Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War

by Chris Hechtl

  A transmission to Zhukov to share the burden went unanswered. Either the other A.I. was committed elsewhere or refused to contemplate the problem at the time.

  Either way, it meant it was up to Ares to find a way to plug the gap. Fixed defenses could not be moved of course, but it could push mobile assets in the area further out. It would thin the coverage, especially overlap coverage, but the risk had to be taken.

  It also put the military assets on alert and deployed UAAs to bomb the Japanese islands. They would strike at any major cluster of humans. With any luck the A.I. would catch them off guard while they were cleaning up or celebrating.

  <>V<>

  Tumagar found himself in a whirlwind, one almost completely outside his own control. Once the Marines landed and he'd helped secure the coastline, he had been relieved and promoted to colonel to deal with other beings who had started after him and had rocketed through the ranks while he had languished as a squad leader on Earth. They passed on trying to put him through an abbreviated OCS course. That would have meant transporting him to Mars, and he managed to convince the brass he was needed right where he was.

  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on the way you looked at it, it was true. Caribbean Island hopping was a problem with the teams sometimes having to chase boats of all sizes that fled the scene and reclean an island. The islands had been battered by the storms and tsunamis.

  Then there were far-flung teams he had to consult with, such as those in Holland attempting to assault and take down the floating cities there or those in the South Pacific. He wasn't looking forward to gaining firsthand experience when he had to hit New New Orleans or some of the others in his AO.

  His teams did find a certain pleasure in attacking large boats however. Attacking boats in dock was easy. It took time to learn and practice the proper skills needed for surgical strikes in sinking a vessel. It was tricky to get in and tear apart electronics instead of sinking every ship they ran across.

  There were some targets that were just too well protected to play pirate on however, and those that were underway, even more difficult to hit.

  However, ships in movement were necessary to strike. Tankers had to be taken by hand, not sunk. They couldn't afford the additional ecological disaster their cargoes would represent to the surrounding coastlines and environment. Not on top of what the battered Earth had already endured. So, those he bypassed, saving them for later.

  Instead his teams hit freighters moving cargo for Skynet. It was a simple matter for a swimmer to attach a mine and blow a hole in a hull. Some designs had double hulls however. That called for a redesign of the mines. Eventually the engineers came up with shaped charges that could cut through both hulls in one explosion.

  Since the charges were designed to be attached below the waterline, it meant that the forces could attack underwater without ever exposing themselves to the surface and the watching robotic crew, as long as they had a plentiful supply of air of course. Once the charges were set, they could then back off and watch the fireworks. It was somehow carthritic to some to see the freighter sink with the robots on board. Sometimes the robots would be separated or attempt to get off on a life raft. But others would sink or float depending on what they were made of.

  After hitting a large cargo freighter headed on a course for the Yucatan of all things, Tumagar stopped a selkie private from moving in to take the robots on. “I know you want more action but why risk it? Let them sink.”

  “Some might be picked up or find a life raft and float. We have to finish this.”

  “Then do it smart, pup. Attack from below like a shark. You obviously can't drown them, however, so you better think of something else or they'll grab you and then you're the one in trouble.” That got a thoughtful grunt from the private. “Use nets and ranged weapons, EMP,” Tumagar said with a gurgly sound to his voice. He blew out a long breath, spraying sea spray and snot around them. “My kingdom for a dozen EMP mortars right about now.”

  The selkie snorted as well. “What was that saying about prior planning, boss?”

  “Oh shut up and get to work.”

  <>V<>

  Nike noted the losses in shipping and factored them into her planning. Two of the freighters lost had been fully loaded with a cargo of robots and munitions to begin her new planned front on the Yucatan peninsula. When a third freighter was lost before it could get into a protected zone, it drove home the point that she needed to consider alternative means of transport.

  A convoy system was the best; however, it was suboptimal given the enemy's coverage overhead. Detailing escorts to defend the ships were a part of convoy's, doing so on an individual basis was an inefficient use of her limited resources. Deploying small portable submarine drones to protect a ship while underway was also a problem; the drones would not be able to keep up with the mother ship and would drain their power supplies quickly. They would need to be constantly rotated, which would drain their batteries and put a strain on their maintenance schedules, another suboptimal idea.

  An alternative had to be found or a means to end the raids had to be instituted. Otherwise her attempt to restart a front in South America while cutting off the forces headed to the Mexico/American border was in serious jeopardy.

  The plan had been to cut them off and pin them while Enyalios sent in a counter offensive to roll them up and break them. Now that plan was in jeopardy or potentially lost. It was a suboptimal situation.

  Realization blossomed from within Nike that having all of her units in one fragile hull was suboptimal, but it was the only method of fast efficient delivery. Air delivery was faster, but the cargo aircraft carried much smaller loads and were in high demand. There was no way Ares would sign off on their use and risk their potential loss.

  Therefore, her ships would need protection. She put through a request to Ares for submarines to protect her shipping. Even small refitted science vessels might work or curb some of the losses. She checked the inventory and found that there were none available in Caribbean. Skynet had tasked all in the nearby area to protect the underwater cities or beach facilities under its control. Ares couldn't take control of them.

  Nike attempted a second route. She attempted to secure units from her brother. The large submarines could be sailed around Cape Horn, the tip of South America, while smaller subs could be air lifted to airports and then shipped to the docks. However, Enyalios refused.

  Nike sent an appeal to Ares, but that too was rejected. That left her stymied with few remaining options left available to her.

  It was a suboptimal situation. A human would call it intensely frustrating.

  <>V<>

  To Fiben's chagrin he was elected regional leader and chosen to rebuild South America. It was a daunting task; one he was a bit put out over being tasked to do. His first priority remained to get food and medicine in and the people reorganized to help the troops finish destroying Skynet and cleansing the area for their own safety as well as that of their children.

  He was ever grateful that Kelsy and Pat stayed on to help him. He stuck Pat with working on the various engineering and infrastructure projects he couldn't handle. Kelsy took on the personnel list. Everyone who came in had been interviewed; now it was a matter of sorting out through the records to find a person to fit a particular job. Properly trained building inspectors who wouldn't turn a blind eye on important defects were in short supply, for instance, as were medics.

  Everyone was eager to get back to some semblance of a life, some trace of their former reality after the long nightmare. Barter was still a major method of payment, and some complained of communist or socialist leanings in the current economy. Getting that sorted out was well above Fiben's head, however.

  He had been trained as a leader, a medic, a rescuer, a firefighter, but also a synergist. Someone who could walk into chaos and bring order. In some ways he was in his element. Some days however … he wondered what the hell he was doing.

  But seeing things beginning t
o turn around, order being restored, people … people smiling again, it sometimes brought him up short. It made him pause and stare, sometimes uncomfortably for the subject he was staring at granted, but not in threat but in wonder at all they had achieved with the faint realization that they still had so much further to go.

  But they were getting there. Slowly. With minimum electronics, no internet, no …, but they were getting there he told himself once more as he watched a group of children playing soccer. One day at a time.

  <>V<>

  Harper Collins found himself promoted to captain after his rather thorough and extremely annoying debrief in orbit. So he'd tossed his cookies! They should have known by now it wasn't any sort of jungle rot, just a perfectly natural reaction to someone being space sick. You'd think it'd happened often enough on the station, but apparently the medics hadn't taken many precautions. He'd been cocooned immediately then spent hours being decontaminated, poked, prodded, and then debriefed.

  Just about the umpteenth time he'd gone over every little niggling detail right up to when he'd clipped his toenails and the exact hour he'd taken his last shit, they'd relented. He'd been damn near ready to yank his fur out or someone else's by that time. They'd given him a week off at an L-4 colony to relax before they'd sent him right back into the thick of things. He'd enjoyed it until he'd let slip that he'd been groundside in a bar. Then he'd been besieged by reporters looking for a story.

  He'd also regretted his time off when he saw some of those same stories of people who'd come up from the gravity well. Many hadn't been pretty.

  When he'd reported for duty once more, they'd slapped the promotion on him and then sent him to Europe to help with medical and refugee crisis there.

  He hadn't known where to start. Not much of a clue and everyone was expecting him to get them sorted out ASAP—back to order, back to the life they'd led before. Fortunately, he could still contact Fiben so he'd picked up some pointers.

  He'd also picked up pointers from watching Fiben handle the logistic side so once he had his feet under him he applied those as well. Sometimes he fumbled, but he kept moving forward. He tried to focus on one or two projects at a time while delegating others to his few subordinates.

  Radiation was one such problem, the elephant in the room that no one was properly addressing. They were treating the results but not the source. That had to stop.

  The medics had tags clipped to their uniforms to watch for exposure to radiation. Geiger counters had been set up, some were handheld, others were built into the gate arches around each base or the hospitals. Anyone who came in hot was destined for an immediate cleaning and more thorough checkup before they were given drugs to hopefully flush the radioactive isotopes out of their system.

  As he settled in, he got the story from many who were badly afflicted with radiation. They told stories of passing through towns and cities that had been bombed by the nukes. Some hadn't known they were radioactive. They had been in tears when they told him, certain that they were as good as dead.

  It wasn't true; with proper medicines and a good flush, they would be restored to health. They'd still have issues. And the threat of cancers would hover over their heads and the heads of their children, but they'd be alive. But some of those medicines were in short supply. And the wait time made it all that much harder on them.

  When he'd had enough, he went to General Martell irate. He insisted they rope off the known areas that had high radiation counts. “We're going to need a lot of rope, Doctor,” the general replied after the chimp wound down.

  “Whatever it takes, sir. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, sir; you know that.” The general grunted. “We need something. Signs, whatever. People need to avoid these areas. Every water source has to be checked. Food …,” he waved a hand.

  “Doc, whoa. We're still clearing the area of the tin cans! We don't have the resources for that, nor the training to test for it, nor the kits …,” General Schlock said, shaking his head. He was on walkabout with the units, acting as an observer to learn what he could before his own unit was stood up. He had drawn the short straw and had beaten out General Sinclair on the honor to assault New Zealand and Australia. He was treating his walkabout like the vital learning opportunity it was and making notes on what personnel he'd like to poach for his own command while he was at it.

  “Okay, okay, I see your point. But we've got to do something. Fast.”

  “The only untapped manpower reserve is among the natives, Doc. Put them on it,” General Martell said simply. He looked old, old, worn, and tired. The Eastern and Northern Fronts were wearing him down. Fortunately, under the flesh seemed to be steel. Steel and bedrock.

  “Um …”

  “Get people to make the signs. Set up a shop. Make them out of whatever works. Tack up wood or something over existing signs if you have to. Skull and crossbones, in fact, start there. We've been trying to get them organized to help each other. Lords of the skies above we know we need the help. More help than we're getting.”

  “We're probably biting off more than we can chew,” General Schlock said with a scowl. “You're bogged down on three fronts; I'm about to open another. Africa's sown up, but we have to keep forces in place to protect what land our people have fought and died over so they don't have to do it again. Charlie's got South America almost in his hands, but …,” the Aussie general shook his head.

  Harper looked from one flag officer to the other. “Okay …,” he said slowly.

  “I know it's not your job, but you came up with the idea. Work on it, son. I'll do what I can but I'm a shooter,” General Martell said, pointing to the map. “Refugees aren't my thing, though I can handle the interactions and logistics if I have to. But you're here, so I don't have to. I can focus on fighting.”

  “Yes, sir,” Harper said with a half-smile. He was starting to royally regret leaving South America. He looked outside the building through the open doors to the people milling about outside.

  As he looked around to the vacant faces and devastated landscape, he smiled bleakly. “Yeah, we'll get it done. We've, after all, come this far. We can damn well go further. And we will. Somehow, someway, sir,” he said, though his heart wasn't quite in the statement. He badly missed Fiben and the others. They could tag team shit like this. Here, he wasn't sure where to start.

  “That's the spirit,” General Schlock said with a nod. General Martell nodded as well.

  “You've got my permission to tap any layabouts in the motor pool or tap the walking wounded if they volunteer. Light duty of course,” the British general warned, holding up a finger.

  Harper nodded. “Of course, sir.”

  “I know they are bored; this might keep them occupied while giving you a bit of support. I know it's not going to be all tea and biscuits, nothing worth doing ever is. But as you said, it's in need of doing. Get it done. Dismissed.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Harper said. He went outside, stopped and blew out a breath. Well, he had his marching orders he thought as he went to work. First he needed a plan.

  <>V<>

  In March General Caesar split off a division for the long march north. Under prodding from high command, General Caesar sent a series of recon teams north ahead of the division through Central America to get an accurate picture of what he was facing, while performing other missions along the way. Every day they reported in through a whisker laser to a satellite in orbit giving a verbal report of anything they had seen along the way.

  It took months for the small squads to work their way up into the Continental United States and even more time for one of them to get the final confirmation on Aurelia Lagroose and her security team. There was hardly any doubt; General Murtough had shown Jack the recon satellite images. But Jack had held out hope that she hadn't been there at the time.

  Jack and family were informed of Aurelia's death. They had already mourned Aurelia's death long ago. Wendy carefully prodded her father into the final stages of acceptance. She
told him it was for his health, for closure. He quietly accepted it.

  Once they completed the mission, they swung south once more. They took shelter among the various small pockets of resistance in the area. Each time they did they were inundated with questions on the army's time table. They brought hope and some small medical training with them. One team met up with Boomer's resistance group while passing through Colorado.

  “Sergeant Aspin, I know you want to stay here, but we could use you for the endgame,” Sergeant Riviera said to him.

  “And that is?”

  She rolled her eyes in despair at him. “As if I know? Or I'd tell you if I did? Come on, you know all about OPSEC and lose lips and all that,” she waved the question off.

  “Why me?”

  “I don't have a mudder frackin clue,” she said shrugging in disgust. “You know the brass and games like that. They love to pull shit like this all the time. General Murtough picked your name out of a hat for all I know,” she shrugged again, face puckering in disgust once more as Boomer chuckled. “Do I tell him you are coming or to piss up a rope?” she asked, eying him.

  Boomer froze and then scowled as he looked at his team. He had a good team, but they were haggard. They were again back to being on the ropes with Lieutenant Parker's death. News that their families had been hit and killed had further twisted the knife in their already sunken morale. They barely had enough to survive let alone the energy to fight.

  “I don't know. Just me or …,” he indicated his team.

  “Just you,” the sergeant answered with finality in her voice as she scowled and crossed her arms. “We both know a large group increases the odds of getting spotted along the way.” He was forced to nod in admission to that statement. “And getting through the border is no picnic, trust me on that. We had to use a coyote underground passage,” she said, shaking her head. He eyed her. She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Don't ask.”