Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  The first indication of trouble was when the warrior operating the tractor beam tried to pick up a breaker/sorter ship, and it was stuck to the deck. When a warrior pair attempted to approach the ship’s airlock, they came under fire from it and a neighbouring ship. Tuxedo had stationed small rapid reaction units all around this deck, and within ticks, the ships were under the guns of the RRU including the latest shotguns that Tuxedo pioneered the use of a kilocycle ago. Most of the troops he trained in their application had no sense of humour when it came to someone attacking the warriors they were assigned to protect. A dozen shots later, the drones were destroyed, and we had tons of reaction mass for the fusion drives. No significant loss, we had millions burn—quite literally. The pace slowed down for a while, and by the time we had less than ten decks to clear we had destroyed hundreds of more ships and thousands of more drones.

  As we began to clear the last hangar deck, things really started to pop. We encountered some resistance in the first two bays we cleared, but when we got to the third bay, we started taking casualties again, the first we’d had since the forty-eighth deck. The RRUs swept in and instead of attacking, they set up pulse guns similar to what we used to neutralize Terra’s armed satellites when we were trying to get someone on the planet to talk to us. Our RRU warriors fired the guns all at once and in a chain reaction that almost killed us all when ship after ship exploded like a string of firecrackers—big firecrackers. The massive nickel-iron core making up the centre of the globe ship rang like a giant bell and the harmonics vibrated through the hangar structure, and I swore I watched the supporting columns wave around like cooked spaghetti, as standing waves formed on the hangar decks. The rebel Squid’s hull metal is pretty close to ours in terms of capability and held up although a fair number of our warriors had really tight sphincters for cycles afterwards. Luckily the rest of the inspection went well with no more incidents and no more casualties.

  With the hangar decks are all cleared, it was time to clear out the core. Although Boss and its buddies insisted there are no more hold-outs, I wasn’t about to take their word for it, not with over a hundred warriors dead, several hundred injured and close to two hundred of our little furry warriors killed assisting in the hunt.

  Most of our warriors, large and small, were really pissed now, and they took on the task with a vengeance. We started at the top decks and worked our way down to the bridge level. We pumped out all of the methane spaces and refilled them with oxy/nitrogen. The doors and hatches throughout the core were opened remotely allowing the areas in vacuum to get atmosphere and this made it easier on our cats who no longer had to piggyback and share suit space with their larger companions. Most of our small warrior casualties were crush injuries sustained when the larger warriors were thrown against columns or bulkheads or were struck by flying debris. It only took five cycles to complete the search and precisely one drone was found deactivated in a maintenance alcove.

  We decided to keep all of the Swift Fang and shuttle clones aboard and warehouse the bigger ships here in deep space with just a couple of Swift Fang/shuttle combinations to keep watch. Livid determined the globe ship could be easily repowered with our newer engines and FTL modules. We could also improve the shield technology, and the ship production factories could be upgraded to produce our new Swift Fangs as well as fighters, bombers and carriers. This ship alone would almost double our war production although it would take at least a hundred cycles to get everything up and running.

  ◆◆◆

  The rebel Squids were taken back to the Squid’s Ark over ten cycles ago when some of our carriers showed up with the components to upgrade the drives, the techs to do the work and a crew of Squids to fly the globe ship back to Saturn for its refit. The techs told me it would be another fifteen to twenty cycles before the Leviathan, as we have named her, would be ready for the trip. I was making my final trip back to Mother of Glory now that things were well under way. I’d been commuting back and forth with several supply runs, and I was tired of the cycles away from my mate and friends who have long since gone back to their duties. I needed to let go of this project now and get back to prosecuting our war with the Plague. Missy was ready and waiting to take me home, and I was ready to go, so I said farewell to Livid and its companions as well as Tuxedo and a few of my other friends who were taking over this project and boarded Righteous Claws.

  Elaine and Edgar were there to meet me as I dropped through the hatch into the hangar. I threw my arms around her and gave her a big hug then stooped and picked up Edgar, perching him on my shoulder after giving him a nuzzle. As we walked back to our quarters I asked Elaine where she would like to go to dinner, and she replied, “I’d like to go to our booth at Benji’s Place and have a few drinks first and just catch up. I’ve only seen you for a few hours at a time for the last thirty-five cycles, and I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too. Life just isn’t as enjoyable when we can’t work together on things or at least share parts of our cycle.”

  We arrived at Benji’s, and the bartender had already put fresh drinks in our booth and turned on the privacy screen. The booth was nice and quiet, with just a trace of the white noise that helped dampen out the external sounds. As we sat and talked I saw a number of our friends come in and take tables or other booths but with the privacy screen on they couldn’t see in and no one had attempted to interrupt us. I commed the bartender to let him know we were ready for some menus, and he replied, “Benji has taken the liberty of ordering for you, Jase. He has some new menu items he wants your opinion on, and we all think you will enjoy them. Shall I have the server start bringing them in appetizer first?”

  “Yes, please do,” I replied.

  I can’t recall when I’d had a meal that varied or that good and when Elaine, Edgar and I made it back to our suite we sat in the big chair with Edgar and Serena and cuddled and talked until we both passed out from fatigue. Sometime in the night, we had made it to the bed, and when I woke up the next morning, I felt more rested and refreshed than I had in cycles. Being home was good.

  16

  LEVIATHAN HAD JUST COMPLETED HER shakedown cruise since the major refit that included installation of an FTL suite designed specifically for her along with new shields and cannons and all the other goodies we could think to pile on her.

  While she added tremendously to our production of war materiel, her most significant contribution has been to morale. Demonstrating that a small force like ours could defeat a half million ship swarm and could capture an asset like a globe ship swelled our ranks by almost double in the two hundred cycles since the rebel Squids surrendered her to us. Granted we did have to fight hundreds of plague drones to take possession of her, the rebels were instrumental in reducing their numbers to where five Cohorts of warriors could mop up the rest, and we got her with only minor damage.

  In the course of the refit, her automated factories were converted to produce Mammoth carriers and our latest generation Swift Fangs as well as our fighter/bombers in numbers rivalling the combined production of Terra and the Arks. The new ships were put to immediate use attacking other swarms as we located them but so far the main swarm, now only a little more than a light-kilocycle from Terra has not been attacked but only shadowed by an ever-growing fleet of scouts.

  The mega-swarm, as we have designated it, has grown from between six and eight million ships to well over twelve-million in the time we have been trailing it. Much of this is from non-stop production of new ships, but several swarms from elsewhere have joined up. It was clear that the swarm wasn’t travelling at maximum speed but was waiting to build its forces up before accelerating to close with Terra and eliminate another challenge to their dominance of the galaxy.

  They knew we were here and watching them, but so far they hadn’t even sent any probes towards our scouts much less tried to attack them. It was almost like they regarded us as noisome flies buzzing around but of no real consequence. At their current speed of .25 C, it will st
ill take close to thirteen Terran years to get here, allowing time for the swarm to decelerate before beginning their rampage of destruction.

  This was a reprieve of a sort for Terra—our worst-case estimate was they could have been here in ten or so Terran years. According to the rebels, the swarm was travelling at about 75 per cent of top speed, the limit being the globe ships which just had too much mass to accelerate and decelerate quickly. The Plague had never been known to attack without the globe ships along to direct the battles and provide replacement ships. Their preferred method of attack was to move into a star system and disgorge their ships to harvest the outer planets for raw materials and then attack the populated planets when the globe ships were in full production of replacements. They didn’t use grace or finesse—they simply swarmed their enemies and won by weight of numbers.

  Knowing this, we changed our strategy to attack and destroy the small swarms we were finding before they could link up with the mega-swarm and now the priority was to capture globe ships as quickly and efficiently as we could. Leviathan was key to this endeavour and would be fought as a Q ship that would approach a small swarm as if they were fleeing a massive pursuing force. Using the rebel’s subversion techniques, we hoped to send thousands of drones aboard the globe ships in some of our captured harvesters while the swarm from the globe ships was sent on a wild goose to chase and destroy the force that was supposedly chasing us. Our ships would be boarding the globe ships to rearm and resupply.

  Our scouts found small swarms ten to fifteen lightyears down our back-trail that had no way of knowing about our depredations on the swarms we’d hit and the rebels thought our probability of success at better than 80 per cent. We were going to try it once and see if it worked. Thermopylae and Tiger are going along and will be kept inside Leviathan until they were needed. They also had more pleasant accommodations for us.

  Johnny and I were going over the final plans, and he was insisting on sending a few flotillas of carriers along but keeping them out of sight until the outgoing swarm had passed, calling them in once we had control of the Globe ships. They would land inside the globes and be ready to launch their bombers when the swarm chasing the phantom enemy returned.

  “If the bombers wait to exit the globe ships until they are back in the middle of the swarm I think the swarm can be destroyed more quickly since we will be inside their defence perimeter. One of the flotillas could be called in after the swarm returns and strike from the outside.”

  “That should work, but I would feel more secure if we had six carrier flotillas, one in each globe ship and three attacking from the outside. No matter how we approach this, there is going to be a bloodbath, I want to increase our chances of survival, Johnny.”

  He typed a few commands on his console, and we watched as a holographic projection of the tactics played out on the simulator. First, he tried it with the original four flotillas and then with six. “You’re right Jase, it does play out better with the additional flotillas. It also lets you do it again to the next swarm before you need to resupply, and if both raids are successful, we may have enough of the globe ships to try this on the mega-swarm.”

  “While I’m gone, I’d like you to simulate similar attacks on the mega-swarm, I’ll review the results when I get back. If we need to make a few more raids to get more globes, then that is what we will do. We have the time to do this right—we won’t have the time to do it over again because we screwed up.”

  “I’m with you on that one, brother,” Johnny said. “Let me find you two or three more flotillas and based on their readiness, we can plan a departure date.”

  “Thanks, Johnny.”

  After he left my office, I reflected on how this command centre had become such a valuable tool in the last kilocycle. We had planned some excellent and successful missions here, but we’d had our share of dismal failures as well. I shook my head and told myself, “Negative thoughts spawn negative results. This will succeed, you have millions of supporters now who fully understand that failures happen along with the successes.”

  With that in mind, I got up and headed for the dining room to meet Elaine and our friends for an evening of relaxation before diving into the work all over again tomorrow. Besides, I wanted to hear Ginger’s feelings about the Leviathan—she skippered the shakedown cruise, and while I’d read her reports, I knew there were insights and other intangibles she left out. My Bond with her had been pinging me with that since she got back and Tuxedo hinted about things she wants to tell me.

  ◆◆◆

  “Aside from having the acceleration of a dead fish and steering like one, the Leviathan isn’t too bad. We couldn’t perform full deployment tests because we simply didn’t have ships to spare for a full load. The tests we were able to perform suggested we can deploy a full wave of Swift Fangs in two centas, which isn’t too bad for twenty-nine hundred ships. Deploying the bombers is even more impressive since we use a similar technique as our carriers, but instead of each launcher serving a single ship, we can push out six bombers at a time per launcher. With six launchers per port, we can get two flights on their way in less than a centa, and that is on a twenty tick evolution. Theoretically, we can cut that in half by decreasing the interval to ten ticks, but since we have twenty ports dedicated to bombers, I don’t see the need. We can deploy thirty-six hundred bombers in a centa, that is two-hundred and fifty flights.”

  “Pretty impressive, Ginger,” I said as I mentally total numbers in my head. “Since we don’t need to bring the Leviathan in closer than five light minutes one short-jump per flight can have them engaging the enemy before they even know we are there. How would you feel about having a few more Leviathans in about two hundred cycles?”

  “Jase, where will we get all the bombers to fill them, much less the Swift Fangs to compliment them?”

  “We will just have to solve one problem at a time, but one idea I have is to dedicate all of the production capability of two of every trio to bombers alone. I’m also considering having ordinance production set up on each Leviathan if our lizard friends agree. We have enough room on those ships to set up their environments, and more than a few have been showing up at recruitment stations to volunteer to fight, especially the warmbloods. If we can engineer a method to swiftly transfer raw materials to the Leviathans to keep their factories running, it could take a big strain off the Arks as well as Terra and let them focus more on long term planning—like what they are going to do when we win this fight.”

  Elaine commed privately and said, “Enough shop talk for now, Jase. Let’s try to enjoy our selves and time with our friends. The war will still be here a few decas from now and a deca or two lost now won’t make any difference.”

  I smiled and nodded then said, “So tell me, what are Squirrel Paws and the other Musketeers up to these days?”

  Ginger and Tuxedo launched into a brag session centred on their daughter and her friends, and the evening passed with warmth and cheeriness. I haven’t felt for some time.

  When we finally retired for the night, Elaine pressed up against me with her arms around me and her head on my chest and softly said, “Thank you for being so understanding.”

  I squeezed her back and just nuzzled her hair and reminded myself I have much more to lose than just a war.

  The following morning I got a call from Will Andrews, the Canadian Prime Minister. After a brief greeting he got right to the point, “I wanted to let you know that things are not looking good for our neighbours to the South. Since their national elections are just a few months away, the big focus in the States is who is running for president. Right now the front-runner is President Lauren Smith whom you may recall was in office when the Mmrrreeowwn and the rest showed up. She was released from the hospital at Bethesda right after you rescued President McLeod and his family and all records have been doctored to indicate she was undergoing some long term treatment for a rare form of cancer that is now in remission.

  “We know this to be a complete
fabrication but the public seems to be buying it, and she has somehow folded it into her anti-alien diatribe. I swear to God, I think she has been studying at the Joseph Goebbels School of the Big Lie. Everything coming out of her mouth is obvious baloney, but she has gained traction with the ultraconservative fundamentalists and has been endorsed by the pope. Her followers have set up gangs of bullies that call themselves the Truth Squad who show up at rallies held by her rivals and indiscriminately beat up any bystanders including women and children. There have been over a hundred fatalities in the last week alone, and law enforcement agencies are not equipped to deal with the sheer number of bad guys.”

  “Will, I haven’t heard any of this, but I will get some of my staff to start tracking it right now. I’m not sure there is much I can do about it unless someone in the US government calls me for help. I might be able to help out if a governor of a state calls but only within that state, otherwise I could spark a reaction at the federal level and start a war. We are already not in the best light with the US and for that matter, neither are you.

  “Let me run this by my team and the Elders and get their take. I’ll call you back in a deca or so.”

  “Thanks, Jase, that will have to do. I’ll talk to you later.”

  After the call, I commed Silent in our Intelligence Directorate, and when I asked him about it, he replied, “Yes, this just came to our attention last cycle. We are gathering facts now and should have a report for you within the next few centas. I have two analysts observing events occurring on the West coast of the US in a state called California and another nearby called Utah. These two locations seem to be focal points for violence, although it is not clear to me why. I’ll keep you posted with an update every deca unless you want it more frequently.”