by Shane Black
Hawkins thumped the side of her scope. “I’m telling you, this thing is getting senile. First it complains about mass readings being off. Then it says there’s nothing there. Later it complains about EM emissions. Then when I switch over to analyze them, they’re gone.”
“I think thumping on it is making it dizzy,” Ensign Jameson said quietly.
“These things are supposed to be military grade, right? Knocking on the side isn’t going to hurt them. Hey! There it is again!”
“What?”
“The mass readings. Every time we sweep the field, it should come back at 2.7TT. Sweep 1314 was right on, but then 1315 reports there’s another half a million tons unaccounted for.”
“Range?”
“I thought of that. It’s inside our perimeter, which means it should trip the proximity alarm here and on the bridge. But it doesn’t. The Navicomp acts like it isn’t even there.”
“You have to be sure on this, Brit,” Jameson replied. “Don’t start another argument with the bridge. They’ll lock us in here and turn off the lights.”
“See? Sweep 1316. Normal.” Hawkins sat back in her chair and exhaled heavily. “It’s like this thing is trying to get me busted back to mess hall duty.”
“Inconclusive readings. The bane of all junior officers.”
Hawkins snapped her fingers. “Wait a second! What about the battle computer? We can tie in a parallel analysis module and let it chew on the numbers for a while!”
“We can’t engage priority systems without a green light from the signals station on the bridge.”
“That’s only if we’re not at stations. I can order an emergency override from my console.”
“That’s going to get logged and show up on the XO’s board.”
“By the time they notice it, we’ll have our answer. If it comes back clear, I’ll have deniability. If it says what I think it’s going to say, we might have a big problem out there.”
“Brit, do you have any idea how many senior officers are in this fleet now? We’ve got more captains and commanders around here than a core base! Any minute I expect we’ll be hosting a golf tournament for a few admirals and cabinet secretaries!”
“Don’t worry. Everything is under control.”
“If the Officer of the Deck comes in here breathing fire I never heard of you.”
By now Hawkins was deep into her work. Configuring an override switch was not a trivial thing. All the little flags and settings had to be just right or the mismatch would trip a console alarm at the XO station which would bring high ranking dragons into the room in large numbers and at high speed. What she was attempting had to be done exactly right. Authorizing an emergency override was right at the extreme upper limits of a junior lieutenant’s authority. She had the power to do what she was doing. She needed to be sure she had the backup to take the responsibility if necessary.
There it was. 28 lines of command codes. The commit button glowed serenely beneath the console. Brittany hesitated for a moment. Then she realized her inquisitiveness might be the only thing between the fleet and a hostile contact. Lives could be on the line.
The scope quietly switched to an override configuration. No alarm. Hawkins breathed a careful sigh of relief. At least the command worked. A moment later, the battle computer engaged and ran its first six passes on the accumulated data. Hawkins froze. A reddish glow from the indicators bathed her face in ominous light. Ensign Jameson almost jumped out of her chair when the junior lieutenant leaped into action. Hawkins grabbed the handset from the overhead panel.
“Get me the Officer of the Watch.”
A moment passed. Then the line clicked.
“Bridge, Pierce.”
“Hawkins in Signals Section, sir. I have two unidentified contacts. Threat board is active and tracking. Targets bearing zero three niner mark two two, range three megaclicks. On oblique course and closing at ten thousand MPS. Confidence–”
The unidentified contacts shifted red on Hawkins’ scope as they vectored into an intercept track. Hawkins didn’t think or hesitate. She rammed her fist down on the scram bar. A high-powered klaxon alarm went off and the signals section lighting changed to a burning crimson.
“Belay that, sir. Battle computer reports hostile contacts designated Whiskey India Three, Whiskey India Four on intercept course and closing. Recommend alert condition one. Standing by.”
The intraship clear frequency tone sounded through Hawkins’ handset at the same time it was broadcast on speakers throughout the ship. Hawkins glared at the incoming contacts. It was one of the toughest scans of her career, but she had them dead to rights, and Exeter’s mighty weapons would have three million miles of room to engage them before they could threaten the fleet.
Ensign Jameson was as white as a ghost, but she had survived her initiation. She was now officially a member of the ongoing saga of Brittany Hawkins.
Ninety-Seven
It was at times like these Commander Jayce Hunter felt anxious. There was really nothing much to do. Her brother had made the right call with regard to the landing party and the crew of the Dunkerque. Rushing in to the minefield would put both the fleet and several senior officers at risk, and that was never the right decision no matter how urgent things were.
She could have taken a tour of Fury to check on preparations for the upcoming maneuvers and potential action, but her crew was trained to a level of precision nearly unmatched anywhere else in Skywatch. She knew her officers often got more than a little nervous when she prowled around, and Jayce knew it wasn’t fair to keep her people on the edge of a knife day and night. Strike Cruiser rules had to be followed, after all. Commanders belong on the bridge where the officers can bring them news when they have something to report. They don’t belong on deck 12 towering over the blameless able crewmen while petty officers frantically try to find someone of a high enough rank to ask the Commander what they can do for her.
Hunter had learned this lesson not long after taking charge of the Task Force at Gitairn Station. The moment she affixed that nine-star insignia on her collar, she became, for all intents and purposes, the Colossus of Rhodes as far as the rest of the crew was concerned. She commanded the same manpower as an infantry regiment: Sufficient men and women to warrant the leadership of a full colonel, but with about sixty times the firepower. She had to rapidly adapt to the fact she was still two big promotions away from being a flag officer, but was already flying her own flag. Regulations didn’t permit her the trappings and prestige of a Fleet Captain, Commodore or Admiral, but she still had the tonnage and gunnery to start a small war on her own authority. These facts were not lost on her crew, most of which were still decidedly junior officers with little or no line experience.
Where Jason was a shoot-from-the-hip captain, Jayce was a believer in preparation and basics. She was no doubt a “by the book” officer, but she still had the Hunter instinct and capacity for unpredictability. So far it had proven an often surprising but effective combination. Skywatch sent the brother in when they needed a touchdown and a victory dance. They sent the sister in when it was third down and a yard to go with the game on the line. The two of them together could produce either an explosive climb to new heights or total disaster.
Jayce sat at her workbench in her Skywatch Academy sweatshirt and workout pants. There were some who maintained DSS Fury was just a heavy warship built around a cybernetics lab. Watching Commander Hunter work, it would be hard to dispute that was exactly the case. The lab itself occupied nearly four thousand square feet and was equipped with shelf after shelf of well worn electronics equipment and components. Hunter’s machining facilities were frequently borrowed by her own engineering department. Tolerances on some of the more finicky mechanical components aboard ship were much easier to adjust with the right tools. Hunter used some of her heaviest manufacturing tools to build miniaturized components for her minibot designs.
Rebel, Wave and Butterfly had all been put into hibernation since their
encounter on Station 19. Lunar had spent some time on Exeter having a number of serious radiation burns repaired after the battle, and Echo needed to be resupplied and equipped with new batteries after she ran herself dark resuscitating the bridge crew during the Agamemnon engagement.
Acey shook her head as she surveyed her little platoon of automated helpers. There was no doubt they had seen some serious action. She was just relieved they all came home in one piece. Each one of the little wonders represented thousands of hours of work over the years. Having them turned into burning heaps of metal wasn’t among the Commander’s aspirations. Fortunately, they were all capable of defending themselves at need. However, there was still one piece missing.
What had started out as a plan to upgrade the capabilities of the original set of five minibots had become a project to invent the next generation unit. The devices had proven themselves again and again in combat, technical trials and even as a test platform for some of Fury’s battle drills. But the one thing they had always lacked was a ground-based pursuit unit. Lunar was capable of keeping up with just about any creature, vehicle or technology, but he didn’t have any lift capability and couldn’t use his primary weapons in most planet-side atmospheres. Wave did his best, but he was far more useful in or under the water. Rebel was tough, but far too slow. Butterfly had the same problems as Lunar minus the weapons and Echo didn’t have the defenses to deal with a true combat platform.
Plans to replace or upgrade Rebel went against Acey’s engineering instincts. Slow as he was, Rebel had weapons, defenses and engines perfectly balanced. As long as the fight was brought to him, he was the perfect anchor for the team. The other minibots couldn’t be upgraded without paying the opportunity cost of the capabilities they already brought to the group. So the decision had been made. It was time for minibot six.
Ever since she completed work on Echo, which was her second career accomplishment after Rebel, her colleagues and comrades had gotten into the habit of wondering aloud why Hunter would design robots to look like tanks, ambulances and helicopters. Why not a more modern design with more flexible and more interchangeable components? they asked.
Jayce’s answer had always been the same. Her minibots were fashioned into conventional vessels for the benefit of the humans they worked alongside. This way neither Hunter nor her subordinates would be confused about what role each minibot was designed to perform. Tanks fight, amphibious units explore the water, ambulances treat the wounded, and so forth. It was for this reason Acey knew her latest creation would bring the house down, so to speak.
Before her sat a sleek, shiny little police car about the size of a picnic basket: Built to the same scale as Echo. It was black with white doors, spider-silver wheels and a polished aerodynamic blue and red lightbar on its roof. Its tires represented the state of the art in materials science. It could theoretically drive over acid or molten lava for several yards without significant damage.
It was equipped with more electronic gear than any two of the other minibots combined. Jayce had set about more than a year ago to further miniaturize her vehicles’ power systems and had succeeded to such an extent that it opened up more than 20% of her latest robot’s interior capacity for more components. With careful work and even more careful avoidance of design tradeoffs, she had managed to reduce weight, increase engine torque and horsepower and even give the little unit an advanced electromagnetic array around its base that would allow it to literally drive up a metal wall and across the ceiling.
Even Echo couldn’t do that.
The Skywatch Marines had put “chase-bots” into use forty years before Jayce had been born. Their purpose was to follow infantry maneuvers on the ground and report their readings back to base. They fulfilled a role aircraft could not in the presence of anti-air forces at about one-eighth the cost in materials. Because of their ability to hide in the underbrush, they were also practically impossible to find, even from the air.
The difference between those robots and this one was the police car was equipped with a variety of weapons. It didn’t just settle for chasing you and reporting back. It had the ability to apprehend whatever it was chasing and keep it locked up until help arrived.
One advantage of being a commanding officer was that Hunter could authorize things a subordinate couldn’t. The weapons she had installed on her newest bot were technically against regulations except at the discretion of a ship’s captain. So the little car had been equipped with dual forward Laser Activated Conductive (LAC) guns, which gave the unit the ability to deliver a lethal electric shock at ranges of up to ten yards. It could also electrify its own outer surface, making it nearly impossible to pick up or tamper with.
It was his primary defenses Jayce was proudest of. The last ten percent of his internal capacity had been set aside for something he could spend all that extra power on. The new minibot had a cloaking device. He could literally hide anywhere.
Acey had simply taken what the Marines already accomplished and incorporated the principles into a unit that could engage and pursue enemies at high speed aboard ship or as part of a landing party. She had already authorized him with all the privileges of a DSS Fury Security Officer and exchanged all of his opcodes with Echo. He even had the ship’s crest and security designator painted on his doors. If the little police car let out a yell, Echo would relay it to the entire fleet in a fraction of a second.
His headlights, light bar, tail lights and front grill flashers lit up in sequence. The lights rotated three times before his little engine started. Jayce entered the last of his higher function release commands into her workbench console and transmitted them to his CPU core.
“Report status.”
A flood of numbers, letters and symbols scrolled on the console and ended with a command prompt. That was the pre-programmed signal all systems were functioning normally.
“Acknowledge standard pickups.”
“Hi Acey!” He revved his engine. The little blue badge on his hood just under the windshield snapped on. It was the same indicator as Echo’s little red heart, and would activate whenever the unit was in communication with Acey herself. A chittery sound like an electronic bird preceded two “whoop” sounds from his siren. That was the audible signal all systems were functioning normally.
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I’m going to name you Taser. You are now my security minibot. Affirmative?”
“Affirmative, Commander!”
Acey made a few more adjustments and was busy testing Taser’s suspension system when her commlink lit up.
“Captain to the bridge.”
Ninety-Eight
Annora Doverly reverently stepped on to the bridge of DSS Kingsblade. It was the first time she had ever stepped on to the bridge of a ship of the line as her skipper.
“Captain on the bridge,” Ensign Briggs said with a grin as he carried portable terminals past her. Doverly caught a breath. It was the moment all command officers work towards their entire career. Deep inside she always knew Jason Hunter would be the officer to grant her a first command. He had been guiding her career ever since she was a hotshot medical resident fresh out of flight school. He seemed to take great delight in calling her “doctor” long before she had the right to be so addressed. He also arrived an hour early to petition Skywatch command to assign her to his unit the very instant she reported for duty.
There was something about those fighters that called to her, and before she knew it she was under the command of a cocky razor-sharp lieutenant commander with a promising career start. Flying with Jason Hunter was like being on the winning football team every Friday night. He gratefully accepted his role as the larger-than-life object of myth and exaggeration, and the shadow he cast was big enough to protect all four of his squadron wings. Together, they had already accomplished so much.
And now, in her sixth year after graduating from flight school and only three years after she had passed her command battery, Annora Doverly had the fleet trif
ecta: The Search and Rescue insignia made her an elite specialist. Her Skywatch Wings made her a rock star. Her degree made her a section chief. And now her rank gave her command.
She couldn’t yet bring herself to sit in the captain’s chair. Kingsblade’s bridge was a good half-again as spacious as Argent’s. There were three helm stations, with the conn on a third level above the rest of the watch. The viewscreen reminded Annora of a sports stadium display. The white and gold appointments around all the instruments gave deck one the appearance of a heavenly temple built around a suitable throne for a leader of heroic men and women.
She absently examined the conn readout. Her designator was already authorized. The vessel’s command computer was keyed to her voice print. That in itself was enough to make her nervous all over again. Only a commanding officer had access to the command computer. It was like having a permanent telepathic link to the very core of a ship. She had the authority to issue literally any order from that console. The sheer power at her command was almost beyond her comprehension. Kingsblade had gone mano y mano with Jason Hunter’s flagship for an interval of nearly twelve minutes, and with the exception of a few dents and scrapes on the outer hull and the loss of a few antennas, this ship, her ship, was still operating at better than 96% combat worthiness. There were only 14 other hulls like it in the entire fleet.
The heavy battleship was designed as the counterpart to the fleet carrier. It was a true capital ship with a pure design. It’s function was as simple as it was lethal. DSS Kingsblade was intended to park itself in orbit over a hostile planet and bombard surface installations until there was nothing left but scrap.