by Will Crudge
It was all intricate… Genius. Darius now understood the War Master Guild’s strategic prowess was no myth… They always knew how to get the edge. UAHC Soldiers were the best in the business… But they lacked this clarity of strategic thinking. All of the seemingly absurd tactics Darius had witnessed, while with Val, now made sense. Val always knew that the most unlikely methods of defeating an enemy were the methods by which were impossible to anticipate. A War Master’s enemy would never be able to anticipate, outthink, or out-deceive them. It was apparent, however… That the Crimson Alliance was now bolstered by forces that could match the War Master’s in every respect…. However, the War Masters were perceived as the greatest threat to a weakening humanity. He realized that causing the social and political turmoil that drove the guild underground was a strategic master stroke. Without the benefit of strategic mastery, humanity could be manipulated into destroying itself militarily… There would be no defense against a galactic incursion.
The Crimson Alliance were puppets… They likely had no idea the true nature or intent of their benefactors. Which is why they were given the means to infiltrate, subvert, and destabilize the UAHC over the course of many decades. But they also must have known that the War Masters were still around… They must have bolstered, and even feigned piracy. Not just to spread the UAHC forces thin, but to track down anyone with a genetic link to Val’s bloodline. Relics were stolen, and museums were raided. Any method that could be used to make the remaining War Masters to come out of hiding and take action… which would make them vulnerable to capture, or worse. Darius knew that they were likely trying to piece together the genetic material from any source they could find. They had to have seen some kind of pattern… Some kind of… eventuality in the code. It may have been beyond their tech capability, but they were piecing it together despite their limitations. Most likely they were being guided by these dark forces.
Midas must have developed a means by which to free the UAHC AI’s from the clutches of subversion… This would be the final piece of the puzzle to Darius’ plan.
***
War Master Jep Alba sent a direct link from his mind.
Jep asked.
Jimma spoke with a reassuring tone.
Jimma asked eagerly.
Old Soldiers Never Die
Location: UAHC Frigate Longbow, CIC
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/30/4201 1345HRS Local
System: Sol System, 1.5 Light Minutes Solar North of Earth
Captain Toshiro Matsumoto sipped his hot cup of green tea with great reverence, as he sat in his command console… with one leg resting on the edge of the elevated platform. He may have lacked the traditional aura of military bearing, but he was a seasoned space farer. Both he and his bridge crew were all UAHC Fleet Civilian employees, so the pomp and circumstance of a rigid military environment were ever absent from the CIC. He lifted his eyes from his beloved cup of tea and scanned the holographic displays that hovered above his console. Flight vectors, speed readouts, shield integrity… he could get a general snapshot of his ships status in just a few seconds. Satisfied with how his frigate was functioning, he glanced down at the lower level of the room. Unlike larger vessels, his frigate’s CIC and bridge were collocated on two different levels of the same open space. Had the Longbow been configured for war, this would have presented an issue for command crews. Generally CIC’s and bridges were physically separated from one another. The bridge was where the ship itself was operated from during regular flight and docking operations. The CIC was where the weapons system controls, and all the strategic tools necessary for combat were located. In a military engagement, the CIC would take full control of the ship, however during most of the weeks and months that starships spent in the black, a simple bridge layout was preferred.
Matsumoto walked down to the lower level of the split floor plan, and placed his hand on the shoulder of First Officer Michael Gordon. Gordon looked up at the Captain and gave a nod of acknowledgement. “How are things on the helm, Mike?” The Captain asked casually.
“Well, Sir. No issues. We’re on schedule for our arrival at Citadel Barracks.” The First Officer replied, then turned his attention back to his controls.
“Very well. Carry on.” The Captain said, as he removed his hand from the man’s shoulder and went back to caressing his cup of tea with both palms. Matsumoto paced around to the other bridge control stations, and casually overlooked his civilian bridge officers as they performed their mundane duties. He wondered why Consul Gerhardt wanted to visit Citadel Barracks anyway. The small deep open space installation barely had much of a garrison these days. It was generally used as a training ground for Soldiers to certify in small unit tactics. It had very little strategic importance… at least not enough for the second most powerful man in the entire UAHC government to be concerned with. He then shook his head and cleared the thought process from his mind. He and the crew of the small ship were nothing more than the Consul’s transportation service. It wasn’t his job to ask why, after all.
He climbed the short steps back to the vestigial CIC area, and paused to take a quick look around. He knew his ship was outfitted with very modest self-defense weaponry, and would never really need most of the bells and whistles that occupied the tactical section of the complex. He took a deep breath and exhaled as he flopped back down into his command console. He then reached for his small ceramic tea pot, and topped off his cup with a smile. He was so entrenched in his methodic pouring, that he didn’t even see the Consul standing beside him.
“S- Sir, I didn’t see you there!” Matsumoto frantically tried to pause his pouring of steaming hot liquid, and then he lumbered to his feet.
“At ease, my friend.” Gerhardt smiled, and gestured with his open palms extended, as if to motion to the Captain he could resume what he was doing. Matsumoto sat down, and went back to pouring his tea. Gerhardt just scanned the CIC with his eyes, and then down to the bridge area. “I see all is well here, I assume?”
“Certainly!” The Captain realized he was grateful he had just made his own walk-through, and could be confident in his reply.
“Well done.” The Consul nodded, and then stepped away towards the door on the back wall of the complex. But the casual atmosphere changed to utter chaos before the man could get within a single step of the exit…
Instruments began flashing red, and audible alarms filled the air with abrupt noise. Gerhardt wheeled back around and hovered over the command console with one hand on the back of the Captain’s chair. “Status!” Matsumoto shouted down to his skeleton bridge crew.
“Sir, we’re detecting a missile lock… multiple missile locks!” The First Officer shouted back.
&nbs
p; “Origin?!” The question came from Gerhardt before the Captain could say anything else.
“This… this can’t be- It’s from our own escort!” Michael Gordon spun around to see the Captain and the Consul already honed in on the man’s incredulous face.
“We’re being hailed by the Vanquish!” Matsumoto spoke, as he confirmed that his First Officer was correct. Their escort vessel was a medium cruiser, the UHCSS Vanquish. He could see the target lock sensor display mark strokes of red lines between the two vessels that indicated firing solutions were being calculated and updated in real time.
“Patching through on screen, now.” The Captain said, as the entire bridge crew looked forward at the ten meter wide main screen that ran the width of the two-tiered complex. The screen was a fuzzy, but they could see the rough outline of a figure wearing a UAHC Fleet sub armor uniform.
“We’ve lost control! AI’s going rogue…” The signal blanked out. The entire bridge crew seemed paralyzed with fear, and all seemed to instinctively look to the one military man in the room for a response on what to do next.
Gerhardt’s face spoke volumes. It was a blend of disgust mingled with a vail of certainty… but certainly not a shred of fear. He quickly rushed around to the forward area of the command console and hit a switch on an adjacent support beam. The floor gave way to a rectangular luminescent platform that seemed to raise straight up and stop about ten centimeters above the floor around it. Suddenly a light blueish glow rose up from the flat rectangular surface, and Gerhardt stepped onto the platform as it illuminated his uniform.
“Vanquish… Are you there?” Gerhardt spoke as if he was standing on the bridge of the vanquish himself. Then a crackle, followed by an audible response came through.
“Yes, Consul! I here you. I am Acting Captain Chambers.” The voice resonated throughout the room with an earie vibration. Matsumoto knew exactly what the glowing platform was, but had never seen it be used. It was a Quantum Entanglement Transmitter. Capable of transmitting to any other QET functioning anywhere in known space in real time. He also knew, that the physics involved would prevent even the most powerful AI’s from being able to stop the transmission.
“I’m sending you a point to point data burst, Master Chief.” Gerhardt said with a stone cold seriousness that could intimidate the mightiest of men.
“Got it, Sir… Hunker down, now!” The Acting Captain’s voice prompted the entire crew, and the Consul himself, to hit the deck and cover their heads. The impact shook the small frigate to its core. Sounds of metal rending, and bulkheads collapsing filled the air. Gerhardt knew it was a volley of short range missiles… enough to overwhelm the shields on the small ship.
“Damage report!” Matsumoto shouted as everyone scrambled to get on to their feet.
“Multiple hull breaches… magnetic energy backup shields engaged… minimal atmospheric loss.” The First Officer barely had enough breath in him to form the words audibly.
Gerhardt reached for the visual display, and expanded the view to capture both vessels in relation to each other’s locations. The Vanquish had maneuvered from a flank position, and was trying to maneuver back to behind the frigate. He recognized the attack pattern right away. The cruiser was maneuvering in for a stern shot on the frigate. With its particle beams and plasma cannons mounted on the fore section of the cruisers fuselage, the energy based attack would flare up the energy shields at their weakest point, and burn right through to a kill shot on the thruster array of the smaller ship.
An idea entered his mind… so, simple… The Cruiser’s corrupted AI’s were obviously trying to end the engagement before the human crews could put the Tightrope Protocol into effect… But they also had another major obstacle that they may not have considered…. Sovereign Protocol. Gerhardt jumped back on the QET platform and transmitted his sovereign IDENT tokens to the PTAISM aboard the cruiser… Then a horrifying realization gripped him. The Sovereign Protocol wouldn’t protect the frigate right away…. The PTAISM wouldn’t respond and lock down the cruiser until it attempted to engage again. Any engagement that occurred prior to the transmission of his tokens wouldn’t register as a violation since sovereignty had not been properly declared at the time the attack was initiated.
“Orders, Sir?” Matsumoto broke the Consul’s train of thought with his question. Gerhardt turned to meet the eyes of the seemingly rattled Captain.
“Evasive maneuvers, now!” He replied with a look of unwavering confidence.
“Aye, Sir.” Matsumoto acknowledged, and passed along the order to his terrified bridge crew. He couldn’t let him see him as anything but in complete control. The lives of everyone aboard depended on every crewmember maintaining their composure. They may have been civilians, but they had received extensive training on evasion tactics.
Gerhardt could feel the subtle shifts of gravity that often occurred when inertial dampening systems responded to aggressive changes in vector. Their one tactical advantage was that a frigate had a fraction of the mass of the gigantic medium cruiser that sought their demise. However, the small ship had already sustained some structural damage, and the heavier energy weapons the Vanquish had would likely succeed with the first hit… The Sovereign Protocol would be for naught.
“Vanquish’s forward weapons array is fully energized! Sensors are detecting targeting solutions being triangulated!” First Officer Gordon shouted over his shoulder from his station down front.
“Out of the chair, now!” Gerhardt shouted as he jumped the railing, and down to the lower bridge section. Gordon complied, and in one swift motion, the Consul assumed the helm.
Gerhardt thought to himself that he was either going to save them all, or kill them all… but either way, they were all going to die if he did nothing at all.
Matsumoto looked to the visual display of both vessels. Then he felt the sudden shift of the inertial dampeners. He looked back down at the display and saw that the Consul was doing a standard deceleration maneuver. The entire frigate did a 180 degree rotation, while maintaining its precise vector. The entire thruster array came alive and the Captain could see the thrust readings climb to a dangerous 110%.
“Particle beam!” The Captain shouted, when he saw the visual image of the cruiser’s beam ports flare up. Lines of energy burned across the bow of the frigate, as it now was facing the Vanquish head on. In a split second the Matsumoto realized what the Consul had done. He had initiated an abrupt deceleration burn to throw off the firing solutions of the deadly beams. The tactical algorithms used to formulate the complex mathematics of two objects in space traveling at relative distances probably never factored in that a vessel being pursued would ever pull a maneuver like that.
There was a wrenching sound from all around the bridge… loud… frightening. Matsumoto could only conclude it had been the shields failing half-way through the particle beams attack. The change in relative velocities had saved them. The abrupt change prevented the beam from focusing its energy on a single point, or even one general area of the hull. Instead, the focused heat and energy was dispersed along the length of the hull, and likely absorbed by the ballistic shielding.
“Vanquish is charging weapons for another attack!” The sound came from the First Officer Gordon… now on his feet and hovering behind Gerhardt.
The Captain darted his eyes at the visual display, and saw the cruiser’s beam ports begin to flare once again… Then in an instant, the glowing energy dispersed from view. There was a long and terrifying pause.
“Longbow, this is the Vanquish.” The visual link from earlier was restored, and the clear image of a UAHC Fleet Master Chief filled the forward screen. “All clear! We’ve regained control of the ship.”
Enter The Broadsword
Location: UHCSS Heavy Cruiser Broadsword, CIC
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/30/4201 1413HRS UAHC Standard Zulu Time
System: UAHC Controlled Interstellar Space, 4 Light Minutes Galactic East of Contested/Neutral Space
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��We’re sitting ducks with our AI’s out of play.” Sergeant Major Estrada said. The man was a giant by any measure, but his heavy infantry armor added to the visual effect.
“I concur, Sergeant Major.” Master Chief Olsen nodded in agreement. He matched the leathery skinned Estrada in height, but he lacked the shoulder width of his comrade in arms. “Something serious is going on, if Consul Gerhardt set this… Tightrope Protocol in motion throughout the Fleet. Neither of the seasoned Soldiers had known such a protocol existed. It came through the QET in the form of an analogue signal and then, using a follow up decryption burst from the Consul himself, the sub layers of the burst assembled directly into the Acting Commodore’s neural interface. This ensured the nuances of the protocol wouldn’t be noticed by any shipboard AI.
The Tightrope Protocol was a failsafe that must have been put into motion decades prior. Even the most advanced Fleet AI’s had no clue it existed, and thusly would never see it coming. It required the senior acting officer of any ship to manually disconnect the hard lines to AI navigable data lines, and physically remove power sources from any wireless nets. Once completed, the AI’s aboard the ship would be cut off from accessing any ship board systems, and be forced to retreat into their data-storage nodes. The ship’s crew were then ordered to physically remove the AI nodes, and place them into designated isolation chambers.