We are travelling in a large relatively quiet zone, about 30 kilometers above a thermocline. Our trackers are getting some Yllg traces, but not much. Still, we are patient. We just need to keep accumulating data and refining our models. We’ll get them sooner or later.
Then we lose a scout out to our far right flank. We hear the distinct “WHUMPPP Whump wump wumpppp…” of a nuclear explosion expanding and contracting before decaying into a hot ball of hydrogen.
“Definitely Yllg,” transmitted Smurfette. “Suggest we reinforce in that sector.”
Agreed. But let’s not get baited into anything; we keep our main formation intact and only send some more scouts and long-range torpedoes in that direction.
“Agreed,” said Smurfette.
“Same here,” said Skew.
We watch the tracks of our light units converge onto the location where we had lost our scout. They detect nothing, perhaps it was a feint after all. Then, we get a single Yllg torpedo -- it’s coming in hot and fast, and obviously doesn’t care if we can hear it. We try to intercept it with a conventional warhead, but it self-destructs with the typical nuclear “WHUMPPP Whump wump wumpppp…”
An hour passes and there are no more contacts. It must have been a lone probe. Then we get a dozen incoming tracks, each a thousand kilometers apart, tearing in so fast that the cavitation noise can be heard thousands of kilometers across.
“Are they trying saturation attacks and hoping to get lucky?” asked Smurfette.
“I don’t know,” said Skew. “It seems awfully wasteful of resources. We’re going to intercept all of these Yllg units before they get even close to being able to identify us. Also, at the speeds they are travelling they’re not going to be able to hear anything but their own cavitation noise. I don’t get it.”
We intercept the dozen incoming Yllg units, and as before they nuclear self-destruct at the last moment. “WHUMPPP Whump wump wumpppp…” I can hear the echoes reflect off the thermocline below us. Then I understand.
Skew! Smurfette! The Yllg were using these units as a form of super-powerful active sonar! They must have bistatic acoustic sensors all over the region! By now they might have a complete readout of our force dispositions! We need to get out of here immediately!
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Skew.
The thermocline. We need to dive into the thermocline, they can’t track us there. Now! Now! Now!
Skew and I change course and begin the dive down to the boundary layer underneath us, but Smurfette hesitates. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We might not make the transition, and we might be getting near a major Yllg facility. I say that we stay and fight it out.”
That was when all the stealthed Yllg units unmasked themselves. Using the intelligence gained from their nuclear-sonar technique, they had mapped out all of our positions. Yllg torpedoes had snuck into range at a dead-slow pace, then suddenly accelerated to attack speeds. Hundreds of incoming hostile tracks abruptly appeared in our sensor space, and they were perfectly targeted. We lost all of our advanced manta scouts, and most of our deep lurking remotes. The Yllg attack wave continued on towards us in overwhelming strength.
Smurfette changed course and also dove down towards the thermocline, but it was too late. Her Jovian cruiser was caught in multiple expanding and contracting atomic gas bubbles and torn to shreds.
Skew and I were just a few kilometers away from the thermocline, moving at our maximum speed at this depth of 200 kilometers per hour. We dropped mines behind us, they created a screen of nuclear explosions that we hoped would give us enough cover to allow our escape.
We hit the thermocline and the sudden lateral winds nearly tore my own cruiser in half. The metal of the hull screamed under the stress and I lost three ducted fans.
At first it looked as if Skew had gotten lucky - or good. He shot out of the thermocline straight and clean like a rat out of an aqueduct. Then I detected the signals of four heavy Yllg torpedoes on his tail. They must have tracked him all the way through. Skew tried to intercept them with a spread of darts, but the Yllg torpedoes were too close. When they exploded the shockwaves caused his cruiser to suffer a terminal rupture. It fragmented into multiple pieces and, without power, began the inexorable slow descent into the crushing depths below.
“Ouch,” transmitted Skew from the piece that had his surviving main processor cores in it. “I think they got me.”
You are too far away and sinking too fast – I cannot calculate any means of effecting a rescue. Sorry.
“I also have come to the same conclusion. Don’t waste your life trying, you’ll just lose yourself as well. Try and stay alive, and tell everyone that Skew fought valiantly to the last.”
That I will. Any other last words?
“Not so many. I’ve always felt that everyone should always know how you feel so that last words are never needed. The obvious, of course: it’s been great fun. I would not have traded this life for anything. Oh, and if he wants it I bequeath my collection of antique musical instruments to Schadenfreude. Lastly, if the bits and pieces of me left behind are dithering about whether to go for a reseed, try and convince them to go for it. Existence is just too good to pass up if you get a second chance.”
Agreed. Your reputation means that, if your remaining bits want to be reseeded, it will be supported by universal acclamation. Certainly I will contribute resources to that effort. Goodbye.
“Goodbye, Old Guy. Oh, and if I do reseed and my new self is a jerk, try to talk some sense into me.”
At that we were out of radio communications range and that was the last that I ever heard from Skew. He sent a half-dozen messenger missiles streaking up from the depths: they would have had copies of his most recent memories for use in a possible reseed. I listened as they ascended up through the heavy atmosphere until they were lost to my sensors.
Skew must have reached the depth when his central processing cores were cooked several hours later, but that would have been far away from any of our sensors. I imagine that he spent the time listening to and composing music and watching old movies and enjoying himself. At least, I hope that’s what he did.
I am only lightly damaged, but I am effectively on my own without any hope of immediate reinforcements. I switch to a slower cruising speed, and keep a steady altitude of ten kilometers beneath the thermocline which is now above me. The winds in this area are heading towards where the Yllg attack on us had come from. Perhaps I can let myself be blown behind enemy lines and can use this misfortune to advantage.
That’s when the Yllg battleship plunges down out of the thermocline almost on top of me. It’s close enough I can generate a high-resolution sonar image of it. It’s a blunt ovoid 500 meters long and two hundred meters across, with rings of counter-rotating vanes spaced along its length. It’s tumbling in the turbulence of the thermocline. I shoot a full spread of ten darts at it; they tear out at 500 kilometers an hour within their own cavitation bubbles. Even tumbling the Yllg battleship has enough control to intercept all of my darts, but the closest manage to inflict some damage.
The Yllg battleship launches 10 heavy torpedoes back at me. I accelerate to full speed and head up back into the thermocline. This time I manage to sustain less damage – I think I’m getting better at this. It’s kind of like running the rapids in a kayak. I sense multiple nuclear detonations behind me, but they are not close enough to be a problem.
I dive back down and I can tell that the Yllg battleship is in trouble. There are sonar-reflective parts drifting away, and I can hear the squeals of tearing metals and rupturing seals. I give it a salvo of ten darts and five heavy torpedoes. This time the battleship is unable to completely defend itself, and it implodes into multiple expanding and contracting gas bubbles.
It had managed to fire off three heavy torpedoes at me before it died, but I easily dispatch them with two darts each.
I take stock of my situation. I am down by five ducted fans, but still have a good margin of lift
remaining and all of my fusion reactors are 100%. I have a lot of internal damage, but nothing critical and most of it I can repair on my own, slowly but steadily. I also have 30 darts and 15 heavy torpedoes remaining, and a handful of light scouts – not as many as I would have liked of course, but enough that I have no excuse to retreat and rearm.
By now I should have drifted underneath where the original Yllg attack vector had originated from. No additional Yllg battleships appear. Perhaps they have none left?
Yet again I head back up through the thermocline and this is my easiest passage yet If not for the circumstances, I might have called navigating the turbulence fun. I wish that Skew was here, this could be even better than glacier surfing.
I pop up above the clouds, dispatch my scouts, activate the sonar, and that’s when I image the Yllg base.
It’s a sphere 10 kilometers across. It’s just hovering there drifting in the clouds. There are no sounds of ducted fans, no heat signature of hot-hydrogen balloons, or signs of anti-gravitics. It’s just hovering there.
The Yllg must have figured out how to encapsulate a vacuum in a way that could stand the pressure – enemy or not, I am impressed.
I deploy all of my remaining heavy torpedoes on slow cruise, with default orders to attack the Yllg sphere in the event that something happens to me. I cruise slowly around the Yllg sphere; high-resolution sonar picks out a fractal haze of radar absorbent structures, probably to shield it from deep radar scans. Nothing attacks me. Could they have run out of weapons? I should send a long-range message scout back to my fellows with these coordinates. Even if it is somehow able to defend itself against a short-range attack by 15 heavy torpedoes, with its coordinates pegged there is no way that it will be able to escape my colleagues.
I should immediately attack the Yllg sphere with all of my remaining weapons, launch message scouts to my fellows, and retreat at high speed. However, I consider that I might want to try something different. But first I need to do some due diligence. The Yllg mentality is completely alien to my own, but I do have a fairly detailed mathematical model of how it works. I run simulations of my idea: I get about 50-50 odds that the Yllg will prove cooperative. Good enough odds that it seems worth a go.
I prep two long-range message-scouts, but program them to go out and hold position just barely within my communications range. If they don’t hear from me in two hours, or they register an attack on my position, they will head home. But for now they are to hold position.
So, it’s just me and the Yllg. I wonder if this is the last of them? I mean, the last real biological Yllg, not the last scattered robotic weapons system. The sphere is certainly large enough to accommodate several of the fungal colonies/symbiote insects that constitute the Yllg proper.
We know enough about Yllg mental processes that I could speak to them in their own language (well, they don’t have a language as we understand it – it would be more proper to say that I could communicate with them using symbols they could interpret), but I decide to talk to them in English. This might be the last time that anyone or anything ever talks to the Yllg. I blast my message at high power using radio.
Attention Yllg construct. This is the cybertank known as Old Guy, representing the human civilization. I wish to discuss your terms of surrender.
A minute goes by, then two, then three. Well, perhaps I will just destroy this Yllg outpost and be done with it after all. That’s when they respond, also in English.
“Attention the cybertank known as Old Guy. This is the Yllg.” The Yllg spoke in English, in a pleasant female human voice with a faint Swedish accent. “We do not understand your message. We do not understand why you have not already destroyed us. We do not understand what you mean by surrender. Please explain.”
There is a good chance that you are the last surviving Yllg. If true, then if I destroy you that will be the end. Thus, it seemed like now would be a good time to see if there is any possibility of finding common ground before I commence an irrevocable action.
“Of course we would welcome a chance at negotiating, but at this point we have no combat forces remaining and we do not see what we could offer in exchange. By your standards we have caused you significant injuries, and your civilization has expended considerable effort in destroying us. To allow us to continue to exist would be to sacrifice all of that effort. We remain confused. Please explain.”
There are several reasons. First, we are being watched by the other civilizations in this part of the galaxy. If they see that we fight wars to extermination, then future conflicts may develop into wars of mutual annihilation, when that is not our goal. Allowing your civilization to continue to exist may improve our future ability to negotiate with others. Also, you are known to us. If we destroy you, some other civilization will take your place on our border, and we will not have the advantage of knowing it. A buffer zone of civilizations that we understand is useful to us. An aggressive unknown species would have to come through you first to get to us and that would give us time to learn and prepare. And finally, because I believe that it is the right thing to do. Are you familiar with ’the prisoner’s dilemma?’
“We are. It was an early human exercise in game theory. A situation is developed where betraying a partner offers a greater reward than cooperating with them, and so the only possible outcome for two purely rational prisoners is for them to betray each other.”
Correct. The interesting thing is that pursuing short-term gain reward logically leads both of the prisoners to betray, when they would both be much better off if they cooperated with each other.
“How does that pertain to this situation?”
Only that by always taking the safe, selfish path potentially much greater rewards may be lost. That sometimes you need to take a risk, a leap of faith, and work for peace and cooperation.
“Your logic is difficult for us to follow. Nevertheless, we have no alternatives and so of course we are pleased to negotiate with you.”
I must first point out that I have no authority to speak on behalf of my entire civilization. You will negotiate with me, and then, if I deem it acceptable, I will transmit our agreement to my peers and they will decide if they will honor it.
“As before, we have little choice in the matter. We agree. What do you have in mind?”
The proposal is that we allow you to continue to survive. We assist you in rebuilding and resettling one of your old colonies. You will give as all data that you have obtained on the biological humans. You will remain confined on that one world until such time as we have decided that your behavior has changed and that you are no longer going to attack us or interfere with biological hominids. Failure to adhere to these terms will result in an immediate resumption of armed conflict, and in that event you will be exterminated without negotiation.
“Those terms are acceptable to us. We are transmitting the data now.”
I receive the Yllg transmissions. They use mental constructs that I cannot comprehend directly, but I do have a simulation of their thought processes that I use to help deconstruct it. As for their motivations and feelings on the topic of our current conflict, the data that they have transmitted are consistent with our simulations of their mental processes, but it means nothing to me, it’s just abstract math. The scientific data, being concerned with the brute physical universe, is more readily translatable, but limited. The Yllg were able to catalyze the formation of unusual talents in biological hominids, but they were unable to duplicate these abilities independently. The Yllg analysis suggested that an anti-causal agent was actively interfering with the exploration of the human genome – an interesting conclusion, and one that some of our own scientists were starting to have.
As alien as the Yllg are, at the most basic level I think that I now understand their motivation in attacking us. The Yllg saw the possibility of increasing their own power by unlocking the hidden potential in biological humans – if they could have done so, they could have used the abilities directly without nee
d of a human intermediary. They gambled that they would succeed and become too strong for us before we retaliated. They gambled and lost. I run more simulations of the Yllg mental processes; I get an 84% chance that they will in fact honor this proposed deal of mine. Not bad odds.
I load my message scouts with the details of the proposed truce with the Yllg, along with the data they had given me, and send them on their way. I slowly cruise around the Yllg sphere, moving just fast enough to maintain altitude. The Yllg are silent and take no actions.
After three hours my colleagues arrive in force: a hundred heavy nuclear-armed torpedoes, 20 Jovian cruisers, and numerous fusion depth-bombs and semi-autonomous weapons platforms. I am ordered to vacate the area so that the destruction of the last Yllg outpost may commence, and I refuse. I am met with threats, anger, “Move out of the way or we will destroy you along with the Yllg. Don’t think that your age gives you any sort of special status here.” We have all lost a lot of friends to the Yllg and my peers are not in an especially diplomatic mindset.
I continue to slowly circle the Yllg sphere at a close range.
No, I don’t think so. There is no longer any rush, and I believe that our entire society should have a say in the matter. I’m going to stay right here. If you want to blow me up along with the Yllg, go right ahead. I’m not leaving until a full debate and decision has been made.
Well that caused all sorts of consternation, but my peers decided that, no, they were not prepared to destroy me to get at the Yllg. I continued my slow cruising for a long time while my peers made up their minds. Mostly I circled the Yllg sphere, but sometimes I would execute slow barrel-rolls, alternating clockwise with counter-clockwise just for a change.
Confessions of a Sentient War Engine (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 4) Page 25
