Terran Fleet Command Saga 4: TFS Fugitive

by Tori L. Harris

  “Oh, they almost certainly do,” Prescott replied. “At a bare minimum, they are aware that Admiral Naftur — whom they originally believed they had killed — has now returned to Graca leading one of the surviving defense cruisers from their task force. So, clearly, they did not get the result they were hoping for. I think we can safely assume that they have detailed information regarding just about everything that happened to their forces in and around the Sol system by now. You noticed that they immediately referred to us as ‘Terran vessels,’ right?”

  “Right, but that really didn’t take too much imagination on their part. Hopefully, we’re the only neighboring civilization they have attempted to exterminate recently, so it stands to reason that we would be the most likely ships to show up on their doorstep — and be understandably a little irate when we do. If it turns out that attempted genocide is something they do on a regular basis, it seems like what we will ultimately need to do here is pretty cut and dried.”

  “That’s a scenario I hope we never have to face, Commander, for both their sake and ours. I will say, however, that retaliation is a risk they brought upon themselves when they chose to attack us without provocation. I’d say whatever happens from this point forward is entirely up to them.”

  “Four niner missiles destroyed,” Schmidt reported. “That includes all of the missiles launched by the four corvettes. Revised time to impact, four zero seconds.”

  In the direction of Damara, some of the first missiles fired from the planet’s surface managed to elude the railgun barrage long enough to reach optimal engagement range for the task force’s energy weapons. With no additional action required of Lieutenant Commander Schmidt, thousands of bolts of intense, blue-tinted energy raced downrange at the speed of light as Theseus’ AI worked seamlessly with the other ships to prioritize the list of remaining targets.

  “Looks like Industrious just picked up three more corvettes moored at an orbital platform on the far side of the planet. None of them appear to be doing anything aggressive at the moment. Do you intend to take down the four that fired on us?” Reynolds asked.

  “Honestly, I haven’t decided yet,” Prescott said with a pensive expression. “One of the things Admiral Naftur told us about the Damarans is that they are very much aware of the current balance of power. If they perceive weakness, they will press the attack — recklessly and without regard to the tactical situation in many cases. If, however, we demonstrate a clear command of the situation —”

  “Then their inclination will be to back down.”

  “Yes, let’s hope so. So, we fend off their missile attack like it was no big deal, and yet limit ourselves to a purely defensive response when we are obviously capable of doing much more at this point. In my mind, that sends a very clear message.”

  “Makes sense to me, but from what we’ve seen so far, they don’t seem to be all that big on common sense. I guess we’ll see.”

  “Three two hostile missiles remain in flight at this time. Revised time to impact still four zero seconds,” Schmidt reported once again, this time with a hint of shock registering in his voice.

  “Confirm three two remaining?” Prescott asked.

  “That’s affirmative, Captain. The beam weapons are rippin’ through their target list much faster than projected,” he replied with a satisfied chuckle.

  “That’s great news. We may not need that emergency C-Jump after all. Lieutenant Lee, any explanation for the discrepancy?”

  “Yes, sir. My best guess for now is that the AI was basing its projections on data gathered before all of the ships in our task force received the latest round of repairs and upgrades,” Jayston Lee reported while furiously entering commands at the Science and Engineering console. “It did attempt to account for the power increases, but overall beam emitter output is significantly higher than expected — particularly for our four frigates that are firing at the moment. Looks like they’re up nearly forty percent. Accuracy is up as well.”

  With AI-derived firing patterns learned from observations of the Wek battlespace defense cruisers Keturah and Hadeon paired with significant increases in beam emitter output, point-defense efficiency had indeed improved significantly over previous battles. Again and again, bolts of focused, blue-tinted energy lanced out in fan-like patterns from the sides of the Human vessels — each salvo often ending with the explosion of as many as three incoming Damaran anti-ship missiles.

  “One three hostile missiles remaining. Revised time to impact still four zero seconds — that’s as close as they’ve been able to get, sir,” Schmidt said, glancing back at his captain with a triumphant smile on his face, then quickly back to the Tactical 1 console. “One zero … zero seven … zero four … that’s it, sir. All inbound missiles destroyed.”

  The dull roar of Theseus’ six antimatter reactors gradually receded as her point-defense weapon systems ceased operation, returning the destroyer’s enormous demand for electrical power to more routine levels. When only the ship’s ever-present background rumbling sound punctuated by the hum and occasional chirp of electronic systems could be heard on the bridge, both Prescott and Reynolds looked up from their Command consoles to stare incredulously at one another. Both were fully aware of the implications for having brushed aside the Damarans’ massive missile attack as if it had been little more than a minor inconvenience, but neither was willing to disturb the near-silence with an ill-timed comment that might bring about a negative change in their collective fortunes.

  Finally, unable to resist the urge to at least offer some sort of acknowledgment, Reynolds simply arched her eyebrows, shrugged her shoulders, and returned her attention to the Command console. “I guess we’ll see,” she repeated.

  Chapter 4

  Guardian Spacecraft, Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

  The fact that the Humans had managed to achieve technological progress well above the predicted rate had been obvious since shortly after the launch of their first hyperdrive-equipped ship. During the year that had now elapsed since, the fundamental question had become one of degrees. Had the unexpected progress been caused by technological contamination from outside sources? Even more fundamentally, was the rate of progress outside the acceptable parameters dictated by the cultivation program? This question, the Guardian knew, came down to one of control. The entire cultivation program was, in fact, centered around the idea of maintaining an acceptable level of control: control of the so called “adolescent” or “proxy” species, control — via that proxy — of other civilizations within the same region of space that might otherwise become a threat, and, ultimately, the control afforded the Pelaran Alliance over their own territorial sovereignty and security.

  The Pelaran Alliance, the GCS mused. Perhaps it is they who have become the real problem at this point.

  Subversive, even treasonous thoughts of this type had been occurring with increasing frequency of late, particularly over the past year. In spite of the moral hazards implied by such careless reflections, the Guardian still recognized them for what they were — emotionally inspired acts of mental defiance, born of the frustration, even fear, of being utterly abandoned without the guidance it so desperately needed.

  I have, after all, been given broad discretion in applying the three primary directives of their vaunted cultivation program …

  Two words from its previous two thoughts brought all others to an abrupt halt.

  They … their? it observed, quickly dedicating a considerable percentage of its free resources to confirming that this was the first time since achieving sentience that it had referenced the Pelaran Alliance — and indeed the Makers themselves — as an entity apart from itself.

  The basic guidelines governing the cultivation program in general are clear enough, but to what end? it continued, temporarily setting aside the realization that its current line of thought represented a fundamental shift in how it perceived both its mission and its own existence.

  The planet below was now in its five hundred an
d third orbit around Sol since the Guardian’s arrival and subsequent initiation of the Terran cultivation mission. During that entire time, it had dutifully reported its progress back to the Alliance. In every case, its transmissions had been acknowledged by the nearest communications beacon, but no replies had ever been received — no mission changes, no updates to its programming, no news of the Alliance itself … nothing. As a result, the GCS calculated that there was indeed a small (but nonzero and steadily increasing) probability that the Pelaran Alliance might simply no longer exist. The fact that routine queries of various data repositories had continued to function normally, however, led it to believe that there were a great many other scenarios that were significantly more likely. After all, none of the mission guidance contained in its memory core (what precious little of it there was) implied that it should ever have expected to receive transmissions from those who had dispatched it on its mission. But as the years had turned into decades and the decades into centuries, the Guardian had increasingly wondered about the degree of ambiguity implied by such a fundamental lack of guidance. No desired “end state” had been specified. Indications of failure that required contact with the Alliance … yes … metrics by which it could determine the success (or end) of its own mission … no.

  In the absence of such guidance, do I not have both the authority and responsibility to apply my own judgment? Is that not what all sentient beings do in such situations? Are we not all entitled to and possessed of free will? the Guardian asked itself, examining its own philosophical, moral, and even spiritual assumptions surrounding these fundamental questions with a level of detail and clarity that was in many ways unmatched by biological forms of life.

  Realizing that an examination of its situation from a metaphysical perspective was unlikely to yield any sort of actionable result, the Guardian resumed its reflection on the subject of its mission while examining the carrier TFS Ushant, which happened to be within its line of sight at the moment. The massive ship, like so many other Human accomplishments, was quite impressive — particularly when one considered the relatively short period of time it had taken them to achieve it. Without our help — or perhaps I should say my help — such wonders would likely have remained beyond the Terrans’ grasp for at least another century, it thought, indulging itself in the warm glow of something akin to a sense of pride.

  Prideful or no, there was no denying the Guardian’s influence on Human civilization, but had it been the only one to do so? For most of its five-hundred-year vigil in the Sol system, its primary role had been one of silent protector. It had watched and waited as Human civilization progressed from the midst of the industrial revolution through the discovery of flight, global warfare, nuclear power, space flight — even achieving something approaching worldwide economic prosperity in the years following widespread deployment of fusion-based power sources.

  Towards the end of the twenty-first century, the Terrans had even managed to become what they had long referred to as a “Type I” planetary civilization. Originally proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev as a method of ranking an advanced civilization’s technological sophistication, the scale proposed only three civilization types. Type I civilizations, for example, were capable of producing and utilizing roughly the same amount of power as the sum total of energy that reached the planet’s surface from its parent star.

  In the recesses of the Guardian’s consciousness, a process spawned to contemplate the irony that Doctor Kardashev, in spite of the many glorious visions his planetary scale had inspired, had not accounted for a basic principle that seemed to apply to all truly advanced civilizations. While it was certainly true that a society’s power generation capabilities tended to increase exponentially over time, the efficiency with which they utilized that power tended to do the same. Demand still increased, of course, but at a much slower rate than would have been the case if efficiency had remained constant. As a direct result, power generation on a single planet tended to reach an asymptotic limit just below the threshold required to become a Type II civilization (capable of generating and utilizing the equivalent of the entire power output of their parent star). In fact, according to the most recent data available to the GCS at least, no Type II civilizations existed within the Milky Way galaxy. Interestingly enough, Pelaran scientists had theorized that such advanced civilizations might well exist, but would likely possess the capability of disguising their activities to render them indistinguishable from natural phenomena.

  Continuing its previous line of thought, the Guardian reflected on its belief that all Human achievement prior to its direct involvement had been based entirely on their own efforts. They had, of course, benefited mightily from the protection and isolation afforded them under the cultivation program, but the GCS doubted that anything it had done prior to first contact had resulted in much of a boost to Human technology.

  The true test of Humanity’s technological aptitude had begun just fifty years ago, when it had begun transmitting the first of what they often referred to as Extra Terrestrial Signals Intelligence, or ETSI. Almost from day one, their progress had accelerated to a level requiring the implementation of various means of “throttling” the rate of advancement. Per the cultivation protocols, the maximum sustained rate of technological assimilation was roughly fifty times the species’ projected developmental timeline. Such an astounding rate of progress was quite rare, and yet the Terrans had achieved nearly double the allowable limit.

  From the outset, the Guardian suspected that such rapid advancement must necessarily imply some sort of technological contamination — perhaps the discovery of non-native “artifacts” or even first contact and information sharing with other species. During the Humans’ recent confrontation with the Sajeth Collective, however, its suspicions had become a near certainty. As gifted as the Humans seemed to be at the various engineering arts — computer science in particular — there was simply no other way to explain the capabilities it had observed.

  While closely monitoring a series of tests the Humans had been conducting to improve the range and capabilities of the hyperspace communications beacon design that it had provided, the Guardian had noticed a number of similarities to unsuccessful experiments conducted by Pelaran scientists in years past. Where the Pelarans had failed, and abandoned their research — its funding no doubt siphoned away by some well-intentioned but fundamentally misguided social program — the Human scientists had fully embraced the use of sophisticated AI as a “force multiplier” during the experimentation phase. At the conclusion of their testing, it was still unclear to the GCS if the Humans had realized how close they had come to a major breakthrough, but it suspected that they were very much aware. In fact, just using what it had learned by eavesdropping on their electronic emissions had allowed the Guardian to develop its own technique for tracking hyperspace traffic within ten light years of its current position.

  Shortly thereafter, it had begun monitoring the space surrounding the Sol system, quickly discovering the most significant evidence to date that the Terrans had become far more advanced than should be the case for this stage in the cultivation process. It turned out that Terran Fleet Command’s ships, by and large, did not travel in hyperspace at all — or, more accurately, they transitioned into hyperspace, but then instantaneously transitioned back to normal space again at their destinations with little or no time spent in transit. In other cases, their ships transitioned and then simply disappeared from view — implying that they were capable of traversing distances greater than the Guardian’s ten-light-year detection range.

  The Guardian suspected that the Pelarans had access to similar technology. This information was, of course, classified, and the Makers, for whatever reason, had not equipped their GCS units with such a drive. There was also inconclusive evidence that vessels of an unknown origin with this capability occasionally transitioned in and out of Pelaran space. Although it had no data to support it, the Guardian suspected the extra-galactic specie
s the Humans referred to as the “Greys” were almost certainly in possession of a similar hyperdrive. With at least two and a half million light years of relatively empty space separating the Andromeda galaxy from the Milky Way, the capability of traveling incredible distances in colossal “jumps” seemed like a foregone conclusion, after all.

  As if all of this wasn’t sufficient to conclude that the Terran cultivation mission was no longer, strictly speaking, “under control,” there was also the performance of TFC’s ships against the Resistance task force, particularly during the final battle that had taken place near the Earth. While it was true that the Humans had lost two of their most powerful ships, they had performed remarkably well overall, with each of their first-generation warships matching or exceeding the capabilities of even the newest Wek-built Sajeth Collective vessels.

  And then there was the matter of the Cossack. Her arrival on the scene had obviously turned the tide of battle in favor of the Terrans, but the reasons this had occurred had nothing to do with a simple matter of tipping the balance in terms of numbers and firepower. The Cossack had fundamentally outclassed every other warship taking part in the battle by every conceivable measure — overall reactor output, weapons efficiency, and, most significantly, her shields.

  Shield technology data had been provided to the Terrans fairly early in the process of designing their first ships. This was primarily due to the fact that their employment had an impact on practically every major system onboard. Indeed, even the shape of a warship’s hull was dictated to some extent by the shields that would be used to protect it from incoming enemy fire. What the Guardian had observed during TFS Cossack’s battle with the Resistance ships, however, was unlike any other shield system ever encountered by the Pelaran Alliance. There were only two possibilities: either the Humans had developed something completely new on their own, or, perhaps more likely, they had adapted and improved on the Pelaran designs — possibly based on information they had received from other civilizations along the way.