Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  “Now begins the part I hate most,” I replied by way of acknowledgement, “the long wait.”

  Closing with the oncoming swarm took a while, but with a lot of patience, we were finally close to the globe ships and took up station with them. The harvesters we sent over were parked in the bays closest to the core of each ship, and several of our drones had successfully left them and merged with the drones aboard each trio member.

  Rusty infected each drone with a worm that would propagate through the trio’s drones but, given the sheer number of them, could take up to three cycles before we could begin the next phase. Our drones also needed to be on the lookout for the nasty little football shaped ones. We didn’t find any aboard Leviathan when we took her, but some of the other Globe ships were sure to have some aboard. Rusty had cooked up a very nasty surprise for them if some were found.

  ◆◆◆

  So far the Plague swarm was maintaining the course they were on when we first spotted them, which was good for us since we’d dropped thousands of Dopey Joes behind us as we came to meet them. We timed the drop for two and half-cycles travel time, and as the leading edge of the swarm started into the seeded part of space, we began getting reports from our drones that most of the drones on the globe ships had shut down. It will be a few decas before the swarm got to the back edge of our Dopey Joes so we decided to wait just a little longer for full saturation. Dopey Joes haven't been that effective in previous engagements, but we were hoping the new smart version we deployed will work a lot better. The early versions didn’t have the smarts to coordinate with each other, and as many as twenty might single out one ship to attack leaving all of the others around it alone. It made for an impressive bang, but it was severe overkill.

  When we reach the optimum position relative to the Dopey Joes, we sent a micro-burst transmission and thousands of small fusion drives came to life and Plague ships begin to die. Missy shut off the camouflage field that hid our extra ship-portals, and our Swift Fangs and Swift Fang Clones launched accompanied by over thirty-seven thousand bombers. The holographic tactical display on Tiger’s bridge was a muddle of fusion torches, explosions and debris as the Plague fleet died. One part of me cringed inside, and I had to remind myself that we were not killing living organisms here but just breaking machines; still, a part of my conscience questioned the legitimacy of my rationalization.

  The primary battle was over in less than two decas, it was without a doubt the most nerve-wracking two decas of my life. The tactical plot on the bridge was now understandable, and as I watched, I could see the battle was not all one-sided. Some of the Plague swarm’s Swift Fang clones were being used to deadly effect against our larger ships, and I watched as harvester after harvester took on the characteristic glow of a vessel ready to explode. Two waves of bombers had been launched and recovered, rearmed and relaunched with still no end in sight. The first wave had just been sent out again when suddenly vast numbers of fresh bombers start dropping in and the Plague ships begin dying in ever more significant numbers.

  “Section controllers of the first wave have your units return to base immediately and stand down. Second wave controllers, have your bombers rearm with Goblins only. Repeat, the second wave is to be rearmed with Goblins only. When rearming is completed, four flights are to proceed to each trio member and enter through the ship portals as we have practised. They are to proceed to the ships’ cores and take station to support our warrior forces when they arrive. Any Plague vessel that attempts to lift or fires upon you is to be destroyed at your discretion. Remember: our goal is to capture the trio intact. The mop-up operation will be carried out by the carrier flotillas that have joined us.”

  As the battle continued, the carrier flotillas managed to drive the remaining Plague ships farther and farther from the globe ships. I got reports from the second wave that the few remaining ships aboard the trio are all inactive and most of the drones encountered are either wandering around aimlessly or lying on the deck immobile. This is good news, but I’m waiting for the occupation forces to arrive and secure the cores before I declare a successful mission.

  The flotillas that joined us have been careful to leave a picket force around the battle site, and they reported only a few of the Plague managed to evade the battle force and tried to break out. They were all destroyed, and after four more decas, the fleet trains began to arrive. Six Cohorts were sent to search and pacify each of the globe ships.

  It took an additional two cycles for the warriors to search every nook and cranny in each of the enormous ships and they and their scout companions worked in teams of two warriors and one cat scout. Whenever a hiding drone was encountered, it is because the scout heard them attempting to communicate on that strange frequency they used and that only the cats seemed to be able to hear. Several teams were ambushed and killed but not before the scout got a sit-rep off to nearby groups who converged on the drone and destroyed it. Several of the scouts were recovered none the worse for wear, it is a testament to the warriors’ armourer’s skill in providing the scouts with a little extra protection after the first such operation in which so many were crushed by their warriors when they were killed. I made a note to commend the armourers who dreamt up the little armoured capsules that protect the scouts.

  Each of this trio had a few rebel Squids aboard, but they were confined to stasis chambers and only resurrected when repairs beyond the ability of drones were required. When we revived them, they were in a pretty deplorable state, several died in the attempt. We moved them to Leviathan where we had containment facilities set up to receive them. There were Squids from our confederation there to interrogate them and try to rehabilitate them.

  Once the ships were cleared most of the compartments filled with methane were vented to space and the core was flooded with a nitrogen/oxy mix breathable by most of the Confederation forces. The scouts were turned loose to continue their part of the mission which is to keep a lookout for any drones that might have been missed in the first search. It was pretty hard to evade over five-hundred cats for long, within a cycle, a few more drones were found and deactivated with no further loss of life.

  Fifteen cycles went by before the specialists brought in on the fleet trains had completed their work to install FLT capability on each member of the trio. During that time, a thorough search was made of the space surrounding the battle and many life support pods from destroyed bombers were found with varying results. Our losses, while not terribly severe for one action, were still too high to be sustainable. This is becoming ever more clear as more swarms were discovered by scouts travelling down our back-trail and branching off to the sides of our great exodus. We lost nearly a thousand ships in this encounter, not including our bombers of which our losses were just under 20 per cent. Many of the ships we lost were gotten when we captured Leviathan, we no longer had them as a resource, and we couldn’t rely on capturing more ships as the war progresses.

  Before we sailed back to Sol, I had a meeting with all of my command officers and presented the butcher’s bill. We reviewed the results of the battle going over what worked and what didn’t and tried to work up plans covering some of the contingencies we encountered on this mission. I overheard one of the Terrans use the phrase “so this will never happen again”, and it brought me up short. I was going to dress him down on the spot, but then I thought better of it and decided to have a private chat with him about it when we got back to Terra. Real life has taught me that it is unrealistic to think one can stop mistakes or accidents from happening. Poor planning is even harder to mitigate since many plans seemed foolproof until a fool was sent to execute them, and they fell apart.

  I ended the meeting, “I need all of you to understand we need to fight smarter as well as harder. At this rate, we will run out of pilots before we run out of bombers and when we are out of pilots, our options will be to either start running again or start equipping bombers with AI and hope for the best. This didn’t work out so well for the Squids and if any
of you have questions about that, go visit the rebels here on Leviathan. Talk to the Squids we have as members of our crews on our larger ships. Learn from them how trust in technology worked for them and don’t ever think for even a tick the same can’t happen to us. It almost has more than once, and if not for an accident, we may not have caught on to the danger in time to prevent it.”

  Some of the officers gave me knowing nods, and I knew they would be telling their less knowledgeable peers and subordinates about Silky’s discovery and how that almost ended Rusty before the cycle is over.

  19

  I TOOK A QUICK TRIP out to Saturn Station’s shipyard to watch the latest of Ginger’s prizes make it into port. The confederation has built a large complex near Saturn’s trailing Lagrange point, and the globe ships will be undergoing their refit there. The complex has room and resources to upgrade any captured Plague vessel as well, and since we aren’t mining or cracking and sorting planets on a large scale, we are free to refit those classes as destroyers and frigates. The breaker/sorter ships are ideally suited as destroyers since they have oversized power-plants for their size and can be adapted easily for that role. The colossal particle weapon they used was too short ranged to use as a primary weapon in its current state, but our lizard friends think they can upgrade them to similar performance of our large plasma cannons. If so, we could have tens of thousands of destroyers operational in a kilocycle.

  The more massive harvesters have the potential of making excellent missile frigates. The Squids say they won’t have any problems converting the huge materials hoppers to missile magazines and placing launchers on the hoppers is no big deal. The hoppers are detachable so resupply can be accomplished quickly and easily in deep space with just a few crew members in hard-suits. The fleet train also benefits because the freighters carrying the reloads are now armed—trained gunners could be sent with the fleet train and, in the event the train is attacked, can defend it with the supplies they are carrying. There is a lot of good that can be said of well-planned modularization.

  Tuxedo was with me as Ginger’s Tiger docked with the complex and it was only centas before she came through the boarding tube, saw us and launched herself into Tuxedo’s arms. As he was hugging her, she reached out a hand to me and grabbing my sleeve pulled me into a furry three-way embrace. She said, “I’ve missed you both so much! Being that far away from you and Squirrel Paws and Elaine and all our other friends really wear on me now.”

  She was wet-cheeked, her ear-tips were dark from embarrassment, but she continued holding us as if she was afraid to let go. “I have to file my reports but as soon as I do, can we leave? I want to get back to Mother of Glory and see our daughter.”

  Tuxedo nuzzled her, saying, “We can leave as soon as you want. We will go back to Righteous Claws while you file your report and have her prepped for departure as soon as you have secured the hatch.”

  She and Tuxedo hugged quickly, and she turned and scurried off to file her after action report. On the way, we encountered Missy with Shadow, and we had a quick reunion with her while Serena and Shadow mock wrestled and jabbered excitedly. The two went silent when Missy reminded them they were in public, but they were still whirling around the deck like dervishes. Missy asked, “Can I bum a ride back to MoG with you? Amos has ten cycles of downtime, I want to make the most of them before he goes back on duty.”

  “Sure, come on along,” I replied and Tux and I each grab one of her hands and walk her towards our boarding tube. Ten centas later Ginger was aboard, the hatch is closed, and we were on our way to Terra.

  Ginger jumped to FTL as soon as we were a safe distance from the shipyard and we re-entered normal space when we hit the zone around Terra that shut down our jump drive. We coasted to rendezvous with Mother of Glory, and while we had nothing to do, Ginger filled us in on her mission with Missy filling in and commenting on her observations. I was relaying this to Silent. I knew he was recording as well as relaying what he heard to our department heads and Johnny.

  Ginger also forwarded a copy of her AAR to Silent with instructions to send a copy to the Elders and our staff. By the time we docked everyone who needs to know the particulars of the mission will have read the report and reviewed the logs in preparation for a senior officers meeting tomorrow.

  When we were finally docked Ginger grabbed Tuxedo’s hand and said, “We are going to visit Squirrel Paws for a while but would like to meet you and Elaine at Benji’s Place at dinner time. I need a couple of decas of downtime to shake off some of this tension I feel about being responsible for thousands of lives. Elaine gave her a quick hug and said, “We will be there, and you know you can talk to me anytime.” Besides Tuxedo, Ginger had a daughter who is old enough now to appreciate all of what Ginger’s work entails. She is fortunate to have them both.

  I knew exactly how she felt about the responsibility of her job, and she was wise to let it out instead of following my example and holding it inside until I could barely function. With Elaine in my life, I seldom do that anymore, and when I do, she was quick to notice and call me on it. I was fortunate to have her by my side and a diverse group of friends who stand at my back.

  The next morning I awoke refreshed and feeling better than I have since the mission began. Elaine and I cleaned up and dressed, then headed for the dining room for a good breakfast before we started our day. When we got to our table, I glanced towards the lounge area and saw Serena was already here with Shadow and Stealth. The three of them were sitting on the floor by their food dishes while Edgar was sitting on one of the couches, so he was at eye level with the other three. Edgar noticed me, and I heard him on my comm, “Good morning, Jase.”

  “Good morning to you, Edgar. You will have to tell me all about Stealth later,” I respond. Stealth was living at the WTC where he assisted in training classes with newly enhanced wild cats as well as some fourth and fifth generation uplifted lynxes, bobcats and ocelots who had volunteered for war service. We also have several cougars that have been enhanced but their birthrates are lower and their litters fewer in numbers so there are none in training at the WTC right now. Those who are serving are mostly assigned to Bebe’s Cohort, they work with warriors as scouts. The reports from the warriors indicate they are easy to work with and have excellent skills in tracking and surveillance. Many of the Terran warriors who came from units that used dogs are pleased when chosen to partner with them. All of the serving cats large or small select their partners, not the other way around.

  Rusty and Silky slid into a chair next to mine, when Silky saw Edgar, she bounded off to go sit with him. Rusty greeted Elaine and me and then said, “Jase, I would like to brief you on a side project I’m working on, would you have time later today?”

  “Sure, we can get together right after the staff meeting at 0350 this morning.” He grinned and when the server came for our orders, “What he is having but only half so much,” gesturing towards me. I’m pretty predictable when it comes to breakfast, he knows it will either be scones or blueberry buckwheat pancakes and ham or bacon.

  “Why don’t you come to the meeting? You were along on the last mission, and your remote pilots were used extensively. There may be some questions about them, and you would be best to answer them.”

  He nodded agreement and said nothing more as he dug into the stack of cakes and bacon the server placed in front of him. I had to remind him to chew his food and slow down a bit. He nodded, and his ear-tips grew dark briefly.

  During the meeting, the performance of his remotes did indeed come up, and I was glad he was along to deal with the questions. Generally, the remotes were praised for their ease of use, and the intuitive interface gets high marks. The only real issue is the lag-time for units that were a long distance from their controllers.

  “Yes, I know the lag-time is long and can be a detriment during a battle, which is why I recommend that the separation not be greater than a half light-tick between the remotes and their controller. It is a problem I’ve been w
orking on, and I believe I have a viable solution, but I’m not ready to discuss it in this venue,” he responded to a particularly aggressive Terran officer.

  I raised my hand before the officer could continue and said, “Thank you, Rusty. Let’s table that issue, for now, we have much else to discuss.

  “I’m told that the yard will have our new trio upgraded and configured like Leviathan in about a hundred cycles give or take ten. This is longer than I want to wait before the next mission so I would like you all to review the scouting reports I’ve just forwarded you. Take a few centas and review them, then let’s discuss and pick our next target.”

  I got a private comm from Rusty who said, “This third report looks like it would be a good candidate for our next mission and I can have the new system I want to talk to you about later ready for it in twenty cycles, giving us time to test it a before we go to war with it.”

  Now I’m really intrigued about what he has come up with and why he was so cagey with the officer who was grilling him earlier. “Ok,” I said. “You can brief me after lunch. I want Sol, Tuxedo, Johnny and Ishmael in the briefing.”

  “Good,” he said, “that will save us both time,” and he chuckled.

  We spent the next half deca discussing the reports, and in the end, we chose number three without my having to lobby for it. Rusty looked at me and grinned.

  “Johnny and the others are going to meet us in the conference room on six in a few centas. I’ve ordered a couple of pizzas and some ale.” I had a feeling it was going to be a long lunch.

  Our meeting adjourned, Rusty and I caught the lift to the sixth floor and got to the conference room just as the food showed up. “Serve yourselves guys while Rusty sets up his presentation. I grabbed a couple of slices for Rusty, and an ale then got mine and munched while he finished loading his show.