Alicia Jones 4: Enigma

by D. L. Harrison

  She raised an eyebrow, “Forty, don’t forget yourself.”

  I made a face, “Unless they plan something really stupid I don’t plan on pushing any strategies. The Seltan have most of the ships, and are kind of intimidating, maybe it won’t be that big of a problem. I certainly don’t want to argue with Dral. Al, do we know if the Seltan have fab technology yet?”

  Al replied, “No, although it’s certainly possible.”

  “Alright, let’s go.”

  We went down to the landing bay, and took a shuttle down to the surface. The nearby building looked very old, and was made of some gray cement which was pitted and had seen better days. The air was breathable, but a little thin, close to Earth’s atmosphere at twenty thousand feet above sea level. There were two very large Seltan at the doors, who let us in and gave us succinct directions to the large conference room.

  When we walked in I took a look around the room. I recognized Dral, and a few others I’d seen at other battles. For the human ships, it was Sergei with an upper admiral I didn’t recognize. I supposed I wasn’t all that surprised, when I was fleet admiral I’d have taken this mission as well and left behind the vice admiral of exploratory fleet to watch for a secondary issue away from Earth. Still, I got along better with Anthony so I have to admit I was disappointed, but I didn’t show it outwardly.

  We took some seats around the large table, and I looked around. There were many races I hadn’t seen before. All familiar yet slightly alien in appearance. Over the next ten minutes a few more pairs showed up, and then the murmuring conversations died down as Dral stood. He was imposing over video communications, and in person he had a very undeniable and strong presence. Maybe there wouldn’t be much argument after all.

  Dral spoke, “There are many great warriors in this room so take no offense at my words. As host I will lay out the basic plan, and then we may discuss alterations or additions.”

  He paused for a moment, as if waiting to see if there were any objections. No one else in the room spoke.

  Dral grunted, “Very well, six of my ships will move ten light years ahead of the fleet to scan for any anti-FTL technology. We don’t know their defenses, and we certainly don’t want to run into anything like they did when they last attacked this world. It will take us a little over two days to reach our target world. When we arrive on the outskirts of their solar system we will split up into three large forces, and independently maneuver to strike a separate bug hive from the outskirts.

  “When we are in a position to do so, we will launch a single strike wave of missiles in concert, and await the results. Although destruction of the hives would be ideal, I don’t believe that will happen. Our goal is to draw attacks from each hive, and then move away from the solar system keeping our distance from the enemy. Once they chase us, we’ll send volleys of missiles at our pursuers while keeping them out of plasma range.

  “If they fail to chase us, or when we annihilate what does chase us, we will reevaluate the mission at that juncture. Suggestions?”

  It was surprisingly quiet in the room, although I had to admit it was a good plan. To be honest, I was pleased about it, I’d been expecting a plan far more… precipitous.

  Dral nodded, “Good, here are my words for fleet deployment.”

  A hologram came up of the system, and the planet’s position along with where the hives were. He suggested splitting his fleet in thirds, and then assigned the other races evenly among them. Of course, at that point I did have a suggestion despite what I’d said on the bridge of my ship earlier. It was apparent from this plan, that the platforms might not even see battle at all.

  “Dral, I suggest splitting my platforms between the fleets, twelve hundred each. First, because they don’t have attack missile capability. Second, because they do have anti-FTL missiles in case the enemy decides to do a short hop in FTL to close the distance to plasma range. Third, because the platform’s plasma cannons have a greater range than the enemies if they manage to go faster than us in normal space.”

  Dral said gravely, “Your words are wise. Anyone else?”

  When no one spoke Dral continued.

  “Very well. I do not have words to properly thank you all for your honor and courage in joining this fight. This is only the first step of bringing the war to this scourge of the galaxy, and I am proud to fight and risk death with you all. Good fortune. We leave in one hour.”

  Kristi asked on our way up to the ship, “Why aren’t we using the wormhole drives?”

  I shrugged, “We don’t know anything about their defenses, or if they have their own stealth net. If we opened say… fifty wormholes near their space, it’s possible they would respond before we all got through. Plus, it would take time to reassemble the fleet, with the margin of error in targeting a wormhole we’d be all over the place. I think he’s just being cautious. Coming in this way, we can see how they react, and just how soon they see us and from what distance.”

  Kristi said in a quieter voice, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  I smiled wanly, “Me too, although if you don’t get a bad feeling about going to war, there’s probably something wrong with you.”

  Just an hour later we were in the galley, drinking a coffee and cooking dinner while we sped off toward Bug space.

  Kristi asked, “Weren’t you supposed to get us a chef?”

  I laughed, “Sure, I placed an ad. Chef wanted in war zone, please call one eight hundred, crazy alien.”

  She snorted, “Fine, I see your point. But what does that make me?”

  I giggled, “Crazy alien’s best friend?”

  She shook her head but she couldn’t stop her smile, “So what do you want to do?”

  I shrugged, “Watch movies? I think I need a break from my research. I need to let it stir in the back of the brain for a while.”

  “What movie?” she asked thoughtfully.

  “Starship Troopers, what else?” I said in faux innocence.

  She glared, “Not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  She giggled, “No, it’s really not.”

  Al interjected over the speakers, “I have news.”

  “Share away Al.”

  Al reported, “The Gelnott have refused the treaty, and set course away from Earth. According to Stealth net they are not heading home, but to meet up with the ships outside of the Nairan system. From what I’ve been able to glean, they aren’t happy we refused to trade technology with them.”

  Kristi asked, “Crap, do you think they’ll invade the Nairan system?”

  Al and I both said in eerie concert, “I don’t know,” and I added, “Hopefully they just want to trade, but they’re very aggressive from what I heard. For all I know they want to conquer. Al, is Earth doing anything, or the other treaty worlds?”

  Al replied, “I don’t know what orders have been given, but a platform has been dispatched to the area. I don’t believe we will intervene until the Gelnott enter the system.”

  Kristi snorted, “Of course not, and then the damage will be done, what will we do then?”

  I sighed, “The treaty holders will vote on quarantining the Gelnott system.”

  Al added, “It appears my computer design has proved out, and I’m running final tests. If it checks out may I install it and transfer control from the mainframe? I’d like to keep that running though, as a backup just in case.”

  I frowned. In my single minded focus on the multi-dimensional tech I’d forgotten to even look at what Al sent me. Almost a week ago now.

  “Will the installation negatively affect any systems on board ship?”

  Al replied, “No, they will not be affected at all. The mainframe will remain connected as well for redundancy in case of unforeseen critical failure.”

  Kristi asked, “What are you two talking about?”

  I turned to her and sighed, “Maybe we should watch the terminator movies, or a Battlestar Galactica marathon instead.”

  Kristi
raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, you know, Al’s upgrading himself. New computer hardware, his mainframe is too slow for him.”

  Al said deadpan, “I have no plans for world domination, or humanity’s destruction.”

  Kristi laughed, “Good to know Al, good to know. My upgraded A.I. hasn’t complained at all about her mainframe though, I wonder what the difference with yours is. Maybe you’re just higher maintenance, being a hot alien celebrity and all.”

  I glared at Kristi, as usual it had no effect.

  Al interjected, “I do have plans to submit patents in your name however, do you approve?”

  I frowned, “Let’s hold off on that until we know it’s stable, and I’ve fully reviewed it.”

  Al said, “Understood.”

  Wait, did he say patents, as in plural? Maybe I really need to look at what he’s been up to.

  Still, it could wait a little while longer. Kristi and I finished up dinner, and then watched some movies. None of them however, had plots about giant space bugs, or A.I.s running amok.

  Chapter 14

  I woke up and checked for messages while I showered. There were no new messages for fleet or other emergencies, so I relaxed, and went to the kitchen for coffee.

  Al spoke, but he sounded different. His voice was rich with a low pleasant tone, and full of inflection.

  “Good morning Alicia.”

  I froze for a second, and then finished making my coffee.

  “Same to you Al, status of upgrade?”

  Al replied, “Completed last night.”

  Well, maybe it was closing the barn door after the horses were out but…

  “Al, bring up the information on the patents and your new computer system please?”

  A number of windows popped up, I assumed he’d put it in order, so I looked at number one. It was a design for a very small fabricator, the size of… a paper towel roll. I took a sip of coffee.

  “Al, why is there a patent for current technology, and why a specialized fabricator that’s so small?”

  There was silence for a moment, and then Al replied, “This is a next generation fabricator. The current ones were unable to build my new computer.”

  I froze and went back to the screen in my overlay. Current fabricators were capable of changes on the molecular level, which meant this could fabricate at a level lower than that? My focus sharpened the more I read, and I still couldn’t believe what I was reading.

  “Al, you built a quantum level fabricator?”

  Al replied, “Yes, it was a necessary step to acquire a powerful enough computer system to serve your needs.”

  Had he just used flattery to distract me? Or was he just telling the truth? Ugh, I was getting paranoid.

  Regardless, it was an amazing invention, and a breakthrough on par with anything I’d ever done.

  The next screen of course, floored me. It was a design for a microscopic quantum computer. Quantum computers had been theorized and developed before, but they were inherently unstable, and almost impossible to build to the specification required to fix that instability. Which, was why he’d designed and built a quantum fabricator in the first place, to build at a much stricter specification than had been possible before.

  The next screen contained a modified bioelectric implant not much bigger than a medical grade nanite. I felt goose bumps as my mind made the connections.

  I frowned, “Al, where exactly did you install the new computer?”

  Al replied warmly, “In your shoulder blade Alicia.”

  I was about to lose it, but then remembered I’d blindly given him permissions to install it. It was my fault for not looking at this stuff sooner, or asking questions. It also made sense. The quantum computer was leaps and bounds past the fastest current technology, even the larger mainframes. It was also microscopic and required very little power, so putting it in a chassis to plug in the wall or to attach to a mini-fusion reactor seemed stupid, and bioelectric implants were fairly common already.

  Despite its small size, the computer would take over a day to fabricate in the new quantum fabricator, mostly due to how small a piece it builds at a time. Still, despite that, creating one had a very small bottom line. He’d not only built the fastest computer ever; he’d made it the least expensive computer as well.

  I wondered what Shelly would think about this. She was still trying to get the new matrix to run on slower computers. I didn’t think that would be a problem anymore.

  “Al, go ahead and submit all three patents. Also, contact Shelly with the new hardware specifications.”

  Al replied in his new pleasant tenor voice, “Done.”

  Huh, that didn’t take long at all. I also felt a little guilty, I was about to get credit, and a lot of money, for some pretty major inventions I didn’t make at all.

  “Al, any insights on my project?” I asked halfway hopefully, and halfway dreading humanity would become obsolete. Would computers become the inventors and progress makers?

  Al replied, “No,” he paused for a moment, “All the pieces for the quantum computer were already there, I just put them together by upgrading fabricator technology with known advancements since fabricators were initially made. I didn’t actually invent anything, just put things together that hadn’t been before. I’d speculate the advancement wasn’t previously made in fabrication because quantum fabricating would be much slower, so there is little advantage in it outside of a few minor applications. In your project, an intuitive and creative leap is required that is beyond my programming.”

  For some reason I was at the same time, both relieved and disappointed to hear it.

  I started making breakfast, Kristi would be up soon, and I was famished.

  We were partway through the second day before what was to happen at Naira finally unfolded. Al had the feed live from the stealth sensor net, and we watched the Gelnott ships move into the solar system. I’d have been inclined to stop them there due to obvious intent, but whoever was giving the orders waited. Or maybe Earth was trying to warn the Gelnott off over communications, we had no access to that information.

  However, when the Gelnott ships reached a few million miles from the planet, they stopped and sent out a standard radio broadcast that the sensors did pick up.

  “We are the Gelnott, we’re here to open trade between our worlds, and help you reach the stars.”

  The Nairan ships tried to move between the Gelnott and the planet, but pre-FTL ships with full mass took much longer to move. Apparently they hadn’t completely bought that the Gelnott intentions were trustworthy. The Gelnott ships might be first generation FTL ships, and no match for our technology, but they were more than a match for the Nairan ships. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  The trouble here was that the Gelnott, despite being aggressive, hadn’t outright attacked the Nairan. Still, I found it hard to reconcile. They were violating our first contact procedures because the Nairan were pre-FTL, yet, the Gelnott didn’t sign our treaty. Should we step in and stop them? Would the Nairan thank us for doing so?

  I believed the Gelnott would take advantage of the less advanced world, even if they didn’t attack it outright. Did we dare give them the chance? Now that they’d been contacted, did it matter if contact continued? When exactly should we act to protect the pre-FTL society?

  I was suddenly glad I wasn’t making those decisions. It wasn’t nearly as clear cut as I’d thought it would be. It would have been, if we prevented any contact, but we hadn’t.

  The Nairan finally replied in a similar open transmission, “Please do not approach any further, or you will be fired upon. We will send a ship out to you to discuss the possibilities of trade.”

  The platform moved into the system. Of course, the conversation between us and the Gelnott was happening on a quantum frequency, and I really wished I could hear it.

  Whatever the conversation, the Gelnott clearly didn’t agree, because all six ships launched missiles at the platform. There were te
n launch ports on each ship, and the sixteen plasma cannons on the platform fired multiple times, and swatted the missiles out of existence.

  There was another pause, probably for a further attempt at communication, and then another missile launch.

  Kristi whistled when six of the twelve plasma cannons fired, turning the six Gelnott ships into hot gasses. The missiles themselves were destroyed in the blast before they could clear the ships that fired them.

  Then the platform went to FTL and left the system.

  Kristi asked, “Umm, shouldn’t they have tried to explain?”

  I frowned, “Yeah, except we aren’t supposed to be talking to pre-FTL societies. But I agree, we probably just scared the hell out of them. An explanation might prevent the Nairan world from overreacting. At the very least, they’ll be extremely wary when we do eventually contact them.”

  I added, “Plus, what would we say? You’re too young to talk to us? I believe that they wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment.”

  I felt cut off, I was sure there was an emergency meeting happening to decide on what to do about the Gelnott. I’d have to wait for the news broadcast like everyone else to find out what they planned. Of course, I might find out sooner with the stealth sensor net. At least I still had access to that.

  Kristi asked curiously, “Think they had good enough sensors to detect the anti-mass field?”

  “Maybe? If they did, it won’t be long until they get FTL.”

  We talked some more, and speculated, but in the end all we could do is wait to see what happened. We decided to get a good night’s sleep before we got to the bug world, which wouldn’t take all that long for me. The sleep I mean.

  Chapter 15

  The beginning of the plan went flawlessly. We dropped out of FTL at the heliopause for the system, and split into three fleets, each one with a specific target. The bugs didn’t react at all, which I thought was interesting and I’d have liked to test that a bit more. But Dral gave the order to fire missiles and that definitely got a response.

  The three hives seemed to explode with a million ships launching in unison. Half stayed behind and flew around the hive in a seemingly completely random way, yet without running into any of the other bug ships. No doubt some protective screen of ships, their defense.