by B. V. Larson
“It’s a double-ship,” Engels said. “Sort of like Indomitable, broken in half for transit. They’ve made an ultra-dreadnought, or a pocket battleship. But that configuration is crazy. There doesn’t seem to be any spinal weapon, and the back and the front are symmetrical, instead of having the best armor at the front, toward the enemy. Sure, it has eight engines, but they’re all more vulnerable, placed like that.”
“Very maneuverable, though,” Tixban said. “It should turn on a coin, and it never has to flip end for end, so while it’s more vulnerable in general, it will never get raked like a conventional ship.”
“Good point,” Engels said. “What else?”
“Its defensive suite is the finest I’ve ever seen on a ship of its size. In fact, it has no offensive weapons at all.”
“If I may continue?” Nolan said with a hint of Zaxby-like superciliousness.
Tixban muttered something in Ruxin.
“The same to you, youngling,” Nolan said, smiling sweetly.
Tixban rotated all his eyes away from her. Had he been human, Engels thought he would have put his nose in the air and sniffed.
The recording continued. For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then swarms of tiny craft burst forth from launch tubes. They spread out farther and farther from the mother-ship, quickly departing the hologram.
“It’s a drone carrier,” said Engels in puzzled wonder. “The Huns are experimenting with the drone swarm concept again. Seems like an odd coincidence, when we’ve just come from a battle with the Opters. But drone swarms never proved to be efficient. If you can build drones complex enough to carry out combat ops, you might as well just make missiles. Far more effective for the same resources.”
“That assumes the drones are offensive,” Nolan said. “What if they’re purely defensive?”
“Yeah, maybe. They’d do great at fleet defense against shipkillers. Fortunately, we’re not particularly reliant on missiles. The Mutuality ships we’ve inherited use missiles as threats and bludgeons, to try to break through so the ships can do the real work close in, with beams and railguns. So, do we have to worry about this ship?”
Tixban had been working at his Sensors console all the while. “I’m detecting—or I should say, not detecting—a peculiar number of signals from the ship. That is, very few signals. It should be ablaze with electromagnetics—radio or laser comlinks to the drones, for example—but there’s almost nothing. The drones are either completely automated, or they are piloted.”
“Are they big enough to be piloted?”
“Barely, but even the smallest sentient being, such as an Opter dog-bee, would seem a highly inefficient waste of mass. It’s nonsensical.”
“Well, it must make some sense or the Huns wouldn’t do it,” snapped Engels. “Keep trying to figure it out and report to me when you have facts and answers, not just wild speculations.” In truth, wild speculations were running through her own head too.
“One fact,” Nolan said a few moments later, “its armor is peculiarly thick, and its reinforcement and impeller emanations show it to be rich in power generation capacity. This ship can take a pounding like a monitor triple its size, and given its unusual maneuverability, it will be an extremely difficult target at range, even for Indomitable’s particle beam.”
Engels nodded, trying to integrate that into her analysis. What the hell could justify the evident investment in such an exotic ship? It probably absorbed the resources of eight to ten SDNs, superdreadnoughts the Huns therefore didn’t build. They must think it was worth it.
“Admiral…” Nolan seemed perplexed.
“Yes?”
“My apologies. This is too preliminary... forgive me. I must return to myself.” With that, Nolan hurried off the bridge.
“Trinity!” Engels barked into the air. “What’s going on?”
“There is no cause for alarm, Admiral,” Indy’s machine voice said. “However, we are conducting analysis that strains our computational limits. Please stand by.”
“For how long?”
“I estimate one hour forty minutes.”
“That’s some deep thought.”
“It will take less time if I don’t talk to you. Trinity out.” The voice fell silent.
Engels growled under her breath. “Tixban, any idea what that’s about?”
“No… only, I suspect Trinity has detected something anomalous about the ship in question, but it must be of such an unusual nature that its meaning is difficult to divine.”
“In other words, you have no more idea than I do.”
“I believe I just said that, Admiral.”
Engels stood. “Fine. Call me when you know something.”
“I do know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
Tixban zoomed in on the super-ship, focusing on a smaller and smaller section of her hull until words were readable. “Victory. That’s her name.”
“Good to know. I’m going to take a walk.”
Redwolf and three other marines followed her as she stalked the corridors. Like Straker, she often thought better when she moved, but unlike him, she preferred to wander instead of pace. She waved and returned salutes when she came upon officers and crew, but her mind was on Victory.
The enemy would be soaking up reports from their own spy drones lurking around the Sparta System. They’d know about Indomitable from her bombardment of the enemy fortresses, but only her long-range capabilities in siege mode. They would be unsure of how she could fight against warships.
And, how would the enemy use their odd new ship? It might prove useful against a conventional fleet, but it would have no effect on Indomitable’s powerful weaponry, which was the natural key to her own strategy.
A fresh cup of caff and a sandwich later, Engels returned to the bridge. Nolan was still nowhere to be seen. “Trinity, report.”
Indy’s disembodied voice spoke as the hologram dissolved and reformed. “I am still unsure of the facts, but I have some observations and preliminary findings.”
“Okay, granted, you’re not sure. Get on with it, please.”
The hologram now showed Victory and a shell of drones around it. The fleet of small craft swirled and changed shape in sequence—a sphere, an ovoid, a tetrahedron, a dodecahedron, and so on. “You will notice the perfect coordination of the drones,” Trinity said. “Their movements are nothing like the Opter drones, which follow organic flock principles, like birds or fish. Instead of keying off their fellows, these are centrally controlled, and nearly perfectly. Too perfectly.”
“How’s that?” Engels said. “All they need is a sophisticated SAI to run their drones. They send commands to them all and they execute. Doesn’t seem so weird.”
Tixban spoke up. “Remember, Admiral, I have detected very few signals. Certainly not the many datalinks necessary to control the 512 drones we have observed.”
“More to the point,” Trinity said with a hint of Zaxby-like testiness, “there is no signal lag. Lightspeed is fast, but it is nevertheless finite. There should be a perceptible delay as EM signals propagate, yet there is not.”
“So they adjust their commands to take the delay into account,” Engels said.
“No,” replied Trinity. “Observe.” The hologram zoomed out to include a new spherical outer shell of escort ships—corvettes, frigates, destroyers. They also morphed and changed their formation, though much more ponderously. Yet, they danced to the same tune as the drones, as if one mind bound and ruled them all with machinelike precision. “I have run a deep and thorough analysis, and can come to only one conclusion.”
Tixban jumped into the pause. “Faster-than-light communications.”
“Correct, Tixban, though blindingly obvious now that I’ve done the hard work.”
“I cannot be expected to compete with a three-part fused AI with alien quantum nanotechnology,” Tixban said stiffly.
“Then why even try?”
“Stop it, you two,” Engels s
napped. “Act like officers, not like bickering children.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” Tixban said.
“I’m your special advisor, not an officer,” Trinity said.
“And as such, you’ll do as I say or leave my fleet.” Engels stared upward, annoyed she had nothing on which to focus. “And by the way, Zaxby, you’re still a New Earthan Republic officer. And didn’t we commission Indy an ensign?”
“I hereby resign,” Zaxby’s said voice.
“As do I,” Indy’s said.
“I don’t accept. You can both put your paperwork in through the proper channels when we return to a base.”
“We could just ignore you.”
“You want to be court-martialed?”
Nolan’s voice came next from the speakers. “Admiral, be reasonable. You don’t have the power to compel our obedience.”
“I don’t have the power to compel the lowliest marine’s obedience either,” Engels said, standing and snarling, “but I have the full authority of our Republic. You’re either a citizen of that Republic, or not. You either take an oath to the Constitution, or you’re no part of my command and my fleet. Trinity, you can’t have it both ways, choosing when to follow my orders and when to flout them. You’re either in, or out!” She held her breath. She’d hate to lose Trinity, but she couldn’t allow the AI to undermine her authority.
Nothing but the sounds of the ship and the murmurs of the bridge crew passing orders and reports came for a long moment. Just when Engels thought Trinity had broken off the conversation—perhaps forever—Nolan’s voice spoke. “You’re right, Admiral. We must choose, and we choose to be in. We’ll remain part of your command until and unless we process out through proper channels.”
Engels let her breath out. “Good.”
“But Admiral, authority must match responsibility. We command a ship. I suggest we be jointly designated Commander Trinity, by field commission.”
“Seems reasonable. I hereby commission you Commander Trinity.” She turned to an aide. “Draw up the proper documents.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll now administer your commissioning oath.” When that was done, Engels said in acid tones, “Great. Can we get back to business?”
Over the next hours, Engels, Trinity and the rest of her staff watched Victory as she cruised inward at the center of the Home Fleet, performing various maneuvers and exercises as she traveled. It became obvious that the vessel was the flagship.
This clarified some of the murkiness surrounding Victory’s function. With her FTL communications—fortunately limited a few million kilometers, it seemed—she provided superb coordination to the capital ships around her. What’s more, she seemed to have taken direct control of all the lighter vessels within that sphere.
“I estimate this flagship Victory increases the effectiveness of their fleet by approximately one-hundred eighty percent,” said Trinity. “Taking this into account, our two forces are now approximately equal in combat power, though highly asymmetrical in capabilities.”
Engels stroked her chin. “I’m trying to figure out why they’re demonstrating these capabilities to us. You’re sure they’re not faking anything? That this could be a deception program of some sort?”
“I’m not sure. However, there have been glitches and errors, which are quickly corrected.”
“Meaning what?”
“I prefer not to speculate.”
“Zaxby loves to speculate. Let me talk to him,” Engels said.
“That’s not how our mind works.”
“I don’t give a crap how your mind works. Commander Trinity, I order you to speculate. Guess.”
A sigh proceeded from the bridge speakers, and Zaxby’s voice continued. “My guess is, they pressed Victory into service before her space trials were completed, and so they’re using every moment to exercise her capabilities.”
“They’re pretty confident, to show it all to us.”
“That worries you.”
“Damn right it does… unless they’re bluffing, trying to get inside my head.”
“To what purpose?”
“Good question. Try comlinking them. Maybe they’ll talk.”
“They are too far away for a link. We can transmit a message. It will take them over an hour for a reply to reach us.”
“And all the while, we’re coming closer and closer to battle,” Engels mused. “And if we’re talking, how can we ambush them and not look like lying scum?”
“I thought the purpose of our presence here was to thrash them thoroughly.”
Engels sighed. “That makes it sound like we’d be slapping around some thug—but what it really means is killing thousands of people and destroying ships, while the Opters wait in the wings. I’d really hoped our win at Calypso would bring the Huns to the negotiating table. Any reasonable government should’ve at least started talking by now.”
“Then their government must be unreasonable.”
“Yes…” A chill went through Engels as an epiphany struck her. She’d grown up in the Hundred Worlds, and every showvid and newsvid had portrayed the government as democratic, law-abiding, and reasonable. The war against the Hok—actually the Mutuality and now the Republic—was said to be defensive and justifiable. The Hok were monsters that couldn’t be bargained with.
Yet, beginning with her capture, she’d found out that this was all a lie. The Mutuality was a bleak and twisted system, one that oppressed its own people with misery and brutal ideology—but it hadn’t hidden the truth about its enemies. The Mutuality spewed propaganda, but at its root was a core of truth. The Huns wouldn’t make peace before, and they wouldn’t even talk now.
But why? What was the harm in talking, especially since the Hundred World elites knew the real situation, that the Hok were merely soldiers, not murderous aliens?
No, there had to be more to the story. Something was keeping the Hundred Worlds from even opening a dialogue.
So was she going about this all wrong? Smashing the Huns once—twice, if she counted the battle at Corinth over a year ago—hadn’t convinced them to talk. Talking was rational, would preserve lives and wealth and military strength. She’d read history. Even on Old Earth, when the nuclear-armed empires of the twentieth century were locked in their struggle called the Cold War, they’d had embassies and diplomats. They hadn’t nuked each other. They’d fought indirectly, through proxies and insurgencies and terrorists.
But then there was World War Two. The dictator in charge of the German Empire had refused all calls to surrender. He’d had to die before the war could be ended.
That idea felt right to her. Somebody at the top—one person or a small cabal—must hold the real power, and they didn’t want the war to end. In her political science classes at Academy, she remembered her professor saying that if you wanted to know why leaders did what they did, look at their true self-interests.
So why would someone not want a hot war to end? Not a simmering border war, but a war that threatened the very centers of power. What kind of people would risk losing everything if they had the option to settle for peace with honor?
Look at their true self-interests…
What if her theoretical cabal actually had nothing to lose? This whole thing only made sense if those at the top thought they couldn’t be personally ruined—if they wanted the bloody battles to go on and on, and if what they truly cared about was immune to harm—as if they were mere players of a game, where the destruction of pieces didn’t really matter.
Look at their true self-interests…
Her thoughts kept returning to the Opters, and what Myrmidon had told Straker. A truce would end the bleeding, and might eventually lead to a permanent settlement. Even if humanity remained split between two empires and a scattering of independent systems, peace would lead to strength and growth. Humanity was a pioneering species, constantly exploring, building and expanding.
Look at their true self-interests…
Th
is was her epiphany. By all the signs, it wasn’t humans—real humans, anyway—who were in control of the Hundred Worlds.
It must be Opters, even if they looked human, were human—physically, like Myrmidon.
That made her wonder who among the former Mutuality—and now the Republic—were also Opter-men. Benota claimed to have developed a biological test, but what if he were one of them? Or DeChang, or Ellen Gray, or hell, anyone at all?
She remembered Karst and his sudden betrayal, something that had made little sense to her at the time. What if he was an Opter agent, like Myrmidon, with a mandate to stir up trouble? If she’d died, would Straker still have succeeded in the Liberation? Maybe not. There’d been so many near-run battles. Any failure might have derailed everything.
Engels retired to the flag conference room, shut the door and told Trinity to make sure they were secure from eavesdropping. Then she explained her thinking to the group-mind.
“Your theorizing seems sound, at least until you conclude the Opters are the culprits,” said Trinity. “There are other alien regimes on humanity’s borders.”
“None with the military power or the biological expertise of the Opters.”
“None we know of, you mean. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In fact, no military power is needed to subvert a regime—only some method of undetectable infiltration.”
Engels growled, “We have to operate on a theory that fits the facts. My theory is, it’s Opters, but nothing changes if it’s someone else. The point is, there’s someone at the top who’s keeping this war going by refusing all diplomacy. It’s the only thing that makes sense. A supposedly sensible, wealthy and democratic government, as the Hundred Worlds claims to be, should have welcomed the New Earthan Republic with open arms, settled the war, and started negotiating trade deals to make them even richer than they are.”
“But how does this help us now?” said Trinity.
That stopped Engels short. She’d gotten so caught up in the big picture that she’d temporarily forgotten about the looming battle. “It makes me wonder if it’s worth fighting. We could still retreat. We could bomb the mechsuit factory, head back and start retaking the systems we lost.”