Where We Go One, We Go All

by Robert Boren

  “Are we really going to give that technology to Simone?” Sondra asked.

  “Probably, but I need to discuss it more before I’ll be comfortable. You know the Clan took all their battleships out of our zone late yesterday, correct?”

  “Yep, we heard,” Skip said. “Are we sure we knew the entire population?”

  I sighed. “Oh, about as sure as we know anything these days.”

  “Thanks for that warm fuzzy feeling,” Sondra said.

  “What does your boyfriend think of all this?” Skip asked.

  Sondra shook her head. “Commander Klemperer is wary of sharing too much, but he knows we’re in a bad spot.”

  I smiled. “You can call him by his first name, you know.”

  Sondra was silent for a moment, then got a naughty grin on her face. “Maybe it turns me on a little to call him Commander.”

  Skip burst out laughing. “Well, at least that was an honest answer.”

  Sondra rolled her eyes. “Enough already. I’m going to the coffee stand. You guys want anything?”

  “Sure, I’ll take a black drip,” I said.

  “Thanks, but I’m coffee’d out,” Skip said.

  “Okay, be back in a bit.” Sondra left the bridge.

  “You need to give her a break,” I said.

  “She’s like my sister, you know. I tease her, but I look out for her too.”

  “I know. Do you share Sondra’s apprehension about giving our advanced technology to Simone?”

  “And the Central Authority Fleet,” Skip said. “Yes. Maybe we ought to investigate if the Clan is really gone before we commit to that.”

  “Why do you think that? Do you think the Clan is done with us?”

  Skip sat quietly for a moment. “We might be under-estimating their fear level. Look what’s happened. We snuck something onto twenty of their ships, resulting in their destruction, while our fighters badly out-classed them. Then another of their ships got killed from the inside. They might not know why. They might think it’s the same issue that killed their twenty ships. It worried them enough to destroy seven Razor ships that might not have needed to be destroyed.”

  “Good points, and the same thing is gnawing at me, to be honest. If this war is gonna settle down for a while, maybe we don’t want to jump-start it again. I do agree with Drake about that depot in the Free Zone, though.”

  “Haven’t heard what he said.”

  I filled Skip in, telling him we’d be checking it out only, not going on an attack.

  “Okay Captain, I agree. They probably aren’t stupid enough to let all that radiation escape like that. Hell, it’s bad for everybody around that base too, you know.”

  “The Clan hasn’t always been that careful with their citizens, but it’s been a mixed bag. Their medical technology was ahead of ours for a long time.”

  Private. Chairman Vermillion would like to see you now.

  Okay, thanks. Tell him I’ll take off as soon as Sondra gets back from the coffee stand. We’ve only got Skip on the bridge now.

  Reply sent. He said fine.

  What about JJ and Nolan?”

  JJ is welcome, but just the two of you for now.

  My heart beat a little quicker.

  Thanks. I’ll let JJ keep working with Nolan on the cloaking issue.

  “Something going on?” Skip asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got to meet with the Chairman. I’ll wait until Sondra gets back.

  “I’m here,” Sondra said, coming in at that moment. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing, I need to take off for a meeting.”

  “Well take your coffee,” she said, handing it to me. “See you later.”

  “Thanks.” I left the bridge, getting to Vermillion’s suite in about five minutes. He waved me into his office.

  “JJ’s busy with Nolan,” I said. “Thought it would be easier to leave her alone than to explain. I’ll fill her in later.”

  “Okay,” Vermillion said, motioning for me to sit. “Want a little whiskey in the coffee?”

  “Are you having some?” I asked.

  He nodded, pulling the bottle out of the cabinet behind his desk. He poured some into a small crystal glass, then shoved the bottle across the desk to me.

  I pulled the cap off my coffee and poured in a little whiskey.

  “This is serious. Did one of the plants get discovered?”

  Vermillion shook his head. “Drake, are you on?”

  Yes, I’m here. We’ve just got Captain Clarke? That’s okay, he can let his second know afterwards.

  “This has to be top-secret for now,” Vermillion said.

  “Yes sir.” My heartrate quickened again.

  “Bryce and Stuart are traitors, working with Prime Minister Aeon to impose a dictatorship in the Central Authority Zone.”

  “What?” I asked. “So we need to rescue Boeraton?”

  Vermillion chuckled. “No, he’s a traitor as well, but he was pushing back on the Prime Minister’s wishes a little too much, so he was shoved aside.”

  “This came from the Clan Razor databanks?”

  “Yes. Oh, and you can forget about a Clan invasion. The Clan ships in our zone were stolen by their captains. They were working for the Prime Minister to provide muscle, and getting very well paid. The Clan government is nearly in complete collapse, which means they’ve lost control of their military.”

  One thing is certain. The Clan military leaders who were here aren’t the brightest. They’ve blundered the Prime Minister’s operation into a very dangerous place.

  “What about that big supply depot?”

  That depot doesn’t belong to the Clan. It’s run by an independent, who supplies fuel to a number of clients, no questions asked.

  I chuckled. “They’re pirates, and none too bright.”

  Precisely. The Clan ships in our zone caused them to ramp up their operation, and their faulty processes for handling Boron couldn’t keep up, causing the radiation to escape. They’ve been working there for years before the Clan windfall. Black market.

  “Should we take them out of business?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Vermillion said. “It’s out of our jurisdiction and, frankly, not our business. The Free Zone is the Free Zone. They’re breaking some minor treaty specifics, but nobody in the Clan government has the time to do anything about it, and it was helping Prime Minister Aeon.”

  “What about Simone?”

  She’s the only potential ally we have, until we can rally enough Central Authority planets to our side.

  “So she’s not with the bad guys? Are we sure?”

  “We’re sure. She was the number two target of the Prime Minister. Guess who number one was?”

  I chuckled. “Us, of course. So we should bring her in?”

  Yes, we should bring her in. We’ve gone from a cross-universe war to a civil war. Both are bad, but we can win this one. We will have to improve Simone’s Razor battleships, but that’s doable. I’ve been monitoring the work of Nolan and JJ on the cloaking problem. They’re both brilliant. They’ve already gotten past the hardest parts of the algorithm.

  “Why didn’t you want Nolan in on this discussion, Mr. Chairman?”

  “Ecason.”

  Yes, Ecason.

  “I’m not getting this,” I said. “Do we no longer trust Nolan?”

  Ecason is Nolan’s grandfather, on his mother’s side. We’ve found out he’s being held hostage by the Clan government. He’s been forced to work for them.

  “That’s how they got the Razor ships?”

  “Yes, the Razor ships are based on a concept that Ecason came up with years ago, as we found out earlier,” Vermillion said. “They’ve been using a threat against Nolan and other family members to keep him working.”

  “Why can’t Nolan know about this?” I asked.

  He’ll want to go on a rescue mission, an
d you know how he is. He’s a man of action, sometimes to a fault.

  “We should try to rescue him.”

  Vermillion eyed me. “He’s on C1111-A.”

  “The Clan capitol planet. Remember where you were when we rescued you?”

  Don’t misunderstand. We do care about him. Hell, he’s an old friend of mine, one of the few still alive that knew me in the flesh. I’ll start working on location data, but we have to get the Central Authority out of the Prime Minister’s hands first. Too many lives are at stake.

  My head was spinning. I took a swig of the coffee, wishing it was stronger. Vermillion eyed me, then chuckled, grabbing another crystal glass from his cabinet and pouring me some whiskey.

  “Looks like you could use this,” he said.

  You guys are making me jealous.

  “Sorry.” I tossed back the whiskey. “So what now?”

  “As soon as Simone comes out of her jump, I’ll contact her,” Vermillion said. “We’ll invite her to Amberis.”

  “Is that safe enough?” I asked.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “The Clan data backs her up,” Vermillion said. “I trust her. We need to get her ships upgraded.”

  “What about Bryce and Stuart?”

  “For now, continue to talk to them as if you trust them, but tell them nothing of value. We’ve helped them out enough as it is.”

  “Crap, their ships will be up to the level of Simone’s ships,” I said, setting my glass down. Vermillion refilled it, then refilled his own.

  “You’re forgetting two things, Trey.”

  “Like what?”

  Vermillion smiled. “They won’t have Nolan’s module, and they won’t be able to cloak. That’ll get them killed.”

  “Geez, we were almost ready to tell them about the flight suits and the Nano technology.”

  “Yes, and they’ll continue to pry every time they talk with you,” Vermillion said.

  “What happened with those seven ships they blew up?”

  As we said, these Captains weren’t the best the Clan had to offer. They thought Simone would come back to Naelize when they discovered her fuel refinery and mines. They thought it would be a good idea to take over Hodge. They didn’t even bother to look at the survey data. They sent a shuttle down from that dead ship, didn’t see any problems. Their initial away team came back to the ship and infected everybody. Before people got sick, they loaded up landing crafts from all of their battleships and went down to various sectors of the planet surface. They were fought to a standstill by the locals. Guess where they retreated to.

  I laughed. “Morons. Those Razor ships were dead in space because their crews were all dead.”

  We don’t have any data on what happened after the seven ships left Hodge orbit, but it’s easy to figure out. The crews on those seven ships were dead or dying before they were destroyed.

  { 23 }

  Alliance

  M y head was reeling after Vermillion and Drake told me the truth about our situation. I was on my third glass of whiskey. Vermillion was as well.

  “I’d better slow down.”

  Vermillion chuckled. “We’re in a jump for a while. Relax.”

  “I’ll try.” JJ buzzed my PA, asking where I was.

  “JJ?” Vermillion asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Tell her to come over so we can let her know about this.

  I nodded, sending her the message. She agreed, and I told her not to bring Nolan. She arrived in about ten minutes, and we filled her in.

  JJ shook her head. “This is strange. I’m not surprised. It’s like I always knew.”

  “How far are we going with Simone and her team?” I asked. “Should we give them the Nano training and the suits?”

  Yes.

  “You’re sure about that?” Vermillion asked.

  I am. We’ve got to make a stand with her. It’s our only chance at saving the zone.

  “I wish we could get to Simone while she’s in her jump,” I said. “She was heading for a remote part of the zone. It’ll take her a while to join us.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Vermillion said, “but we’ll give them holographic communicators as soon as we meet.”

  “Butch, where are Simone’s ships right now?”

  Heading towards the Cremonia system. It’s not that far from Amberis, actually.

  “Good,” I said. “How far out, if that’s where they’re going?”

  They’ll arrive several hours after we get to Amberis. It’ll take her roughly 48 hours to get to us. She could keep going beyond the Cremonia system, though.

  “So it’s really wait-and-see,” JJ said.

  “Yeah. How about the crew of this ship and the AI technology?”

  Vermillion set down his whiskey glass, thinking for a moment. “It’s already rolled out to the fighter pilots, the bridge crews, and the battle pilots. I’m not sure we should roll it out further than that, now that we’re getting a taste of it.”

  “Because of the Nano suits or the AIs?” JJ asked.

  “AIs,” Vermillion replied. “I’ve been monitoring, with help from Drake. He can probably explain the issue better than I can.”

  Groupthink. It’s the enemy of creative thought.

  “I was wondering if that would be a problem,” JJ said. “All our brains working together will try to make the individuals conform to the group.”

  Precisely. It’s not a problem with the group size we have now, although it is on the high side of optimum. We can break it up, though.

  “Break it up how?” I asked.

  We have our core group, which is made up of battleship senior crew and fighter pilots. It makes sense to have some synergy there, and the total number of minds in that cell isn’t beyond the point where groupthink begins. Each capitol ship should use this cell structure. We could do the same thing with ground military forces. We’d break it up in a logical manner. Perhaps each Company could be in one cell, or each Battalion. Higher levels would tie in via the Central AI functionality.

  “I think we all get it,” Vermillion said. “I need to get back to work. Our main plant needs help from me. Think about this, and be ready to share next time we talk. We’ll bring Simone in as soon as we can. Not a word to anybody else yet. Got it?”

  “Yes sir,” I said, JJ nodding in agreement.

  Talk to you soon.

  JJ and I left Vermillion’s suite, heading back to the bridge.

  “You’re worried about this,” I said.

  “I’m worried about the groupthink issue.”

  “We aren’t going to expand the group further,” I told her as we walked. “At least not in one big piece.”

  “But what about the Central AI functionality? You’d be handing control of parts of our crew to another person?”

  This system is all about delegation. Trey is the ultimate Central AI authority. We can have more than one cell under the umbrella, and Trey can either control them all, or delegate sub-central AIs to take their pieces.

  You haven’t told me about that before.

  We’ve been a little busy, and it hasn’t been important until now. I don’t make you conscious of each and every new thing I learn. You’d be bogged down all the time if I did that.

  JJ snickered. “Oh, brother.”

  Junior is a little full of himself.

  It’s good to be the king, baby.

  I laughed. “And with that, this conversation is over.”

  The rest of the jump went by without incident. I had JJ and Nolan bring me up to speed on the Overlord’s Razor fleet and the upgrades they’d been working on. Simone hadn’t reached a destination before we arrived, as Butch expected. This gave us a couple days to work with Tac, bringing more fuel up to the New Jersey. The refinery was working so well that Tac and Nolan were on the verge of changing its schedul
e, cutting it down to only a few days per week of production. I vetoed that idea, reminding them that we’d likely be sharing fuel with Simone once we joined. It was hard talking around the current situation with Nolan. He knew I was hiding something, but he didn’t pry.

  Trey, Simone’s ships just got out of the jump, orbiting Cremonia as we expected. She’s trying to contact us already.

  “Did you notify Drake and the Chairman?”

  I did, but they were both in the middle of something, and said they’d contact you and JJ for a meeting soon.

  Heard that. I can break away any time.

  Let’s grab a bite. This is liable to be a long meeting, and I’m hungry.

  We met at a snack stand and got sandwiches, waiting for Butch to let us know when to go to Vermillion’s office. We’d barely finished eating when the call came.

  “Off we go,” I said to JJ. “Thanks, Butch.”

  Keep your wits about you in this meeting.

  Both of you.

  “We will, and I know you’ll have our backs,” I said. “If we’re lucky, we won’t have to hide you.”

  Vermillion was waiting, ushering us into his small conference room.

  “Drake, you there?”

  I am. Are we ready?

  “I think so,” Vermillion replied.

  “Will we have to hide our AIs?” I asked.

  “Not after we get into this,” Vermillion replied. “We’ll have to tell them about Drake as well.”

  Yes, that’s a must at this point.

  “You’re telling her who you are?” JJ asked.

  I don’t see a reason to avoid it.

  “All right, I’ll fire up the video conference and page her now,” Vermillion said.

  It took a few minutes for the connection to set. Simone’s face showed up on the screen, Kaleb next to her. They both looked tired and worried.

  “Chairman Vermillion, so nice to see you again.”

  “Hi, Simone, great to see you too. I know you’ve had a rough few days.”

  “We didn’t lose any people, but we lost our fuel source.”

  “Do you know what happened there?” Kaleb asked.

  Vermillion took a few minutes to fill them in on the eight Clan Razors orbiting Hodge, going to the surface, and being destroyed.