Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  Ginger and Sol were within easy recall distance, and my other four senior commanders were still preparing their fleets for their next expeditions, so I had Fleet Comm send out the fleet recall signal via our quantum communicators and waited on tenterhooks for them to return.

  Two cycles later all six senior commanders, their deputies, my deputies and Silent, accompanied by Winston, were in my office. We still hadn’t heard anything from our scouts watching the new mega-swarm. We needed to find out what was going on out there asap. After reviewing fleet status and the latest intelligence estimates cooked up with the latest data we had, I thought we had a plan.

  My senior commanders and I, with some of the best tacticians in the fleet along with our best strategists cooked up a plan going back to our first encounters with swarms. We were going to jump in to the North, East, West and South of the mega-swarm as well as above and below and then close in from all sides. Our departure from our original tactics involved loading our mothballed carriers with our massive store of Dopey Joe IIIs. We barely had enough bombers and fighters for our current operational fleets so we would use the one-hundred and fifty-eight otherwise useless carriers as minelayers.

  The plan was to have the carriers jump into the swarm in pairs and dump their load of DJ-3s and then attempt to ram any globe ships they found. Yes, this would be a suicide run, but we have thousands of AI pilots sitting in racks waiting for their next mission. When I asked for volunteers to fly the mission, not a single one shirked.

  As good as they were, we were still going to need three AIs per carrier, two to run the defences and one to pilot. If the pilot were to be disabled, one of the surviving two could still fly the ship. We chose them by lottery. The winners were taken out to their ships to be wired into the systems while the DJ-3s were being loaded.

  Along with the DJ-3s half of the first element was getting millions of FTL damper missiles to augment their damper field projectors. The missiles are small, fast and sticky. All they had to do was hit a ship, they would stick to it like chewing gum to a cat and would go active building a small but potent tractor beam field that was enough to keep the vessel they were stuck to from jumping. They had enough of a guidance system to differentiate between ship types, the ability to let each other know which ships they were targeting and the sense to make globe ships their highest priority.

  It was going to take us at least ten cycles to get everything set up and tested so I dispatched three groups of three scouts each to the target system under full stealth. They were to use their quantum communicators to send us a steady stream of telemetry and Silent called in his best operators to be on the receiving end with orders to report anything unusual immediately to me and my deputies as well as Winston and himself.

  Johnny, Jacky and I were sitting reviewing the plan when Johnny asked, “Do you think it is wise to have our entire fleet jump out without leaving some ships here for security?”

  “No, I don’t think it is wise, but we have few options at the moment. We have our thirty-five reserve carriers, four unassigned Leopard-Class ships and flocks of Swift Fangs both crewed and AI, not to mention hundreds of shuttles and thousands of Elsies. That is just going to have to do unless you have another idea.”

  “I really don’t,” Johnny replied, “and I’m not really trying to second-guess you. I was just hoping you might have come up with something better since I asked you last time. Jase, I’m terrified, not for myself but for all of the beings here in this system. I’ve never felt so alone or powerless in my life, and I don’t like it.”

  Jacky reached across the table and grabbed one of his hands and said, “I understand all too well what you mean, Johnny. It is all I can do to control my bowels and bladder, I’m so scared. I don’t see any other option, though and none of my fears is even close to what our men and women on those ships are feeling; and yet they are willing to sail out in harm’s way to do what must be done to protect us all. I love every one of them as much as I love my two sons and my daughter going out on those ships with them. If the Spirit of All has made a just universe, they will prevail.”

  Until that moment I’d had no idea just how much skin Jacky and Ishmael had in the game. I knew they had children, although they seldom spoke of them. I thought the kids were probably running some of Ishmael’s factories or otherwise managing his business interests. I had no idea they were serving.

  This must have shown on my face because Jacky took my hand and said, “All of us in the royal families have sons and daughters serving. It is the only way to qualify to be in the line of succession. Even Wiley and Sonja’s sons serve, and their daughters administer the medbays that treat our wounded.

  “Neither Wiley or Sonja have ever tried to arrange or buy protection for their children, even the son you killed a couple of cycles ago. They haven’t said anything to you yet because they are both sad and embarrassed that he was never able to mature but relieved he is no longer first in line for the crown. There were many toasts to you that night, and few tears shed for Ronald Dark-Fang, not even by his mother.”

  42

  IN CANADA IT WAS REMEMBRANCE DAY, a national holiday on which we honour our war dead. It was meant to be a day of reflection and thanks to our soldiers, sailors and airmen who had fought and died to keep us free and safe; but just like in the States, it had degenerated to just another excuse by many to get drunk and be somebody and for sales and offerings to the gods of conspicuous consumption.

  For most of the Terrans on board Sunrise it had been chosen as the day to give thanks for the opportunities we had been given, the friends we had made and especially to those we had lost in our battles to rid ourselves of the Plague. 11 November 2029 was also the day that the Squids decided to end us.

  They had continued to be cordial in what relations we had with them, but they had also moved their main Ark and largest mothership out past Neptune’s orbit to the Kuiper Belt. Two cycles after our fleets left to battle the swarm gathering fifteen light-kilocycles away that all changed. It began when they hit Ship Yard Two with a Kinetic Energy Weapon or KEW. The yard itself was shielded well enough that there was little damage to it, but both Mother of Glory and Mother of Peril were just outside the bubble of the shield and were totally destroyed.

  KEWs are damned hard to stop, they leave no trail, produce no radiation or exhaust while travelling in space and they move so fast it is hard to get a target lock on them unless you are near the target zone.

  Tuxedo and I ran down to our new detention cells where our trio of Squid refugees spent each evening because we didn’t fully trust them and they needed to get out of their ship-suits each cycle for hygiene purposes. I’d heard someone say long ago ‘If it eats it poops’; Squids eat and no one, who is not a Squid, wants anything to do with their pooh.

  When we got to their methane-filled environment, we saw them struggling to get into their ship-suits and scared to death. We waited for them to finish suiting up before we turned on the controls to their airlock. The guards pulled them through the lock/decontamination chamber one at a time and assembled them before us and waited while we placed small explosive charges on the tops of the domes of their ship-suits. We were both sure the precaution wasn’t, but our Council of Elders and several others refused to go anywhere near them unless they were so equipped.

  I told them, “We are going to meet with the Elders and the Confederation Council, you are going to answer their questions fully and honestly, or you will not be seeing this place again.”

  Livid tried to ask what was going on that had the prison staff so upset, and I told it, “Right now I don’t want to hear a sound out of any of you. The councils have questions for you, you will speak then and only then.” I held the control for the detonator where they could all see it, and they instantly went that sick grey-white colour of Squids scared enough to pooh themselves. The guards placed them on gravity litters and began moving them to the Elder’s meeting chamber.

  Johnny and Jacky were working with our sta
ff handling our defence, at this point I had the best of the best working the problem, and the council wanted my presence, so I was on Squid duty, my way of avoiding the Council as long as possible. I don’t care for politicians, and while I had respect for the Elders at a personal level, I didn’t like the continual second-guessing of every decision I made. I have combat familiar staff, for that. I didn’t need it from folks whose last battle was fought around the time my country was being founded.

  The Confederation Council was in full attendance when we got to their new chambers. Most had moved aboard since Sunrise was commissioned over fifty cycles ago. Even the Warms and Colds were here in person and without their suits. They had clearly opted for the nanite treatments that would alter their genome and allow them to walk the same planets we did.

  A small number of the Council representatives from the Arks were on-screen, but everyone was here, and most looked scared to death. Tuxedo and the guards marched the three Squids to a table on the dais and parked them there.

  A matronly Weasel called the session to order and turned it over to Elder One who immediately called on me to inform the Council as to what was happening.

  “In a nutshell,” I said, “our allies and benefactors, the Squids, have fired the first shots in what promises to be a short and bloody civil war. It began with an attack on one of our shipyards with several Kinetic Energy Weapons or KEWs just after 0300 this morning. The shields and armour on the shipyard held but unfortunately the two motherships, Mother of Glory and Mother of Peril didn’t survive. I have yet to confirm it, but I suspect the Squids didn’t know both ships were empty except for a maintenance staff of two hundred on each vessel.

  “As you know we made an effort to keep them blind to our work on Sunrise and our move aboard was covered, with Saturn impeding their view of the yard from their Ark. At the time the two motherships under their control were in close orbit around their Ark. Those ships have now been moved to where they have a view of both yards and most of our other activities around Saturn.

  “All six of our fleets are currently engaging a mega-swarm fifteen light-kilocycles from here and should be making the first contact with the enemy early next cycle. We have thirty-five carriers deployed around this system along with five hundred and twenty Swift Fangs, over five thousand AI Swift Fangs and there are three hundred Harvester-Class cruisers currently in Shipyard One being readied for deployment. They should be fully loaded and launched by the end of this cycle. The crews have all been called up and are bringing their ship’s systems online as we speak.”

  A Warm member of the council asked, “Should we recall our ships from the battle they are about to engage in, Warlord?”

  “I believe that would be a grave error, Council member, we have more than adequate forces here to deal with the Squids and whatever they have planned next. In any case, it would take the fleets almost three cycles to return and would allow the Plague time to flee to another system and continue rebuilding. As much as I hate the phrase, we must ‘stay the course’ Ser. If we lose sight of the final goal, we will most likely be on the run again, and the Plague will have wiped out another civilization, as crude as it may be.”

  That must have mollified the Council because their attention turned to the three Squids on the dais. The same Council member who had just questioned me spoke asking the Squids to identify themselves. When they did, the Council member didn’t mince any words when she asked, “What did you three know about any plans to attack us, and when did you know it?”

  The grilling went on for a deca before everyone was satisfied the three Squids didn’t know any more about the attack than we did, and they were returned to their cell.

  In the meantime, there were more KEW strikes all aimed at the globe ships we had inside Shipyard Two including Sunrise. So far, nothing was getting through. We began moving the three labs that made up Saturn Station by latching on to them with tractor beams and towing them around the big planet to put Saturn between them and the two Squid motherships. Several shuttles placed themselves on the side facing the motherships, and a couple of them took heavy blows from the few KEWs that managed to hit them.

  The Squids weren’t very practised at hitting moving targets, especially those that moved and had stealth screens placed in front of them. Every time a KEW hit a shuttle, it would explode, but before another round could come in, another shuttle had taken its place. The shuttle pilots finally slaved several of the tow ships together and let the AI of one set up a course that randomly changed speed and bearing. It was quite a while before another hit was scored. Once partially around the curvature of the big planet, its gravity and atmosphere also came into play, and the Squids finally stopped firing.

  The squadron of Harvester cruisers docked at Shipyard One was finally underway and short jumped out beyond the two motherships when the shipyard dropped its shields long enough to let the FTL field build. They were tasked with keeping the larger of the two motherships, Mother of Righteous Anger, busy while we dealt with Mother of Vengeance. It cost us several more cruisers when a KEW the Squids had just launched passed through the dropping shields and hit a cruiser. The energy released in the strike took out a half dozen more. Once the squadron was gone, the shipyard rebuilt its screens, and I noticed the engineers on the shipyard had quickly slid in some of the new modules we hadn’t had time to install yet.

  As the shield went back up, we could see it glowing a very faint purple. When the next KEW hit it, the shield partially collapsed around the projectile and with a bright purple flash, sent it back along a reciprocal course where it impacted the shields of the mothership that fired it. The mothership’s shields flared bright red, and I thought they might go down, but they firmed back up and kept a reddish look that made aiming easier for our approaching bombers.

  The closest carrier was getting in on the act and had launched a couple of flights armed with Cracker-3s. The first squadron short-jumped in and launched all of their Crackers at once then short-jumped away to circle around to their carrier and rearm. When the seventy-two missiles hit, it looked like the shields might fail. They flickered a bit, turned a dull red momentarily than came back up even brighter than before. My first thought was the Squids had figured out a way to convert the energy from a strike into energy that powered the shields. There was a quick way to find out.

  I commed the carrier and ordered them to load up two flights, one with Cracker-3s and one with some of the older Cracker-1s, the original planet killers. Cracker-1s are more potent than anything else we have, so powerful we stopped using them because the scale of economy was such we couldn’t afford as many of them as we needed to win the war. We kept the ones we had instead of recycling them just in case. This was "just in case".

  The CAG on the carrier knew right away what I wanted him to do and he launched two flights in formations that would let them fire all of their missiles at once. He timed the arrival of the flights so that the plane with the Cracker-1s was six ticks behind the first. If everyone kept to the timeline, the second flight of missiles would arrive when the Squid’s screen was just going that dark red colour.

  The first flight was carrying eight-hundred and sixty-four missiles, each bomber had six. The second flight could only carry two-thirds that number because the Cracker-1s were much larger, but they were several times more potent than the alternative. We would know in centas if five-hundred and seventy-six Cracker-1s could break the Squid’s shields.

  The first flight jumped in, launched their load and had just cleared the area when the second flight popped out of short-jump, dumped theirs and scooted. They were right on schedule. When the flashes of the explosions died down, and we could see the target mothership again it was just in time to see the dull red shields flicker and then die. CAG knew that if it worked there might only be a few ticks before the shields were restored and had a third flight armed with cracker-3s following five ticks later. Once again the vast mothership was obscured by fire. This time when the screens cleared, there
was nothing but debris floating in space where the Mother of Vengeance had been.

  We had one ship left to kill, and it was making way, trying to get behind one of the hollowed out planets the Ark fleet used for carrying fuel and materials for construction and repairs. It was their oldest and largest mothership Mother of Righteous Anger and even while trying to hide, she was firing KEWs as fast as her crew could load them. One of the shots hit the Ark she was trying to hide behind a glancing blow that knocked a huge chunk of the moon away, revealing tunnels and what looked like storage rooms full of materials. It also uncovered something more sinister. There must have been a colony of Droumb aboard because I could see small bodies about the right size and configuration spewing into space along with the atmosphere being vented from the Ark.

  The Mother of Righteous Anger picked up speed in a manner I didn’t think possible for a ship that size and was clearly running for the Kuiper Belt. I’d never seen her before and knew little about her. I had Livid brought to the planning room next to my office. I had it placed on a chair and replayed the sequence of the log showing how a glancing KEW had taken off the top of the Ark like one would use a spoon to take the top off a soft-boiled egg. It actually wretched in its ship-suit when it saw the Droumb bodies boiling into space literally and figuratively.

  I looked at it and asked, “How is it you don’t know of this, you were on the Squid council for ages? You were connected to so many other people, tell me, how it is that you didn’t know!”

  “Jason, I heard rumours about this, but every time I investigated, I could find nothing. I don’t know how my people could have devolved so far as to do this. We have been working with the one you call Gollum, he is learning to read and write. His mastery of spoken language, English, is to the point now where I can carry on conversations with him. He is much more intelligent than I originally thought. I have also learned he and his people have a spiritual side, and it saddens me greatly they have been mistreated by my people.”