She would have parsed the suggestions from the Mars war god on the Nautilus, using her superior understanding of the humanoids aboard her ship and what each one specifically was capable of.
If she had short-changed that reality-check, it was the nun’s job to pad Mother’s thinking for her in the event Mother had to divert higher-thinking time to more pressing matters. The nun’s understanding of every humanoid on the Nautilus and what they could or couldn’t do—at any given time—was unsurpassed. She tracked battle fatigue and PTSD across incarnations, as her scientist soldiers transitioned from the death of one bioprinted body only to be reincarnated in the next. She knew what they could do better than the soldier scientists themselves. And if she pulled someone from active duty, her word was final. It couldn’t be overruled by Patent, or even Leon, for that matter.
Were the Mars war god, Mother, and the nun enough safety checks for him to relax the clench of muscles from the top of his scalp to the bottom of his toes?
Hell, no.
These were his people and that meant he should be calling the shots.
It didn’t help that the Nelson Mandela’s name itself seemed like a jinx. He was not a sci-fi writer, the one exception made to the list of Starhawk names. Patent could only assume Mother included his name in the roster owing to “the Mandela effect.” When talk first began of blurred realities, timelines mixing on Earth in the early 21st century, it was over the fact that many people recounted vividly Mandela dying in prison and his subsequent funeral; their recollections agreed with one another to a frightening degree. Even though in Patent’s timeline he had lived, been freed, and gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end apartheid. Patent sighed. If Mother is capable of in-jokes, let’s hope this entire affair doesn’t become another one.
But the teens had taken to the idea of the orb convoys like fish to water, and now he couldn’t talk them down if he wanted to.
So, let the games begin.
***
Patent watched from the bridge of the Nelson Mandela as the orbs kept their fighters moving about them so fast that they were doubling as shields, while firing at the enemy’s fighters being deployed en masse from one of the destroyers. The other destroyers couldn’t even be bothered to deploy their fighters for fear of crowding the battlespace and the Corsair fighters doing more harm to one another than to the enemy. And why bother for such a piddling enemy force?
The teens took the orbs in close to the destroyers. The orbs were virtually invisible, but the fighters buzzing about them looked like mating fireflies that were coming into heat ahead of the others, in the immense forest of metal represented by a single destroyer.
The orbs fired directly at the first destroyer.
They attacked in perfect synchronicity.
A laser emitted from the seam along the equator of the orbs. It was rainbow colored.
Patent had seen those lasers before. They didn’t just carry focused destructive power. They carried coded information, which allowed them to bypass the energy shield of the destroyer, the outer layer of the rainbow, a kind of translucent gold, meant to match the energy signature of the shields, so it couldn’t even be detected. The other colors were already hacking the destroyer’s chief AI, as well as the AIs overseeing various weapons solutions and war gaming. Those AIs would be analogous to the Mars war god on the Nautilus, and it really didn’t matter if the destroyer had more than one, with built-in redundancy to keep the ship fighting and in the game long after the humanoid crew had perished.
Patent knew it took a supersentience to hack another supersentience in real time like this. Humanoid brains—with thought amplifiers attached or not—didn’t stand a chance.
He posited the only possible solution: Mother had incorporated Peacekeeper technology into the orbs, turning their spherical shells into nextgen supersentiences relative to what the destroyer had on hand.
Patent could count the number of Mars-war-god equivalents the first destroyer had on board by the explosions taking place aboard it, as the hacked war gods were told to self-destruct to keep the destroyer and their sensitive intel from falling into enemy hands.
In another few moments the fireworks grew even more spectacular as the entire destroyer fed on the conflagrations rather than stifling them. That meant the self-mending, self-healing complex polymers that formed the destroyer had accepted the order of the Mars war god equivalents, propagating the fires instead of isolating them.
Skyhawk’s voice came over the COMMS of the enemy destroyers and the bridge of the Nelson Mandela simultaneously. “As you can see, we’ve already propagated the kill order to your war gaming supersentients. You would have lost all your destroyers already if it weren’t for the time delay on the execute order. We’re giving you the time to retreat with your fleet in check. The next step is up to you.”
Patent heard the dare in Skyhawk’s voice. Skyhawk was secretly hoping they’d stay and “play.” No doubt all the teens were.
Patent took a deep breath and held it.
If he could hear that in Skyhawk’s voice, so could the enemy.
“Careful, kids. Your cockiness will get you killed yet. You need just enough to stay in the zone. Too much, and it’s really just masking fear, which means you’re no longer in the zone, and with these kinds of forces you’re up against, you’re toast.” He didn’t dare utter the words aloud. He knew better from experience than to interrupt their group dynamic.
***
ABOARD THE CORSAIR ALLIANCE DESTROYER
“How much longer before we’ve undone the hack?” Overlord Rackus asked, barking the question at him, his drool arriving on Infil’s cheek ahead of his words.
“Another few seconds, Overlord Rackus. But we might want to take them up on their offer.”
Rackus backhanded him so hard he flew into the floor, embossed there so tightly he couldn’t wriggle or wedge his way out. His reinforced body had kept him alive but he wished it hadn’t. Rackus’s minions simply walked over the downed soldier to traffic their intel to Rackus and to relay his orders when he was through with them.
“Have all the destroyers release all of their fighters,” Rackus barked. “I want the enemy swarms so surrounded that if they fire, all they can hit are our fighters or theirs. Make sure our fighters are slaved to our war gaming AIs as soon as the AIs have undone the hack, so the siege tactic can’t be turned on us.”
“Yes, sir!”
The idiot, in his eagerness to carry out his orders, stepped on Infil’s head just as he’d managed to get it at least off the floor. The boot wedged it in tight again.
***
“I’ve hacked my way into their COMMS,” Satellite said, speaking from his mindchip to the mindchips of the other Alpha Unit cadets.
The visuals came up on the wraparound virtual screens on the inside of the orbs.
All of Alpha Unit caught the exchange between Overlord Rackus and Minion Infil, from the time Infil recommended retreating per Skyhawk’s recommendation.
“Why can’t I get anyone to call me overlord?” Skyhawk asked.
“I told you, you shouldn’t have shaved that goatee and moustache. The mangy look went with the long hair, made you almost Christ-like. Maybe then…” That was Reia. She was lesbian, so Skyhawk had dismissed the feedback on his looks as biased. But she was probably right.
“What are we going to do about that tactical response they have in mind for us?” Ariel asked over their shared COMMS.
“Those pregnant fish are dropping their eggs now,” Skyhawk responded. “Let’s send our fighters straight for their birth canals.”
“You realize that’ll just provoke them further?” Ariel said. “They’ll think the orbs will be defenseless.”
“Well, if we can’t kill them,” Skyhawk said, “at least we can figure out how dumb they are. If they’re all that slow, we’ll sic Omega Force on them next time.”
The others laughed.
“There are not enough fighters on our side
to do the trick,” Reia said.
“All part or the bait and switch,” Skyhawk replied.
The Orb fighters were on their way.
Moments later the retasked Orb fighters exploded in the regions of the destroyers where they were dropping “their eggs.” Not only the enemy fighters were instantly consumed, but so were the landing bays they were coming out of. Those destroyers would not be dropping any more fighters, not from those terminals.
“Think they got the point that the fighters were more than they appeared, to have that kind of blast effect?” Reia asked.
“If they didn’t just then, they will now.” Ariel laughed back at her.
A series of explosions took out the rest of the terminals on each destroyer from which other fighters were now coming out.
“Dope,” Reia blurted.
To pull off that series of devastating explosions, the fighters needed the cooperation of the destroyers’ various terminal AIs. Mother’s Orb fighters were just smart enough to get the terminal AIs to play along. The fighters’ complex polymer blend that shaped their hulls and every physical housing aboard the craft had many layers—one for the nextgen explosives, one for an AI at least up to the task of taking out an enemy galaxy cruiser terminal AI, and forcing it to send its transmissions to the other terminals for it.
“Now we wait and see how long it takes them to respond to the ‘unguarded’ orbs.” Ariel chuckled.
Satellite sighed. “No time at all, apparently.” He was looking at the same virtual screen as the rest of them in the other orbs.
Overlord Rackus had batted two minions out of the way the instant he saw what was going on about the destroyer. His command chamber was a complete sphere, a kind of planetarium, giving him a full three hundred sixty degree look at what was going on outside his destroyer. His operational consoles, the floor he stood on, even his minions, were transparent so as not to cloud his panoramic view of the action outside upon which he depended to make his command decisions. Of course, for the fishbowl effect to really work, that transparent orb also had to be made up of smart screens that could see past the blind spots created by the orb’s location on the destroyer itself. All of which suggested, Overlord Rackus was more claustrophobic than anything.
He was at a new terminal now, furiously pressing virtual buttons, pacing back and forth over Infil, who’d just managed to free himself, driving Infil back into his shallow grave, and making it impossible once again to wriggle free.
“The guy is pure mindless rage. He lets the anger control him and his decision-making completely,” Ariel said, observing Overlord Rackus snorting mucous and snarling drool over his control panel.
“He should take lessons from Cassandra on how to do that more winningly,” Reia chirped.
“Huh, that’s kind of cool. Who knew?” Skyhawk said gazing at Overlord Rackus’s countermove, being played now.
“Ah, I did,” Satellite confessed. “Sorry about that. I was studying what communiqués the destroyer would respond to when an overlord overrode the good sense of a war-gaming AI. And this was definitely on the list.”
The most proximate destroyer shapeshifted into a ring that enclosed the Nelson Mandala.
Worse, it magnetized the orbs to it.
The orbs rolled along the outer surface while it was studied by the AI making up the inside of the ring.
Seconds later the orbs had been absorbed into the ring itself, where the spheres continued to roll around the perimeter of the ring—only from inside the ring. The translucent aqueous solution through which the orbs passed was exposing the orbs to surfactants and chemicals synthesized on the spot designed to eat through the orbs, based on the intel that had been gathered earlier when they were rolling about on the outer surface of the band. The AI performing the chemical warfare was evidently immune to her own secretions.
They were getting the breakdown of what was going on from the Orb AIs, which did not take lightly to being under attack.
The orb surfaces had multiple layers of AIs, each one capable of directing weapons solutions it could manufacture and deploy once the nanite hives in its rind in “the onion” layer configuration was exposed and thus engaged.
But so far nothing those various AIs was doing was helping.
Or maybe it was, but it was working at a scale that was just too big for it, if it couldn’t get the enemy ship to cooperate in its own destruction.
And whatever this Aqueous AI was, among its other aptitudes, it had the ability to dampen such communications to the rest of the Corsair ring ship.
Skyhawk had made his orb transparent so he could see directly what was going on outside him without depending on the monitors. “You have to admit this is kind of cool,” Skyhawk said. “Have I told you lately how much I love my alien enemies? They really help me to get out of my own head.”
“I love a guy who can maintain a sense of awe even in the face of certain death,” Ariel said, oozing sarcasm every bit as acidic as the solution peeling back the outer layers of the orb.
“Hey, watch it,” Satellite blurted, “you’re also supposed to be dating me. Just a little helpful reminder.” He cleared his throat. “Um, now that I got that out of the way, I’d like to reiterate my apology once again, since this is all entirely my fault, due, I might add, to being in a similar state of awe when this happened. I’m not sure awe is all it’s cracked up to be in the middle of a dog fight.”
“Yeah, point taken,” Skyhawk said snapping himself back into genius mode and trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do to solve a problem that Peacekeeper AI technology couldn’t solve.
***
THE BRIDGE OF THE NELSON MANDALA
“They’re looking to see if we surrender,” Patent said, “how much torture we can take watching our own people being killed inside the ring. It’s the Nelson Mandala, which deployed the orbs that they want to get their hands on.”
He craned his head to the Blue. “Get my cadets out of there, and send a message that will get through to even this hard-headed Corsair lot.”
Soturi emitted a hellish outcry as she arched her head upwards.
She reprised the explosions of the first destroyer Alpha Unit had taken out, only this time, she didn’t let the ships’ superstructures propagate the explosions. Staying true to her orders, she had crippled all of the Corsair destroyers at once and their ability to make war. They were already drifting out of formation and into one another.
“Undo the ring now,” Patent said, knowing the Blue would forward his message for him, translating his words into the enemy language on the fly, even without the help of all the AIs between him and the Corsair Ring Ship. “Or your wounded birds will not be limping home. They’ll form a graveyard here, or, if you prefer, a museum where our people can come to marvel at your stupidity.”
It took the Corsair a while to react. Apparently the Corsair were stubborn and prideful even in defeat. But just how far did that rage color the thinking of the overlords? Some leaders just refused to be compromised in the face of their crews. If they were of that kind, they were possibly weighing their other options, such as killing the entire crews aboard each ship so the secrets died with them. That way they could make up whatever tale they wanted to their superiors, the overlords first getting their stories straight with one another.
The ring broke formation a moment later, returning to its original shape.
The orbs had been released and were already heading back to the Nelson Mandela.
And Soturi, who had evidently been reading Patent’s mind the entire time, showed him what was going on inside the destroyers. Apparently Patent had figured right about the nature of the overlords. They were massacring their own crews, even as the overlords fabricated their cover stories among themselves.
And the ring-morphing destroyer was already shooting tractor beams to the other destroyers, evidently intending to tow them all out of the vicinity. It would be slow going with a cargo like that. At least until the self-mending
Corsair destroyers, whose self-healing had been left intact, could bring the ships back on line enough to power out of the Gypsy Galaxy on their own steam.
Without their war gaming supersentients, and with all capacity for war-making shot, Patent didn’t expect any further problems from the Corsair, for now.
But as to them not holding grudges…
That was left to be seen. Some cultures, like the nouveau Vikings the Nautilus and its crew had encountered during The Star Gate mission, only respected fierce warriors that gave no quarter and showed no mercy. As the Corsair had been invited into the Gypsy Galaxy for war gaming purposes, on Leon’s invitation, in Patent’s mind, they’d gone as far as they could go to respect bold warriors who would not take easily to being played with, while still extending an olive branch. But that was his human brain and value system attempting to judge a defeat that only the enemy could judge for themselves.
Whatever their long-term response, Patent wouldn’t lose any sleep over the matter. He wasn’t sure he wanted the Corsair alliance as part of the Gypsy Galaxy Grouping, not after what he’d seen here today. Even if they offered to join up, he would recommend to Leon that he politely decline.
He panned his attention over to the Blue. “How in the hell…?”
Soturi hissed her reply. It definitely wasn’t one of the more comforting, set-his-worries-to-rest responses in her repertoire.
“We Blues can affect things at a distance. It is an option never to be deployed without clearance from a Rainbow Eyed one, who alone can judge the implications to the other timelines, and to the future of this one. However, as the Orb AI did the bulk of the work with the hack, and the effects we’re talking are localized to this area…And the destruction likely to be blamed upon further hacks…”
Patent nodded. “Nicely done.”
Soturi threw him to the ground and hopped on top of him. The Blues seemed to get sexually aroused in the presence of males they felt handled themselves admirably in battle, as he’d discovered back on Earth, during the Sentient Serpents mission, where he first encountered them.
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