Essentially they were blind, and had to rely on Desolator’s previous analysis of their projected course, a course clear of any debris large enough to damage them. While their armor was proof against almost anything known, a big enough impact at such high speed could be devastating. This is why the stardrive, now TacDrive, had only until now been used in the great empty spaces among the stars.
It had been tested recently, of course, but this was its first use in actual battle. Chirom could not help the way his blood pounded and his heart sang as the symbols in the hologram display sped toward each other. Forty minutes of outside time compressed to under a minute, and he realized that, in this form of battle, only the AI could truly fight the ship.
Before, captain and crew had been essential. Now, he thought, we are merely…helpful. I dearly hope we have not unleashed a monster.
“Pulse ending in three…two…one,” said the Ape at the helm, and suddenly the outside view flashed onto the large wall screens, and the holographic display flickered as it updated its data. The views showed nothing but a spray of stars against a black background.
Desolator spoke. “Target confirmed. No change. Deploying Exploder missile.” A small fusion drive leaped away from Desolator, visible on the screen. “Engaging TacDrive.”
And then all was again silence, relieved only by the hum and thrum of the drive. Within its field, to the crew little seemed altered, except for the vertigo that all races seemed to experience to some degree. Voices carried through air, liquids poured and pooled, and gravity seemed the same. Yet Chirom could not get out of his mind the scene he had viewed as the damaged and insane Desolator AI of more than twenty years ago had engaged that same drive, but deliberately neglected to turn on the gravitic compensators within the control room. Thousands of effective gravities had left the tough machines untouched, but Senior Captain Juriss and the rest of his officers had been rendered into a biological paste in a microsecond, spread over the walls like food sauce.
On the holograph, Desolator’s symbol moved out of the way of the Destroyer just a pawspan – a few inches, Chirom reminded himself – and then the helm officer said, “TacDrive shutting down in three…two…one…”
Again they regained normality as the field cut off, and the views on the screens swung rapidly as Desolator turned himself around to point back along his own path. Telescopically the optical feed leaped forward until it focused briefly on the Exploder, now drifting. It zoomed backward again, expanding in view until a caret showed the Destroyer entering the picture, only seconds from the waiting weapon.
“Can’t it see the Exploder?” Chirom asked.
“Effectively, no, sir,” answered the stolid Hippo at the observation control station. “Not at point seven lightspeed. Even if they see it, they cannot react in time.” It must have been he who had gotten the views on the screens up so fast. He seemed a most competent officer. Chirom reminded himself to learn the names of the aliens under his command, but they were so hard to pronounce.
The weapons station officer called, “Detonation in three…two…one…”
The screens turned white, then black, then gray as the optical processors compensated for the blast. The view they showed slowed to a crawl, an ultra-slow-motion shot of a fireball without scale. The observation officer must have realized this dilemma as well, as a polar grid appeared around the expanding detonation.
At the moment it reached eight thousand meters in diameter, a smaller circle, highlighted by a computer caret marker, flew into view, very fast even in motion slowed thousands of times. About three thousand meters across, the Destroyer entered the expanding sphere of antimatter hell and, like one fruit striking another, both of them disintegrated into a fan of material composed of nothing but stripped ions and plasma.
In a fraction of a second, a Meme warship powerful enough to denude planets of life simply vaporized, converted into atomic particles.
The three Ryss in the control chamber roared in triumph, and Chirom found a rumbling cheer coming from his own throat. The Apes gibbered and struck hands together, while the Hippos stomped their feet and snorted.
“Well done, everyone,” Chirom said as the view continued to show the roiling ball of hot gas slowly dispersing. “Realtime view, please, Lieutenant,” he said to the Hippo at the observation station. With the touch of a control, the view pulled back and changed to show nothing but wisps of vapor rapidly cooling in the vacuum.
Chapter 3
Admiral Absen swallowed the lump in his throat as he stared at the main screen, listening to Conquest’s bridge crew exult. He was not entirely sure why the lump was there, or why he felt such emotion at the Destroyer’s death. Analyzing himself, he decided it must be because this live-fire test proved to him that Desolator could defend the system from any conceivable Meme attack. It meant that humanity, at least the few millions of souls for whom he was responsible, was really, truly safe.
For a few more years, anyway. As safe as they could be in a hostile universe.
The emotion also resulted from the realization that he was now freed of a burden and a fear he had borne for decades. That weight had only grown while he was in charge of EarthFleet and the defense of Earth’s solar system for so many years. When Task Force Conquest had launched, he had gladly handed over the reins to Admiral Huen, happy to be a fighting fleet commander again instead of a grand strategist and a symbol.
Now this real test, this perfect success, meant he could begin the project he had longed for from the moment he had landed the colonists on Afrana. He’d thought it would take decades of intense work, another economic buildup in the Gliese 370 solar system until it could produce the hundreds or thousands of ships needed to defend itself against the Meme. It would have grown into a twin to Earth’s vast architecture of Pseudo-Von-Neumann factories, and a launching place for new task forces to conquer again.
Absen had committed himself to the long war against the Meme. He knew – he’d thought he knew – that it would require plans and operations executed over decades, campaigns taking centuries, a forever war to defend humanity and free Earth from the threat of the enemy empire. The only way to do that would be to crush his opponents while spreading human life across the stars, making allies like the Hippos and the Ryss along the way.
But he was happy to give up that daunting prospect for a new way of replicating warships like Desolator.
That’s what this new success really meant. It meant the responsibility wasn’t all on him anymore. It meant, really, that he could go back to being what he always wanted to be. A bubblehead. A submarine commander. He’d worked it out over the last year, once he knew what RyssTech systems could be fitted to Conquest.
She would be his U-boat, and with her, Absen would make the Empire bleed.
Chapter 4
Conquest rendezvoused with Desolator a week later, as the superdreadnought completed its preparations among the system’s asteroids.
“Let’s see some of the operation,” Absen said to Captain Mirza from his flag station.
Mirza did not bother passing the order; Commander Scoggins had instantly filled the holotank with an ultra-realistic image of Desolator and the asteroid his minions now consumed.
The rock had originally been half the size of the Ryss ship, but now was just a pebble less than a tenth of that. Zooming in, the remnant expanded to show a view of seething ants swarming across its surface. A little closer and the ants resolved themselves into individual machines ranging from the size of rats up to elephants.
“Look at that,” Mirza said in awe. “They’ve mined more than ninety percent of that thing, and it wasn’t the first. Where did it all go?”
Commander Johnstone at CyberComm cleared his throat, a habit before speaking to his superiors. “Some went to manufacture collapsium and neutronium for the armor, which is far more compact, of course. Billions of tons of repairs to the ship itself, and hundreds of internal factories to make more machines to make more gear to make more machines to
mine more asteroids…Desolator is a true Von Neumann. He’s able to self-replicate.”
“I know that,” Mirza replied mildly, “but knowing it and seeing it are two different things.”
Johnstone said, “Scoggins, can you bring up sector…26-46-AH?”
“Sure.” The holotank shifted its view to another area, where a spindly skeleton hung. “What is that?”
Johnstone chuckled, looking around the bridge as if to see if anyone had the answer.
Okuda saw it first. “It’s another Desolator. Another Ryss ship. The start of it, anyway.”
“I think so too,” Johnstone said. “It’s just the outline of the skeleton, but in a few years, there will be two superdreadnoughts.”
Absen rubbed his jaw. “Then four, then eight, and so on?”
Johnstone nodded. “Makes sense to me, sir.”
“That’s good news.” Absen exchanged glances with Mirza. “Looks like you’ll get a bigger ship than mine, Captain, though you may have to wait a few years for it.”
Mirza shrugged. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to command, sir.” His face turned pensive. “It’s not like the old days – up or out, and an officer’s useful career only twenty or thirty years. I can wait.”
Absen turned back to the display with a hungry look. “I can’t.” He stood up to walk over to the two-meter sphere of hologram light that floated above the Helm station cockpit, as was his wont. Leaning against the railing that protected him from falling into the sunken circle, he waved his hand through the representation. “Give me the asteroid again.”
Dutifully, Scoggins switched the holotank back to showing the thousands of machines methodically dismantling what was left of the asteroid.
“Pull back so we can see Desolator too.”
A moment later the bridge crew could view the enormous ship hanging with its blunt armored nose nearly touching the swarming rock. Robots, or perhaps they should be called telefactors, as they were mostly unintelligent extensions of Desolator’s will, hurled chunks of rock across the short gap, to be caught by enormous funnels. Once inside, the materials would be processed into more, and more, and more.
Hopefully, Absen thought to himself, they have already been turned into what I need.
The view changed angles, not as if the optical pickup was panning sideways, but as if its location was moving. Of course, that was exactly what was happening as Conquest drifted at low speed toward docking.
Soon, like an armadillo nursing from an alligator, Conquest bumped oh-so-gently into place amidships of Desolator, the point of its nose fitting deeply into a custom-designed receptacle five hundred meters wide and equally deep.
“I think…” Johnstone said, and then the holotank view changed to show a separated shot of Conquest from perhaps ten kilometers back. “This is from one of Desolator’s sentries.”
“Good work, Commander,” Absen said. “You hacked in?”
Johnstone chuckled. “I just asked Desolator’s permission, sir. Much easier.”
From outside, Conquest looked like a classic brilliant-cut gemstone scaled up a millionfold, her pointed teardrop shape inserted by the tip into the side of the vaguely lizard-shaped Desolator, her blunted rear protruding like a mushroom, or a crystal doorknob.
“Docking complete,” Okuda said, opening his eyes and reaching for his plugs. One by one he pulled them gently out of his bald pate and they retracted into the medusa that hung above his head. Once he slid on his cloth skullcap, he looked like a human being again instead of the cyborg he was.
“All right, Captain Mirza,” Absen said, turning to the bridge crew. “You and the rest of the crew are released for R&R. I’ll see those of you who are coming back in about three months.”
Mirza pressed his lips together but said nothing.
Absen had heard all the arguments from his flag captain, and rightly so, against the idea of remaining aboard to oversee Conquest’s refitting. He’d overruled Mirza, and intended to stay right here and watch as Desolator’s machines rebuilt her from hull to heart. Just maybe he could make a contribution, and there was nothing on the planet or anywhere else in the Gliese 370 system to hold him. Nowhere else he wanted to be.
The captain stood and shook Absen’s hand. “Good luck, sir, and good hunting,” he murmured. “I’ll see you on comm, but…”
“We’ll make at least one more visit to Afranan planetary space, after she’s finished refitting,” Absen replied. “There are a few more things I have to do in person.”
“Looking forward to it, then, sir,” Mirza said, and then headed for his quarters to gather his bags for the trip home to the planet and his family.
The rest of the bridge crew came one by one to shake the admiral’s hand, some knowing they would be back in three months, some obviously not expecting to see him for decades, if ever. “Great job, everyone,” Absen declared, and said other encouraging things, mouthing the officerly platitudes expected of him. Only Chief Steward Tobias remained, shadowing him as always.
Finally the bridge had cleared, leaving Absen all but alone, staring at the asteroid and the skeleton of the new ship. He wondered what it – he – would be named. Dominator, after the first of its class? Devastator, Destructor, Demolisher? Desolator seemed to like the sound of D words in English, the ones that matched up their Ryss counterparts of similar fraught power.
Absen wandered the vessel as the rest of the crew bustled about with their bags, loading them onto the Hippo passenger ship. Big as that was, it fit neatly into Conquest’s main launching bay. He shook more hands than he could count as the hundreds of ratings, chiefs, warrants and officers migrated onto their ride home.
Eventually he made his way back up to the bridge and watched as the supersized shuttle slid gently outward, pulled clear by magnetics until it had drifted far enough to use its thrusters and then its fusion engines.
Soon it began its weeklong journey to the planet. It would fly at noncombat accelerations of only a dozen Gs or so, Absen knew, stresses perfectly counterbalanced by the gravplates distributed throughout the ship. It bemused him to think that, once a TacDrive system similar to Desolator’s was installed on Conquest, she would be able to make that run in less than an hour in realtime, a few moments of relativistic time within.
He imagined this was the same feeling a man born at the end of the nineteenth century, before powered flight, must have felt watching a Saturn V Apollo mission claw its way to the moon on a pillar of fire: total amazement at what technology could accomplish, moving faster and faster.
But was lightspeed the limit? Absen wondered. Would man ever break through that barrier as he had broken one mile a minute, then Mach one, then escape velocity from Earth?
Einstein had declared that barrier absolute, full stop, as did all of the physicists after him, except for a few cranks, or perhaps visionaries, that proposed theoretical ways around it. Wormholes, perhaps? Extradimensional shifts? The hyperspace or subspace of science fiction?
Science fiction is merely the future that hasn’t arrived, he remembered reading somewhere.
Finally the Hippo ship was out of sight, and Absen returned to his quarters. A shower, shave and fresh uniform later he stood at the enormous open port connecting Conquest to Desolator.
Spidery machines already scurried about, heading deep into the ship – his ship – on unknown errands. Most carried cases or naked pieces of equipment, and their numbers increased even as he watched.
A vaguely manlike telefactor stopped in front of him and extended one of its four arms to wave him forward. “Greetings, Admiral Absen, Chief Steward Tobias,” it said in a reduced facsimile of Desolator’s voice. “Please come with me. I will show you to your new quarters.”
“I would prefer to stay in my own, aboard my ship,” Absen replied. In truth, it did not matter terribly to him, but he still did not entirely trust the AI, and watched closely to see what his reaction to even this small opposition would be.
“As you wish, Admiral. H
owever, eventually the work in that area will make residing there quite unpleasant, and your presence will reduce the efficiency of the refitting. I can rework the schedule to reduce your need for absence from those spaces to approximately one week without significant delay.”
Absen nodded. “Never mind. I’ll start packing up my stuff.”
“Just instruct me, Admiral, and I will have your ‘stuff’ transferred to your temporary quarters aboard Desolator.”
“How long will that take?”
The machine in front of him seemed somehow to display amusement, despite the lack of mobile features. “Approximately fourteen minutes, once you approve.”
Absen coughed in suppressed amazement, thinking about the efficiency of AI machines. “Well, go ahead, then.”
“It shall be done. Will you come to the command chamber?”
“Lead on, Macduff,” he misquoted.
Inside Desolator a small electric car waited with seating enough for several humans or Ryss, or even one or two of the half-ton Hippos. They rode less than a kilometer, just the distance from the dock to a point near the center of the vast vessel. On the way Absen lost count of the machines that walked, crawled, rolled, perambulated, treaded and even flew past. There seemed millions, and a rough calculation showed this was easily possible. A dozen Manhattans could fit inside Desolator; over fifty cubic kilometers of interior volume.
No wonder the Ryss had needed an AI. That or a million crew.
Everything was shiny, everything new, except for the odd undamaged deck plate or bulkhead not replaced. Humans would have redone everything, made it all symmetrical, but to a machine, or a warship, if it still met specs there was no need.
Tactics of Conquest (Stellar Conquest) Page 2
