“And we’ll want them working on the systems from their specialty,” he agreed. “With the engineers organizing and integrating. You’re right,” he conceded, and shook his head.
“I have some directions from the Matrices,” he continued. “I’m supposed to hook up with whichever one is in charge of this project.”
He tapped a command on his tattoo-comp.
“There, my comp should be telling you where I am so long as we’re in range of each other,” he said. “I don’t plan on getting lost, but it is a surprisingly large station.”
“Be good, sir,” she ordered. “Please don’t break the computers.”
“I only break computers of people who throw me in cells,” he replied with a grin. “You handle the people, Lieutenant Commander. I’ll go play ball with the robots.”
The directions led him “up” toward the top of the sphere. According to the map on his tattoo-comp, he was now at the very edge of the sphere as he reached the final door. A tiny, very paranoid part of his brain half-expected the last door he opened to vent him into space.
Instead, he found himself in a wide but tiny room with a black wall facing him. The space he stood in was maybe two meters across but at least fifteen wide.
“Hello?” he said cautiously.
“Greetings, Captain Octavio Catalan,” the standard flat automated voice of a Matrix echoed in the space. “This is Specialty Matrix XR-13-9-D. This Matrix is a direct partition from XR-13-9’s core intelligence as of one thousand two hundred and sixty-one hours ago.
“Given some of the previous requests made by your species, this Matrix decided to arrange as close to a face-to-face meeting as possible.” XR-13-9-D paused. “Of course, this Matrix’s core hardware is a cylindrical installation forty-eight point two meters by fifty-six meters. We are preparing space for it aboard Interceptor for installation within the next eighty hours.”
“You’re our Matrix core?” Octavio asked.
“For Interceptor, yes,” XR-13-9-D confirmed. “And beyond. This Matrix’s parent intelligence modified my loyalty protocols. This Matrix’s first loyalty is now to the Republic of Exilium. This Matrix’s recommendation is that the core hardware be transferred to an ESF battlecruiser once this mission is complete, to allow this Matrix to assist in the protection and advancement of the Republic’s human charges.”
Octavio had to pause to process that. They’d been told that the Matrix used for this purpose would stay with the humans, but he’d never really considered what that would mean.
XR-13-9-D wasn’t a subordinate Matrix of the Matrices they’d been dealing with. It was, for lack of a better description, a human Matrix.
“That’s a lot more than we were anticipating,” he finally admitted. “I’m not sure that our populace would be okay with installing you aboard a warship. While the verified Matrices have helped counteract our fear of AI, the Rogues certainly haven’t!”
“That is understandable. This Matrix can also provide significant value as a command-and-control interface emplaced at Exilium in an unarmed casing, so long as tachyon communications are maintained with ESF units. Any way that this unit can be of assistance to the Republic, it shall be done.
“Once this mission is complete.”
“That makes sense,” Octavio agreed. “You’re being installed shortly, you said. Are you in charge of the construction, too?”
“Interceptor will be this Matrix’s first body. It is unusual for a Matrix core to be activated before the hull it will reside in is complete, but Specialty Matrices are unusual in all senses and purposes.
“To answer your question, yes, this Matrix is responsible for the construction of Interceptor. Much of the warp-drive technology required is still strange to us. The assistance of your engineers in that part of Interceptor’s construction will be required—and the assistance of your crew in all parts will be welcome and valuable.
“The Matrices have not previously constructed vessels designed to carry humans. We are basing much of our work on the repairs performed to the battlecruiser unit Dante. To achieve maximum synergy, we will need to work closely with your people.”
“That’s the plan,” Octavio agreed. “We only have forty days, after all.”
“There will be second chances if the project is not completed on time, but this unit currently projects completion and fueling of the Interceptor unit in eight hundred and eighty-two hours, plus/minus thirty hours.”
That was promising. Even the high end of XR-13-9-D’s estimate got them ready to go with over a day to spare.
“Well, then.” The engineer-turned-starship-Captain smiled, knowing that the AI would perceive it. The Speciality Matrix might not have eyes, but there was no way this room wasn’t wired for every sensor the Matrices had.
“We have a lot of work to do. You and I should start sorting out what comes next.”
48
The carrier on the screen in Isaac’s office had been built by one of Vista’s more polar powers. The three-hundred-meter-long oceangoing ship had a heavier prow than the rest of the carriers left on the planet, designed to act as a nuclear-powered icebreaker around Vista’s frozen poles.
As Isaac watched the footage, it was acting as an icebreaker…roughly fifteen kilometers from Shining Sunset. It was operating under autopilot, thankfully, its crew having been evacuated weeks earlier.
Still, having the carriers on automated patrol routes had enabled a lot of aerial operations that were no longer going to be possible.
The ship on the footage was moving slower and slower as it cut through the ice, until it finally ground to a halt.
“That’s it,” Sings-Over-Darkened-Waters’s translated voice told him over the com. “A-Dancing-Of-War-Planes was the last of our carriers to be able to traverse the oceans. We had hoped to bring her back to Shining Sunset, to use her nuclear plants to power some of the shelters.”
“Which isn’t happening,” Isaac concluded. “What about your underwater settlements?”
He’d seen footage of Shining Sunset, for example. Vistan cities were built half into the water, since the species’ gill-equivalents handled the switch from air to water with surprising ease.
There was still no visual output from the Vistan communicators. The footage he was looking at was washed out, lacking in color—a clear sign that it had been taken by Vistan sensors.
The frog-like aliens were getting better at interfacing their gear with humanity’s as time went on. It was a good thing, he was convinced. It meant that they’d have a chance of surviving the technological uplift that dealing with the Republic and Matrices made inevitable.
“Their inhabitants had priority for the evacuations,” Sings said. “Short of the holdouts, they’d been evacuated for six weeks.”
“The holdouts?” Isaac asked. There would always be humans who refused to believe what the government had to say. It was almost reassuring that the Vistans had the same problem.
“Once the water around them started to turn to slush and darkness, they found new truths,” Sings said. “A few tried to stay regardless. Spears removed them a week ago.”
“So that’s it?” he asked. “No surface water left?”
“Our lakes and rivers froze weeks or even months ago,” Sings told him. “Now the ocean is solid. We can still break through to water in most places, but…”
But.
Isaac had the numbers on another screen. The average temperature on Vista’s surface had now dipped below minus ten Celsius. The highest temperature his satellites were detecting was minus three.
Below the freezing point of saltwater.
Different concentrations of salts across the planet meant that some regions were more firmly frozen than others, but there was basically no unfrozen water on the surface of Vista’s lakes and oceans.
It was a day later than they’d expected, one hundred and seventy-three days after impact, but the planet had passed the first milestone of becoming what could only be called a dea
d world.
“The evacuation?” he asked.
“We have evacuated fifty percent of the population,” the First Among Singers told him. “With our freighters now online, one point eight million people have left for Refuge.”
Another six months and the freighters would be bringing food back with them. The food stocks here in Hearthfire wouldn’t suffice to feed the populace in orbit, not even with the greenhouses. Once the crops started coming up at the new colony, the freighters wouldn’t fly empty either way.
“How long until the rest are out?” Isaac said. The thought of being on a planet where even the oceans had frozen terrified him.
“One hundred and ten days to get the remaining surface population into the habitats,” Sings replied. “It’s a good thing we brought Iron Peaks on board—the underground complexes they built wouldn’t have saved their people, but they can buy months for a hundred million people.
“My people are in danger wherever they are, but they are starting to resist moving.”
Isaac could hear the sadness in her voice.
“They’re resisting the evacuations?” he asked.
“Not into orbit,” she told him. “The evacuations on the ground. We need to concentrate our remaining populations. Keeping everyone from freezing is going to require vast amounts of power shortly. The need to evacuate priority areas meant that we didn’t clear out entire cities.
“We need to do so now. The coastal cities will become untenable without vast power consumption soon. The Shining Mother has picked a handful of cities we will secure and protect against the elements.
“We will move the populace either to those cities, to the bunkers, or to the habitats. People will struggle, but we won’t leave them behind.”
“No one will be left behind,” Isaac agreed. He meant it, too. The world his ship orbited was an ice ball now, but everything was in place to save the half-billion people left.
“You’ve worked miracles, Sings-Over-Darkened-Waters,” he told her. “I didn’t think we could save everyone. Your people saved themselves.”
“Perhaps. But your people made it possible. We will not forget.”
“I may call on that debt sooner than either of us would like,” he admitted.
“I know. The Shining Mother knows. We will answer.”
Thirty days had seen the strike cruiser Othello’s damage repaired, the last of the habitats in orbit moved to the Vista-Hearthfire L4 and L5 Lagrange points, and the new set of guardships mostly completed.
No new attacks. The silence from their robotic enemies was potentially reassuring, potentially not. Isaac didn’t know how the Regional Matrix would react to the loss of one of its Sub-Regional units.
Neither did his Matrices. They weren’t aware of a Sub-Regional Construction Matrix ever being destroyed.
New Matrices had arrived to make up some of their losses, six strange spider-like ships Isaac didn’t think were warships and four units he recognized as combat and construction nodes.
All ten had set to work replacing their fallen siblings on the construction projects.
Now, without anyone telling him anything, one of the spider-like ships was detaching from the habitat project and heading for the asteroids. He considered ignoring it—he had plenty of reasons to trust his Matrix allies by now—but he really couldn’t.
Sighing, he put his coffee on his desk and tapped a command. His “desk,” like most surfaces in the room, did triple duty as a working area, a screen, and a touch input surface. Like every such surface in the Fleet, it was very good at identifying and ignoring coffee cups.
“Communications, get me a link to ZDX-175-18,” he ordered. “I’ll stand by here.”
It took less than a minute before the Matrix’s mechanical translated voice sounded in the room.
“Admiral Isaac Lestroud. How may this unit assist?”
“You could keep my people better informed of what you’re doing,” he suggested gently. “One of your—construction nodes, I think?—just broke off without filing a course.”
“Yes. Construction Matrix ZX-163-11 is engaging in a special project.”
Isaac waited for the Matrix to tell him more. After ten seconds of silence, he sighed.
“And what is that special project, Eighteen?” he asked. “I am responsible for the security and safety of this system. You are supposed to be keeping me informed.”
“We do not wish to raise false hope,” Eighteen told him. “ZX-163-11 is testing a theory on what we may be able to do to assist in defense of the system. We have schematics in our database for heavy gamma ray laser platforms that operate as remotes.
“ZX-163-11’s project is to assemble a test batch of these units that we will, if our core protocols permit, surrender control of to the Vistan Guardian-Star-Choirs. If this works, we will be able to assist in the mass production of defensive minefields.
“Combined with Admiral Isaac Lestroud and First-Among-Singers Sings-Over-Darkened-Waters’ capabilities, we believe that these weapons would help secure the system.”
Supplying the locals with modern weapons platforms would be hugely valuable. Isaac could see a lot of ways they could use even one-shot graser mines. It even made sense—core protocols said that the Matrices couldn’t attack other Matrices, but they’d already proven that they could build things and give them to the humans or the Vistans.
They hadn’t yet tested out whether they could directly build weapons and hand them over, though, so he could see the concern. His understanding was that the Matrices couldn’t do it, but in the aftermath of the override incident, it sounded like they were experimenting instead of assuming.
“I see the value of your project,” Isaac said. “And I see your concern about raising false hope. I won’t tell my people about this until you’ve tested it—but I do have one request.”
“Admiral Isaac Lestroud is in charge of the security of this star system,” Eighteen calmly confirmed.
“You don’t have to tell my people if you want to avoid raising hopes—but I must insist that you at least tell me,” Isaac ordered. “Not getting my hopes up is my problem. I need to know what you are doing. Do you understand?”
“This unit understands. We will keep Admiral Isaac Lestroud informed.”
And hopefully, that would be enough. Even if the Rogues didn’t come back, Interceptor would launch in ten days.
Isaac wasn’t sure what was going to come of that…but he was sure that he wasn’t going to regret any scrap of firepower he’d assembled around the Hearthfire System.
49
Isaac could have pretended it was a fluke he was on the flag deck when the alert went out, but it wasn’t. The weekly dropouts for Task Group Galahad meant he’d known, to within about three hours, when Giannovi was going to arrive.
“I have Cherenkov radiation bursts coming in from thirty degrees above the ecliptic,” a sensor tech reported. “Warp drive emergence signatures confirmed, multiple units.”
“Clarify and identify,” Isaac ordered. Some of his flag deck crew was looking…unsure. He’d have Connor talk to them later, since Galahad’s arrival time had been announced.
They should have been paying more attention.
“CIC makes five targets,” Connor interrupted, stepping up to the tech’s shoulder. “Likelihood is high that it’s Task Group Galahad.”
“Let’s not assume that until we get IFFs and can confirm that,” Isaac said calmly. He almost preferred the tech’s uncertainty to his ops officer’s assumptions. “Just because we haven’t met anyone hostile with warp drives out here yet doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
“It’s a strange corner of the galaxy we’ve found ourselves in, after all.”
Connor nodded wordlessly, but he met Isaac’s gaze as he did so. Lesson registered and learned. Nothing more needed to be said.
His new operations officer was still growing into the hole now–Vice Admiral Giannovi had left in Isaac’s immediate circle, but he took correction
easily enough.
“Exilium Space Fleet identifier codes detected,” the sensor tech reported, their voice firming up. “Galahad and four escorts. Admiral Giannovi has arrived.”
“Good.” Isaac checked the distance. They’d be about three more hours before they made it to Vistan orbit. “Make sure traffic control knows they’re friendly and assigns them an orbit. I’m definitely glad to see them, especially Galahad.”
He was also glad that Vigil and her strike cruisers had ended up there early after all. Galahad was a match for the strike cruisers in most ways, but she didn’t have their spinal graser. She definitely wasn’t a match for Vigil.
The task force of slower ships was more than welcome, but they couldn’t have held against the forces thrown at Vista on their own.
“Once Galahad has made orbit, Admiral Giannovi is invited to join myself and Captain Alstairs for dinner,” Isaac said. “It’s good to have everybody here at last.”
Vice Admiral Lauretta Giannovi was exhausted. It wouldn’t have been easy for most people to guess. Her uniform, hair and makeup were perfect. There were no visible bags under her eyes, nothing to suggest that she was anything less than fully prepared to do her duty.
Unfortunately for that impression of a bright-eyed and chipper officer, Isaac Lestroud had been Lauretta Giannovi’s direct superior for a long time.
“The trip was hard on your people?” he asked as he guided her into the Admiral’s private dining room aboard Vigil. He mostly thought the space was excessive—he either ate at his desk or at formal-enough affairs to require a larger space than the intimate six-person room—but for this, it was perfect.
“Six. Freaking. Months,” Giannovi said slowly. “We’ve done it before, but damn. It sucks every time.” She gestured around her at Vigil.
“This really wasn’t fair, you know,” she continued. “We left, what, fifty days ahead of you? And you got here forty days ahead of us. We’re facing the same going back.”
Refuge Page 29
