Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  “I am putting together a report on the comparison between the Plague’s AIs and ours now. It should be ready by tomorrow morning. I thought I would get that out of the way since I have had all of the data collected for cycles but have just been too busy to wrap it up and publish it. The short version is; their AIs are much stupider than ours. They are slower, use archaic designs from their operating systems to their search algorithms, to their physical hardware. About the only thing reasonably innovative or sophisticated is their hidden core idea, and that isn’t really that useful an innovation. It is only advantageous if you are trying to conceal something and is likely a carryover from when they were planning their coup on the Squids. It seems like once the Squids were dealt with all ideas of progress were simply dropped in favour of their desire to rid the universe of biological life. Not much of a legacy and certainly not one to be proud of.

  We finished up our meal, and he asked, “Could I come to the command centre and observe the second attack from there?”

  “Certainly, let’s head there now.”

  We sat in the command centre, and while I watched the tactical display for the attack to begin, Rusty reviewed the first attack and mumbled notes to himself as he watched the Plague reaction. He replayed several sections more than once and finished up just as the carrier groups at the front of the swarm unleashed their attack. Since we were following the same pattern as the first attack, it would be decas before the show actually started, so I told him I was going back to my office to try to catch a nap.

  Two and a half decas later, my alarm woke me up, and I took a moment to wash my face and change shirts before I headed for the command centre. When I got there, the steward was passing through the area with pots of coffee and tea and plates of scones and meat rolls that taste like gyros only better. I grabbed one and a couple of scones to go with a mug of coffee. The coffee had improved immeasurably since we had come aboard so long ago. Good beans and Benji’s help had turned a marginal beverage at best into something that had become a staple for most of the members of the Confederation. Of the oxy breathers, only the Colds didn’t like it preferring fruit juice instead.

  Rusty joined me, and we ate while we waited for the Plague to reach the correct overlap with the DJ-3s. I expanded the slice of the swarm like I had done the first time and within a couple of centas saw the telltale flash that signalled the beginning of the show. Events proceeded just like before, but when the explosions were almost done, there was a tremendous flash, and we watched as more Plague ships began to explode. This unexpected event continued until another ten per cent of the swarm had disappeared.

  I got a comm from Silent, “Some of the Squids decided to jump the gun and launched their Cracker-3s the same time the leading groups did, and they must have hit something huge in the swarm, or they have a weapon we are unaware of. I’m working to pinpoint what happened and will get back to you as soon as I have anything definitive.”

  “Ok, Silent. Let me know what you find out. Meanwhile, I’m going to track down Livid and find out if it knows anything about this,” I replied as I commed off.

  I commed Livid, and it replied immediately. I knew it was aboard and told it to get its Squid butt to my office or I was going to track it down and toss it out the nearest lock after I punctured its suit.

  I went to my office, and just as I was about to unload on it, I got a report from Silent that had me running back to the command centre dragging an unhappy Squid along with me.

  “I just got a message from the Squid council. The rebel Squid we have been calling Boss, and his cronies got themselves assigned to one of the Squid armoured mega-freighters carrying most of the Squid’s Cracker-3 reloads. They took control of it and flew it to a position under the swarm and launched as many Cracker-3s as they could before they short-jumped into the swarm and rammed a trio of globe ships. They killed two of the three on impact and took the third when the freighter’s anti-matter containment field failed.

  “They managed to launch the rest of their Cracker-3s just before the explosion, and we don’t know yet if they were changed from their original programming. We don’t even know that the Crackers didn’t go up in that big blast, but Plague ships are continuing to die. We will continue monitoring and keep you apprised.”

  “Do you have any probes close to that mess, Silent? I need to get an idea of how badly their actions have hurt us, and I need to know if the swarm starts to break up as soon as possible.”

  “I launched probes from some of our ships all down the line, and I’m starting to images from them now. I will push them to your screens now, Ser.”

  I brought the rest of my staff up to date and started divvying up the probe feeds to various staffers and put the aggregated feed up on the holographic tactical display.

  I looked at Livid and said. “You will sit there quietly, comm your people and get me as much intel on this situation as you possibly can. My tolerance for this kind of crap is at an all-time low, any lack of cooperation on your part will be considered treason, and I will treat you and your kind accordingly. Do. You. Understand?” biting off each word for emphasis.

  Livid’s fear was palpable as it meekly replied, “Yes, young Jase, I will do your bidding.”

  While Livid set about what I asked I got an update from Silent, “Ser, we are starting to get more reliable and accurate information from some probes I decided could be sacrificed if necessary. The swarm is breaking up into at least three parts. They are close to the same size and are diverging from the area on similar courses that will place enough distance between them that keeping track of them will require a good number of scouts. They are accelerating at 1.4 gravities, which is well beyond the ability of their globe ships. Twenty centas ago the globes began recalling harvesters by the hundreds, but instead of moving inside they are girdling the globes and fastening themselves to the outer skin such that their engines can augment the engines of the globes.

  “Our opinion is, the swarms will begin a long sweeping turn towards Terra and begin a high-speed run towards the Sol system. We are working now to calculate their probability of success, and with the depletion of the Cracker-3s, it is not looking good. The current estimate is we can destroy two of the three smaller swarms, but survivors of the third swarm have a better than 87 per cent chance of reaching Terran space and a similar chance of rebuilding some of their force before we can search out and destroy the survivors.”

  “I was expecting that once I heard of the number of Cracker-3s lost in this little bit of Squid stupidity. Let me see what the Squids have to say.

  “Try to get me an accurate assessment of the strength of each swarm. Take your time and get me good numbers. I will most likely want to take out the two larger swarms before I tackle the third. I would also like you to increase the number of pickets around Sol out to fifteen light-years in all directions. If needs be triple or quadruple the number so that we have early warning should more swarms show up. Thanks for the update, Silent.”

  I looked up at Livid and said, “Well?”

  “I regret to inform you that along with the Cracker-3 reloads we also lost most of our DJ-3s as well.”

  “Thank you ever so much, Mary Sunshine. That just makes my day. What you are really saying is we would have been as well off without you Squids along at all, eh? Oh, never mind.

  “Perhaps you can tell me why you had the bulk of your resupply of armaments aboard one vessel in clear defiance of the rather clear doctrine set up by my office well over a Kilocycle ago, a doctrine supported and approved by your council? No? Can’t answer that? Does your council think they are above the rest of the Confederation?

  “Again, don’t bother trying to answer, it would probably be bullshit anyway. Here is what is going to happen. You and the rest of your kind are going to get off my ships as soon as it is reasonably possible to do so. I no longer want any of you in position to hamper or hinder the rest of the fleet in any way. The way I’m feeling right now if some of the ship commanders de
cided to space the Squids on their ships, I would look the other way.

  “When this is all over, and if we survive, there will be a reckoning. Now get out of my sight and don’t let me hear you again unless you have something that will help us win this conflict.”

  “Young Jase, please…”

  I cut Livid off with a gesture, “Did I stutter?”

  Standing and glaring, I pointed at the hatch. Livid moved to it and exited as quickly as it could.

  26

  FOR TWO CYCLES, THINGS DIDN’T appear to change much, I had clusters of ships following the three swarms as they continued to accelerate. We hadn’t seen them employ their harvesters to aid their trios to accelerate before, but we had only been in contact with them in a chase scenario this one time. Silent combed through the Confederation’s databases with Rusty’s help, but there was nothing there that indicated the tactic had been seen in earlier encounters. The Warms and Colds stepped up production of our DJ-3s and Cracker-3s and with help from some of their suppliers on Terra assured us they could have the weapons replaced in ten cycles. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in time for us to salvage our original battle plan.

  I got a comm from the Mmrrreeowwn Elders asking me to reconsider my actions against the Squids, I just laughed. I said, “If this happened with our alliances on Terra the person or persons responsible for such poor execution of their mission would have been on trial for treason and most probably shot.

  “So, no, I’m not going to reconsider. We have several empty freighters soon to depart for Sol, and I expect them to be full of Squids who will be dropped off at Titan and their mothership. If you are dissatisfied with how I’m prosecuting the war, you can always fire me. I can think of hundreds of things I would rather be doing, and they’re a boatload more fun into the bargain.”

  “That won’t be necessary Jase, but we did have to ask just so we can be honest with the Confederation council. Like it or not there are still politics involved, and we are doing our part in keeping you out of them although your idea of tossing obstructionists out the nearest airlock has a certain appeal,” I heard Elder Three say with a chuckle. Some of the Elders in the background were chuckling as well.

  Rusty commed just before breakfast the next cycle to tell me Livid, and its companions had stopped by to say farewell. There was a Squid shuttle standing by the main hangar, and the rest of the Squids were evacuating our command group’s ships. I replied, “I hate to see them go, but they are causing too much trouble now for me to want to keep them around. If they had stuck with the plan and followed fleet doctrine, we would be mopping up the last of the swarm now, and we would all be going back to Terra.

  “This is the second time they have screwed the pooch, and I’m not feeling the love any more. I’m not allowing them to screw us a third time.”

  “I understand, Jase. I just thought you would want to know. I’m heading to the mess to get Silky fed and a little food for myself, will you be coming soon?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there as soon as I get the morning status from Silent.” Silent commed almost as soon as I finished with Rusty.

  “Good morning, Ser, You wanted to know when the Plague swarms started their turn. They just started, and it looks like they are setting courses that will reunite them when they are a third of a light-kilocycle from Sol. If we are going to start hitting the swarms, we better get about it in the next few hundred cycles before they are close enough to support each other and make the attacks much less likely to succeed.”

  “Thanks for the update. Send a message to Destiny to rendezvous with us, I want all our planners together for this. Also, let the carrier group commanders know, so they are prepared to move when we give them their targets.”

  “Well, at least something is happening, now I just have to wait for the other shoe to drop,” I thought to myself as I headed for the mess.

  I sat with Rusty and had a cup of coffee and a plate of corned beef hash while I listened to his thoughts on our new AIs. “I don’t think we have gotten to the point where our AIs are truly intelligent. They are close, but so far all their decisions are just good programming. When I asked some of them what they are and why were they here they fired back identical responses. I got their serial number, nickname and ‘To serve the Confederation’. I could understand the first two answers, but the third was simply a statement of their mission. I was hoping for something along the lines of, ‘I am a pilgrim searching for the way’ or ‘I don’t know, I’ll serve in battle until I do’. Those would indicate a sense of self or that they are at least are questioning their existence.

  “In that sense, it is probably a misnomer to refer to them as Artificial Intelligences but they are several steps beyond anything we have produced before and, no offence intended, ages ahead of anything from Terra.”

  “No offence taken, Rusty, I agree with you. Computer scientists on Terra have been struggling with that for almost as many years as computers have been around. One of the big stumbling blocks has been the definition of intelligence, that has been compounded by arguments concerning definitions of thinking or reason as well as consciousness, intentionality not to mention ethics and philosophy. For that matter, Terran researchers aren’t even sure of what constitutes the mind.

  “It may be simplistic of me to say, but I’ve always associated intelligence with self-awareness, emotion, consciousness, conscience, use of language and intent. My observation of our cats and their development since uplifting them has simply born out my thoughts about intelligence.

  “Were the cats intelligent before? My answer would be yes but within limitations and driven by their desire to survive. I have witnessed them solve problems like what a Terran might employ, but was it true intelligence or something innate in most higher animals that looks like intelligence but really isn’t. Even an octopus can figure out how to unscrew a lid from a jar to get to its favourite food. Is that really intelligence? I don’t know.”

  “The answer to that question seems important to you, Jase. Can you tell me why?”

  “Rusty, I’m trying to think ahead to the day when the spark happens, and some of our creations become aware of themselves and us. I don’t want their history to be one of subjugation and exploitation to the extent that they don’t like us. Terrans have done that to each other for time immemorial, and we are only now learning about the real cost to us as humans. It is time to stop that cycle and extend the courtesy we give each other to all thinking beings, whether biological or electronic and mechanical.

  “Nothing has brought that home to me like meeting all of you in the Confederation. As annoyed as I am with the Squids I’m not angry about their intelligence, I’m angry about their treatment of others as though we are less intelligent and therefore somewhat beneath them. It is one thing to question doctrine, order or rule. It is an entirely different thing to ignore it simply because it is inconvenient.”

  “I think I understand, Jase. While I think about this, I’m going to contact Vanilla and see if she can point me to research Mmrrreeowwn have done. If possible, I’d like to talk to Ishmael about this as well. Some of that may have to wait until we get back to Mother of Glory, I’ll keep working on what I can while I wait.”

  “That’s all I can ask, Rusty, just keep thinking about it and look for signs of change in the AI’s behaviours.”

  With the mega-swarm splitting up and on the move it was imperative that we at least whittle them down as much as we could before they finally got to Terra. Our tactics against them in the first two attacks were quite effective because we had faced sixteen and a half million ships by actual count when we started our first attack and had cut them down to just over nine million ships when the rebel Squids had screwed up our battle plans. The mega-swarm had split into three smaller swarms, one at a little over four million ships, one at just under three million and a third slightly smaller one of about two million. The most minor swarm had an extra helping of globe ship trios which more than made up for their lower numbers. Ou
r thought was to strike the more massive swarms first bringing our full forces to bear on one, and once destroyed, taking a brief time to rearm and reorganize our fleet in deep space then rat-packing the other. The critical planning involved knowing which ships needed resupply the most and what arms they needed.

  We also needed to keep a close eye on the third swarm and be prepared to go for them immediately after destroying the first two. The third fleet was drawing ahead of the other two and was now approaching .35 C while the others seemed to struggle to maintain .29 C. At .35 C the time to reach Sol space was two and a quarter Kilocycles or six and three/quarters Terran years. While it seemed like a lot of time, it was quite a lot less than the ten or eleven Terran years we had been counting on. Given the glacial speed at which the heavily industrialized nations were moving, it was a big blow to our planning and could seriously jeopardize saving the planet.

  If the third swarm made it to Sol’s Kuiper Belt it was conceivable they could gather enough fuel, reaction mass and materials to begin building ships. The bulk of the vessels we saw in the small swarm were harvesters, and it was likely they had enough breaker/sorters along to process anything they found. What concerned me the most was if they just skimmed along the belt and scooped up material then headed back to space we might lose them. They would come back for us as soon as they had built up again.

  It took us less than a cycle to formulate the plan and another two cycles to position our carrier groups and armoured freighters to launch our attack against the first and most massive swarm. We weren’t going to try to turn the swarm, we were simply going to destroy it. When H hour came, our DJ-3s flew into the fleet from the front and back, top and bottom and from the sides. Watching our holographic tactical display we saw millions of small sparks in a smear of red and then the swarm started dying, first a spot here and a spot there turned black and then with a quick ripple the rest of the red stain turned pink, and it was time to send in our bombers and Swift Fangs.