by Tobias Roote
Jimmi was keen to get his squadron in place. There had to be good reason for the new configuration and he had a feeling it was going to be a game-changer, but didn’t know why yet.
It didn’t take long for the Nubl to begin firing at the arranged fighters, though mostly they seemed to recognise that Pod’s ship was more significant as it alone took a heavy beating from the enemy lasers.
Suddenly the ship that Jimmi was firing at, exploded.
“YEEHAH!” he yelled, not fully understanding what had just happened, but keen to experience the thrill of their first kill against the Nubl.
“Flight Control to all squadrons,” the message came over the public comms channel.
“The enemy shields are being disabled - fire at will and take them all out of the game. All squadrons resume independent action.”
“Vasha, what just happened?” Jimmi asked.
“Arty blanketed a shield nullifier on the frequencies the Nubl are using. I don’t know more than that,” the AI responded.
“All Scorpions on me,” Jimmi called out on the comms, and was relieved to see all forty-five fighters intact and acknowledging his signal.
“Flight Leads, select individual targets. Wings, follow your lead and concentrate fire,” he ordered.
They blitzed through the various Shadowships, their own shields remaining intact giving them a massive advantage over the Nubl. It still took numerous missiles to take out a ship, but quickly they developed a three-fighter strategy that was replicated across the whole battlefield.
Jimmi came up on a Shadowship target and began firing. His lasers streaked across the bow of the enemy vessel causing hull damage, but nothing serious. As Flapjack fired a missile into the same area, the front of the enemy hull opened up to space and sections flew off in every direction. Vasha dodged most of the pieces. A shield like theirs would handle most things, but collision with a large object wasn’t one of them.
Tango was flying further behind them and was still coming to bear on the damaged ship. “Tango, take out the rear engine section and we’ll follow you in,” Jimmi instructed his wingman as they flew around again.
“Taking evasive action,” Vasha called out as their ship swung away from the target, just as a large laser beam cut a swathe through the stretch of space they would have flown through.
“Well done, Vasha. Are you sure you won’t have my babies?” Jimmi responded as they got back onto their previous course.
Vasha wisely didn’t answer.
“Flapjack, deal with that ship firing on us while I support Tango on this target. We will slip around and catch you up,” Jimmi told his other wingman, watching the screens carefully as they split up to deal with their separate targets.
Jimmi’s deft control of the ship put them straight onto the drive section of the Nubl warship and seconds later he’d put a long burst of laser fire into its hull. He noted Tango’s lasers had torn up a storm from aft to mid section. Jimmi’s fire sealed the enemy’s fate and they left it dead in space while they caught up with Flapjack.
Hours later, out of missiles and lasers red hot from continuous fire, the fighters were finally called off. There had been battles all over the space approach to Earth and many larger Shadowships had managed to concentrate fire onto the planet’s surface, inflicting heavy casualties in cities all over the globe.
Jimmi’s wing had lost four more fighters, those to errors in judgement which Jimmi suspected were down to AI and pilot contention. He recognised the need for better communications between pilot and AI. If they were to stand a chance out here, they needed to have an edge.
***
Deep in the rear of Pod’s ship, the storeroom housed a forgotten prisoner of war. Cebrel’s mental processes went repeatedly over the circumstances of his recent capture. He tried to make sense of everything, but had no idea what had happened. One minute he was on his ship, the next instant he was here in an enclosed room, fully restrained. He could move his head slightly and that was all. He looked down at his torso. He was entwined in a complex metallic mesh which had attached itself to his shell. The mesh appeared to be made up of the same type of grey soup that had decimated his ship.
His adjusted his vision until he could examine the bonds microscopically. Nanites! These had wicked jaws which were obviously designed to ‘eat’ anything they were designated to. They had bonded together, using their arm and leg pincers, into immovable strands that held him fast. Very sophisticated, he thought. The Nubl also used nanites, but not to this extreme. They had never considered the little machines for anything more than body repairs.
All Nubl had them and could create more at will. However, they only had set functions whereas these appeared to be multi-functional devices. He had no idea how that had been achieved. It was at odds with his knowledge of the capabilities of biologicals. He intended to find out just how they had achieved such technological complexity.
It was a typical Nubl trait that he never once concerned himself with the possibility that he might not survive. As a clone he was inured to such potential outcomes. A hive queen was volatile and prone to acts of extreme violence, so clones rarely led a long existence.
He waited on interrogation or dismemberment, it mattered not which. He expected the biological enemy to come for him, but after what seemed an extensive period of time Cebrel decided that nothing was going to happen. Strange, he thought. They disable my ship, capture and restrain me, then do nothing. What kind of creatures are these, he wondered.
Cebrel had time to think and had no doubt his absence from the hive network would prompt a response from his queen. She would send Shadowships after him to avenge the loss of her ‘Ta. He had only to wait. Once one of their ships arrived in communication range, he would be able to pass on the strategic knowledge he had acquired.
He had analysed the air and space around him, noting large piles of raw materials, many of a type that would be of value to his hive. Maybe these vermin could be used to mine materials for the Nubl instead of manufacturing workers themselves, thereby saving the hive valuable resources for more ships and warriors. An idea to bring up with his Queen once he was free. It never once occurred to him that he wouldn’t escape, he had been programmed to believe that biological vermin were inferior to Nubl. He just needed to await the moment when freedom presented itself and then these beings would pay.
In the absence of any immediate opportunity to free himself, he settled down to analyse everything he had learned about their arrival in the local system and the attacks on his ship. He would wait patiently until his circumstances changed.
- 2 -
The Aftermath
The President of Space Island’s vidscreen stuttered over the poor connection cobbled together from the available satellite links. On the other end was the EU Ambassador to the SC, John Devlin, a recent appointment by the EU government, responsible for increasing the integration between the EU and the Space Council. The picture of Devlin reappeared after a few seconds of call drop-out.
“Mr President, I don’t know if you can hear this fully so I will repeat myself. It is absolutely essential you respond to this breakdown of law and order in Europe by sending in SCS troops to control rioters and looting.” The screen faded in and out again. Garner groaned while it resolved, when it came back he listened carefully. “The national parliaments of Europe are no longer able to function. Too much of their infrastructure was damaged by the enemy lasers, they have no means of policing themselves. We now have militia groups eating up the landscape and turning whole zones of the country into privately armed states.”
Garner looked over at Pennington’s hologram image where he was intently talking to someone on the end of his own vidscreen, the noise cancellation software ensuring each of the convo’s was not overheard by the other. Pennington’s responsibilities and power base almost outstripped Garner’s own. As head of the Navy and Security forces, it was the way it had to be.
Frank Garner didn’t envy Pennington one bit. If
he wasn’t needed to help fight a war with the Nubl, he would have retired and left Pennington with the lot, months ago.
He resumed his own conversation. “I fully understand, Ambassador Devlin. However, if we take this step you realise it cannot be reversed. You are actually asking for the Space Council to take over the running of the European Union. How is this going to be seen by the individual parliaments?” Garner asked, knowing full well that their fall-back plans had already addressed this, but needing it to be out in the open to move it forward officially.
Devlin sighed and placed his hands on the table at his end. “There are no individual parliaments any more, Frank. There aren’t any offices left in Brussels, it was one of the first capitals to be hit. It is just a glassy mound now. The population count of Belgium is little more than a few hundred thousand people. There is nothing left for them and they are currently relocating en-mass to neighbouring countries. The problem is the French are closing their borders, the Dutch have nothing for them and the Germans are corralling them into camps, but are unable to do anything besides keep them penned like animals.”
“Alright John, I’m not 100% happy with this solution, but I will support it if Pennington’s people have sufficient troops to put into the air. If not, you will just have to muddle on until we can come up with a better long-term solution,” Garner responded and looked at Pennington who now nodded at him as he finished up his other call.
Devlin was getting stressed, even the poor vidscreen picture couldn’t hide his concerns. Garner knew that Devlin’s own position was tenuous at best. He was hanging onto a position that had no merit, by his fingertips.
“Frank, anything you do has to be now, I’m not kidding, the aliens did more than just shoot up a few cities. They managed to fry all of our communications and most of our military was disbanded after the new century technology was handed out. Even Russia is suffering the lack of a force against this sudden up-sweep in land grabbing by power-mad apocalyptic groups - it’s almost as if they were waiting for just an opportunity such as this. Thank god we still have our Pershields, (personal shields) or we might be facing worse carnage than we already have.”
“OK, Devlin, I understand,” Garner encouraged.
“Look, keep your connection going as best you can. I’ll get Pennington to liaise on the means and method of our involvement.”
He looked up at his clock and glanced at Pennington before adding, “We will get back to you in thirty minutes. Garner out.” Flipping the connection to lock out the signal he watched it turn back to the SCN logo, then turned to consult with the others in the room.
He looked over at his team. All semblance of dress code, formality and etiquette had gone out the window two days ago. Now they all sweated and swore together while attempting to put their world back together.
Garner quickly reviewed their overall situation while everyone was finishing up their own vidcom efforts to maintain order within their respective responsibilities around the world.
The USA had survived reasonably intact. Sure, it had lost whole cities, but the National Guard had been there, ready as always to keep everything from breaking down as completely as it had in Europe. China, Africa and South America had also survived, but for different reasons, he surmised. The lack of leadership and concentration of bureaucracy in Europe had not been strong enough to see it through the recent fire-fight. As such it was probably the worst off of all of them.
The SCS forces there were already stretched to the limit, but had at least anticipated most of this, so already had contingencies in place. Pennington had been activating more of those on the other vidscreen and was now catching up with the conversation between Garner and Devlin.
“Are we good to go with this?” Frank asked him over their vidcom connection.
“Yes, the AG (anti-gravity) fighters are in the air as we speak, we still have four hundred SCN Marauders with fully trained AIPIL (AI+Pilot) teams. They should be able to liaise with ground services and any hostility they come across they will disarm, or destroy. We should be able to get some semblance of law and order back within 24 hours,” Pennington confirmed.
Garner turned to his vice president, Annie Wilkes, who had been with him right from his US presidency. She had since been elected by the council on her own merit and now worked tirelessly to cement the foundations of global government. She had been the major push behind building the SC global infrastructure, much of which was now in place and just needed activating. She was in the process of doing just that as Garner interrupted her.
“Annie, what can you do about getting humanitarian aid to the worst hit places? I’m sure most of the areas will be able to manage themselves once the AIPIL get into place.”
“Already organised, Frank, We have sixty teams of Red Cross aid workers on board our latest AG cargo handlers. They will be en route in the next hour. I’m just waiting on confirmation of their final destinations now. They are talking to the pilots and waiting for visual confirmation of ‘safe fly zones’,” Annie replied.
Garner leaned back. It wasn’t going to get better any time soon, but thank goodness they had the Space Council in place before the shit hit the fan. Without its autonomous operation, the world would be in a worse state now than it was. He pressed on with the next call in the knowledge that he would still be sitting here doing all this tomorrow, as would his team.
***
Pennington’s problems didn’t go away with the Nubl. He was left with vast areas of space needing a complete clean-up, much of it debris that needed transporting to the Space Station for investigation. Had he been able to, he would have just tractored it all into the atmosphere and let it burn up on re-entry.
He penned a message to Osbourne who was heading up the science team on Alpha and asked him to consider setting up an AI cleaning crew so he could release his ships for more important duties. He was gratified to receive an immediate response thanking him, and congratulating him on a great idea. It would be in action before the day’s end. Good, he could begin releasing the crews immediately. He didn’t need Osbourne’s permission, but it was important work they were doing, and Pennington knew just how close a call they had just had with the Nubl. It was essential that Osbourne’s team got as much of the technology into their hands as possible.
Pennington recalled all of his Marauders from clean-up duties and scheduled them for some R&R before reallocating them to Earthbound patrols. He already knew the policing operation was overstretched and the AIPIL teams he was recalling would take over some of the relief work. He left the larger ships in position carting the debris away from vulnerable space installations.
The vidcom buzzed. He flicked the ON button and was immediately shown an image of Colonel Ray Baxter who was in command of his far eastern operation. It had burgeoned into a full-blown base after the decisive battle over the Fortress and now was one of the SCN’s main military bases as well as ship-building complexes. Ray Baxter struggled to run the place against opposition from China who objected to not having involvement in the provision of labour and materials. Even in these times their politically motivated industries were more interested in profit, than survival. Baxter was an old-hand in dealing with them and outright war had been avoided several times in the last couple of years. Pennington doubted they would be mounting any offensive against their operation there now.
“What is it, Ray?”
“Sir, we are still having problems with some of the X10 pilots rebelling over the lack of direct control over their ships.”
Pennington sighed. “Have they got a specific issue, or is it just a general complaint?”
“They are pretty specific, sir. They want full control over the aircraft as well as the AI instead of the equal partnership they have at present,” Baxter confirmed.
“What do you think, Baxter, should they have it?” he asked. He personally sympathised with the pilots. His own experiences were along similar lines, but it was a whole new world these last few years and he had to
tread carefully. He had his own problems with AI interference, but hadn’t had the opportunity yet to put his views onto a firm footing. He was biding his time, and it was approaching, he thought.
“Well, I understand their point of view, sir. But I don’t think we can risk flying in close formation against the Nubl without the AIs - our losses would mount very quickly. As it is, the AIs give the pilot the edge. They just resent having their commands overridden when in combat,” Baxter explained.
“Alright, Baxter. I will take it up again with the powers that be, i.e. Callaghan and Director Osbourne. Tell the pilots we’re looking into it, but no-one is to take any action in the meantime. That’s a direct order,” he added.
“Will do, sir. Baxter out.”
Pennington was still smarting over being informed after the event when POD had gone away and, unbeknown to any of them, built a massive set of defences and a working space station. Had it been thinking to use that power against Earth, they wouldn’t have even seen it coming. As second-in-command of Earth’s defences after Frank Garner, he was furious that he wasn’t in the driving seat of that bloody set-up He was made to look insignificant and foolish in front of his command. Not that he was bothered about what they thought, he was a soldier, he followed orders. However, he was bothered about his ability to anticipate and plan Earth’s attack and defence strategies.
Pennington personally didn’t trust them. It seemed there had been nothing but trouble from intelligent machines. As a soldier, he preferred ‘one on one’ and staring at the whites of your enemies eyes to see what he was up to. These AIs didn’t have eyes and they were difficult to kill, even harder to anticipate in a battle situation. No, he didn’t like them one bit, but he would use them if it meant saving Earth from destruction. Afterwards though, well if there was an afterwards, he would see that things changed.
He activated the vidscreen and tried to contact Zeke Callaghan, but only managed to get the AI, Arty, which really helped his mood. His training kicked in and he held himself in check, instead asking the AI nicely to port him up there for an urgent meeting with Admiral Callaghan. Arty said he would jump him as soon as Callaghan was free.