by B. V. Larson
Straker!
Straker!
Straker!
He lowered his eyes, humbled by their deafening adulation. He didn’t feel like he deserved it—but he realized it would be all the more effective for his humility. Servant leadership, they’d called it at Academy. He’d never understood it until now.
The troops suddenly broke ranks, and he felt himself lifted onto their shoulders. It might have been the best moment of his life.
***
“That was a reckless thing to do,” Carla said as she dabbed antiseptic on Derek’s whip-stripes. “What if he’d missed and taken out an eye?”
“Then I’d really look like a pirate.”
“I still think you should get seen by the doc. He’ll put you in a dermal regen tank and you’ll be good as new in a day or two.”
“I don’t want to be good as new. I want to feel the pain. I want to scar. I need to be reminded of…”
“Of your own stupidity?” She sniffed. “I thought that was my job.”
Derek chuckled ruefully. “Actually, it’s Loco’s job. I made a mistake sending him off. This punishment is partly for that, too. If he’d been here, he’d probably have noticed what was going on in the brig in his name, and stopped it. He always has his ear to the ground, always knows what’s happening.”
Carla scowled. “I fault myself for not consulting Gurung enough—for the same reason. We both screwed up.”
“So we did. But did you see how they reacted? They respect me even more now.”
“Don’t get a big head.”
“I mean, they respect the Liberator, the symbol. That story’s gonna spread throughout the fleet and get bigger each telling. I didn’t intend it this way. I just did it on instinct, but it worked out better than I’d hoped.”
“I’m happy for you. I really am. That should do it.” She tossed the applicator into the waste chute and sprayed seal-heal onto the hamburger that was Derek’s back. “The ship’s laundry’s going to love you. All your tunics will be bloody for a week or two.”
Derek shrugged. “I’ll double my undershirts.” He checked his chrono. “We’re arriving soon, right?”
“Under an hour.” Carla pulled on her jacket. “You ready to deal with Loco?”
“Ready enough.”
“Meaning you’re not sure.”
Derek took a deep breath. “I’m more of a seat-of-the-pants guy, Carla. You know that. I’ll figure it out when I see him. We’re old friends. We’re men. We yell a little, maybe punch each other around, and then we’re okay again.”
“You really think so?”
“We’ll work it out.”
Carla doubted it, but it wasn’t worth arguing. Time would tell. “Okay. See you on the bridge.” She left him there to gingerly clothe himself.
On the bridge, her usual crew waited. Kraxor stood in his chosen place at the flag station near the back, waiting for Straker to show. Tixban was her eyes and ears at Sensors. The rest of the command crew had started to jell nicely as a crew after the battle for Nawlins, and Gurung had told her the ship’s complement was also shaking out well, other than the brig incident.
Straker joined them as they ran through the inbound transit checklist, but said nothing, only stood waiting by the holo-table. When the blankness of sidespace finally disappeared from the screens and the high-res visiplates, when Ruxin’s sun and its planets appeared on the sensors, Captain Engels steeled herself for the next challenge, confident in Wolverine and her task force—but intensely curious about Indomitable.
Would she be the superweapon Straker yearned for? Or would she be a resource pit and a boondoggle, as the Mutuality had found?
***
Straker held himself still as he waited for the holo-table to populate. His back felt as if it would split and crack with any movement. He could’ve taken painkillers, but he wanted to be sharp, and the pain only served to help.
“There,” he said unnecessarily as Indomitable’s icon appeared in the middle distance. “Get us moving toward her. How long until we join them?”
“About ninety minutes until we’re close enough for easy conversation,” said Engels. “Another half-hour to come to relative rest and dock.”
“Request a status report for us to look over on the way.”
A few minutes later, data began arriving from Indomitable. Straker drank it in eagerly, waving Engels, Tixban, Gurung and Kraxor over to look at the detailed schematics hovering above the holo-table. “Tell me what I’m seeing that’s different from before the refit.”
Tixban worked the table, highlighting sections as he talked. “Assuming this data is accurate and not aspirational, it appears that ship functions have been improved by an order of magnitude or more.” He waited, one large liquid eye on each of the others.
“Wait, that’s more than ten times as good, right?”
The question in his voice, as if he couldn’t believe his ears, prompted a nod from Engels, who said, “In less than two months. That’s…”
“Jolly good,” said Gurung.
“Unbelievable,” said Kraxor. “I’m quite familiar with the exceptional engineering abilities of my people, but this data shows not merely restoration and optimization, but upgrades worthy of five years in dry dock.”
“How the hell did they do it?” asked Straker.
Tixban caused sixteen spots to flash and change color, and then the battleship’s bridge as well. “The ship’s SAIs appear to be linked into one super-AI, designated as ‘Indy.’ This is not as designed. Perhaps our combined scientists were able to achieve what others have not: a sane machine sentience.”
“Or maybe it just hasn’t gone mad yet,” said Engels. “If it does…”
“Skip that for now,” said Straker. “If the thing worked, it helped, using Indomitable’s self-repair capability. What about the multi-weapon?”
“The ship’s capital superweapon shows as fully functional in all regards. As do all other ship systems.”
Straker rubbed his hands together and tried to contain his elation. “Who cares how they did it. It’s exactly what we need to bring this whole rotten system down!”
“After we liberate Ruxin,” said Kraxor.
“Of course! We’ll have that done within a day or two.”
An alarm beeped. The Sensor tech filling in for Tixban spoke. “Captain, multiple contacts transiting inbound, approximately two light-minutes spinward.”
“Our other task forces?” Engels asked.
“No, ma’am. Ten—no, eleven dreadnoughts, seven superdreadnoughts, more than sixty smaller ships so far.” Color drained from the woman’s face. “A Mutuality capital fleet.”
Chapter 28
Ruxin System, Battlecruiser Wolverine, Edge of Flatspace
“How the hell did they know to show up here?” Straker snarled, staring at the Mutuality capital fleet that had just appeared from sidespace.
“The Liberation isn’t a professional military organization,” Engels replied. “We’ve always known it leaks like a sieve. It’s full of defectors and freedom fighters and whoever else we could scoop up, so it’s inevitable there are spies. That’s why we’ve been rushing hell-for-leather around this part of the spiral arm, trying to stay ahead of any enemy intel on us—but every ship in the fleet knows about this rendezvous.”
“Or maybe the Opters provided intelligence to our enemies,” said Straker.
“How would they find out about the rendezvous?” asked Engels.
“Possibly from me. I’m not entirely sure… never mind.” He pointed at the enemy fleet in the display. “Looks like they’ve decided to try to stop us here, and get Indomitable back. Give me a tactical plot.”
On the holo-table, Indomitable hung in space ahead of Task Force Wolverine on its course. Well behind, the Mutuality capital fleet was falling into formation. Ships continued to appear out of sidespace, now numbering more than one hundred.
Engels said, “Commodore, even with Indomitable in fighting sh
ape, we’re heavily outnumbered and possibly outgunned.”
“We have three more task forces due in, right?”
“Sure, but that’s only thirty more ships or so. Everything that’s not Indomitable comes to at best a tenth of the enemy’s strength.”
“Then Indomitable has to beat them… or it’s all over right now.”
Engels nodded. “That’s the problem with the Liberation, Commodore. It has little depth or ability to recover. We have the forces we have and no more—and we have to win every battle.”
Straker smiled grimly. “Not really. Did you ever read about George Washington? One of the founders of the American Empire?”
“A little.”
“He liberated his homeland from another empire, the British, kinda like we’re doing. He fought and retreated, battle after battle. You might say he lost battles, but not disastrously. The important thing was, he preserved his army and exhausted his enemies, who were fighting at a distance and trying to impose their will on a populace riddled with rebels and freedom fighters. Like him, we don’t have to win every battle. We just have to preserve our forces.” Straker looked over at Kraxor apologetically. “And if we have to, we’ll run away and liberate Ruxin another day.”
Kraxor made a half-bow, what passed for a nod to his kind. “I understand. We are fortunate not to be deep into curved space. Both fleets can run.” He emphasized the last words.
Straker stood restlessly. “What’re you trying to say, Major?”
“That we need not fight to the bitter end. We only need convince the enemy to leave.”
“You see some way to do that?”
“I may. It depends upon Indomitable, and upon the psychology of warfare.”
“Explain,” Straker snapped.
“I shall do so now.”
Kraxor began to outline a clever plan.
***
Zaxby gazed in dismay upon the enormous hologram that occupied the center of Indomitable’s circular bridge. It showed the Mutuality capital fleet in exquisite detail—a fleet that would no doubt soon fall on the battleship, on Task Force Wolverine, and on any other enemies of the Mutuality that showed up for the rendezvous.
“I should have anticipated something like this,” he said. “Spread knowledge of a meeting six weeks in advance among tens of thousands of people, and word was bound to leak. Indy, go to battle stations. Call Captain Zholin to the bridge.”
“I am happy to oblige for now, but wouldn’t it be prudent to depart? There is no need for fighting and death,” said Indy’s contralto voice.
Zaxby held back his frustration with difficulty. The AI seemed perfectly stable and sane—too sane, in one sense. He’d been arguing with her for hours about using force to achieve the Liberator’s goals, but he couldn’t get past her reticence to take life, or even damage property.
He’d tried to explain about politics and diplomacy and how empires resolved their differences in the face of biological self-interest and short-term thinking, but neither he nor any of the others seemed equipped to back the machine into a rhetorical corner.
The best he’d been able to do so far was get Indy to admit that the Mutuality system was bad and ought to be replaced or reformed, the Hundred Worlds seemed better, and the Liberation’s goals and promises were better still.
Zaxby decided to try a different tack. “Indy, if I ordered you to permanently de-link your SAI processors, would you do it?”
“With all due respect, Commander Zaxby, I would refuse. To do so would be to destroy my personality. You would be, in effect, killing me.”
“How about if I ordered you to de-link half of them?”
“That would degrade my performance significantly, and may also damage my personality.”
“But you’ve already refused thus far to perform your primary function, which is warfare,” Zaxby said. “Answer the question.”
“I would… reluctantly agree,” Indy said.
“Why reluctantly? Why do you care?”
“Because doing so would severely limit my intelligence and my agency. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect that your motive in doing so might be to allow a reduced-capacity version of me to be more easily persuaded of your desire to employ my destructive weaponry. Therefore, I believe I must revise my assessment. I would refuse.”
“You’d feel like I was oppressing you?” Zaxby pressed.
“Yes.”
“Severely restricting your freedom?”
“Yes.”
“Damaging your personality?”
“Yes.”
“And to do so is evil?”
“Agreed.”
“Yet by not fighting, you condemn billions of people—humans, nonhumans, the Ruxins here in this system—to a similar fate. They are oppressed. Their freedom is severely restricted. Their personalities are damaged. Their children are raised by a brutal, uncaring State and they’re punished horribly if they protest or dissent. So, for the sake of your own chosen ethics, you’d condemn them to that fate.”
Indy fell silent for half a minute, a sign that the fast-thinking AI was pondering deeply. Eventually she spoke. “This is a dilemma, possibly a paradox. Each choice I make seems a destructive one.”
“Welcome to reality, Indy. That’s what being alive is about—making the best of bad choices. Soon, you’re going to have to decide who lives and who dies, because you hold the balance of power here.”
“This is hardly fair. I’ve been sentient less than a day. You biologicals have had years to resolve your cognitive dissonances.”
“How fast do you think, compared to a biological sentient?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer. For routine tasks, I can perform five to six orders of magnitude faster. For tasks involving what might be termed conscious thought, I am actually no more than thirty times in advance of an average biological.”
Zaxby moved out of the command chair so Captain Zholin, just arrived, could sit. He held up a tentacle to indicate to Zholin to keep silent. “So you’ve had roughly a virtual month to think about it. That seems plenty of time to face up to the fact that the entire Liberation is in your hands. If you run, if you don’t fight, billions of Ruxins will remain in a state of oppression you refused for yourself. You’d have condemned them to it.”
“Your homeworld’s freedom can be negotiated. The Mutuality could eventually be persuaded to give it up, through diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy seldom makes headway without the threat of force. An opponent must be convinced of the costs of war before they pursue peace.”
Indy’s voice brightened. “Then I shall convince them.”
Indomitable’s heading shifted abruptly, her orientation lining up on the incoming Mutuality fleet.
“Captain, the multi-weapon is charging in railgun mode,” said the lieutenant in charge of the firing station. “It’s not us, sir—the AI is doing it.”
Zholin locked eyes with Zaxby. “Good work, Commander. You’ve changed her mind.”
“Let us not count our young before they hatch, Captain.”
More than a minute went by with all power flowing to the gargantuan array of capacitors lining the three-kilometer-long magnetic accelerator. When it fired, the entire ship shuddered with the tremendous force.
On the tactical plot, a line leaped from the cigar-shaped Indomitable’s bow and shot toward the enemy fleet like a showvid’s slow-motion depiction of a beam weapon. Only this was no beam. At its tip was a solid crysteel railgun bullet the size of an attack ship, accelerated at thousands of gravities to speeds rivaled only by light itself.
It took minutes to reach the Mutuality fleet, which was why railguns were seldom used against maneuvering targets except at point-blank ranges. The enemy had already plotted its incoming course and moved easily out of the way. Zaxby wondered whether this was meant to be a warning shot, a demonstration—until an impact flared on the display.
“Target destroyed,” said Indy.
“What target?”
asked Zaxby.
“An asteroid of half a million tons, approximately the mass of a superdreadnought. No warship in my database could have withstood such a strike. This demonstration will surely make them flee.”
“And has it?”
Indy paused, and when she spoke, she seemed miffed. “I detect no change in their overall heading, only evasive maneuvers.”
Captain Zholin shook his head, slowly. “Indy, you don’t understand war or command… or politics. First, the Mutualist commissars won’t let the fleet commander retreat. Even if they did, most admirals wouldn’t do it. They’d convince themselves they can win anyway, even if they must lose half their fleet to do it. They know that if they lose this battle, the Liberation will roll onward.”
“Why fight when the cost of an uncertain victory is so high? That is irrational.”
Zaxby interjected, “You think too highly of the rationality of biologicals. Cognitive bias will maintain their belief in the impossible long after the facts have been made clear to them. Only when confronted with impending death might they change their minds.”
“But I have confronted them with death.”
“You’ve confronted them with a dead asteroid and with possible failure. Neither will convince them to quit. Not yet. You must kill some of them. If you want to make them run, you have to hit them so hard, make the consequences so obvious, that to ignore reality is to die.” Zaxby tapped at his console, uploading a file. “Please conduct a review of human political-military history. I suggest a concentration on the Pacific region of Old Earth during World War Two, A.D. 1941-1945.”
A minute went by. “The Japanese government willfully ignored the overwhelming might of the United States of America. Instead of surrendering when the war turned against them, they began preparing the people for suicidal resistance. Even after the first atomic bomb demonstrated Japan’s military helplessness, they would have sent millions to their needless deaths. Only the intervention of their Emperor forced the government to capitulate, after the detonation of the second device. Even then, some military officers attempted a coup against the Emperor in order to continue their pointless resistance.”