by Jay Allan
“Okay, here it is…straight shot.” He paused for a second. “We’re not going to try to find a way back to human space.” His eyes moved back and forth, trying to get a read on how many of them were surprised by his statement. Fifty-fifty, he figured, though he knew a few of those present had pretty good poker faces. “We can’t. There’s just no way to be sure where the enemy can track us—or however close behind us, or ahead of us they are. And one mistake, one little bit of carelessness, and we could lead the First Imperium back to Earth. You all saw the forces arrayed in the X2 system. Allowing them to follow us back to human space—assuming we could even find our way home, which is a considerable supposition—would be catastrophic. We would be responsible for destroying the human race.”
Compton sighed softly. He’d been carrying these thoughts for weeks now, keeping them to himself and wondering what the thousands on the fleet were thinking. The rush to escape from imminent destruction had occupied everyone’s minds at first, but now that the fleet was enjoying a respite, he knew the discussions would begin—whether or not he started them. And if he ceded the initiative to others, he risked losing control.
“I know that may be difficult for many to accept. Indeed, it is a harsh reality for all of us. There are few men and women on this fleet without at least some connections back home—friends, family, loved ones. But it is for them we must remain strong…and never weaken in our resolve. Trying to find a way home would be an act of pure selfishness, of reckless disregard for the potential consequences. And we wouldn’t have to actually discover a way home to cause disaster. Simply diverting First Imperium resources toward systems more likely to lead to human space could be disastrous. We could cause the enemy to find the route home without ever discovering it ourselves.”
The room was silent, and every eye was on Compton. He suspected most of them realized he was right and that they had been harboring similar thoughts, even if they’d held them in check. But he didn’t underestimate how difficult it was to give up any hope of returning home, however slim that chance might have been. Hope, even false hope, could sustain a man. And he was stripping that from them, enlisting them to support his position, to resolve now and forever to stay firm.
“I have been choosing warp gates I believe are leading us farther away from human space. Indeed, I have been doing this since we left system X2. But now that we have at least temporarily eluded our enemy, I must address this with the fleet at large.” Compton paused for a few seconds before finishing his comment. “And I simply do not know what to expect. Dissension in the fleet could destroy our survival chances as surely as a First Imperium fleet.”
“Perhaps we should deploy Marines to the ships of the fleet…just to be safe.” Connor Frasier was the commander of the Black Highlanders, a rump battalion of commandoes and one of the most elite units in the history of the Corps.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Major.” Erica West was sitting at the back of the gathering, just inside the door. West was another of the Alliance’s fighting admirals who’d led a number of cruiser squadrons during the battles against the First Imperium. She’d been badly wounded and in sickbay during the flight from X2, but now she was back and cleared for duty, though Compton had kept her on Midway without an assignment for over a month now.
“Why not? We don’t have enough manpower to lock down the whole fleet, but we damned sure can cover all the capital ships…and probably the heavy cruisers too. As long as that’s all locked down, what the hell can anyone else do?” James Preston was exactly what one imagined a Marine colonel would be. His face was angular, his features hard and chiseled. His steel gray hair was closely cropped, and a pair of intelligent blue eyes stared out at the gathering.
“It’s not about capability, James,” Compton said. “Though even covering the capital ships would stretch your Marines pretty thin.” He glanced over at Frasier, shifting his gaze between the two Marines as he spoke. He reminded himself to tread softly. The Alliance Marines were one of the greatest fighting forces history had ever seen, but they could be prickly about being told there was something they couldn’t do.
“Admiral West is correct in counseling caution,” he continued. “We must remember…this is not an Alliance fleet.” He glanced over at Captain Kato. “Nor even a combined Alliance-PRC force.” The Pacific Rim Coalition had long been the Alliance’s closest ally, and Compton wasn’t looking to offend Kato and his comrades. “It is comprised of forces provided by every Superpower. There are vessels that have fought each other before, officers who have spent their careers as enemies. How do you think they would react if I sent Marines on to RIC or Europa Federalis ships? Not to mention Caliphate or CAC vessels?”
Preston was staring back, his eyes boring into Compton’s with the usual intensity. Finally, he nodded. “I understand, sir.” His voice was downcast. “But remember, we’re ready when you need us.”
“I would never doubt that. And I am sure I will need all of your people before we are done. Indeed, they are a resource that must be preserved…and used wisely.” Most of the Marines were still back on Sigma 4, where they had defeated the First Imperium ground forces. Compton had only a tithe of that power with him. “Remember, James, we’ve only got 2,400 of your people, and I can’t imagine the number of ways I’m going to need them. Splitting them up into fifty platoons and sending them all over the fleet would take away my only reliable strike force.”
“Excuse me, sir, but then what do we do?” Greta Hurley had been sitting quietly. “If there is a realistic possibility for conflict based on nationalistic lines, should I leave my squadrons mixed? Or should I pull out the Alliance and PRC units? Should I find an excuse to move all the squadrons to Alliance and PRC platforms?” She paused for an instant and continued in a somber tone. “God knows, we’ve got the space.” Her fighters had suffered brutal losses in the protracted fighting in X2, and there wasn’t a fighter bay in the fleet that wasn’t half empty.
Compton looked over at Hurley. “We’ll discuss it later, Admiral. I don’t want to do anything that causes unnecessary suspicion, but perhaps we can come up with a plan to get your birds off some of the more sensitive ships.” He paused then added, “I think you can keep your squadrons together, especially if we can get them on secure platforms, but if you have any personnel you’re uncertain about, by all means do what you feel you have to do. I trust you to maintain your strike force at maximum readiness.”
He turned and looked out over the gathering. “I will speak with each of you individually regarding specific strategies in your areas. My intent for this meeting was simply to share my decision and my concerns with you. So before we adjourn, let me ask one more time. Is there anyone here who disagrees with my plan to attempt to move deeper into unknown space, to apply what limited knowledge we have of warp gate distribution not to finding a way home, but to the opposite…to seeking to flee deeper into the unknown, leading as much of the enemy’s strength away from Earth and not back toward it? If so, please speak now, here among friends and allies…because if no one says anything to the contrary, I will expect all of you to completely support my decision. In public…and also covertly, through whatever actions are necessary to maintain control of this fleet and to ensure that none of its vessels risk leading the First Imperium back to Earth.”
He stared around the room. Every eye was locked on him, but no one uttered a word. “You are all sure?” His tone became darker, more ominous. “Because when I say whatever actions are necessary, that is precisely what I mean. No ship will be allowed to put human space at risk. Not under any circumstances.”
His voice was icy cold, and it left no doubt about his resolve. Still, there wasn’t a sound, nothing except the faint hum of Midway’s systems in the background.
Chapter Four
Command Unit Gamma 9736
The Regent had sent commands on the priority circuit. For uncounted centuries, Command Unit Gamma 9736 had lain dormant, its power sources diminished, p
roviding only the barest amount of energy to sustain itself. Its processes had slowed and then ceased, until there had been nothing left but a spark of activity in the kernel, the barest maintenance of awareness. In the context of the Old Ones, the biologics the Unit had once served, it had been asleep…or more accurately, in a deep coma, almost suspended animation, awaiting the stimulus that would cause reactivation.
The communication circuits had been silent for millennia, and for 500,000 years, the Unit waited…it waited for contact. For direction. For purpose. Now, after so long the time had come. The Regent had made that contact. It was an alarm, a call to action. The imperium was threatened. After ages of nothingness the Unit was ordered to prepare for war, to rally the forces of its sector. To confront the enemy.
There had been strife for several years now…and fleets from other sectors had been dispatched to gain the victory. But the enemy had been underestimated. The forces the Regent had thought adequate to destroy them had been defeated, driven back. Now the Regent was sounding the full alarm, calling to every sector in the vastness of the imperium, directing all intelligences to rally what forces remained under their control after so many years of decay. For the first time in uncounted ages, total war was upon the imperium.
The Unit reacted immediately. Slowly, it fed its precious power reserve into circuits long dormant. Memory bank after memory bank slowly came to life, and with each one the Unit recovered a portion of itself, data and computational abilities long dormant. It hadn’t been immune to the ravages of time—whole sections of its vast quantum brain were unresponsive—petabytes of data lost. But it felt the surge of power, of quasi-consciousness. It remembered. A time long ago, when its sector was active, when billions of the Old Ones, the biologics, still inhabited the worlds it administered.
The communique that had initiated its renewal was of the utmost importance. The enemy had somehow blocked access to the only known warp gate leading to their space. But a large fleet had remained behind, and it escaped the trap the Regent had set for it. The enemy ships had fled, deeper into the imperium, and they had eluded the forces in pursuit, disappearing into the vastness of imperial space. Into the Unit’s sector.
The Regent’s orders were clear. Find the enemy. Hunt them down, destroy their vessels. Whatever the cost. And there was something else too. The Unit was to take prisoners, live enemies it could interrogate. It was unclear if the humans knew a path back to their home worlds, but the Regent wanted that data. It had declared that the forces of the Imperium would not rest until they had discovered a way to reach the home space of the humans—and eradicate them once and for all.
The Unit took steps to obey. Gradually, methodically, it continued to reactivate old power sources, expanding its operations as more energy became available. It opened communications lines, sent messages to its subordinate units on the various worlds of the sector. Only a few answered. The others, the Unit postulated, must have succumbed to the ravages of time. Or fallen to the enemy, its defensive algorithms suggested hawkishly. Still, it didn’t matter. The few that responded would be enough. Even now, the planetary command units were activating their armaments, determining how many ships, how many robot soldiers, were still functional. Soon, the Unit would have the data it needed to plan the destruction of the enemy.
Then it would dispatch its fleets to search. The enemy was far from home. The Unit rationalized that their moves would be dictated by logistics. They were biologics. They would need foodstuffs to maintain themselves. They would need ammunition stores to replace those expended in battle. But most of all, they would need fuel for their ships. The enemy vessels used primitive nuclear fusion as their primary power source. It had been uncounted ages since the forces of the First Imperium had utilized such primitive power sources, but they were well understood. The enemy would need a good source of tritium and helium-3. They would be searching, even now, for a system with a gas giant rich in the two rare isotopes. And that was a data point the Unit could use to narrow its search…
AS Midway
System X16
The Fleet: 225 ships, 47,916 crew
“They had to leave Volga behind. The crack in her containment chamber opened up again.” Anastasia Zhukov was staring down at a large ‘pad as she spoke, her long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. Zhukov had been attached to the RIC contingent of the fleet, but shortly after the escape from X2 she’d transferred to Midway to work with Dr. Cutter.
“Volga was a piece of junk anyway,” Cutter said, only half paying attention. His eyes were focused on a strange device on the table in front of him. It was part of a First Imperium warbot, one of thousands the Marines had destroyed in the bloody battles of the war. “What was it? Seventy years old?”
Anastasia frowned. Most of the RIC’s ships were old. It was no secret the Russian-Indian superpower was no match for the Alliance, or even the CAC or the Caliphate. And she was a scientist, not a soldier or politician. She didn’t believe in politics or the pointless wars between the superpowers. But her father had been a general in the army and the closest thing the RIC had to a military hero. So, in spite of her disinterest in such matters, she occasionally felt an involuntary prickliness when someone disparaged the RIC.
“So?” she snapped back. “The Alliance doesn’t have any old ships?”
“What?” Cutter had slipped from half paying attention to hardly doing it at all. “What are you talking about?”
“You said Volga was junk.”
He finally looked up from his work with a frustrated sigh and stared at her. “Whatever, Ana. Volga’s the state of the art, okay? Anything that makes you happy. Now can we please stay focused here? I think we’re on the verge of a breakthrough.” His eyes dropped back to his work without waiting for her response.
She nodded. There was no point in arguing, not with Cutter. She knew his abrasiveness wasn’t intentional. She’d never seen a human being so utterly focused on work before. Besides, the truth was, there wasn’t a ship as old as Volga in the Alliance navy. She had to admit that the RIC, despite her occasional vestigial spasms of patriotism, was struggling to hold onto its superpower status in a universe where the “Big Three,” the Alliance, the Caliphate, and the Central Asian Combine, had eclipsed the other powers in the race for dominance. Not that any of that really matters to us anymore…
“Of course, Ronnie,” she said sweetly. She was the only one who called him that, and she’d done it since the day she’d walked into his lab and he’d introduced himself. Hieronymus was admittedly a mouthful, he’d explained to her, but it had also been his father’s name, and his grandfather’s—and so on, at least six generations back in his family. She’d listened to everything he told her, and then she just shook her head for a few seconds and said, “I think I’ll call you Ronnie.”
Hieronymus Cutter was generally recognized as the leading expert in advanced quantum computing processes, and Anastasia was a serious contender for the number two slot. Cutter was widely known to be a bit odd, an obsessive-compulsive workaholic who tended toward reclusive behavior. But all agreed he was an unparalleled genius, perhaps even the equal of his famous mentor, Friederich Hofstader.
Hofstader was a true hero now. He had developed the theory that an extremely high-yield matter-antimatter explosion could scramble a warp gate. Indeed, he was as responsible as anyone for saving humanity—and stranding the fleet. But Cutter’s specialty differed from that of his famous mentor. His work in computing led him on a quest not to block the First Imperium’s advance nor even to produce weapons to destroy their massive ships. Cutter’s quest was to understand how the advanced thinking machines worked—as a precursor to learning how to control them.
“Take a look at these patterns,” he said, sliding a large ‘pad across the table so she could see it. “This is from one of the battle robot command units. The processing power of these “officer” units is far greater than that of the standard battle bots.” His fingers moved, pointing to a series of waves on
the screen. “I’ve done the calculations a hundred different ways. There is no discernible logical pattern in how these machines process information. It almost looks…random.”
She stared at the ‘pad for a few seconds. He was right. The patterns he’d isolated weren’t patterns at all, at least not in the sense that they had any predictability to them. “But it can’t be random. That doesn’t make sense.”
“No, not random. I’m sure these crazy waves make sense…but only if you can see the input data that generated the recorded patterns.” He looked up at her, and he could see she wasn’t following. “Don’t you see? These First Imperium intelligences—at least the lower level ones in these robots—aren’t truly sentient. But they able to comprehend how sentient beings act and react.”
He looked up and sighed again, clearly frustrated that she wasn’t understanding his point. “Imagine you are in a trench fighting a battle. You look across at your opponent, who is also in a trench. If you project that he will behave rationally, you can assign probabilities to various actions he might initiate. For example, you might determine that he is most likely to remain in place, since charging correlates with a large advantage for you defending in your trench—and a high likelihood of death for him.
“But how do you account for a madman unconcerned with physical harm? Or a religious fanatic who believes death in battle leads to paradise? Or simply a soldier acting irrationally due to battle fatigue or rage at the loss of a friend? How do you assess the potential of irrational actions by an opponent? Our own AIs do this by assigning probabilities based on historical data programmed into their memory banks. For example, we know that certain Caliphate units exhibit fanatical behavior in battle, and our AIs know this, so they assign a higher probability of such behavior to their forces. But the First Imperium has no historical data of this sort for us…or at least very little.”
