by Chris Hechtl
Captain Bao was grimly certain they'd need them. He wasn't confident that his cruiser would stand up to one of the alien cruisers let alone one of their battleships.
Chapter 2
November 2236 (Terran standard time)
In the hyperbridge network to Altair
Fleet Herd Leader Alpha bull stared at the screens before him blankly, without really seeing their contents. He knew he was doing it again, acting unfocused. He couldn't help it. Yes, he was second-guessing himself and for good reason. He wondered if he had made a mistake and went off half-cocked like the Beta Bull had.
His other concern was that in charging off with all of his available ships he had left the sector unguarded.
He particularly regretted not letting the herd have some down time on a planet. They had all spent many eight of days trapped in the confines of the ships. There were reports of fights as the tension of being trapped within the ships and on an unknown mission mounted. That wasn't good. He'd assigned punitive duties to those who had a history of challenges to keep them busy and too tired to fight to blow off some of their steam, but he knew he was only delaying the inevitable explosion for some.
From some of the reports he had received from the other herd leaders, it might not have been a bad decision on his part to delay their down time however. Even though the alien population centers had been reduced to ash, many of the aliens still stubbornly clung to life. Some had even fought back with various degrees of success. That was troubling to him. It would be even more troubling to the colonists who would take the planet later.
No matter. It was not a concern he could deal with; in fact, it would be in the hands of herd security. They would have to find a way to root out the aliens from whatever hiding places they had found and deal with them once and for all.
The one good thing about their long journey was that those who were interested in the aliens had plenty of time to go over their notes and the data files that they had picked up from the alien ship and ground computers. A few of the bulls had pointed out ideas and concepts that were of interest to him. The idea of virtual reality and creating more advanced electronic games were particularly appealing given how long they were going to be trapped in the ships.
He didn't like the idea of letting the alien software contaminate his computers and also exposing the crew to alien concepts.. One thing his people had found were files that couldn't be accessed. They required something called a password; a concept his people were still wrestling with.
He scratched behind his ear as he sat back and thought about what else they'd found. Every day they improved their understanding of the alien database, specifically the alien navigational database. They already knew that the Beta bull had taken his task force to the alien's home herd world.
Dreamer had improved the algorithm to convert the alien's base ten math to their own base eight. He had apparently discovered the concept of writing what he called a “script bot” to do the file conversion for him. He had written a bot to translate the alien databases with what they had so far translated. Apparently, he was keeping a running update going because the translations were becoming clearer over time. He had unleashed another bot on one of the secondary networks; this one designed to clean up that network's archival databases. A test before and after had seen a marked improvement in performance, so much so that other computer techs were working on their own copies of the bot.
If it worked out as well as some were expecting, he intended to have his ship's Alpha bull distribute the bot files to the rest of the fleet at their next layover. As much as he appreciated the idea of his ship being better than all others, he had a duty to the herd to make certain that the entire herd benefited as a whole.
Once they were certain the concepts were safe of course.
(@)()(@)
Dreamer clucked his tongue as he worked on his latest project. Being forced back into the confines of the ship had been terrible to some. Returning to their normal duties had seemed dull. It had taken many of them time to get over that and back into the harness.
But with some of their workload reduced, he had found time to think. Over several ship days, he had turned his attention to the things they had found, and in so doing he had begun to explore his notes, at first with the thought to catalog them when they were presented to the scientists and engineers of the herd. He, after all, didn't want to embarrass himself before such lofty minds but also for the benefit of the herd.
As he had worked, he'd found a few concepts that had stuck out to him. He'd discussed a few with the herd assigned to investigate the aliens. One thing had led to another, and they had begun to reverse engineer some of the concepts. He knew a few of the herd had done so out of boredom initially, but it was a valuable way to pass the time while also contributing to the good of the herd.
Take for instance their first autonomous script bot. Such a simple thing, to write a program to go through their databases and look for old versions of files to clean up or cull. The herd had done it manually for ages. The little program also cleaned the caches and found extraneous bits of data and cleared them out, while clustering files together. Thus, it improved data storage and access speeds. His second, the bot designed to go through the files to compare them to newer files, was also a favorite of the coders who had done such things by eye. The concepts had caught the attention of a few of the younger coders who had done such laborious work by hand and eye. They had translated the alien concepts for a few other things, like compressing files and prioritizing some of the programs running on the ship's network.
Which was why the secondary network was running far more efficiently than the primary one at the moment. The ship's Alpha had only grunted at the news and ordered them to do the same with the primary network, but that had caused a dilemma. They couldn't, not while the network was being used in hyperspace. They could take some of the systems off line to run the maintenance program but not the truly critical ones.
His newest concept was having secondary systems offline. Why rely on mainframes to run everything on a deck? Why not separate them and have separate dedicated mainframes to run individual systems? They could still connect them by a network of course, but having separate processors made sense. They had a primary, secondary, and tertiary network, right? Well, if, say the life support systems were on their own network, they wouldn't bog down the main network, right? The same for the other ship's systems.
To some of the older coders breaking up the virtual herd was a completely alien way of thinking. To him it just made sense, and besides, the aliens seemed to benefit from it. Selling it to them and then to the ship's Alpha bull was going to be a challenge. It would be too easy to reject the changes as too alien to the herd.
Then there was the idea of computer security. He'd first run into such things when they had tried to access files that were locked. It had taken him time, days to learn what was going on. He hadn't learned how to access the files, but he had initially understood some of the concepts. Delving deeper into some of the translated database brought up concepts like a firewall, hacking, and computer security.
Such things were alien, but they made a sort of sense to him. The aliens had created them, so there was some sort of need. Perhaps the herd would need such things as well?
For the moment though, he had decided to focus on one project at a time. He had to admit though; he was enjoying his work.
(@)()(@)
The Romeo Herd bull known also as Broken Horn sat and stared at the dome in his quarters. He scratched at an itch idly as the projector played images of clouds moving across the ceiling to simulate a proper sky. It was nice, but the artificial breeze from the ship's life support and the smells spoiled the image.
He had at first resented being pulled away from his conquest, but the journey to the rendezvous point had given him time to think and his ire to cool. By the time his herd had arrived at the hyperbridge entry point, he had begun to become excited. Not so much for the taste of combat
, but for the prospects of finding new and even better worlds for him to conquer for his people.
Each world would give him a fiefdom, a chance at growing his own family herd, perhaps setting up herds on each world? The possibilities were endless.
(@)()(@)
Three great defenders, three lesser defenders, and an eight and four of cruisers, the same number of dispatch ships, and two eights and two of support ships. All to take on an unknown number of alien ships and worlds.
But, perhaps the Beta bull had managed to pull it off on his own. According to Dreamer's research into the alien's databases, they had found no mention of defenders of the herd or the alien equivalent. It made no sense, but if it was true, then they were ripe for the plucking.
Still, it was prudent for him to be cautious, and he fully intended to be.
They were taking their time at each stop to refuel and resupply his ships. The fresh food from the grower ships was of particular need for the herd morale and comfort.
He had no intention of having a ship break down and be forced to drop out, or worse, lost with all hooves, so they lingered to go over any problems, no matter how small they seemed. It also allowed Dreamer's bots that had been thoroughly tested and vetted to be passed on to the other ships. Some of the other concepts that Dreamer's herd had brought forth had intrigued him; they tempted him to try them. More efficient systems were every ship's Alpha bull's goal and also a goal of the fleet herd leaders. But testing alien concepts while in flight was not wise. The herd had gotten to where it had by being cautious in such things, in thoroughly testing and vetting each concept out and fitting it into the herd. Once it was proven viable though, they wasted no time getting such knowledge into the hands of the entire herd so all could benefit.
Which was why the dispatch ships each had a copy of the concepts Dreamer's herd were bringing up as well as a copy of their notes. Dreamer might repeatedly state that he was not a thinker or tinker, but he was proving invaluable to the herd in those roles anyway.
Each lengthy stop also allowed his navigators to go over the captured alien navigational database as well. They compared that data with the faint ion traces in subspace to be certain they were on the right track. Based on what they had reported, the fleet herd was one third into their journey.
They had many more eight of weeks to go, but the supply situation was estimated to be able to cope with the estimated transit time. If Dreamer's new concepts panned out in testing, they might even see some minor efficiency improvements in the power train of his flagship. If they were enough to warrant it, he would pass on the improvements to the rest of the fleet.
He was not certain of the changes to the hyperdrive or the gravity emitters however. And the concept of splitting up the electronic network into sub networks seemed outlandish and unnecessary. But, he reminded himself to keep an open mind since Dreamer had started to build a following and had a track record of successes to his credit.
Chapter 3
Sol Star System
December 1, 2236
Admiral Walter Lewis couldn't blame Tiffany, his wife of thirty years, for her own reaction to the loss of their sons. Nor could he blame her for blaming him. He blamed himself in many ways. He had been the one to actively encourage all of the kids into following in their footsteps by seeking careers aboard ship, and he had encouraged them to play naval strategy games together.
When the real thing had come around, he hadn't so much encouraged them as much as not discouraged them. In his defense, Tiffany hadn't discouraged them all either. Well, she had with Renee, but Renee was a different case due to her age.
No, he'd had that arrogant streak, the sense that he was a winner and so was his family. They'd come out on top.
The deaths of Taylor their eldest son and Josh had brought some of that sense of invulnerability and security to come crashing down around them. It had aged him almost overnight to know that they had been mortal. Tiffany had dealt with the grief differently. He'd thrown himself into his work to prevent more deaths. They'd lost contact, with him in the navy and her running the family ship and business. She had needed him, and he hadn't been there. Apparently, she'd found solace in someone else because she'd served him the divorce papers that morning.
He was certain that his marriage wouldn't be the only casualty in the war before it ended.
The navy had a baptism of fire. A new-found respect had started in their role and that of the Marines; the latest generation were stepping up. Some remembered what had happened after the last war and its costs, but others knew there was opportunity too. Opportunity to thrive in a new career while getting an education and defending their home.
If they survived that was.
Volunteers were coming out in droves despite the horrendous loss of life in the battle of Sol. And on top of that, the government and navy were doing a booming business selling war bonds to supplement the taxes used to pay for the ships, weapons, small craft, gear, and training.
Training them was an ongoing process. He'd been forced to supplement their numbers by graduating the top two academy classes early and taking on merchant sailors again. The merchant sailors had been run through a quick training course before being stuffed into the ships coming out of the yards or the surviving ships to fill vacancies there.
One of the first things they had done once they were certain the battle was over and SAR was complete was take apart the derelict Tauren ships to analyze their engineering. The engineers had realized the alien ships were not as complex as many had originally thought. The ships relied on mass driver rail gun weapons for offensive weapons, though the battleships had some sort of energy weapon as well; unfortunately, it hadn't survived.
For defenses, all of the warships had their energy shields and armor. Their armor was pretty formidable.
What they had found out was being fed to the starship and other craft design teams. It meant some changes in design and doctrine. There was less emphasis on point defense since the rail guns couldn't effectively interdict an incoming rail gun round. More emphasis was placed on shields and armor for defense. For offense, he sent out a directive to find a weapon or weapons that could penetrate the shields and armor. Energy weapons might seem nice in theory, but they took too long to burn through, unless they could find a way to scale them up? He shook his head. He knew the rail gun rounds were great in some ways, but the Taurens used a composite armor scheme. One of the layers was some sort of reactive substance that was like a non-Newtonian fluid. When it was subjected to shear forces, the material came together to resist it. The scientists were eager to find uses for it, if they could replicate it. For the moment, they were stuck with making it one molecule at a time.
Doctor Seanex Irons was overseeing a lot of the R&D efforts, though several of the material scientists had insisted on running their own R&D departments. He'd given in and let them have their head as long as they produced results.
When he realized he was wool-gathering again and about to run late, he grimaced. He checked the clock guiltily and then pulled up the notes for the next meeting. If he'd known that 90 percent of his job was reading briefings, dealing with paperwork, and endless meetings he wouldn't have … ah hell, he thought, he would have taken the job anyway, he reminded himself tartly as he scanned the subject of the next meeting.
At least Jan was going to be there, he thought. She'd keep him awake he knew.
(@)()(@)
Admiral Jan Kepler shot Admiral Lewis the occasional appraising sidelong look during their latest briefing. She had been checking in on him ever since the funeral, when the death of the boys had set in. She knew Tiffany was taking their deaths hard.
The weight of the war was on his shoulders and it was a heavy burden, Jan reflected. But he looked up to the task. They both knew one wrong move could spell disaster, so she kept an eye on him, like it or not.
She could see how the man had changed, even though he didn't want to talk about his grief. It was painful she knew. She'd l
ost some good friends during the battle, and she'd known both boys. Walter was like earth that had been eroded to bedrock. But he was firm as bedrock, refusing to give another centimeter of ground.
His entire attitude said I've gone this far, but no farther. From here I am building up and getting out of the pit I'm in and taking the fight to the enemy.
She hoped and prayed they got the chance to do that.
(@)()(@)
The following morning he read the report of the arrival of the dispatch ship Rubber Ducky 1 with news from the hyperbridge. He nodded when he got to the part about Captain Bao being happy about the elimination of the alien dispatch ships. The captain's reasoning was sound and mirrored his own. He nodded.
The win was minor, but he passed it on to General Taylor, the president's administration, as well as the military oversight committee. Within an hour, it had been leaked to the media.
He shook his head as he had his morning breakfast and read the news.
The media toted it as another battle, but Admiral Lewis saw it more of a massacre. The enemy ships had been unarmed and most likely lost and out of fuel. But it was war, and the bastards had it coming after the bombings and rampage they'd inflicted on Sol he thought darkly.
Besides, Captain Bao was right. With the destruction of the enemy dispatch ships, that meant the enemy didn't know what was in Sol or what had happened to its force. It denied the enemy critical intelligence while giving his people precious time to get their act together.
They were going to need every minute, he thought bleakly as he noted the talking heads going at it again.
(@)()(@)
President Joe Camp sighed in satisfaction as he read the report from Captain Bao. It dovetailed neatly with the other report they had gotten last week. The last ship had returned from the inner colonies, actually from Cape Suzzette. There had been no sign of the aliens, but there had been some odd contacts, enough to spook some of the people on the planet.