, get mad. Let’s do this right.
The Marine threw a fast jab at Jeffrey’s face.
As Jeffrey slapped it aside with his right hand, he touched the side of the Marine’s face with his left.
The Marine, tightening his fists until the knuckles whitened, threw a hook at Jeffrey’s left ear. Jeffrey ducked under it and slapped the Marine’s belly. The Marine threw another hook, which Jeffrey caught with his forearm. The Marine’s teeth showed through his slightly parted lips as he chucked an uppercut, which Jeffery leaned away from, the fist brushing his nose.
The Marine now threw a frenzy of punches, jabbing, crossing, hooking. He growled as he put his weight behind the strikes. Jeffrey reacted to none of the Marine’s feints while slipping or checking every real strike. After a few moments, the Marine, appearing to understand he would land nothing, stepped back as a runnel of sweat ran from his hairline.
Jeffrey held up a hand, saying, “That’s more than enough for now. How old are you?”
Through breaths, the Marine said, “Twenty-four, sir.”
“A highly trained and athletic twenty-four-year-old soldier can’t hit a seventy-year-old man.” He smiled at the Marine. “Don’t worry, it’s no fault of yours, you’ve got the skill and the speed. He,” Jeffrey pointed to the Marine, as he addressed Delaney, “is an apex fighter, top of the food chain. But one of the best the U.S. Military has to offer can’t touch me. The difference in performance will be the same between your drone pilots and the new wave of Hammerheads.”
Donovan opened his mouth to speak, but Jeffrey held up his hand as he said, “When
a drone is 1,000 miles away, the data must travel from the fighter’s sensory gear, to the receivers on the ship, through the system, and to the pilot. The pilot must react, inputting changes, before those changes are broadcast, travelling the 1,000 miles back to the fighter. Because of the inherent delay, your drones will find no success in a Sthenos engagement.”
Donovan said, “Those impulses travel at the speed of light, which is faster than from a person’s fingertip to their brain and back based on the numbers you just gave us.”
“Yes, but a delay is a delay. Any delay at all can cause huge problems. I’ve seen nerve-shined Hammerheads blown out of their cockpits because they had a slight head cold. In my experience, it isn’t the big things that kill good pilots. Big things are easy to avoid. It’s the stupid little things that take them down—a head cold or a secondary circuit going out.”
Donovan, clearly furious with Jeffrey, had probably spent years developing and championing the drone program. Jeffrey didn’t enjoy pouring water on his fire, but it was the wrong system and would fail.
Delaney said, “I’d like to hear your recommendation Captain Holt, but first I want Captain Donovan’s.” She looked to Donovan. “How might Captain Holt’s alter your recommendation?”
Donovan squared his shoulders. “I do not believe Captain Holt’s thoughts…” he looked over Jeffrey as though he were gum on his shoe, “…reflect our current state of technology, and so have no impact on my recommendation. We should attack without hesitation. With an international host of destroyers we have the Sthenos outnumbered twenty to one. We have thousands of drones ready. We should be decisive,” he glared at Jeffrey, “not pensive.”
Delaney, nodded and turned to Schodt, “Your thoughts?”
Schodt crossed his arms. “The Exteris Ignotum are clearly on a resource gathering expedition. We should wait and study them as much as possible. If they do not aggress the Earth, we let them take what they want.”
Captain Donovan, jabbed his index finger toward Schodt as if he’d like to punch it through the man’s sternum, “Of course it’s about resources, all wars are about resources, whether they be land, fuel, water, or citizens.”
In a dismissive tone, Schodt said, “They are taking resources we have no interest in.”
“What if they’re here for more than water?” Donovan asked. “What if they need gold, or sodium?”
“Nitrogen,” Jeffrey said.
Donovan looked at him as if shocked that any support would come from him. “Yes,” he held out his hand to Jeffrey, “nitrogen. Thank you. The most readily available supply of pure, gaseous nitrogen is Earth’s atmosphere. If they need resources which are not as abundant or not found elsewhere in the solar system, then Earth is next.”
“We should cross that bridge,” Schodt said, “when we come to it.”
Jeffrey said, “You might find that bridge destroyed when you run to defend it.”
Schodt, his jaw set, glared at Jeffrey.
“All right gentlemen… all right,” Delaney said holding up her hands. “I asked for his recommendation, and I have it. Captain Holt, your recommendation please.”
“I think we can throw something new at them. While AI has its faults and we’ve discussed the limitations of remote drone pilots, the Hammerhead solution presents a key problem.”
Donovan’s expression became distrustful. “Which is?”
“We don’t have enough time to prepare a significant number of pilots.”
Donovan crossed his arms and watched Jeffrey, seeming to wait for another slight against his proposed solution.
Jeffrey looked to Delaney. “We should be smarter with our resources by using them all. We can’t come at them with the same tactics we used fifty years ago. We simply aren’t prepared to play that game. If we try, they’ll grease us, then roll over to Earth and destroy it.”
In a doubtful tone, Delaney asked, “You really think that’s their plan?”
“They still need what they came for fifty years ago.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because in the last engagement we killed all of them. Whatever they need must be of great value. Ice isn’t rare enough to hold that kind of value. It simply wouldn’t be worth the risk.”
“And if,” Delaney asked, “they haven’t come for war? What if we follow your lead and attack? Who’s at fault then?”
Jeffrey’d had enough, and the volume of his voice showed it. “They’ve already killed eighty-seven people.” One of which was a daughter to me.
“I don’t—”
He got into her face, and the two marines stepped close. “You listen to me Madam Vice President. The Sthenos have mastered inter-solar travel. We haven’t. They’ve mastered weapons systems that cut the hides out of moons. We have to be ready for what we can’t expect. The AI drones can’t do that, and we need greater buy in from the skilled pilots we do have.”
To her credit, she did not react to his anger. Her voice calm and eyes flat, she asked, “So what would you have us do?”
“We prep as many Hammerheads as we can and send them out with the drones. The Hammerheads will serve as the risk to the pilots running the drones here on the ship. Having their own asses on the line isn’t possible, but we need their expertise and the hardware they can bring to the fight. So we sit them down, and we show them a small group of pilots. We tell them, if you screw up, these men and women die, so don’t screw up.”
“And you think that will work?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s a better option than drones alone.”
“So you’re proposing a three-wave system.”
“Not three… two. The Hammerheads and remote live pilots.”
“No AI?”
“AI would be a waste of hardware.” Jeffrey glanced at Donovan, who was staring at him as though he’d like to cut his skin off.
“My gut tells me,” Jeffrey said, “we shouldn’t engage until we can get a decent contingent of Hammerheads ready to fight. We have high-end pilots, but we need time with them.”
“Are the Hammerheads a serious option?” Captain Donovan asked. “You said the scientists who developed the Hammerhead modifications are all dead.”
“My team tells me,” Admiral Cantwell said, “they are a few days away from beginning human application.”
Delaney looked at the floor, appearing to fall into thought for some time. The men around her stood in silence watching her. Finally, she said, eyes still on the floor. “We’ll discuss this all with the president in,” she looked to the ship’s clock, “thirty-six minutes. Until then, I have other business to attend to.” She walked out of the room followed by the two Marines and Gerard Schodt.
Chapter Twelve
When Jeffrey entered the room, the others were already seated in chairs arranged in a half circle. Gerard Schodt did not look up from his tablet. Captain Donovan gave him a scowling glance as though he were a server offering an unacceptable distraction. Admiral Cantwell pointed to the last empty seat. As Jeffrey sat, Vice President Delaney gave him a brief, somewhat heartless smile.
Centered at the head of the room, lay a four-foot black disk.
“Gentlemen,” Delaney said, “Shall we?”
Schodt nodded, and Donovan said, “Absolutely.”
Jeffrey said nothing, feeling his consent wasn’t needed.
Cantwell pointed to Delaney, giving her control of the room. She looked back to her bodyguards. The one Jeffrey had used for his demonstration touched a control panel. The space above the black disk went bright, and United States President John Moore formed out of the brightness and clarified, sitting with his arms folded on a half moon of desk, sharply cut off where the viewing disk ended. His right leg, extended outward, ended just below the knee. The image was of such high quality, Jeffrey almost expected gore to be exposed by the amputated limb, but it simply ended at the upper calf in a dark-gray cross-section.
President Moore’s eyes scanned the room, settling on Jeffrey.
“Captain Holt, I presume.”
Jeffery understood that each of them must be sitting on black pedestals before the president. He did his best to keep his feelings out of his voice as he said, “Yes, sir.” He hadn’t liked the man when he ran for office, and he didn’t like him now. While he’d never seen Moore lose his temper or act out, something about his demeanor struck Jeffrey as the type who bullied to get what he needed.
Moore said, “Admiral Cantwell lauds you highly. It’s a pleasure, sir.”
“You as well, sir.” Jeffrey hated to lie to be polite, but there it was.
Moore looked at the other faces in the room. “The rest of you I know. How shall we begin?” His right leg reformed as he drew it back under the desk.
“I have,” Delaney said, “recommendations from Admiral Cantwell, Captain Donovan, Gerard Schodt, and Captain Holt. Would you like to hear directly—”
“Summarize for me.”
“Absolutely, sir.” Delaney gave no indication if being cut off bothered her. Jeffrey suspected it didn’t as long as what needed to get done was done.
With his elbows still on the desk, Moore folded his hands together. Index fingers making a steeple, he touched their tips to the end of his nose. He closed his eyes as he listened to her detail the recommendations of each man. She ended on Holt’s.
When she’d finished, Moore remained with his eyes closed. Jeffrey expected him to ask for her thoughts, but when he didn’t, Jeffrey understood that he didn’t respect her. He wondered if that came from a bigotry on Moore’s part or a fault on hers.
Moore said, “I appreciate each of your positions on the issue, but we do not have the luxury of time. This threat cannot be allowed to reach Earth.” He looked to Schodt. “I reject that they are peaceful. They have destroyed an international base, killing all but two inhabitants. The destruction of the survival pod is telling. They kill the innocent…” he looked to Holt, “so we kill them.”
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