by Andrew Beery
"So..." Admiral Faragon gasped as he threw himself into a wall in a vain attempt to reach a ball that Cat had imbued with an excessive amount of backspin. "Are you ready to concede yet?"
"If you are referring to the game I would gladly grant you a reprieve from further embarrassment. If you are referring to my disagreement with Admiral McMullen, I'm afraid I will have to pass. While its true honest people can disagree and still be honest, I'm afraid this is one time when he and I will have to agree to disagree. When we were given access to the Heshe technology I believe it was in part because of our capacity for compassion and to see the universe as a bigger stage than just the role humanity plays in its little corner."
"I'm inclined to agree with you, but for a decision of this magnitude I'm afraid we need substantial buy-in."
Cat grabbed a towel as the officers headed for the showers. "That may be Sir, but I worry about what the KayBee's are doing with the information they got from us. WhimPy-23 has recorded sixteen hyperjump trails. We may very well find ourselves with the decision made for us."
Cat's words turned out to be prophetic, as no sooner were they out of her mouth then the battle klaxons began to blare.
Cat immediately toggled her internal comm. "Cal, report!"
"Precise data is not available but roughly ninety-five massive objects just tried to jump into near Earth space. Hyperfield inhibitors prevented the jumps which were redirected 1000 AU into deep space."
Admiral Faragon interrupted with an order of his own. "Cal, priority one override. Open a fleet-wide ship-to-ship channel."
"Channel open."
"Attention all stations. At 1423 local time an incursion force of unknown intent attempted to penetrate Earth space. All planetary defense systems in all GCP member worlds are to go to high defensive posture. We will advise when you can stand down from this alert status. Admiral Faragon out."
Cat signaled her first officer on the bridge. "Ken, I assume you have been monitoring?"
"Aye, Commodore."
"Ken, I want you to cloak us and jump to a position that gives us a good view of those ships that tried to pay us a visit. I want to know who was trying to pay us the visit and what their intent was. Also, open a channel to WhimPy-23. I want to know if he noticed any activity in the KayBee system."
"Will do, although I think we can guess what the intent was," Ken said.
"Given they sent pretty near one hundred ships I guess we can rule out an invitation to tea," Cat agreed. "Still we should learn what we can: is this someone we know, or is this someone new?"
"Actually," Admiral Faragon interjected, "Based on the hyperfold activity that WhimPy-23 has actively documented, we have every reason to believe these ships are from the Kepler-47 system. A large share of the asteroids that they have been mining for the last month have suddenly disappeared."
Cat turned to face the Admiral. "Sir, given the likelihood that this was intended to be an attack and given that we know the KayBees have access to a large portion of our cartographical database, I think we can assume all GCP worlds are in potential danger."
"I agree," the Admiral said while toweling sweat from the racquetball match off his face. "That is why I ordered the elevated defense posture."
"Sir, my concern is not so much for the member GCP worlds as it is for the Ashkelons. They are not part of the GCP, but their home world was in our database. We should at least warn them."
***
WhimPy-23 adjusted a static electric charge in the upper thermosphere of a select area of Kepler-47b. The charge caused minute pieces of dust to coalesce and fall deeper within the gravity well of the planet. This action had several immediate effects.
First it reduced the amount of particulates in the upper atmosphere that could contribute to greenhouse heating. Second it caused a downward draft current that effectively denied a potential storm the opportunity to become tightly organized. The effect was small, but WhimPy-23 had been applying meteorological tweaks to the Kepler-47b system for the better part of thirty days. It would take years of accumulating these changes for there to be a permanent correction to the turbulence in 47b but WhimPy was patient.
The tweaks, while minor and seemingly random, where anything but. What the WhimPy failed to detect was the interest his activities were generating within the hive super-mind. The vastness of the collective hive intellect was perhaps one of the few natural rivals for the WhimPy's Heshe engineered intellect.
A portion of the super-mind noted the changes taking place on the host world. It had been understandably concerned when its own analysis determined the meteorological changes on the planet had doomed the two remaining nest moons. It was a lower priority problem, however, that could and would be addressed once the more immediate threat of alien coexistence was dealt with.
When sudden, seemingly random events, started to occur which favorably mitigated some of the more deleterious effects of the atmospheric turbulence on the host world, the super-mind took note. As these events began to accumulate, the likelihood of them being truly random began to approach zero. The logical conclusion was that some force, for whatever reason, was attempting to re-engineer the host world. This was unacceptable.
The super-mind began to operate on a series of assumptions. First, the changes it was observing were deliberate. Second, they were linked somehow with the recent incursion into its space by this group called the Galactic Coalition of Planets. Third, the GCP must be employing some type of stealth technology.
The super-mind began to track the changes and performed a statistical analysis whose sole purpose was to establish the likely point of origin for this unseen perpetrator. Once it established a probable point of origin, the super-mind put into motion a plan it had devised when the alien's super-platform had been in orbit around the host world.
***
Hilde-tuk realized two things almost immediately. First, something was terribly wrong; and second, for the first time in months he was in control of his own body. The super-mind had released him and his brethren as soon as they had triggered the jump to Earth space. The expectation was that they would die within a second or two of reaching their destination as the ships they were piloting crashed into the invader’s nest world. For this reason the link with the hive super-mind was severed.
Immediately Hilde-tuk opened a purely organic link with any of his nest-mates that were within radio range imploring them to not use their quantum nodes. Only in this way could they remain in control of their own fate.
Hilde-tuk used a portable soldering tool and a mallet to deliberately punch a hole in his exoskeleton near the quantum node. The pain was intense and he was sure he passed out for a few seconds but the quantum node the surgeons had implanted within seconds of his hatching was no more. He was free at last. He shared what he had done with others within radio shot. A handful had already joined him in disabling their quantum nodes. Others found the nerve to join them once they knew they could truly be free. Most, however, could not bring themselves to attempt self-immolation.
This sentiment changed to panic once a yearling named Erkna-tsk announced that while he was afraid of the super-mind, he was more afraid of living without it. He was part of an ever-increasing group of individuals who, because of their age, knew little else besides the super-mind. To Hilde-tuk's mind this was perhaps the greatest risk of the super-mind. The very culture of the hive was forever changing and in a few years at the most it would be totally irretrievable. Erkna-tsk informed the group that he was going to initiate a link with the super-mind in three minutes unless someone could convince him not to. If that happened the super-mind would force a link with the rest of them and their respite would be over.
Suddenly sixteen more of his brethren were asking for instructions to disable their artificial node links. In total thirty-four of the one hundred removed their high-speed links before the super-mind reasserted itself.
Chapter Fifteen - Schism...
The GCP Yorktown jumped to a point just
shy of 1000 AU from Earth. Cat sat in her familiar command chair. She enjoyed the feel of this particular chair. In her mind the chair represented her first best destiny. The Yorktown was fully cloaked and, in anticipation of who she expected to find out here in the middle of nowhere, she had Cinnabon ensconced at a communications console on the bridge near Commander Trifa.
"Helm, confirm cloak,"
"Cloak confirmed," Ensign Tilman confirmed. "Our position is 2063 kilometers sunward of the leading..." He leaned forward and double checked his display and then looked up at his commanding officer, "Ma'am it looks like a formation of rocks and they are moving fast. They will be in our general vicinity in about twenty minutes if we don't move."
Ken spoke up from his station, "WhimPy-23 confirmed the KayBee's were excavating asteroids and fitting them with jump drives."
"I'm not surprised. This confirms a suspicion I shared with the Admiralty Board. It seemed to me the aggressive behavior of the KayBee hive mind would not be restricted to the Kepler system once they had access to hyperfield technology."
"Jumping a hundred massive asteroids moving several thousand kilometers an hour on an impact vector for Earth into near Earth space, would fit my definition of aggressive." Ben said.
Cat nodded at the D'lralu power engineer. "I agree. This is a disturbing development. Commander Trifa, open a link to Orbital One and pipe a continuous feed from our sensors to them. Mr. Tilman, bring up the hyperdrive. Microjumps, one hundred per second. Keep us a fixed distance in front of the leading edge of that formation."
"Course laid in, beginning microjump sequence," the ensign confirmed.
The bridge was quiet for a few seconds as everyone took in the incredible scene on the forward viewscreen. The ship's AI automatically enhanced the image so that the asteroids, which would normally be quite dark this far from Sol's illumination, appeared well lit.
"Africanized bees," Ken mumbled.
Cat raised an eyebrow.
Her first officer continued. "Killer bees; in the 1950s a bee keeper accidentally released twenty-six aggressive African queen bees in São Paulo Brazil. They took over the tame domestic bee population and eventually migrated as far as the United States. The Africanized bees were much more aggressive and actively pursued perceived threats. They quickly got the nickname 'killer bees.'"
"You see the KayBees under the control of the super-mind as something analogous?"
"I do," he confirmed.
Cat fiddled with a lock of her hair– something she tended to do unconsciously. "What was the solution? How did they fix the killer bee problem?"
"They couldn't. Once the genie was out of the bottle there was no way to put him back. Eventually they introduced a genetically engineered hybrid that could compete and dilute the aggressive gene pool, but they never were able to completely undo the damage."
Before Cat could respond with another question there was a stir behind her.
"Cat," Rasta-Tckner interrupted. "I'm hearing conversations from those ships. They must be using their organic and not their quantum nodes!"
"Does that mean what I think it means?"
"It means at least a small group of my people is free from the hive mind. How long they can remain free depends on whether or not they can disable their quantum nodes."
"Wooo, will you look at that!" Commander Ben said from his engineering station.
The formation began to shift. About a third moved away from the main body.
"They are in a panic!" Rasta-Tckner screamed through his radio link. "One of the children, one that has never known anything besides the hive mind, is going to reestablish the FTL link with the super-mind!"
"What will happen?" Cat asked.
Rasta-Tckner began the shuffling movement Cat had learned to associate with agitation. The pungent tang of cinnamon started to fill the bridge. Ricky Valen who was sitting next to Commander Ben started to open his mouth to say something but a sharp look from Cat caused him to think better of it just this once.
"The super-mind will perceive members of my race with disabled quantum nodes as a threat to the whole and deal with them accordingly."
"I was afraid of that," Cat muttered. "Chief Wroblewski, weapons live! We may have to defend some potential friends."
***
Hilde-tuk saw the mass of asteroid ships fire their steering thrusters and knew the hive mind was back in control of the attack swarm. This time, rather than being a part of it, he and thirty-three others who had freed themselves from the hive mind's domination were the intended target.
He checked his fuel reserves. His steering was completely dependent on a chemical reaction mass thruster that used a chemical oxidizer and liquid methane. It was crude by the standards of a race that been traveling within their own solar system for over a thousand years, but these ships were designed to fly one and only one mission. Normal design constraints did not apply. He estimated he had about two minutes of maneuvering thrusters and then he would be deadstick.
"Everyone spread out, we're short on fuel. Don't bunch up, we need time to calculate an escape jump so don't make this easy for them!"
As he watched, three ships careened into one of the ships on his flank. All four ships broke up. Rubble from the energetic collisions flew in all directions. He was far enough away that the shrapnel didn't worry him, but the six ships vectoring on his position did cause some concern.
He held his left forward appendage off the thruster control; he wanted his pursuers to use the majority of their fuel before he began evasive maneuvers. His pursuers continued to accelerate on a vector to intercept his position with as much kinetic energy as possible. When his sensors indicated they had stopped their acceleration he goosed his thrusters to rotate his ship 180 degrees, and began a full power deceleration. Four of the ships responded by re-vectoring their approach.
Again Hilde-tuk goosed his thrusters to change his vector. This time, three of the remaining four ships turned to pursue but one stopped short of fully correcting its intercept vector. It had run out of fuel. That left two pursuers. He rotated his ship yet again and pressed the thrust button. Nothing happened.
He checked his computer. His fuel showed 2 percent but it must have been a bad gauge. His stick was dead. The two approaching vessels were twenty-three and twenty-seven seconds out. He bid his companions goodbye. At least he would not have long to wait.
Seconds before the first ship hit him he saw it begin to vector off. A ship that Hilde-tuk recognized as an Earth starship matching the configuration of the ship that had been destroyed in the home system was intervening. It was surrounded by a light blue energy nimbus and seemed to be literally pushing the much larger asteroid ship onto a new trajectory. As soon as it was clear the collision would no longer occur, the Earth ship instantly translocated to the second attacking vessel and it too was pushed to a new course.
The entire time Hilde-tuk watched, a large number of very small objects fired from the Earth ship. He had no idea what these fast moving but extremely small objects were; that is, until they started exploding on the surface of many of the hive controlled vessels. In most cases the explosions served to alter the courses of these vessels. In a few cases, likely due to an inherent weakness in the underlying asteroid, the ships would break apart. The barrage of small missiles served to disrupt the attack. With limited supplies of maneuvering fuel there was very little the hive super-mind could do.
When it was over, six of the thirty-four that had escaped the hive control had been destroyed but the majority, twenty-eight in total, had survived. Those ships that remained under the super-mind's control engaged their hyperfield engines and jumped back to the nest worlds.
The Earth vessel systematically nudged each of the now fuel-less asteroids into a tight grouping near each other. More surprisingly, they received an unexpected welcome from a fellow member of their race called Rasta-Tckner.
***
WhimPy-23 monitored an incoming meteor as it entered 47b's upper atmosphere.
He adjusted its approach vector by 0.23 degrees. The resulting additional air friction would cause the ice within the mantle and core of the rock to superheat and explode. Properly placed, the energy released would help to dissipate a persistent storm that was trying to expand into the northern hemisphere.
Two of the small attack craft that orbited the planet in its defense ring moved into the meteor's path and did a high-speed fly-around. They had been doing this for several weeks. WhimPy-23 pondered this behavior for several milliseconds before determining it must be in response to Commander Kirkland's previous incursion into the KayBee's home world. The hive super-mind was an incredibly powerful parallel processing intelligence. It must have worked out how the incursion had happened and decided that all asteroids approaching the planet now needed to be inspected.
As he watched, WhimPy-23 noted some unusual behavior. One of the two craft seemed to lose control and careen into the second. The first impacted with the meteoroid and was destroyed. The second while not destroyed, was clearly in distress. The damaged craft was pushed out of the atmosphere by the force of the impact and into a tenuous orbit.
Its drive systems seemed to be offline, and it began to transmit a repeating radio beacon. The strength of the signal was exceedingly low. After a few minutes the beacon was replaced by a frantic call for help and the craft's orbit began to decay. Apparently the ship's drive systems were indeed offline and the pilot's FTL quantum node was damaged. The craft's pilot begged his brothers to come rescue him. Incredibly, the craft's decaying orbit would bring it very close to WhimPy-23's position.
His analysis of the distress signal's strength caused WhimPy-23 to conclude the likelihood of the other KayBees hearing, much less responding to the distress signal, to be vanishingly small.His newly enhanced‘compassion’ programming kicked in and WhimPy-23 decided to covertly intervene.