by Andrew Beery
Cat surveyed the room. It looked remarkably like a server room on any planet she had ever visited. Certain things were dictated by function. True, the labels changed and the input devices tended to reflect the physical attributes of the races they were designed for, but environmental controls, system monitors, storage, and activity displays all tended to be present. Most races with substantial interstellar capabilities tended to use holographic memory systems simply because of the inherent speed and data density they provided, but every now and then a race came along that bucked the trend. It appeared the Modos was one such race.
“Clearly we are not going to be able to just pick up the computer core and take it with us” Cat said.“We are going to need to build some type of data-extraction unit.”
“I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I had a brief conversation with Lt. Sanders from IT. His concern was the time it would take to fully move several petabytes of data through their systems into whatever we were going to use as an interface and storage device.”
“Normally I would agree,” Cat said, with a grin.“But in this case we are going to cheat.”
LeAnder raised an eyebrow.
“My internal AI is of Heshe origin,” Cat explained.“It has more than enough storage—several thousand times over. It’s also tied directly into my encounter unit, which acts as my comm-link. All we really need to do is reprogram a few of my self-replicating nanites to follow the data streams in their distributed network and report back via a permanent quantum entangled link.”
Commander LeAnder whistled softly to himself as he realized the enormity of what she was suggesting. There really was no data network that was secure when she was around. It was a good thing she was on their side.
“How long will this take?” he asked.
Cat walked over toward the main control console. She placed a hand on it and a small mass of shimmering silver flowed from her fingers into it.
“The nanites have already been reprogrammed. As far as how long it will take to retrieve the Syndicate’s data? That’s a good question. It depends on just how extensive their network is. Fortunately the communications link is not really affected by distance, so it can take as long as it needs to. I suspect the data-mining to figure out what we have got and how to best use it will take considerably longer.”
She didn’t know it at the moment, but this would be time they didn’t have.
Chapter Nine– Disrupt and Deny...
“Push them hard!” General Moss yelled at his command staff. It wasn’t enough that his imbecile brother had let a massive ship literally sneak up on his position, but now Captain Breakwater and his brethren were failing in their mission to secure the capital. It was intolerable and unacceptable.
“Do we or do we not have a fully stocked armory under the mountain in Sigon Pass?”
Captain Breakwater looked at the general with as blank a face as he could muster. Showing his anger now would gain him little. Fortunately, the young Suhtian he currently rode had exceptionally dark fur, so the blush associated with anger was not easy to spot.
“We do, sir. It has a full complement of fighters and ground-effect tanks…”
“Then get your hairy trunk up there and take control of that armory. I don’t want to see you or your men again unless you are driving a tank or flying a fighter. You will bomb and shell and blast and otherwise chew up every meter of dirt these GCP mud guppies control. Am I clear?”
“Sir-yes,sir!”
***
The ride back to the shuttle landing site was uneventful. Nevertheless, Cat could see smoke and small fires about the city where fighting had been taking place. First the East Tree irregulars had taken the city from the local Modos security forces. Then a Modos military unit had come in and almost succeeded in regaining uncontested control of the city before the GCP had arrived and once again secured the city for the rebellion. It was Cat’s plan to make sure it stayed in rebel hands. Unfortunately, plans in war-time have a way of unraveling.
Her comm-link suddenly bleeped with multiple incoming messages. She signaled the one from the shuttle to hold, and instead opened the channel to the GCP Mador.
“Mador,this is Kimbridge. Go ahead.”
“Admiral…,” Jason Ruck said over the comm-link,“we are detecting launches from a site about a hundred-and-twenty-five kilometers north of your AO.”
“Are we looking at missiles here, or something else?”
“Definitely‘something else’… These seem to be suborbital fighters. According to the database Captain Running Stream left with us these are very likely modified Dragonflies, with kinetics, minimal-beam weapons, and four block-buster ground force suppression bombs each. They could be bad news for our guys with boots on the ground.”
“Understood,” Cat responded.“Send down a contingent of our own fighters. Let’s see if we can’t limit the damage they end up doing…”
Cat’s comm-link beeped again. The shuttle was again requesting a priority link.“Jason, stay on the line.” She signaled her AI to add the shuttle to the open channel.
“Kimbridge here. Go ahead Puddle Jumper.”
“Admiral, I’m sorry to interrupt you” Lt. Kristi said, quickly.“We have a situation here. That active LiDAR signal has gone mobile. We have twenty-seven inbound craft. If you want to leave before they get here we need to launch in the next couple minutes.”
“Understood Puddle Jumper… we are approaching the shuttle now. Go ahead and fire up the engines.”
“Jason, Have the Yorktown and Madormove into geosynchronous support orbits. Target the launch site...,”
"Admiral! Multiple jump points forming" Lt. Zimmerman interjected from the bridge of the Yorktown. "Ten inbound dreadnoughts, ma'am... They did a precision jump into the inner system. Given their relative speed and position, Tactical estimates they are no more than two minutes out."
"Jason, belay that last order. Reposition both the Mador and Yorktown next to WhimPy 101."
Cat and Commander LeAnder exited the ground vehicle the moment it came to a stop. They ran the twenty feet to the waiting shuttle. Small fires and smoldering bits of plastic littered the surrounding area. In the distance Cat could hear small arms fire. The sounds of the shuttle’s air-breathing thrusters revving up filled the air.
"101 have you been monitoring the situation?" Cat asked.
"Affirmative Admiral. May I suggest as soon as practical you allow me to envelop Naanac in a protective shield? This will permit ground operations to continue unabated while you await reinforcements."
Cat nodded to the shuttle pilot as she and the Lt. Commander hastily entered. Cat made an upward swoosh with her hand indicating Kristi should takeoff. On a small tactical display near the cockpit Cat could see a formation of aircraft rapidly moving in their general direction. It would be close.
Cat continued her conversation with the WhimPy platform. "I assume you are going to launch multiple shield generators into orbit to facilitate a planet-wide shield... Correct?"
"Correct Admiral. I can jump the satellites directly into their proper position with the required momentum to keep them in geosynchronous orbits."
"Very good. Go ahead and implement the shield. Leave me a hole so I can get back to the Yorktown then button it up tight."
As the shuttle lifted, Lieutenant Kristi pulled the shuttle’s yoke violently to the left. "Admiral, we have Dragonflies beginning to engage. Please hold on while I try and shake them."
Cat strapped into her seat and noted that Commander LeAnder had already done so. He was on his own comm-link. She could only assume he was in communication with Lt. McKinney who was in charge of the local ground forces… making him aware of the‘world of hurt’ that would soon be coming their way.
The pilot jinxed the yoke left again and then right. She was doing her level best to avoid the incoming fire but it was not enough. Cat could hear the kinetic rounds pinging on the hull of the ship. It’s shields, although somewhat limited, should be up to
the task. She was more concerned about the beam weapons. They were far more effective against low-level shields– especially when used in conjunction with kinetics. The shields needed to retune themselves for each type of attack and on a shuttle this size they were not especially effective against both at once.
“I’m trying to climb above them but they are right on top of us now!” Kristi yelled over the din.
“Lieutenant! They are far more maneuverable at this altitude. They’ll chew us up before you can climb high enough.”
“What do I do?”
“We have a much higher top speed… it just takes us a while to get there. Dive back toward the city… full thrust then use your forward momentum to climb over them.”
The Puddle Jumper nosed down and picked up speed as gravity was now working with them rather than against. Two Syndicate Dragonflies streaked by causing Kristi to roll to the right. Her velocity continued to rise as the ground rapidly approached. At seemingly the last possible moment she pulled back on the yoke and began a ballistic climb.
It looked like the maneuver was going to work when suddenly the entire shuttle bucked wildly and began an uncontrolled end-over-end tumble.
“WHAT THE…,” Kristi yelled as she fought the controls.
“They must have used a blockbuster down there. We got caught in the blast wave,” Cat said, as she watched the pilot fight the controls. Finally she got the shuttle under limited control but it was clear they were not going to make anything even approaching orbit. There was a three foot hole in the rear of the shuttle. Cat could hear the air rushing by.
“We lost the port thruster” Kristi yelled.“I’m having to fight to keep the starboard one online. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep her in the air Admiral!”
Cat unbuckled and grabbed the back of the Lieutenant’s chair for support.“Look for someplace soft to land.” At the same time Cat sent a signal to the Heshe weapon’s platform.“101… button up the shields… we are not going to make our rendezvous with the Yorktown.”
***
Lieutenant Blackwater adjusted the fuel mix feeding the massive air breathing jet engines on his Dragonfly. He liked burning them hot to get the extra little bit of thrust that produced. Ahead of him he could see the Coalition shuttle. It was trailing smoke and having trouble holding its orientation. Clearly it was close to going down. Blackwater decided to see if he could help it along.
“Computer… bring masers online. Target any active heat sources on the craft ahead. Continuous fire for fifteen seconds. Acknowledge command.”
He heard the familiar acknowledgement beep in his combat suit. The suit itself looked like a metallic crab or spider. His symbiot had been dismounted prior to boarding the Dragonfly. The symbiotic linkages just were not suitable to combat maneuvers and so the Dragonfly’s were designed to be used with the combat suit that he now wore.
Twin beams lashed out and struck the sole functioning thruster on the struggling shuttle. It was obvious from the way the craft lurched that his attack had been successful. He was going to follow the shuttle down to finish it but his heads-up display flashed an incoming warning. Apparently the Coalition forces in orbit had launched some of their own fighters. He was now taking fire from above. Discretion being the better part of valor, he decided to report the downed shuttle near the space port to his squad leader and break off the attack so he could face the fighters that were above him.
***
Jason Ruck did not look pleased. He paced about the bridge of the Mador while the holographic image of Commander Ken Kirkland on the Bridge of the Yorktown stood at attention. The Commander had spent the last thirty minutes arguing with the Commodore over the need to send additional ground support troops down to the surface. The problem was the damn Dragonflies were better atmospheric fighters than the ships that the GCP had access to. They were chewing up the fighters they had send down. The Mador and Yorktown lost a full twenty percent of their aircraft before Jason recalled them. In addition the Syndicate forces had managed to activate an extensive network of air defense batteries located near every major population center. These had been offline up until a few hours ago but were now fully functional and quite capable. Between the two weapons systems the GCP was now unable to gain clear access to air superiority. The GCP ground forces already in place would need to take out one or more of these systems if the Coalition was going to have any chance of landing more support planet-side.
Jason took a deep breathe to calm himself.“Ken I know you want to give the Admiral all the support you can but she would be the first too frown on excessive risk. We can help her but we need to be creative to reduce that risk.”
The image of Commander Kirkland shifted.“Sir, if I may suggest a more creative solution?”
“Go ahead.”
“What if we use our orbital position to take out their fighters with ground-facing beam weapons?”
“Atmospheric variances is going to make precision targeting difficult,” Jason observed thoughtfully.
“True sir but if you think more in terms of a hammer than a scalpel it could work,” Ken added.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Commander,”
Ken’s holographic image turned and he waved someone off screen to join him. Chief Wroblewski stepped up.
“Commodore, at the end of the day, we are dealing with aircraft. The operative word being‘air’. We don’t need to actually hit them with our energy weapons as much as we need to disrupt the air they are flying through.”
“Go on,” Jason prompted.
,”If we fire a plasma beam in the general vicinity of our targets we can create a charged field that will respond very nicely to a modulated maser beam. If we modulate it correctly we can setup up disruptive vibrations in the atmosphere that will shake the teeth out of any pilot foolish enough to try and fly through it. Targeting systems will be disrupted. Flight control systems will be overwhelmed. Combat effectiveness will be destroyed.”
Ken picked up the conversation.“We may not be able to take them on head to head but we can still basically disrupt and deny the Syndicate fighters access to the airspace over all major engagement areas.”
***
Chairman Snatch Bait sat in the central command chair on the bridge of the MS Typhoon. The Conqueror-class dreadnaught was moments from exiting the hyperfield conduit that spanned the two universes. The immediate area surrounding the exit terminus called Sagittarius A.
SgrA was actually a complex roiling mass dominated by a supermassive black hole and the shattered remains of the innumerable star systems that had been consumed by it. The actual exit terminus was the better part of sixty light minutes above the event horizon. The actual position was a function of local Higgs field densities or some such blather one of the junior engineers had tried to tell him as he toured Engineering earlier in the day.
He couldn’t care less about the physics involved in trans-universal hyperjumps. He simply wanted to know the factors contributing to a healthy return on investment. If it impacted the ROI, it was relevant… if it didn’t he didn’t need nor want to know about it. Snatch Bait made a note to dock the engineer’s pay for wasting his time. Perhaps he would suggest the chief engineer assign the young guppy to scrub the exterior hull after they exited the terminus. It would afford the fool a chance to see the source of his foolishness up close. The chairman didn’t know it but in this rare instance his wrath would serve him well.
Chapter Ten– Mayhem...
Private Anthony Stone swore inside his Stark combat suit. The Mark Six was showing the effects of the rough treatment it had received over the last day and a half. He had been cut off from the rest of his squad by a building that had chosen an inopportune time to fall on him. Had he not been wearing the Mark Six he would most certainly be dead. As it was it had taken him hours to work his way through a series of underground utility tunnels. His squad leader knew he was alive and kicking but he and the boys were busy in a bear fight of their own. He had been
told to make his way clear and then rejoin the squad.
That had been several hours ago. It had seemed like such a good idea. Work his way around the rubble until he could get back to the others. The problem was the enemy kept dropping mortars on his position. He finally thought he had a reasonable path available that would get him back to his squad when all hell broke loose. He had been reporting to his squad leader that he had them in sight and was heading toward them when some sort of blockbuster bomb was dropped about a quarter click in front of him. The next thing he knew his Mark Six was flying backward about five hundred meters. When it finally hit something solid in the form of a partially standing apartment building he was still a good sixty or seventy meters off the ground. The slide down the side of the building just added insult to injury.
These Starksuits were designed to take a beating but this was pushing things a bit. As far as he knew his team had been in the middle of the blast zone. He was no longer able to raise them on comm . To make matters worse a line of track vehicles was entering the city from the west. He had spotted them with the built-in binoculars that were one of the few remaining systems on his Mark Six that still worked. He had climbed a massive rumble pile to get a better view of the area his squad leader had occupied just moments before. The area in question was a large flatten pit. Thermal imaging was no use as the entire area was a puddle of molten metal and stone. If his squad had been anywhere near that zone… and he knew they were… they were unquestionably in the arms of the Creator now.
Several loud explosions occurred overhead and he glanced up. A GCP support shuttle was taking fire from one of those damn dragonflies. He considered taking a pot shot at the attacker but at this type of range it would be the wildest sort of luck if he could hit the dragonfly and even if he did he doubted the fighter would even notice the effort.
It looked the shuttle was going down somewhere near the spaceport. He checked his energy reserves. He was down to forty percent on his primaries. It was then that he noticed the spare power unit duct-taped to his right shoulder was missing. Doubtless it had be blown off during one of the numerous attempts made over the last few hours to separate his head from his shoulders.