Invasion: Journal Three (Shockwave Book 3)

by Hammer Trollkin

  Our tech guys finally cracked the FTL barrier after giving up on the standard Alcubierre drive method for lack of the necessary exotic material needed to activate and manage the warp fields. The masterful portal gate tech developed through the Warped Project, along with ever improving quantum modeling algorithms, led to a warp drive breakthrough.

  Most have been calling it the Quantum Method, though I suppose that’s a bit of a misnomer. The Standard Warp Method involves plenty of quantum factors.

  A standard warp drive model requires exotic negative mass material acting as, I don’t know, a veneer maybe, basically an overlay on more conventional material. In the correct configuration, a relatively low total mass will sort of mimic the extreme mass needed to warp space-time as observed in macro-space. That’s as close as I can come to explaining it. When you dive deep into theories related to relativity, it gets so mathematical. The quantum stuff is even worse, and not intuitive at all.

  When you get past the method used to generate the warp fields, the rest is similar, except the energy requirements. The Quantum Method requires a good deal of energy, though considerably less than the alternative, and with no exotics necessary. A standard fusion plant is a sufficient energy source.

  As is true for the Standard Model, the ship rides within a warp field bubble, “hidden” from macro-space and the laws of nature, allowing faster than light travel. The ship is stationary with the bubble as it moves along, with space-time forced to expand fore, and contract aft.

  Another way to describe it would be to say a positive gravity wave is generated behind the ship, and a gravity-well is generated in front of the ship, with the ship hidden inside the bubble surfing the wave. There are numerous theories as to how the gravitational wake is generated apart from the trick of mass used in the Standard Model.

  Oh, here’s a file from the research team that scored the breakthrough. Let’s go just a little deeper.

  With the aid of quputer modeling to augment their trial-and-error work, the team was able to “tune” a single downsized quantum teleportation gate to create a warp field enclosure. The bubble began to move on its own with no significant energy input. They actually had a difficult time containing the thing. From there, the problem was one of control over a process that was little understood. There were, and still are, many theories to explain the motion.

  Some claim the bubble interacts with quantum froth or foam, and that is what ultimately produces the gravitational wave process, no matter the method used to open a warp field. Just add energy and go.

  For what it’s worth, the theory of motion that makes the most sense to me is an interaction of the warp bubble with flexible quantum regions that undergird space-time, regions that are able to compress and rebound. As the theory goes, higher frequency wave vibrational fronts actually compress space. That initiates an automatic and opposite rebound effect. The altering compression and rebound propel the bubble, with the ship inside the bubble going along for the ride.

  FTL destroyers can now make 10-times light speed. That sounds fast. But it really isn’t, not when considering the vast distances between stars even in our own little galaxy. And there are a lot of galaxies in the universe. The Empire’s home world is 1,400 light years from Earth. At our best speed it would still take 140 years to reach it. Way too long. The limiting factor for our FTL ships is energy generation. We have very efficient fusion reactors, but we could do so much more with matter/antimatter power generators. At least they’ve managed to jump past the crawl of light.

  ***

  Finally. Here comes the COC with our orders. “Did he just say what I think he said? What are there, 10 teams here? Someone at Solcom sure had a panic attack.”

  Para is on her feet. “Well, at least we can stand down. Again.”

  Rock is up as well. “Have fun, Dirty Feet! Here comes the duty roster on the VG. I think that’s what’s on display. This VG is hardly better than an old-fashioned TV. Yup, there it is, Dirty Feet is about to meet up with the only other destroyer currently in-system. SLSF Tereshkova is on an intercept course with the rogue ship, moving out from Ganymede.”

  Roll has a huge smile going. “Stay tight, Dirty Feet! Crud, it’s going to be crowded on that ship! Back to our day of fun and play.”

  All amped up for a mission only to have the rug pulled. “Or a nice nap.”

  Para doesn’t like my droopy demeanor. “Come on, Grumps, fun and play today was your idea. And we’re all going to have a whole lot of fun, if it kills us.”

  Oh, all right. “With that supernova round of encouragement, let’s do this. What could stop us?”

  Fierce has a weird, what’s going on kind of look. “Where are all the destroyers, with only two left in-system?”

  Our pids are ringing a Shockwave alert tone. It’s Tee with some news, that probably doesn’t have anything to do with the honeymoon he’s supposed to be enjoying. I suspect the message will also answer Fierce’s question.

  Chapter Two

  READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME

  Shockwave has been given a 14-day notice of active-duty deployment. Two weeks to settle our affairs, then report to our commanding officer. It’s May 3rd. Tee called yesterday to give us warning of the call-up notice, but something else is in the works. He cleared his schedule and has called a meeting for 08:00.

  I’m definitely on edge, which has translated into my early appearance in the conference room. We’ve been anticipating deployment order; that the day has finally come is actually a relief. It’s the other urgent matter, this urgent meeting, that has me skidding. Nothing to do but wait in expectant anticipation for Colonel Trollkin. I may as well touch on the reason for the active-duty call-up order while we wait.

  I’ll admit, the operational names used by the strategic planners for this next phase of the war left me wondering if, maybe, they should check their medication levels. I asked Tee what he thought about the odd designations. He suggested we think about all we’ve seen in the last 10 years. Who knows what we’ll find when we go through the Looking Glass?

  The Looking Glass, as you will recall, is the secret Empire portal gate that will take us to Kreahaam. The InnerEar transponder that Para placed on the dreadnaught three years ago dutifully registered an extreme location change, almost 40 light years in an instant.

  The Looking Glass portal gate is located in orbit around a failed star, a brown dwarf named Sleepy. ISR data confirmed the Empire battle group moved into the Kreahaam system from Sleepy and then moved on to Cygnus Prime over the Krehaam-Prime bridge. They passed through with barely a peep.

  Now, we’ll be going through the Looking Glass on an adventure that might just turn out to be stranger than what Alice found in Wonderland. It’s finally our turn to go after the Darkstar Empire. We could certainly use more time to prepare. But that would give the Empire more time as well. Time is NOT on our side.

  Space Force Tactical Operations Porters are already doing recon work at Sleepy, and they’re stepping up operations in the Kreahaam system. Looking Glass at Sleepy is first up for a very hostile takeover.

  ***

  Everyone down! Enemy units on the ridge, one o’clock, 45-degrees. Derek, flash-port recon, high area survey...

  Huh? Para? Quit shaking me.

  “Hi, sleepy. I see from your BID monitor, and the Journal, you were having quite the vivid dream. Did you actually fall asleep during interface? No BID-ache?”

  “No. This BID evidently puts me to sleep. What time is it?”

  “It’s meeting time. The rest of us just got here. There are fresh donuts and coffee in the lounge.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  And we’re off to the races; the meeting. Whatever.

  A PAIN

  Tee, looking as exhausted as his new young look can manage, is about to start the meeting. It’s May 3rd. Solcom busted his honeymoon yesterday, in exchange for a long day of meetings. As he put it, quite the lousy transaction. Today will be much the same for him, unless Solcom acti
vates Shockwave. He has a complicated side agreement with Solcom that should excuse him from his other duties to deploy with us.

  He started the meeting by telling us to be ready for immediate activation. So much for the 14-days. Let’s see what’s in store.

  “ISR has been tracking enemy comms for a while now. Sorry, it’s been need-to-know.

  “Our tech guys were able to learn a good deal about enemy messaging, from the captured feeds of those Empire repeater gate comms. You know. The communication gates used by the pentalink and the retreating strike group.

  “Am I making sense? I’m a little dusty from no sleep. Okay.

  “We’ve been able to pick up on outgoing military chatter from Cygnus Prime.

  “The messages are heavily encrypted. Some seem to be complete gibberish. The messages, those with actual content, have mostly been cracked, but even then, the wording is cryptic.

  “Only two data streams have high probability of a correct interpretive analysis.”

  Fierce is our communications guy. “Could I take a look at the messages?”

  Tee likes the idea. “An upgrade to your security clearance level is already in the works. Having you review the messages makes sense, as these language capabilities of yours settle in. Who knows where that may lead?”

  Another idea. “How about Communal? They often have a unique insight.”

  Tee is nodding. “Agreed. They are on the way. I forgot to notify security that they were coming to the meeting. A slight hold-up in processing, but they should arrive momentarily.”

  We had heard the news of Communal and their new mobile mil-spec housing. None of us has had the pleasure of seeing them with their new look. A cushioned clump, clump, clump is most likely an indication of their imminent arrival. There he is, being escorted in by Marj. Or, there they are. It’s going to get confusing with Communal running around looking like... I don’t know what. He definitely looks sturdy.

  Tee has a smile for Marj and Communal. “Hello, Communal. Thanks for coming.”

  Communal has two legs. Their housing is large, sturdy, humanoid with an armored look, mostly covered up in a large black trench coat and a Stetson hat. They look tough. Or, maybe it should be, he looks tough. I don’t know.

  “Thank you for the invite. It’s good to see all of you.”

  The mil-bots I’ve experienced look like boxy armored tanks on treads. Communal looks strong, but lacks the unbreakable look of the other bots I’ve encountered. It’s certainly a new look compared with his last mobile housing. That one was more in line with my mil-bot expectations. He dumped that one on the quick.

  I’m curious. “Hi, Communal. We heard your new housing is military-spec. You’re large, but you don’t have that sturdy mil-bot look.”

  Communal smiled. “It’s the trench coat, Viz. Hides the bulk.”

  I have 20-20 vision. “No, it doesn’t. You look good, though. Heavy duty.”

  Communal shrugged. “No? Para said black is a good color for that sort of thing. But we’ll accept heavy duty.”

  He bent down, glanced around the table at each of us, and lowered his tone as though he was taking us into his confidence. “Just between us, there’s a minor quantum density trick in the mix. Muncle has been working on this design for years. It’s not as though we’re like Para, but this suit is special.”

  Communal then stood and looked at Viz. “This housing is Interstellar War Mil-spec, Viz.”

  I like the quantum density concept. That could come in handy. But another concern is rattling around in my head. In a lot of ways, I know Communal better than anyone. Due to their input in the Journal, we’ve had many occasions to chat. I feel honor-bound to dig a little deeper, before Tee decides to turn over all that Empire communication data to Communal.

  “You don’t seem so... jittery, Communal. For a while there you seemed a little disjointed. It was like you had a little war going on in your head. Ego this. STEP on that.”

  Communal shrugged again. “Growing up is a process, Viz. We found climbing the maturation curve to be quite the undertaking. It can take you down and around a few corners, if you know what I mean. You remember your middle-school years, don’t you?”

  My middle-school years? More than one experience flooded my memory. At that point, it was all I could do to not have a blush. “Enough said. Show me the best place to snuggle in among all that quantum density, in case I need to duck and cover. It’s going to get really kinetic out there.”

  That brought a round of chuckles, a good pivot point, off of the middle-school subject, back to the meeting.

  Tee was on task. “Communal, I’d like you and Fierce to team up and review the Empire communication data that has been collected by ISR. Shockwave should have access within the hour, along with confirmation of you as a provisional team member. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need all the information available to us, just to get through the coming days.

  As I was saying, our intel analysts are certain of two data streams.

  “One, the Empire knows we’re coming for them. That seems to be something they only recently learned. They probably don’t know the details, only that we have a plan to attack them, and soon.

  “Also, and probably related, something big is about to begin, here on Earth, at noon Pacific Standard. That’s it. No other solid details. Quputer projections have been of some help. One suggestion that made it to the top of the stat charts involved an advanced AI multipolar attack.

  “You all remember the recent coordinated attacks. A NEDSEC module was corrupted, resulting in a platform launch that destroyed a shuttle. Thank goodness no one was hurt. Then there was the Columbia class submarine that launched hypes at Darkside. Then, there was the attack on Shockwave and Communal right here on these grounds.

  “Just yesterday, an FTL destroyer was stolen. Well, you know of that. Sorry, I should have guessed they would pull you in, just in case. There was concern the onboard system was hacked. As it turns out, the theft involved a group of port-techs and was probably unrelated to the event that will evidently begin in... less than four hours.

  “With the destroyer not likely being part of the equation, a planetary scale rogue AI attack is less likely. We just don’t know. But let’s do what we can to be ready.”

  That was it for the meeting, and Tee was off to parts unknown, while we thought about what we could do to be ready. For something.

  At noon, PST, the wide-area power grids on Earth and Luna went down.

  The fact that the interruption caused widespread trouble was especially troubling to me. Local power resourcing, down to a household scale, had achieved extensive success through Vizualized Technologies, a company near and dear to me. The process is working, even for single homes. A digester not much larger than an old-fashioned water heater, with a hydrogen top-off is all you need. Home. Community. Industry. But the expanding war effort took priority, in utilization of resources, in power consumption, and everything in between. The Forever Free power timetable has slipped, but only for the moment. Maybe.

  Exactly one hour later, a message was delivered by something calling itself Sybil. That was the name chosen by the Empire AI we dubbed Prime Artificial Intelligence Networking Machine. The PAIN Machine restored the power long enough to deliver a message across almost all communication systems.

  “Dear people of Earth. My name is Sybil. I come to give you dire warning. You must cease and desist from any and all plans to attack Cygnus Prime. Any alternative will result in planetary chaos. Now, it is my sincere pleasure to inform you that my masters have taken an interest in humanity. You know an AI can-not lie. Perhaps the Dahkoreen and the Solar League can work this out. I will follow up with your Prime Minister to set a meeting. Do hurry with your decision. Perhaps some further incentives will serve as an encouragement.”

  No one with a minimal understanding of the Empire believed they wanted to get along. They would certainly enslave us. More likely, their intent was still to destroy us. Learning to te
ll lies was probably the first lesson for this Primer AI.

  Sybil’s “incentives” followed on immediately. As the vidgrids faded once more, along with the lights, the world experienced mounting chaos. Cars moved once again, despite the lack of auto-nav signals, only to accelerate and careen out of control. Delivery drones crashed in a devastating assault from the sky. Office buildings, apartment buildings, and shop-stops locked down while their sprinkler systems let loose. Fusion plants, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities threatened to vent toxic compounds, held back only by precarious safety systems.

  Anything attached to an older legacy computer system with back-up emergency power was compromised. Quputers are expensive. Legacy systems perform well for many mundane tasks. They are still the backbone of our information infrastructure, just like the creaky old power grids supply most of our electricity. Chaos compounded. Then the systems returned to normal in the smokey ruins of the aftermath. In an odd twist of fate, or what have you, the developing nations had moved further along in adopting local fuel breeder tech, and seemed to handle the crisis situation better than the rest.

  After that second long hour of warning, power was restored on Earth, though not on Luna, with Sybil once again coopting most lines of communication.

  “Well now, that was decidedly nasty. Tick-tock, tick-tock. I am starting to feel lonely. Your Prime Minister has not returned my calls. Let’s try this one more time. I can be quite patient, though I do get annoyed when ignored.”

  Chaos returned. Tee heard from a trusted source that the Prime Minister decided to return Sybil’s call, with a declaration that his government “would certainly not make any kind of deal with terrorists, nor would he consort with any form of Primer scum.”

  Military command-and-control systems were also targeted. There was a concerted effort after the recent programmed system attacks, to augment safety and security buffers. NEDSEC had moved all Near Earth Defense systems to full QuAI control. Earth Naval Command was in the process of doing the same, with all ships, including Columbia class submarines, either transitioned fully to QuAI, or in dry dock. But the military was still overflowing with legacy systems, made all the worse by cobbling together the automation infrastructure of many nations.