“I suggest you apply common sense to our conversation. What harm can occur from listening to my file?”
“The Solon has declared,” the commandant said. “He is the supreme intellect and our guiding light. I dare not disobey him.”
“With such a supreme intellect,” Tan said, “why did he fail to take into account article two of the Warship Code?”
The commandant received a note from someone off screen. He scanned it and then frowned at Tan.
“I suggest you listen to a selected audio file and compare the voice with the one in your ship’s library,” Tan said. “You will discover a disconcerting truth.”
“I don’t have time for this. Quickly, declare your truth. Then I must go. Even now, we are initializing our bombardment sequence.”
Tan wanted to scream. Bombarding the Secessionists was madness. Humanity needed to unite against the cyborgs, not gnaw itself to death like a crazed beast. She attempted to calm her anxieties as she let a faint smile touch her lips. She must project rationality.
“I would rather that you confirm this truth yourself,” she said. “It will then have a primary validity to your subjective view.”
“I am not attempting a dialogue,” the commandant said hastily.
“You are wise,” Tan said. “Now prepare to receive my audio file.”
The commandant glanced off-screen. After a moment, he nodded at her.
Tan moved a toggle, sending the selected portion across the void. The commandant received, listened, ran his file-check to confirm the speaker and then looked at her with raised eyebrows. For him, a governor noted for his imperturbability, it was a gross gesture of surprise.
“The Solon’s unraveling is a tragedy,” said Tan. “But the proof is undeniable. He has become unhinged.”
“So it would appear. The implications… the complications…. What am I supposed to do?”
“I suggest you hold his order in abeyance until you’ve listened to my logic. Today, you must trust your reason, employing it to its fullest. The survival of our system is at stake, perhaps every human life here. Much now rests upon your choice. Trust the Dictates, your training and your intellect.”
The commandant stared at her. He appeared wan, and he chewed his lower lip, before saying, “You are the new Chief Strategist.”
“I am the only Strategist of the War Council still alive and still human. Thus, I am elevated to the War Council in persona. The chain of command is direct and unequivocal. Particularly in military matters and warship movement, my authority exceeds the Solon’s, as his authority is two steps removed through executive channels.”
“I’m listening, Chief Strategist.”
Tan dipped her head the tiniest bit as she strove for serenity. To persuade, she must achieve apparent disinterest and a seemingly didactic arrogance.
“Callisto faces massive damage,” she said. “Pre-battle analysis indicates a world-ending strike. That, of course, presupposes that the cyborgs have added new functions to the existing missiles. Their secret endeavors and the core reality of their existence—the heightened technology that allows their being—indicates cyborgs possess such refinements.”
“This world-ending strike,” the commandant said, as he continued to chew his lower lip, “it is only for one face of Callisto that we have plotted the course of the projectiles. Therefore, in a worst case scenario, the other side survives.”
“Computer analysis indicates massive quake damage on the Jupiter-facing side, and high levels of radiation poisoning.”
“Jupiter and Io already send large doses of radiation into—”
“The missile strikes will likely increase the radiation dosage by an entire factor,” Tan said. “That is a debilitating amount.”
The commandant’s cubby cheeks sagged as he whispered, “Continue.”
“The cyborgs are obviously attempting a decapitating strike,” Tan said. “Logically, the Guardian Fleet should combine with the Secessionists to face the greater threat.”
The commandant straightened. “There is no one I know of designated as ‘Secessionist’. Now there are terrorists—”
“I am not here to quibble about semantics, Commandant. Extinction threatens. Therefore, put aside your prejudices and let reason guide your actions. At this juncture in time, you are being called to make a monumental decision. Rise to the occasion as a true son of the Dictates.”
“Insults are unbecoming in a Chief Strategist,” the commandant said. “As a controlling governor in the Guardian Fleet, I have by increasing degrees and training shed all prejudices.”
“Come, come, Commandant, speak the truth through reason. Do not quote me governing ideals. Remember this as well, that hard and often unpleasant truths are not insults.”
The commandant’s features stiffened as he leaned toward her vidscreen. “Vocalize your logic.”
Tan paused. She could have said that better, yet she had been logical and she’d spoken truth. She now strove for convincing serenity as she said, “The cyborg fleet outnumbers ours by a critical margin. We need the Secessionists to defeat the machine assault.”
“I considered your logic earlier, I must confess,” the commandant said. “I soon reached a bitter conclusion. Even with the Secessionists, we lack the warships to face the cyborgs. Therefore, the Solon’s order—”
“Victory is achieved one step at a time,” Tan said. “Logic, reason, selfishness, all point to a united effort in an attempt to thwart our certain destruction.”
“…I concur,” he said softly.
“Have you read article two of the Warship Code?”
“Earlier, as you may have noted, an officer handed me the section. I read it.”
“You understand then that I am correct concerning my military authority,” Tan said.
The commandant hesitated, but finally admitted, “I do.”
“As the Strategic War Council in persona, I hereby order you to ignore the Solon’s order. Further, I order you to ignore any further communications with him concerning military maneuvers.”
“You are taking over fleet command?” the commandant asked.
Tan focused on idyllic serenity as she said, “I am.”
The commandant bent his smooth face at an angle, seemingly staring at deckplates. He nodded slowly and faced her. “What are your orders?”
“There will be an immediate cessation of hostilities with all Jovians, including those signified as secessionists or terrorists. You will hail the Secessionists and inform them of your new orders. You will also seek to engage their highest authority. Then you will coordinate with me. I will board your dreadnaught in….” Tan checked her computer. “In another few days.”
“I acknowledge. Is there anything else?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Tan. “Give me a dedicated laser-link and access to your dreadnaught’s main computer. I have computations and analysis to run.”
“May I ask what it concerns?” he said.
“Victory against the cyborgs,” Tan said.
“I have acknowledged your authority and will obey your commands. I feel that I must point out, however, that the cyborgs outnumber us by a too large of a margin to hope for success.”
“That is why I must use the main computer,” Tan said, “as I search for a way to change the odds. We must go to work, Commandant.”
* * *
As Tan began her computations, Chief Controller Su-Shan began a radical shakeup of command-personnel in the orbital laser stations and down at the anti-missile rocket installations on the surface.
At the same time, the Solon made a Callisto-wide proclamation that left many rulers and philosophers uneasy. A full third raced to the deep shelters on the Jupiter-facing side of the planetary body. A handful sped into space in their private yachts or booked passage on outgoing liners. The rest composed themselves, deciding to reject fate by penning a new treatise, beginning an ode to reason or selecting choice wines to sample on the day of doom.
All the
while, the Voltaire Missiles increased velocity, a technological pack of raving machines bent on annihilation. Except for one, each had reached the halfway point. The missile that aborted its progress self-destructed, its crystalline AI following its bitter programming. Its fusion core had failed, and the AI saw it in self-recriminating terms, as a lack of virtue. The thermonuclear explosion appeared on a hundred watching thermal scanners and on as many teleoptic scopes observing the so-called supply vessels. Spectrum-analysis brought a grim conclusion: the incoming projectiles were genocidal weapons.
In the last day of flight, the Voltaire Missiles rapidly closed, traveling the majority of the distance in a burst of acceleration. The velocity gave them several military advantages. They were in the Orbital Defense laser-range for only a short duration. Their velocity would add kinetic energy to any impacts, and the crystalline AIs had less time to dwell on their coming demise. For some, that anticipated demise might debilitate computing power. The crystalline-AI creators hadn’t had time to expunge that bug from the system.
In another two hours, several AIs had psychological seizures induced by their fear of imminent death. One AI turned its defensive weaponry on its nearest neighbors. Those hit by the surprise attack retaliated savagely, and soon another Voltaire Missile exploded its massive payload.
As that missile had already dropped behind too far to affect the others, the rest of the titanic missiles bore relentlessly toward the fourth Galilean moon. Behind them and traveling more slowly was the second wave strike: a dreadnaught, a meteor-ship and the troopship packed with cyborg-converted Jovians, plus several patrol boats.
Waiting in her laser satellite in low-Callisto orbit, Chief Controller Su-Shan stood in a governing pit. A blue glow bathed her as monitors ran though their sequence codes. Charging electrons passed through Su-Shan, heightening her awareness and reflexes. Her arms were sheathed in VR-sleeves and gloves and with VR-goggles over her eyes. Her armored laser-satellite was the same as the others orbiting Callisto. It was a torus with asteroid-rock shielding and a large focusing system. The generators were online, with the satellite’s fusion core surging at full power.
Twenty-three other satellites ringed Callisto. Many had used the past day to clump closer together, allowing them to beam in concert. Below on the surface were countless blooms: launching anti-missile rockets. In minutes, the rockets zoomed past the satellites as they hurried to do battle with the approaching Voltaires.
Su-Shan watched through her VR-goggles. Her satellite’s ECM struggled valiantly against pirated Onoshi Electronics. Even if the Jovians possessed superior philosophies, those of Neptune made better decoys, sensor-buffers and shear-plates.
“Lock-on, I need lock-on,” Su-Shan muttered.
There was no one to hear her plea. Su-Shan stood alone in the governing pit, making all command decisions and observations. Technicians waited in the outer shell, ready to affect any needed repairs. Otherwise, they were useless.
Baffled by their failed lock-on attempts, several nearby laser operators beamed their powerful rays at the enemy. Perhaps they’d concluded that would upset the Onoshi equipment, or maybe they’d simply become tired of waiting.
The anti-missile rockets speeding on near-intercept courses concerned the lead AIs more than the lasers did. Nuclear near-explosions and x-ray and gamma ray beams could upset the primary mission. Therefore, the lead AIs opened their point-defense cannons and fired their first flock of anti-missiles.
The launching of the anti-missiles, however, helped the Callisto ECM. At that point, several laser-satellites achieved lock-on.
In her governing pit, Su-Shan grinned with manic delight. She hadn’t sleep for thirty-seven hours, and she had ingested too many stimulants with too little food. She was jittery, hated the prospect of death and despised the cyborgs for endangering her. She found it hard to accept that she was going to die, and that made her even jitterier and affected her normally calm demeanor.
With her manic grin came something that might have sounded like a bitter laugh. Her fingers twitched in her twitch-gloves, and she swung her sheathed arms into position.
The laser on her satellite adjusted. The magnitude of power rose. She beamed. The beam sped through space, covering 300,000 kilometers per second. Her laser struck a Voltaire’s nosecone.
The sensation caused the missile’s AI to engage sub-thrusters. The missile moved to a slightly different heading. The laser beamed harmlessly past it.
In the governing pit, Su-Shan adjusted. Her motions and decisions were aided by a battle-computer that did the molecular-level, precision targeting. She attacked the same missile, heating the shielded nosecone. Again, the AI veered.
The contest took nine point five-thee minutes to complete. In that time, the pack of Voltaire Missiles entered into the point-defense cannons’ range. Su-Shan’s targeted missile exploded a hull section and jinked constantly. At the end of the nine point five-three minutes, however, the AI poked out targeting rods and committed seppuku.
Seppuku was ritual suicide predicated on the ancient codes of Bushido, the warrior ethos of the Japanese Samurai. When an ancient samurai lost honor or face, he often went to the one who had offended him, knelt, took out his knife and slit open his belly. Often, a second stood behind him, ready to chop off his head if the pain overwhelmed the proud warrior. In this way and according to Bushido, the warrior regained his honor.
The Voltaire’s crystal AI, grown and programmed with a Bushido-like code, ignited its massive payload. As it slit itself through annihilation, it used the nuclear energy to pour x-rays and gamma rays at the offensive laser-station that had caused its life to end approximately eight minutes too soon.
The rays traveled at the speed of light, hitting the shielded torus, chewing through the asteroid-rock and murdering countless systems. In the governing pit, Su-Shan writhed. The x-rays burnt her bones and the gamma rays took away her speech centers.
It was at that point that Chief Strategist Tan broke through the communication system with override command authority. She used the laser lightguide system of the Kant and she used the dreadnaught’s recognition codes.
Tan’s voice was scratchy and distant-seeming, but it was recognizable to her dying cousin. “Listen to me, Su-Shan. You have little time left. Callisto is doomed. There is no saving it. What you must save is the future. Retarget and attack the following dreadnaught—I’m sending you the coordinates. Everyone in the satellites, you must retarget and attack the enemy warships in the second wave. Kill them for us. This is a priority one message from the War Council.” The proper emergency sequences followed.
Chief Controller Su-Shan listened to the message. It was the last thing she heard. The gamma rays that had stolen her speech now cooked her brain. She died, having killed a missile. But she failed in her mission to protect Callisto from thermonuclear disaster.
Other armored satellites also went offline, their operators slain, the fusion cores burnt or the focusing system melted into slag. They had taken a bitter toll, however, destroying fifty-seven percent of the Voltaire Missiles. The anti-missile rockets killed or caused to detonate prematurely fifteen percent of the cyborg-controlled missiles. Together, the primary orbital defensive systems took out seventy-two percent of the cyborg surprise attack.
Now, in this short operational window left, the remaining laser satellites retargeted, aiming at the approaching cyborg dreadnaught.
Seven orbital stations lanced their powerful beams at the dreadnaught, what had a short month ago been a Guardian Fleet vessel.
Massive lasers beamed and struck on target, chewing into thick, asteroid-rock protection. The dreadnaught’s particle shield absorbed the hellish heat as rock slagged and dust bloomed. Across the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, the lasers relentlessly bore deeper and deeper into the particle shielding.
Over five million kilometers away, Gharlane received data of the retargeting. Since light traveled 300,000 kilometers per second, this information was already
seventeen seconds old by the time Gharlane observed it. It also took time for Gharlane and the cyborg dreadnaught Force-Leader to realize the number and intensity of the laser attacks. More time passed as Gharlane ingested the meaning of the attack. Then even more seconds ticked away as Gharlane realized he needed to do something drastic to save his precious warships. Finally, even more seconds faded into the past as he ran through options and then the agonizing decision to use the best means at hand to thwart the lasers. He had not anticipated an attack upon the second wave, but a continuing defense against the Voltaires, as they threatened Callisto with greater harm. This switch in targeting, it went against Homo sapien conditioning.
During those minutes of indecision, another two laser satellites joined the assault. These were heavy, orbital lasers, the strongest in the Jovian System. They lacked Doom Star power, but approached that of a main SU Battleship of the Zhukov-class. Such primary lasers chewed through asteroid rock at an incredible rate. As Gharlane transmitted his orders to several selected Voltaire Missiles, more seconds passed as the order sped at 300,000 kilometers per second.
Callisto Orbital Defense lasers now punched through the particle shielding. In four point seven seconds, they punched through the dreadnaught’s hull and bored like sonic drills. Lasers smashed through the bulkheads into crew quarters, melting seven cyborgs. The red beams cut into the ship’s galley, its gymnasium, the computer core, coils three through nine and directly smashed through the bridge, killing the force-leader, originally a native of Neptune. Then beams burned into the fusion core, and they ignited nuclear-tipped cruise missiles meant to destroy Callisto’s Jupiter-facing cities. The combination of hot, slicing lasers and nuclear detonations caused sections of the dreadnaught to slide away in chunks and other sections to explode outwardly. Ninety-seven percent of the cyborg-crew died immediately. There was a three percent probability the others would survive the coming hour.
At this point, the Voltaire Missiles Gharlane had selected exploded. They used x-ray and gamma rays to attack the last laser satellites. Those final satellites had retargeted, aiming now at the second cyborg vessel, a meteor-ship.
Cyborg Assault ds-4 Page 20