by Chris Hechtl
“Typical,” Sprite replied pityingly. Sprite turned her eyes on Phoenix.
“What do you need?” the ship AI asked, spreading his virtual hands apart.
“So, I take it you are on board with this?” Defender asked, turning on Phoenix with his trademark red eyed glower.
“Yes. And go ahead and log it if you want.”
“I will.”
“Fine. If he still says, no, we'll have to deal with what comes when it comes. Hopefully he is right and this isn't a colossal waste of time. But he needs to understand while we are flying around from system to system, the enemy is only getting stronger.”
“I understand, and on some levels agree and admire his plan to rebuild the legend and plant seeds of civilization,” Sprite said slowly. She paused for a microsecond, a long time for the AI. “I think you are right. And you were right about illustrating it Phoenix. I'll need to borrow your graphics processors for my presentation,” she said.
“Very well. When?”
“That, we'll have to wait and see. Find the right moment,” Sprite replied.
Chapter 3
The Admiral piloted Phoenix for six days in Delta band of hyperspace, then dropped to Alpha band for Phoenix to take over so he could rest. Each day in Delta had cut their transit time by four days. In the A band of Alpha, which was the best any of the AI could handle, they traveled at a compression ratio of one week for every seven tenths of a parsec. In the mid octaves of Delta they traveled the same distance in one point three days. But traveling up and down the bands to Delta came with an energy penalty. They had used up a great deal of energy, eating into their planned reserves. Traveling in Alpha slowed their progress to a crawl. It was grating, but he needed the rest. His fatigue was starting to become a factor. He couldn't afford to lose his life due to that.
He wished he had the cetacean and Ssillian ability to shut down parts of his brain into sleep at need while still remaining functional. He smiled. But then things would have been a whole lot different for him if he had been born as one of those races.
Sprite insisted he take several days off before he attempted the experience. Irons had to admit; he did need the break. Doing one task for hours on end could be mind numbing, doing it for days even more so. He tried to watch some ancient movies, but he had already watched most of them.
Sprite got him into some virtual games. The VR experience helped to alleviate some of the stir-crazy feelings, while also expanding his mindset and making him feel less trapped in the confines of the small ship. Sprite introduced him to games on a curve, starting with simple games until he got testy about the child's play.
The second day she threw him a curve, she decided to game out a star system's defense based on what Intel they had. He watched the vitalization of Pyrax form. Ship and possible fortification stats cascaded like waterfalls, for an Admiral it was depressingly few and rather light.
He'd flat out refused to explore Antigua. There really was no point; there were no defenses. He frowned, looking at her projections. “The problem is, we don't know which way Horatio will go.”
“But we do know what he is limited with.”
“True.”
“And we know what he has in the pipeline. So...” Sprite started with what they had before Destiny left and then accelerated the time stamp. He watched build times in the yard drop fast. He winced. Yeah, that wasn't good he thought; everything had come to a standstill. That was consistent with what they had expected would happen, and what they had picked up when they had traveled through Gaston and Epsilon.
Not that there had been a lot of intel to be had, Horatio and his intel team had kept any hard intel on the Yard down to vague generalizations, which was good. He nodded, watching the space station Anvil pass by, with the Yard and San Diego following them. “Here is where things get interesting,” Sprite said. She projected the return of Destiny.
Irons watched the plot and then nodded as the ship docked with the yard and things began to move. Not at the prior pace, but at least there was life once more.
“My assessment of Commander Logan is that he will go for a redundant platform approach. But he will be conservative with his logistics since he doesn't know when you will send more, or even if.”
“So, what, one or two frigates?” The Admiral asked, frowning. “Or three or four sublight vessels?” He'd sent along enough material for that as well as some work on Prometheus. Not a lot, he'd been limited to a few thousand tons of material, but enough to make something of an impact. He'd also thrown in, as many critical components that he knew the engineers in Pyrax couldn't replicate, hyper drive, reactor, and weapon components mainly.
“We'll say he went with full hyperdrive vessels. And to play it fair, we'll go with the most optimistic and run two frigates.”
“That's... not normal Sprite. You don't go with the most optimistic assumptions.”
“Normally no, but I want this to be a more... light experience.”
The Admiral cocked his head and then shrugged. She was going somewhere with all this, he could feel it. It was less of a game and more of a presentation that much he was aware of.
The light code-representing Destiny finished unloading and then left. Its projected course was to Seti Alpha 4. That made sense; the ship hadn't passed through Gaston since they would have gotten word of it from the natives if it had stopped there.
“Kiev 221 took the same path south from Antigua as we did, but at a lower band. I am projecting their arrival in Gaston within a week of our leaving Epsilon,” Sprite said. He watched as she pulled up a second window, this one a star chart. The icons were there, but he knew them so didn't really need to read them. But one blinked, indicating the mammoth bulk freighter. They had overhauled the ship twice, once, by him and the crew before arriving at Antigua, and then a second time by Antigua Prime as payment for the crew's services in restoring the station.
“The stop time at each system can only be estimated based on what past behavior I have on file. I am projecting that Kiev will arrive, or will shortly arrive in Pyrax this week. Unless of course the Captain changed his intended course and went a different route.”
“Yeah,” Irons sighed. There was a great deal of unknown variables there. The Captain could have gone south from Gaston, to Epsilon and then further south to Nightingale and the southwestern loop of the sector. From there anything was possible, they could have spiraled off into the dead end chains, or headed out of the sector to Tauren space... or he could have headed east across Aiera 3, New Haven, and then Halced 6 before turning North to Seti Alpha 4 and finally Pyrax. Anything was possible.
Such a journey though would add years to Kiev 221's time, years with cargo bays stuffed with cargo that was destined to Pyrax. He had spent months with the crew, he knew they were honest enough to get the cargo where it was intended to go and not just sell it. But still, that lingering doubt was there. Not that it would do them or anyone else any good; if anyone but naval personnel accessed the cargo it would all self-destruct.
“Let's hope they stayed on the straight and narrow and went to Pyrax,” Irons said.
“You certainly gave them enough incentive, promising the Captain another overhaul by the Yard there,” Sprite said. Irons nodded. In order to ensure cargo reached Pyrax he and Sprite had come up with that idea, to give the ship a promised overhaul in Pyrax. It served multiple purposes.
One of the biggest carrots was right there for the ship's crew to see, their ships were old. A crew would gladly jump at the chance of a Yard overhaul, their ships were centuries old and in desperate need of repair. Well, most of them were. Kiev 221, Lieandra, and their ilk were a different story.
“Ah, I see you are thinking of Lieandra. Let's say Kiev 221 got to Pyrax and switch to them.”
Irons watched Kiev's arrival with one eye while his other watched the star chart. A Veraxin captained Lieandra. She had helped in restoring Antigua Prime, along with transporting people and material to the station from the planet. Li
eandra had also received an overhaul, along with material Sprite had picked up in auction... along with equipment the Admiral had managed to manufacture on the station, roughly four thousand tons of military hardware.
“We were a bit cautious about Lieandra given her intended course, so we were light on their load and only gave them material that weren't critical. Just in case the ship was ever caught out by pirates.”
The Admiral nodded grimly. Lieandra had taken the dead chain east from Antigua to Protodon. She was supposed to swing south to Kathy's World, and then west back to the B452c cross roads system, and then south to Agnosta and then finally Pyrax.
“By my calculations they should be at Kathy's World by now, perhaps already on their way to Beta 452C.”
The Admiral nodded. Kathy's World was an ice planet. She had been hammered by a near death impact during the early stages of the Xeno war, when the Xenos had ravaged the sector. Since she had been a terraformed world, her fragile weather system had been knocked out of balance and she'd spiraled into an ice age.
At the time of the Xeno war it hadn't been too hard, the planet had served as a refugee center at one point before the weather got out of control. According to what little data they had, the equatorial zone was quite temperate, much like North America's Northern areas were.
But, eventually the downward spiral would kill all life off on the planet. It was inevitable. After seven centuries, the planet was slowly freezing to death. Which meant from their perspective, that the planet had little to export. Hides, meat maybe, but not much else. No trader would linger there overlong.
“Wait,” the Admiral said, switching to the overall view. “You are projecting only four more frigates from the Kiev load?” he demanded.
“Exactly. I stated that Commander Logan is a conservative engineer Admiral. His track record on Anvil as the Chief engineer there indicates a plodder. He's likely to keep his head down where politics are concerned, and build infrastructure as much as possible, wherever possible.”
“I see.”
“He's not likely to ride your original plan down in flames Admiral. If he receives your orders, he may have to modify or disregard them depending on the situation there.”
“Crap,” Irons exhaled noisily.
“We don't know what concessions he may have had to make to the political establishment. Hopefully he had started with the base on Agnosta as we had planned, but there is no guarantee of that,” Sprite said.
Irons pursed his lips thoughtfully. They had heard about an expedition of Marines to Agnosta, but little beyond the vague talk. That was frustrating.
“Just to make things interesting,” Sprite said. She highlighted Epsilon, showcased their improvements there, and then highlighted Seti Alpha 4 and did the same.
“Wait,” Irons said, holding up a hand as she finished with that system and made similar but smaller changes to the chain of systems from Seti Alpha 4 to Epsilon. “What are you doing?”
“Factoring in what we found out from the crew on Io 11.”
“Oh.”
“It's all relative Admiral. Exponential changes. Or possible changes.”
“Tinder,” he murmured.
“Possible tinder,” the AI said, looking at him briefly before looking at the star chart. “But tinder is useless without a form of ignition. Or someone to stick around to keep it from going out.”
The Admiral mulled that little dig for a moment. His jaw worked briefly. “Noted,” he said shortly. “Continue.”
“We have no information on when the load left in Gaston will be picked up, nor the speed of the vessel so we have nothing to go on there,” Sprite said. Gaston blinked. The Admiral nodded. He'd left two hundred tons of cargo destined for Pyrax there with some friends. A cargo broker that they had recommended was supposed to get a passing ship to carry the load to Pyrax, but like the AI said, they had no idea when.
“Factor it in a year from now,” he said.
“Noted.”
“Continue. Other issues?”
“This is supposed to be a defensive exercise,” Sprite said. She put her hand up and expanded the star chart to include Horathian space. Red lines began to expand from Pyrax and the other systems they had been in towards Horath. “This represents intel moving to Horath along ships that heard about us or Pyrax, Antigua, or the loss of their task force in Pyrax.”
The Admiral frowned again but then nodded. Sprite filled in an ETA. From her estimates, word of some of their initial events should have reached Horath a few months ago. “And now we throw in any sort of response. Care to add some input Admiral?”
“Base it on what they have sent so far, but up the force and tonnage estimate exponentially.”
“By what modifier?” Sprite asked.
“Double... no triple it.”
“Triple? Isn't that a little low?”
“I'm not sure. We don't have a hard estimate on what they have available.”
“True,” Sprite replied. “But you know the old saying, the more you use, the less you lose.”
“True. Go with quadrupling it then.”
“All right,” Sprite said. A fleet formed. The Admiral couldn't see it, it was blacked out. But he knew it was there. Sprite moved it towards Pyrax.
“The shortest path. One of the maxims of interstellar combat.”
The Admiral winced, now uncomfortable where this was leading. The implications for his survival were now an issue. “Not good,” he murmured. By Sprite's best estimates a Horathian fleet could be hitting Beta 101a1 at any time within the next six standard weeks. Or it could be there now, he noted.
“Yes, it does raise issues with us doesn't it?” Sprite asked. “Which we can consider at a later time. Perhaps skipping the system entirely, or short jumping might be in order.”
“As you said, an issue for a later time.”
“Right. Based on standard defensive doctrine, Commander Logan will most likely divide his lighter forces. Placing at least one ship on duty at each jump point. The Agnosta and Beta 101a1 jump points will have the heaviest coverage.”
“Agreed.”
“Before we exited the system, you authorized millions of mines to be created. My data states that half of that had been constructed, and a quarter deployed by the time of our leaving. If Logan played it safe he either kept some in reserve, or he dumped the remainder on the threatened jump points.”
“Split the difference,” Irons replied. “Half in reserve, half on the points.”
“Setting variables...” Sprite replied, moving her hands. The Admiral could see circular controls floating in front of the AI's hands. He knew it was more for his benefit than hers.
“Nodule defense. He'll keep Firefly in close to the yard. Fuentes and Damocles.” The Admiral shrugged.
“Let's assume he put each tin can up on one of the two threatened jump points.”
“Agreed,” the Admiral said reluctantly.
“You are starting to cause lag in my system. Better wrap this up,” Phoenix interjected.
“Oh, sorry,” Sprite said. She dropped the physical representations to data streams. “Better?”
“Less of an impact on my graphic processors if that is what you mean. The hit to my CPU's is still there Commander,” the AI reminded her.
“Understood. We're nearly there.” She saved and phased out the larger picture and refocused on Pyrax.
“Projected attack vector is from Beta 101a1 not Agnosta. Agnosta adds months to the transit time and that jump point is where known defenses are. A human Commander would avoid that.”
“Or not, but let's not double or triple think ourselves here,” the Admiral murmured, resting his chin on his fist. He didn't like the implications here. He studied the design. “Give Logan some classic defensive weapons. Something he would cobble together to get around the lock outs.”
“Ideas?”
“Rail guns for one. No energy beams. No force beams. Missiles with low yield warheads, even defensive missiles. Thro
w in some missile packs and then let's run this.”
“I'm reducing the level again. Icons only.”
“Agreed.”
“And here we go,” Sprite said as the time stream slowed to normal. After a moment the attack began. Just as she projected, from the Beta 101a1 jump point. The Admiral sucked in his breath as he recognized the icon data codes.
“A BC?”
“You said up the ante Admiral.”
“Crap,” he said. He watched the virtual battle unfold. The Nelson class LD Fuentes and the defenses took a pounding the other ships in the system rallied and marched to the sounds of the guns.
Fuentes blinked in seconds, flashing yellow of battle damage, then red and finally black of oblivion.
She didn't die alone though; the tin can and the mines took a heavy toll on the two-dozen escort ships. Many blinked and joined Fuentes in death.
“They hold the point. But they've got damage. And I'm still wondering about that representation, after all, a BC? And remember their tech?”
“Sometimes we have to take some jumps in estimates Admiral. And wasn't it you that not a moment ago pointed out the difference between a gimme sim and a worst case scenario?” Sprite said.
“True. Continue,” he said.
The time chop picked up once more. Damocles met up with Firefly. The two vessels went into stealth. Other ships in the system lacked stealth, but they didn't lack in bravery. They marched on towards the enemy fleet.
“Mayweather is no fool. She'd hit from unexpected directions. She's a hunter. Subtle.”
“True, I took that into account Admiral,” Sprite replied.
As they watched, the half a dozen frigates, gunboats, and corvettes of the Pyraxians, really a pathetic showing against a BC and the two tin cans she had with her formed into a tight knit spearhead aimed straight at the Horathian's heart. At the last minute the spear changed course, arching away in a brief exchange of fire.
The Admiral smiled. With their focus intent on the target they could see, they left their flank exposed to Firefly and Damocles. They erupted in the enemy ship's wakes, ripping into them before ducking away and back into stealth. The damage codes flickered on the enemy ships.
