And while Construction Matrices didn’t travel alone, they didn’t travel in packs.
Matrix combat platforms did.
The Rogues were back.
35
Octavio was not anything that his doctor would call healed or recovered. His left arm was still immobilized outside of supervised physiotherapy, but his lung had recovered, and he was no longer eating enough for three people.
Nakajima had allowed him to return to limited duty, which meant he was in his office, reviewing paperwork, when the alert hit.
He had the tactical display on his wallscreen before Das finished speaking. Eight Matrix units was bad news. There was always a chance that XR-13-9 had sent more ships without telling him…except that ZDX-175-14 was reacting the same way the humans and Vistans were.
“Africano,” he said as he linked to his coms officer. “Get a link to ZDX. I want a confirmation that they aren’t expecting these guys.”
“On it, sir.”
He was already expanding the channel, switching between bridge officers as he spoke.
“Das, make sure all of our weapons are warmed up and online. Last data I saw from Tran said we should have everything back—let me know if there are any problems,” he ordered.
“Everything shows green, but we’ll status-check as we bring them up to full,” Das replied.
“Tran, get engineering ready. Full DamCon teams and bring up the secondary reactors,” he continued, switching again. “We’ll need every ounce of power, so get me fusion cores.”
“Sir?” Renaud interrupted. “Aren’t you supposed to be—”
“I’ll be on the bridge in two minutes,” he told his XO. “Limited duty be damned. What’s your take?”
“Eight Rogue combat platforms,” she said flatly. “We can’t take them, sir.”
“I have the same, at least on the enemy strength,” he replied. “But I’m not abandoning these people, Aisha. We’ll see what we can pull off.”
Silence was his only answer. Renaud clearly didn’t think it was possible—and she wasn’t likely to be wrong.
But they’d only fully evacuated six hundred thousand people. There were fewer than a quarter billion in the habitats. Over seven hundred million Vistans were still on the planet, vulnerable if the Rogues brought in new terraformers.
He wasn’t sure what Rogue combat platforms would do when faced with the current situation, but he doubted it was going to spare the survivors on the surface, let alone the habitats in orbit.
And if he was going to order Scorpion to die for those people, he was damn well going to do it from his bridge.
“Ninety days,” Renaud muttered to Octavio as he took his seat on the bridge. “I was hoping for more.”
“I was hoping for forever,” he replied. “I could have lived with, oh, another fifty days.”
In fifty days, the new Task Force Vigil was scheduled to arrive. Octavio wasn’t as pessimistic as his XO, but he still wasn’t sure how Scorpion and her Vistan allies could stand off eight combat Matrices.
He’d have happily bet on the new Vigil and her strike cruisers against them, though.
If the Matrices had to come before Lestroud arrived, though, he was glad they’d come before he’d left. His group of propulsion and warp-drive engineers for the Interceptor were scheduled to leave about thirteen days before Admiral Lestroud would arrive, on the fourth evacuation flight.
“What do we do, sir?” Renaud asked.
“We get the guardships and the bombers moving,” he told her. “We’ll head out in front, see if we can make them blink. We’re tougher than they’ll expect us to be, after all.”
“Won’t they have all of the data from the last fight?” she said.
“Then they’ll be expecting us to be missing a turret and a lot of other bits,” Octavio replied. “We wouldn’t be back to a hundred percent if Exilium hadn’t put those spare LPCs on the evac fleet.”
“They can build copies of themselves in a year,” his XO pointed out. “Do you really think they’ll assume we couldn’t fully repair our ship?”
“I can hope,” he told her. “Either way, we’re going to hit them as hard as we can, then fall back on the Vistans for a base of fire. We’ll cover the Star-Choir with our Guardian Protocols for as long as we can.”
“Until they kill us with their heavy beams, basically,” she murmured, softly enough that the rest of the bridge couldn’t hear her.
“Potentially,” he admitted. “We only have so many options, Commander, and I’m not abandoning the Vistans. We haven’t evacuated nearly enough people.”
“Enough to save the species,” Renaud replied. “Six hundred thousand people is a pretty solid genetic base. Even if we fail, the species will survive.”
“There were ten billion of them four months ago,” Octavio said. “Now there’s a billion. That’s my fault. My responsibility. Not again. Not ever.”
Renaud probably had an entire book of arguments as to why the Impact hadn’t been his fault, but she was wise enough not to bring them out right now.
“Sir, we’re getting an update from the recon node,” Africano reported. “Relayed through ZDX, but it’s pretty complete.”
With the recon node heading out-system at ten percent of lightspeed and the new ships coming in at ten percent of lightspeed, even the multiple light-minutes the new Matrices had put between themselves and the planet disappeared fast.
And it told him he was facing his worst nightmare. Part of him had hoped it would be something else. Some new aliens they hadn’t encountered before—or even just only half combat platforms accompanied by something else.
They had no such luck. Eight immense six-clawed forms filled the screens as the recon node flashed toward them. He had no idea how he was going to fight them.
He just knew that he was going to fight them with everything he had.
“Sir…just what is that recon node doing?”
Octavio’s focus had been on Scorpion and the Star-Choirs, getting the defenders moving and aligned to make sure that the guardships and bombers were in position to cover his inevitable retreat.
The key to actually surviving this mess would be to make the best use of the bombers. Six hundred and sixty X-ray lasers powered by fifty-megaton warheads had a decent chance of taking down two, maybe even three combat platforms. The hundred and eighty bombs the guardships could deploy every minute or so wouldn’t hurt either.
That opening six-hundred-laser salvo was the best punch they were going to get, however, and if Octavio had the Rogues’ attention when it went off, they had a chance.
He had not been paying attention to the single Matrix recon node that had been sent out to scout the incoming Rogues. The AIs’ core protocols meant that the recon ship couldn’t fire on the Rogues and the Rogues couldn’t fire on it.
“Is it…playing chicken?” he finally asked, watching the recon node position itself directly in front of one of the combat platforms.
The reactionless drive the Matrices used was fast but wasn’t very maneuverable. They could get from zero to ten percent of lightspeed in the blink of an eye, but they couldn’t change that course easily once they were moving.
His own ship couldn’t reach the same velocities in anything near that time frame, but they could fling themselves all over the sky while doing it. There were some limits to their maneuverability, but Scorpion’s thrusters had a hundred-and-forty-degree by a hundred-and-fifty-degree rotation capability. The ship had to be pointed in roughly the direction Octavio wanted it to go…but only roughly.
The recon node and the combat platform were using the exact same drive, though. And the recon node now had itself directly in front of the much bigger Matrix ship. It matched every maneuver, every vector change.
“They can’t shoot it down any more than it can fire on them,” he murmured. “That’s insane.”
“I have multiple tachyon punches!” Das reported. “Our Matrix friends just left their fabrication comple
x behind and moved out.”
“Where?” he demanded.
“Unclear, they left the system,” his tactical officer reported.
That seemed…out of character. It almost certainly had something to do with the combat platform that had fallen out of formation, the big warship clearly confused by its smaller relative.
“Take us out, maximum acceleration,” he ordered. “Let the Rogues think we’re coming to them.”
“Aren’t we?” Renaud asked.
“Oh, we are,” he agreed. “But I have a suspicion I know what our robotic friends are up to, and I want those bastards focused on us.”
Scorpion lunged out at full thrust, her engines blinding to anyone watching her from the wrong spot. Gravity compensators smoothly absorbed the impact, and Octavio smiled grimly as he watched the confused disorder of his enemies.
Five of them were still advancing, but two more had stopped with their confused sibling. They had no idea how to handle a recon node getting in their way. Their core protocols wouldn’t let them just shoot the annoying smaller ship, but they also couldn’t outmaneuver it.
“We’re forty-two minutes from range,” Das reported. “That’s assuming we don’t reverse vector as per the original plan.” She paused. “What is the new plan?”
“I’m not certain,” Octavio admitted. “Any idea what the cycle time on a tachyon punch is?”
From the looks his bridge officers were giving him, only Renaud had put it together, and she did so only now.
“Son of a bitch. Is that going to work?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. And I want to be in position to shoot the first one of those robotic murderers that works out how to get around it. So, no, Lieutenant Commander Das, we aren’t slowing down.”
The guardships and bombers behind him were going to play far less of a role in this battle than Octavio had planned. That was probably for the best—he’d spend the Vistans’ lives like water if it would save their people, but if he could drive the Rogues off on his own, well, fewer people would die.
“They’re trying to herd the recon unit out of the way,” Das reported. “That one ship has tied up three combat platforms. It’s…impressive.”
“It would have ended a lot faster if they could shoot it,” Octavio reminded her. “We’ve spent so long focused on the fact that our Matrices couldn’t shoot at them that we forgot the reverse was true.”
“I don’t see how that’s going to help us today,” the tactical officer replied. “They’ll be in range in ten minutes, their grasers and our particle cannons alike.”
“Daniel, please make sure they don’t hit us,” Octavio said dryly. “I think our Matrix friends have a plan, but I’d like to live until—”
“Tachyon punch!”
Das’s snapped report cut through the bridge like a knife, and Octavio’s gaze snapped to the main display. The Matrices had clearly been getting live updates on the Rogues from the recon node they’d left behind.
There were eight Rogues in the system and just as many allied Matrices. Four combat platforms appeared directly in front of the lead units, with a recon and security platform blocking the fifth ship still moving toward the planet.
The other recon and security platform and the remaining recon node appeared around their sister, joining her in playing chicken with the three ships that were trying to deal with the original small ship.
For a few seconds, Scorpion’s bridge was silent as Octavio and his people ran through the math and vectors. Their allies had completely blockaded the incoming Rogues. So long as the Rogues couldn’t shoot at the Matrices, they couldn’t get past them. The maneuverability of the platforms was too limited.
“Sir! Bandit four!”
Octavio followed Das’s shout and realized what they’d all missed.
It had been a small miscalculation, the kind even a powerful artificially intelligent computer could make. One of the combat platforms still moving toward Vista had been slightly ahead of the rest. The combat platform that had punched in to blockade it had jumped in just slightly too close.
The same limited maneuverability that meant the Rogues couldn’t get past Octavio’s allies also meant the ship couldn’t stop. Even attempting to evade, it was moving at over eight percent of lightspeed when the two ships collided.
Matrix combat platforms were big, heavily armored ships…but at that speed, even a small asteroid might have shattered its armor.
And it had hit another combat platform. Octavio stared as the two ships hurtled along the impacting vessel’s course for several seconds, debris and sparks scattering from the collision.
Then one of the exotic-matter cores went critical. It didn’t matter which ship’s core—there were eight matter-conversion plants buried in the wreckage.
Neither ship survived—and moments later, the only Matrices in the system were the ones Octavio had grown used to.
Less one sibling who’d accidentally saved them all.
36
A digital clock on the wallscreen in front of Isaac ticked down, second by second, toward the moment where Task Force Vigil would jump back to warp.
The policy of dropping out of warp for one hour every week had been set after both the six-month journey to Exilium itself and the mission to take down the Rogue. Warped space was uncomfortable for humans, and no studies or data to tell people that there was nothing wrong with them or the air they were breathing helped.
Psychosomatic did not mean imaginary, after all.
To his surprise, the trip aboard Vigil hadn’t been nearly as bad, and the data on one of his screens agreed with him. The doctors aboard the six ships had been keeping an eye on everyone, and they were estimating the impact had been reduced by as much as half—at least in terms of people needing to be given temporary relief of duties, anyway.
Their sixth dropout had come with the news of the attack on Vista. They’d barely missed the reports on their last window, by a matter of hours at most. The six-and-a-half-day window was long enough that the Matrices had come back since.
And faced the same obstacle. Without reinforcements, the Rogues ground out on the same problem the friendlier Matrices had always faced: their core protocols wouldn’t let them shoot at each other.
Combat Coordination Matrix ZDX-175-14 had found a way to use that to the defenders’ advantage. If the AI had been one of Isaac’s people, he’d have hung a medal and a promotion on them for that.
“ZDX informs me that they are moving more recon units forward to reinforce Hearthfire,” the recorded hologram of Captain Octavio Catalan told him. “We expect to be up to about twenty Matrix nodes within two weeks, but they’re all going to be recon ships with minimal fabrication capacity.”
The dark-haired Captain shook his head.
“If we’re lucky, that will be before the Rogues manage to reinforce to similar numbers. Everyone would rather we blow them to a million pieces, but that’s waiting on you. Six more weeks—everyone here is counting it down, sir.”
Catalan fidgeted for a moment, then inhaled sharply.
“Given the Matrix reinforcements, I intend to proceed with the original plan for the Interceptor project. My propulsion techs and I will leave on the fourth evacuation flight, thirteen days before your arrival.
“I’ll be surrendering my command to Commander Renaud. She’s a solid officer.” He shook his head and quirked a half-smile. “Between you and me, Admiral, she might be a better fighting officer than I am. She’ll do well by you, but I’m counting on you to keep Vista safe.
“I’ve done a lot to get everything moving here, and I’ll admit to feeling paternal towards the giant frogs. We’ve a few concerns around food, but unless the Rogues really cause trouble, we’ll have the population evacuated into orbit with time to spare—and relocated to Refuge before we run out of food here.”
Catalan did not, Isaac noted, say things like “we’ve done it” or “we managed to save them.” They had a good chance of pulling it off n
ow, but no one wanted to jinx it.
“We’ll keep the wheels turning until you get here. Catalan out.”
Isaac chuckled. A running evacuation of thirty million people a week was a bit more than “keeping the wheels turning,” though most of that work was being done by the Vistans themselves now.
It would be years before they’d moved everyone to Refuge, but once they had everyone off the planet, there would be time. There was a yard scheduled to come online before his task force arrived that would be producing the same two-fifty-six freighters accompanying Isaac.
The report Catalan had sent him told him there’d be two slips initially, but they’d be scaling it up as fast as they could. Every ship, after all, was a hundred thousand people evacuated every seventeen to eighteen days.
The scale of the project still boggled Isaac’s mind, but the alternative was unacceptable. The satellite data and overflights were clear: Vista’s ice caps were expanding. The original estimate was holding steady, but there were only sixty-five days left until they figured ice would choke out the coastal cities remaining.
They had time still, once that happened, but only strenuous technical efforts were going to keep the almost half a billion people still expected to be on the planet at that point alive.
Sooner or later, though, Vista’s atmosphere was going to become untraversable. At that point, anyone left behind was doomed. There was a limit to what they could fly shuttles into, after all.
A few taps brought up his own recorder.
“Captain Catalan, I appreciate the update,” he told his subordinate. “I’ll note that a ship’s Captain should request permission to leave their post, but you’re right about both the need for your skills and the value of what’s on the table.
“I will add one codicil, though,” Isaac continued, holding up a finger. “If the Rogues are stepping up their attacks and you have reason to think a major strike might come through before we arrive, you are to remain in Hearthfire until Task Force Vigil is in place to relieve you.
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