Excalibur's Quest

by Dietmar Wehr

  With that message sent, he returned his attention to the other two COs. “I want Durendal and Hauteclere to return to New Shangri-la immediately. Commander Henriques will assume command of the Task Force until Excalibur returns. I’ll stay here until the Jabs reply or until 24 hours has passed, whichever comes first, then I’ll rejoin the Task Force as quickly as possible. If there are no questions, the conference is concluded.”

  The Jabs didn’t need twenty-four hours to reply, only five and a half. They agreed to a ceasefire and transmitted the code that would recall the 21 ships. Excalibur, via the FTL relay, retransmitted that code with instructions for Hanson, on Tizona, to pass it on to Henriques when she arrived. Then, he waited.

  Confirmation came 44 hours later from Henriques, now in the New Shangri-la system, that the Jab fleet was responding to the recall code and seemed to be heading back to J1. With that reassurance that the Jab leadership was not trying any tricks, Koenig transmitted a final message to the Jabs that their fleet was returning and that the humans considered the war over so long as the Jabs maintained the ceasefire. He filed a complete report to HQ requesting further instruction. Corrigan’s reply arrived several hours later.

  CSO TO KOENIG. CONGRATULATIONS ON WINNING THE WAR. WE’LL CELEBRATE WHEN YOU GET BACK. REJOIN YOUR TASK FORCE AT NSL. LEAVE DURENDAL THERE AS SENTRY FOR NOW. BRING THE REST BACK INCLUDING THE NEWLY-COMPLETED JAVELIN THAT SHOULD HAVE ARRIVED BY THE TIME YOU GET THERE. NEWEST JAVELIN (ANDURIL) IS HOLDING STATION AT ROARK’S DRIFT. END OF MESSAGE.

  Koenig was in a good frame of mind when Excalibur dropped back into the New Shangri-la system. He jumped in surprise when the com AI announced a Code Red signal had been received. Code Red meant that the system was under threat of attack. There was no information on who was threatening the system. Koenig’s first thought was that the Jab fleet had returned. At this distance from the colony planet, it would take hours for light-speed messages to travel back and forth. Excalibur needed to get closer, and fast.

  “We’re going to Battle Stations. I want a least-time vector to the colony. Get us moving fast, Astro.”

  “Any messages to be sent, Commander?” asked the com AI.

  “Standby.” Koenig wanted to check what the mass detection system was reading. The tactical display showed no ships within detection range, which did not yet include the colony planet itself. Koenig had no idea where Hauteclere or any of the other swordships were right now. Even the assembly unit was too far away to pick up right now. “Send this to the colony. Excalibur Actual to Colony. We are heading your way as quickly as possible. Notify Commander Henriques that she is to send me a situation report immediately. End of message.”

  By the time that message had reached the colony and a reply could have reached Excalibur, the ship was approaching 61.8% of light speed. It would soon be halfway and would need to start decelerating. Koenig took note of the fact that a reply should have arrived by now. The tactical display was not revealing anything new, even though the colony planet was now, just barely, within detection range. There were no ships in orbit around it. The assembly unit would soon be in range too. That would be the logical place for the task force to position itself if they weren’t going to remain in orbit around the planet. His musings were interrupted by the tactical AI.

  “Commander, we’re within range of the assembly unit, so that it should be showing up on the tactical display, but it’s not.”

  Before Koenig could respond, he heard the com AI’s distinctive electronic voice.

  “Incoming audio message from the colony.”

  “It’s about damn time,” muttered Koenig. “Let’s hear it, Com.”

  “Colony to Koenig! The new ship that the shipyard built has gone berserk! It’s under AI control! It picked up the small assembly unit that was originally dropped off by the freighter and attacked Hauteclere until she blew up. It cut the larger assembly unit to pieces and accelerated away at high speed to God knows where! The other ships weren’t close enough to stop it. They’re somewhere in the system, but we don’t know where. Commander Hanson notified us that he was heading out to the relay to check if it was still intact and to use it to notify HQ. That’s all we know. Out.”

  Koenig was too dumbfounded to react immediately. How could a newly assembled ship be under AI control? As far as he knew, ships built by the atomic manipulation technology didn’t include AIs; they had to be manually added later.

  “How can that ship be under AI control?” he asked of no one in particular. The engineering AI answered.

  “When the decision was made to deploy an atomic manipulation assembly unit here, it was realized that bringing in and manually installing AIs would require human engineering staff and equipment that is currently in short supply on Earth. Therefore, the assembly unit design specifications were modified to allow the unit to assemble AI modules as part of the ship construction. Since AI programming depends on stored data that is a function of the underlying atomic structure of the data storage device, it appears that the data was recreated incorrectly, and the programming became corrupted.”

  “Wonderful! Now there’s a rogue AI controlling a swordship with cloak, hyperspace maneuvering, gravity cannon and its own little assembly unit to play with. It could duplicate itself by the hundreds given enough time and resources. We have to get the task force together and get additional instructions from HQ. Com, send out an omnidirectional recall signal to all task force ships instructing them to return to the colony.”

  An hour later, all the other ships had either returned to the colony planet or signaled their intention to do so. Koenig had also received a message from Corrigan. With no clue as to the rogue’s trajectory or destination, HQ had decided to continue with the redeployment. Durendal would remain on station in this system. Excalibur, Tizona and Curtana were to return to Sol. Koenig instructed Nakatomi to fire on any approaching ship that refused to identify itself with audio and/or video communication. He hoped the AIs controlling that rogue ship were not devious enough to falsify human voices or video images.

  The atmosphere on the ship during the trip back to Earth was somber. Henriques and her crew had been killed, and everyone was attempting to come to grips with the fear of the new unknown. Would the rogue AIs come back to attack human-occupied planets? Would they threaten other races?

  There were no celebrations when Excalibur arrived in Earth orbit. Koenig received terse orders to report to the CSO’s office asap. On his way down in the shuttle, he began to wonder if Corrigan blamed him for the rogue and the loss of Hauteclere and her crew. When the shuttle landed, he saw that it was the middle of the day, and the sky was overcast with dark clouds that threatened rain at any moment. It matched his mood perfectly.

  He was ushered into Corrigan’s inner office immediately upon arrival. To his surprise, Corrigan stood, came around the desk and offered his hand.

  “Glad you and your ship made it back, Commander. Have a seat. This is not the kind of greeting I was planning, but celebrations of any kind just don’t seem to be appropriate under the circumstances, as I’m sure you’d agree.”

  “I do, sir,” said Koenig as he sat down.

  “Good. There’s going to be a formal inquiry regarding the rogue. No one is blaming you for anything since you weren’t there when it happened, and you weren’t involved in any decisions regarding that rogue ship’s construction. Needless to say, some of the technical staff who were involved in those decisions are shitting their pants right about now. Thank God we didn’t make that same mistake of assembling AIs one atom at a time anywhere else.” He paused long enough to sigh before continuing. “Damn, the loss of Henriques and her crew hurts. It was going to be hard enough to find trained crews and qualified officers for the new ships anyway, but now the shortage is going to be even worse. As you probably already know, my planning staff has been tossing around the idea of building fewer bigger ships that need less crew on a ton-for-ton basis. It looks like we’ll have to shift our shipbuilding in that dire
ction sooner rather than later. I’ve read your AA reports, but I’d like to hear from you directly on the things that didn’t get in the reports. And before you say there isn’t anything, remember that I used to be a ship CO too. There are ALWAYS things that COs don’t put in their reports. Most of the time they don’t belong there, but your mission to finish the Jab war was not a routine assignment, so I expect you left out some things that weren’t routine either. This is all unofficial, so no need to get nervous, Commander. Just start at the beginning and fill in the gaps.”

  Koenig began talking, and Corrigan occasionally interrupted to ask questions. Koenig suddenly realized that Corrigan wasn’t really interested in the factual details. He wanted to hear about such things as Koenig’s frame of mind before battles, his impressions of how fast things were happening, all those kinds of subjective details that would help the admiral get an idea for how it felt to be conning a swordship during these events. Koenig now felt a little sorry for the CSO, who at heart was clearly still a ship CO and who was trying to experience the war vicariously via his officers. The discussion lasted almost an hour, but the time went fast. When there was nothing left for Koenig to tell, Corrigan thanked him and told him to make sure his staff would know where to reach him in case the inquiry wanted to ask questions. Aside from that, Koenig was free to start his R&R leave.

  Koenig left the building in a sombre mood. There was thunder on the horizon, a long way off. He wondered if it was an omen of things to come.

  This is the end of Excalibur’s Quest.

  Here is the Prologue (for Caliburn’s War, Swordships Odyssey #3)

  Twenty-one months after the end of the Human/Jab war.

  The Station Master woke to the urgent sound of the emergency alarm. She activated the com channel to the station’s Command Deck.

  “What’s the emergency?” Through the now open channel she could hear panicked voices in the background.

  “Long range scans show a very large object moving toward us, Station Master! It appears to be on a collision vector!”

  She barely recognized the stressed voice as belonging to one of her junior officers who was supervising the Command Deck night shift. “Have you tried to contact that ship and warn them off?”

  “No response to our calls! Station Master, it’s still fifty thousand seniks away, and we can see it with our own eyes! The scan computer estimates its size as being over three thousand seniks wide!”

  “Impossible!” the Station Master yelled. No artificial object could be that big, could it? The background sounds were becoming more disturbing to listen to. “I’ll be there quickly!”

  She got up and threw on the one-piece uniform hanging over the back of a chair and stepped into her boots. When she entered the Command Deck, she was shocked at the wave of fear and despair being conveyed by the noise that washed over her. She walked quickly but confidently to the scan station.

  “Show me that object,” she said in what she hoped was a calm voice. The scan technician’s hands were shaking as he manipulated his console. The display showed the station, the planet below and the object, with relative sizes and distances. The object appeared to be larger than her station, much larger, and it was coming directly at them! For the first time in a long time, she felt fear. Her stomach threatened to heave, but she was able to suppress the urge.

  “Optical view! Quickly!” The scan tech switched the display from electronic scans to a zoomed-in visual image. The Station Master gasped in shock. She was looking at an almost incomprehensively massive object that seemed to be a long, hollow tube, the inside of which held a shimmering blue circle surrounded by blackness. It was now less than 5,000 seniks away, and it looked like it was about to swallow her station whole!

  “ABANDON THE STATION! ALL CREWS TO LIFEPODS!” she shouted. She made sure she was the last one to leave the Command Deck and the last one to board the lifepod that was assigned for Command Deck personnel. The lifepod ejected, and as its maneuvering unit began to decelerate in preparation for atmospheric re-entry, the Station Master looked out the rearward-facing viewport just in time to see her beloved station disappearing inside the maw of that gigantic…THING! It was coming towards them at an incredible speed, and she wondered if the lifepod could get out of its way fast enough.

  “LOOK!” shouted someone whose terrified voice she no longer recognized. Turning, she saw the junior officer pointing at the forward-looking viewport where a dozen streaks of light were heading for the moon. When they reached it, the moon shattered into millions of pieces that flew in all directions. She heard herself groan. A lot of those pieces would be impacting on her world in a few moments, and far too many of them were big enough to survive re-entry intact, big enough to smash cities. The home world of her race would be devastated. They had to be warned! As she unbuckled her harness to move over to the com unit, all the external light that had been passing through the viewports died away. The lifepod was now surrounded by blackness, except for the strangely beautiful blue light coming through the rear viewport, and she understood that they had not gotten out of the way in time. The blue light increased in intensity, and the Station Master barely had enough time to scream her outrage before the lifepod was broken down to its component atoms.

  Earth:

  Koenig watched in fascination as the computer-enhanced image on the large display showed what the Very Large Assembly Unit was doing to the semi-finished Scimitar-class super-heavy cruiser that was moving through it at a glacial pace. The ship was complete except for its hull. In order to facilitate the internal work done by humans, a very thin outer layer of graphene, barely thick enough to hold an atmosphere, had been put on the outside of the ship, but that wasn’t enough of a hull to make the ship operational. When she was finished, she would have a much thicker hull that would provide structural support, as well as protection for the crew from external radiation. Humans could have welded sections of thicker hull material one plate at a time, but all those welds would have had to be scanned, and even if they had been done correctly, the joints between hull plates would still have been weak spots. How much better would it be for the entire hull to be one single continuous piece of material? The VLAU could make that by disassembling the rest of the ship one atom at a time, recording the internal layout while it did so, then re-assembling the ship with the thick outer hull as well. The entire process would be completed in less than four days, and once this first example was complete, more copies could be made solely by the VLAU.

  As Koenig watched, the front of the ship touched the blue circle and disappeared at the point of contact. The bow of the finished ship was now starting to appear out of the red circle at the other end of the VLAU. He felt his heartrate increase. This was to be his new ship. Rumor had it that she would be called Caliburn, in honor of the name of the sword that King Arthur was reputed to have pulled out of the stone. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the parallel between Arthur’s sword coming out of the stone and the ship being ‘pulled’ out of the VLAU. He reminded himself that it would be at least another month before Caliburn was commissioned and operational. After being assembled, over a hundred AIs had to be installed, and all the ship’s computers had to be programmed and checked. No one wanted a super-heavy cruiser to go rogue. And finally, the ship had to be taken on a shakedown cruise to identify the quirks that always seemed to sneak in, no matter how carefully the ship was designed or built.

  Having waited this long, though, he could wait another month. He’d been relieved of his command of Excalibur six weeks ago, after the almost nineteen boring months that had followed the end of the Jab war. Both the Tong and the Jabs had continued to observe the ceasefire. The 89,000 colonists on the planet nearest to the Tong had been relocated to the Tau Ceti system and the colony there, so that the Tong could begin shifting their population to the former human colony planet. Humans had had a limited number of communications with the Vergon and a few of the other races that had Vergon FTL communications technology, but no further
technology transfers had taken place.

  Back on Earth, Vasily had her new eye and a promotion to Commander, as had Conrad. Koenig himself had been promoted to Senior Commander. Almost every line officer in the TOSF was being promoted far faster than normal. The resulting decline in efficiency as people were handed responsibilities that they weren’t ready for had become so noticeable that the upper echelons of the TOSF had been forced to make a difficult decision. Production of additional Javelin-class light cruisers were stopped altogether, and the last six to be produced, which had still not been commissioned due to lack of crews, were now earmarked for recycling into larger, less crew-demanding super-heavies. And with the Scimitar-class design now 99.9% complete, the ship design teams and AIs were beginning to work on a bigger concept. There was even a rumor, so radical that Koenig had dismissed it out of hand, that the next design would start out being 8-10 times more massive than the Scimitar-class, and it would be designed so that it could be upgraded with additional hull capacity that might eventually hold a hundred thousand passengers. It would then be the first of what a few mad engineers were calling cityships. He shook his head in disbelief. Seriously contemplating building ships that big was sheer madness! Maybe in a hundred years, the engineering AIs would have the necessary data to design something that big that would actually work as intended, but he doubted if it could be done any time soon. His focus was interrupted by the call signal from his personal com device.