Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  With the tour complete, Johansen invited Shiloh to join her later for dinner in the Officers Mess. Most of the crew was not yet aboard, and they had the Officers Mess to themselves, which Shiloh was aware of but Johansen didn’t seem to notice. The conversation was mostly about the Vanguard, and Johansen did most of the talking. Shiloh managed to ask her if she knew why the CAG was expected to control the autonomous units from a frigate instead of from the base itself since that was where the drones and CFPs would be maintained and configured for missions. Her reply was that since combat frigates were designed from the outset to be able to control large numbers of drones and CFPs in star systems that didn’t have a base, and since Bradley Base didn’t yet have the same kind of command and control equipment installed, it just made sense that the CAG would have to be on board one of the combat frigates. Shiloh would have a deputy CAG at the base to look after the day-to-day functions needed to keep drones and CFPs operational. It made sense but only as the best of a series of less than desirable options.

  When Vanguard was fully manned, she slipped out of lunar orbit along with the other seven members of the first squadron of frigates designated for a combat role, SFC 007. The squadron included the only other Sentinel-class combat frigate, Sentry, plus six more heavily modified exploration frigates, which would eventually be replaced by Sentinel-class ships as they became available. The squadron headed for Jupiter so that Vanguard and Sentry could practice refueling operations, while the other six frigates practiced keeping a protective watch from high orbit. With no drones of any kind to worry about during the refueling exercises, Shiloh monitored the operation from his command station on the Bridge, and he was glad that he had enough presence of mind to strap himself down tightly. Unlike the high speed dips that the fuel shuttles used, which were done at supersonic speeds, the Sentinel-class frigates had to decelerate until their speed was subsonic and drop down into the gas giant’s atmosphere in what Johansen later described as a controlled plunge. At the right altitude, the ship then used its maneuvering engines to pitch the nose up at an angle with just enough forward thrust to counteract the pull of gravity. Shiloh learned that the slow speed was necessary to allow a moderate flow of gases into the hydrogen/heavy hydrogen separation plant that would generate a constant flow of heavy hydrogen into storage tanks. Too much speed would cause the faster inflow of gases to overwhelm the separation system and contaminate the flow of heavy hydrogen, and because the output of heavy hydrogen was measured in liters per minute, it took a minimum of six hours to fill the fuel tanks. The obvious drawback to subsonic speeds was the vulnerability to turbulence, which the artificial gravity wasn’t fully able to negate. While most of the turbulence was just a nuisance, there were moments when the ship’s motion was so severe that Shiloh would have been thrown from his Command Station chair if he hadn’t been strapped in.

  When the exercise was finished, and the ship was back in space, Shiloh unstrapped himself and walked over to where Johansen was seated. He could see that her uniform was soaked with sweat, and she looked exhausted from the strain of maintaining a constant watch on the ship’s attitude and systems. The rest of the Bridge crew looked like they had been through the wringer too.

  “How did we do?” asked Shiloh.

  Johansen took a deep breath before answering. “The simulations don’t do this maneuver justice. Not by a long shot. We got through this okay. All systems are still functioning, and the crew is able to continue at their posts, but I’m not sure that doing this over and over again out in the field will generate the same results. The ship took a hell of shaking! At some point, enough of that will break something, and if that something is our maneuvering engines, then we might find ourselves plunging down into a gas giant in an uncontrolled crash. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, what if enemy ships detect us while we’re crawling along at subsonic speeds and can’t defend ourselves? This is a bad idea. They should have given the ship enough room to carry a fuel shuttle the way the new long range scout ships will be able to, but the designers didn’t ask us ship jockeys for our ideas.”

  Shiloh said nothing but nodded in sympathy. He would not want to be conning a ship for six hours during this kind of refueling maneuver. He wondered if there was a better way. He decided to access the engineering schematics of the refueling system during his off duty shift to see if he could come up with any ideas.

  With Vanguard now refueled, Sentry took her turn, and Vanguard practiced docking with the exploration frigates to simulate the transfer of heavy hydrogen. In essence, Vanguard became a very heavily armored and armed tanker, since the exploration frigates didn’t have the same capability to skim gas giants.

  After reviewing the engineering data for hours, Shiloh decided to get some sleep. As he started to drift off, he suddenly had an idea that made him wide awake again. Quickly calling up the data, he asked the ship’s computer to simulate a specific sequence of actions, then leaned back in satisfaction as he scanned the results. There WAS a better way. It wasn’t perfect, and it had its own drawbacks, but it would be much easier on both the ship and the crew. He checked Johansen’s duty schedule and saw that she was in the middle of her sleep shift. He left her a message asking to meet over breakfast to discuss an alternative refueling process.

  Johansen looked skeptical when she sat down beside him later in the Officers Mess. He waited until she finished ordering breakfast before sliding a data tablet in front of her. As she looked at it, he started explaining.

  “The key to this alternative process is the outflow of heavy hydrogen. I’m guessing the designers wanted to have a continuous flow of heavy hydrogen, which requires a continuous supply of atmospheric gases. My approach dispenses with the continuous outflow criteria. Here’s how it works. The ship basically takes the same supersonic dip that a smaller fuel shuttle takes. At those speeds, the intake scoops only have to be open for a few seconds for the holding tanks to be filled with gases. Then the scoops are closed. The ship continues to push its way through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds while the contents of the holding tank are processed. When the holding tank is empty, the scoops reopen and fill it up again, and the whole cycle repeats. Now the drawback to all this is that a complete refueling will take a minimum of 12 hours, but on the plus side, the ship won’t have to put up with all that turbulence, and since the hull is armored, the hull should be able to stand up to that long supersonic passage quite well. With far less turbulence, wear and tear on the equipment will be much reduced.”

  He waited while Johansen finished absorbing his verbal explanation and the data displayed on the tablet. When she looked up at him, she said, “Have you run simulations?”

  “Yes, and they confirm that it should work.”

  “I’d like to see another simulation myself,” she said quietly.

  She handed the tablet back to Shiloh, who accessed the engineering program and reran the simulation. Johansen watched it, and when it was finished, she nodded.

  “It looks good, but as we both know, the real thing is quite often different from the simulations. I’m also not that happy with the extra six hours of being vulnerable to enemy fire. At these speeds, our laser turrets would have to be retracted to keep the ship as streamlined as possible.”

  “Yes but even under the shorter, subsonic profile, you know that any gas giant’s atmosphere will cut your lasers’ effective range down to just a few kilometers. How likely is it that enemy ships will get that close?”

  She thought about that for a few seconds and said, “You have a point there. Okay, I’m tempted to try it, but only if my Engineering Officer has no serious objection to the idea. What made you think of this idea, Victor?”

  Shiloh grinned and shrugged. For once he could tell the truth.

  “I was on the verge of drifting off to sleep and the idea just popped into my head.”

  Johansen laughed and shook her head. “Honestly, sometimes I think angels or somebody, are sending you messages telepathically!”

&n
bsp; Shiloh laughed with her, but the comment alarmed him even though he knew it was meant in jest.

  “If somebody IS sending me messages, I hope they keep it up,” he said.

  “Amen to that!” said Johansen.

  The refueling idea dealt with, they switched their attention to breakfast and light chitchat. Half an hour later both were back on the Bridge, Johansen at her CO station and Shiloh at his CAG station. Vanguard had finished transferring some fuel to each of the six exploration frigates in the squadron quite a while ago, and those frigates had then left Jupiter orbit to prepare for the upcoming wargame exercise. Sentry had finished its subsonic refueling exercise. Sentry’s CO had left an emphatic message conveying his dislike of what he referred to as the ‘six hours of sheer terror’ refueling procedure. There was also a message waiting for the squadron CAG. The five prototype CFPs that Shiloh had helped test at the Alpha base were now back in the Sol system. They were headed for Jupiter to rendezvous with the 007 squadron for the simulated exercise, using unarmed attack drones and the modules equipped with the new jump detection gear. Rendezvous eta was in just over three hours time. With their vector from the Moon known, Shiloh was able to figure out their current position, and he used Vanguard’s communications equipment to send them instructions to take up a standard High Guard overwatch patrol of Vanguard when they arrived, scan for any ships emerging from Jumpspace, and await further instructions.

  Johansen’s Engineering Officer didn’t take long to let his CO know that Shiloh’s supersonic refueling procedure was feasible and very likely preferable from the point of view of not having his beautiful new ship shaken apart. With that opinion on the record, Johansen decided to try the new procedure. With the CFPs due in just a couple hours time, the refueling attempt would only be a partial test. Just long enough to see how the ship handled at supersonic speeds, plus one brief attempt to scoop gases. While Vanguard slowed its orbital velocity in order to drop into Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, the squadron’s six exploration frigates were already so far away that they’d be hard to detect if their location wasn’t already known, and only Johansen knew where they were now.

  Shiloh was gratified to see that the high speed dive into Jupiter went as expected, with virtually no turbulence, and the single, five second opening of the scoops filled the holding tank with enough hydrogen to process a worthwhile amount of the heavy hydrogen. For once, the simulation and reality matched perfectly. Vanguard broke out of Jupiter’s atmosphere just as the five CFPs decelerated into orbit. With contact made between Vanguard and the five drones, Shiloh heard Johansen speak to him over the intercom.

  “Okay, CAG. Let’s see if your drone jockeys can take on my frigates.”

  Shiloh grinned, even though Johansen couldn’t see him, and said, “This should be interesting.”

  Shiloh didn’t know where the frigates were or from what direction they’d be approaching. He did know that at least one, but possibly more, would head out far enough from Jupiter’s gravity well to allow for micro-jumps in order to test the jump detection gear.

  Shiloh opened the channel to the five drones and said, “This is Commander Victor Shiloh. I’ll be your CO for this simulated war exercise. The ship I’m on is to be defended against a simulated hostile force of six ships. CFP0001, you are designated as the Flight Leader. Deploy your flight, and patrol with passive sensors and jump detection gear only. Recon drones can use active scanning. Intercept unidentified ships with near misses by unarmed attack drones at your discretion. Confirm your understanding of the simulated nature of this exercise, CFP0001.”

  The response was immediate.

  “CFP0001, call sign now Iceman. Simulated nature of this exercise understood. When will we get to fire at real targets, Commander?”

  Shiloh laughed hard enough that Johansen and the rest of the Bridge crew probably heard him. CFP A.I.s were much ‘smarter’ than the limited electronic brains of the typical recon or message drone, but the lab geeks insisted that they weren’t sentient. Shiloh was becoming more and more convinced that they were, or were at least in the process of becoming sentient. He had worked with all five of the A.I.s at the Alpha base long enough to detect slight differences in attitude and response time between them. Before he left Alpha Base, CFP0001 had already asked him about the tradition that human pilots had of adopting a call sign. Shiloh had explained it as best he understood it, and that had been the end of the conversation. Now it was clear that 0001 had picked a call sign. Shiloh wondered if the other four had done the same thing. He was willing to bet money they had. The question about getting to the real action was also typical of 0001’s … Iceman’s increasingly gung ho attitude.

  “Patience is a virtue, Iceman. I have it on good authority that you and your fellow … fighter pilots will see the real thing in due course. For purposes of this exercise, my call sign will be CAG. Proceed at your discretion, Iceman. Good hunting.”

  “Ah roger that, CAG. It’s good to be working with you again. We’ll make you proud.”

  Shiloh was stunned by the sentimental nature of the reply. None of the five had shown any inclination to behave that way at the Alpha Base, and the added ‘ah’ was a deliberate affectation that Iceman must have picked up from listening to the human test pilots. He focused on his Tactical display and saw that the five drones were already maneuvering away at a high rate of acceleration. From this point on, he would sit back and watch. The com channel to Iceman and to the other four was still open, but he knew that any communication between the drones would be a stream of digital signals sent so fast that he couldn’t possibly understand them.

  Nothing much happened for over 40 minutes, and Shiloh wasn’t surprised. The frigates were limited to a much slower acceleration rate than the fighters, and they were starting the exercise from jumping off points that were so far away they couldn’t be detected with passive sensors only. Shiloh was certain that Johansen had assigned vectors to her frigates that minimized the chance of the drones detecting reflected sunlight off the frigate hulls. Vanguard and Sentry had special hull coatings that absorbed 99.999% of light, making them very hard to see against the usual background of space. Now, however, they were orbiting Jupiter and would be clearly visible against Jupiter’s much brighter background. Shiloh jumped when the first contact report came in.

  “This is Hunter. I have detected a light reflection. Deploying recon drones now.”

  Before Shiloh could respond, Iceman spoke. “Good job, Hunter.”

  Shiloh took note of the fact that Iceman had bothered to translate that comment into human speech for Shiloh’s benefit. He could see the bearing of the detected reflection as a dotted line on his Tactical display. As soon as a second fighter or recon drone also caught a reflection, the two lines would meet, and the point where they crossed would be the detected bogey. Suddenly five red lines appeared, all intersecting at a point that wasn’t on the first line. This had to be another ship that had just emerged from a micro-jump.

  “A single bogey has just been detected emerging from Jumpspace, CAG. I’ve ordered Firefox to intercept.” said Iceman.

  The fighter now moving towards the new bogey had to be Firefox. Shiloh could see that the range between it and its target was almost 35 million kilometers. Jupiter’s mass made jumps within a radius of two light minutes impossible. While the defending force knew exactly where the bogey had exited Jumpspace, its course and speed were as yet unknown, but so far the jump detection gear that each fighter carried seemed to have worked perfectly. The frigates could accelerate at 133 Gs—1.3 kilometers per second squared—while the fighters, which was how Shiloh had decided to refer to the CFPs, could accelerate at just under 400 Gs—3.92 kps squared. If Firefox and the bogey were accelerating directly towards each other, the range would drop to zero in roughly 78 minutes. Shiloh hoped Iceman would not commit all five of his fighters, or even most of them, to long range interception attempts. The bogey, having just emerged from Jumpspace, was very likely hoping to draw as man
y fighters away from the vicinity of Jupiter space as possible. The first contact could be just as far away, or it could be a lot closer. There was no way to tell until a second contact bearing could pin down its location.

  As more minutes went by, Shiloh noticed that Iceman was keeping itself and the three others relatively close to Vanguard’s location. Firefox’s range to its bogey’s estimated position was down to 25 million kilometers. By this time, the reflected sunlight contact had disappeared, almost certainly due to the bogey maneuvering with the reflected sunlight now pointing in a different direction. Launch recon drones and have them go to active scanning, thought Shiloh. He could have ordered Iceman to pass those orders to the others, but that would have undermined the purpose of this test to see if autonomous units could make the appropriate tactical decisions on their own. Two minutes later, all five fighters launched recon drones. The drones didn’t start scanning right away. Good boy, though Shiloh. Get the drones far enough away from each other that their active scanning won’t tip the enemy off to the approximate location of the fighters themselves. Another 10 minutes passed without new contact reports of any kind. Suddenly all the recon drones commenced active scanning at the same time. The overlapping fields of radar energy bounced off six new contacts. One was much further away and the rest were all within two million kilometers of Vanguard.

  “Gotcha!” said Shiloh.

  He was expecting to hear Iceman or one of the other fighters say something, but they didn’t. Instead, they acted. Firefox swung around to go after a target that was closer to it. Each of the other fighters changed vectors to intercept one of the other four frigates. Shiloh noticed that the recon drones were using intermittent scanning to minimize the enemy’s ability to pinpoint their locations and ‘destroy’ them with low powered simulated laser fire. Even so, one recon drone, and then a second, shut down in response to laser fire from their targets. If Iceman waited too long to fire his attack drones, there wouldn’t be enough radar bearings left to give the attack drones a good chance of finding their targets. But if they fired the attack drones too soon, the drones would run out of fuel before reaching their targets. A human pilot wouldn’t be able to compute the trade-off between the probability of missing versus the probability of never reaching the target trade-off, but an A.I. could.