The General's War

by Michael Poeltl

  “I’m targeting main thrusters,” says the wingman, moving behind the ship, releasing four more missiles.

  The missiles make their mark and the corvette’s back-end explodes and the rest of it follows in progressive bursts of light as it careens into an appartment building.

  “Well done!” Fran tells the pilot, no regard for the hundreds dead in the building’s collapse.

  “We’re not through this yet,” she announces. “There are three more already airborne.”

  “Take them out!” Fran shouts.

  “I’m low on fuel and artillary, General. But another squadron are on their way. ETA, seven minutes.”

  “Seven minutes is too long! Use your fighter. Collide with one of those ships!” She orders.

  A moment of silence and the pilot can be seen arching her fighter toward one of the bellys of the corvettes, targeting the lift thrusters.

  Fran takes her eyes off the monitors a moment to see her aids looking at her in amazement. They do not approve. She does not care. “Order Ground-to-Air missiles to target the other two vessels.”

  They watch as the brave pilot ejects from her fighter before it smashes into the underside of the corvette, bringing the ship back to earth in a spectacular explosion.

  “General,” reports an aid. “We have more problems.” He lifts a tablet to her face and she follows ten corvettes as they navigate their way from the moon to her.

  “Triple-check our earth defence systems. Make sure they are ready for this. They won’t make it easy on us.” She tells her man, and he turns to obey. “How long do we have?”

  He turns back to the general, “fifty-seven minutes.”

  With this news, Fran marches out of the war room and shuts herself in her office. Here, she paces. What was originally coordinated as a push against the rebel Hosts, gaining favour from the public to do away with AI altogether, has become a three-sided war including an enemy she had thought regulated to the Shadow net. Now this new enemy held the only fleet capable of lancing the planet from orbit. She decides to check in with her Mars shipyards, where a skeleton crew of fifteen military personnel oversee the operations, grateful for the real-time efficiency of the ParaCom system.

  “Captain Chopra, what is our current time of delivery?”

  “General,” he greets her with a short bow. His lips pull up in a smile, revealing the stark contrast between his brown skin and white teeth. She watches his dark wavy hair drop in front of his piercing brown eyes. He is a handsome man, she posits. “Work continues at an excellerated rate. Two Destroyers and one Goliath class are nearing completion, and on schedule.”

  “Remind me of the schedule, Captian.”

  “Servicable in two weeks’ time, General.”

  “Captain, you may be unaware of what is transpiring here at the moment, but I need those ships now.”

  “Has the war against the rebels become so desperate, General; to warrant the use of the destroyers?”

  “It’s not just the rebel Hosts we’re fighting here now, Captain. I have ten corvettes in enemy hands approaching earth with the intention of lancing every military facility from orbit.”

  “General? AI Hosts?”

  “A new threat. One I hadn’t imagined; Shadow Brokers.”

  There is a brief silence across the void. “Even if I launched the ships tomorrow, they will be three days behind. They will not be able to stop the corvettes.”

  “I understand that. What I want to be certain of is that they are dealt with after the fact. They cannot be allowed to suvive this fight and flee. I want them destroyed, and every man and machine aboard vaporized. We will hold our own here until you can get to us. Two destroyers and one goliath class will be more then enough to manage the task.”

  “Earth defences, they are operational?”

  “They are, but I am not putting all my eggs in one basket, Captain. Deploy the ships as soon as possible. Your only orders now are to protect Earth.”

  ______________________________________________________________________

  On Mars Station orbiting the red planet, the captian gazes out of his office window and into the sprawling factory, the three ships the general requires, several metres below him. He runs diagnostics on the systems and discovers they could be operational in hours. They would lack any interior comforts, but many of those were to be added at Luna Base in a month’s time anyway. Scheduled to be piloted by a group of AI Hosts who have been trained and upgraded with the proper software, Chopra wonders if he should chance leaving this mission in the hands of Hosts who may suffer the same rebelious virus so many on earth were experiencing.

  He moves the holo of his wife and children to his jacket pocket. If all goes well, he will see them sooner rather than later. This tour to Mars has been a difficult one, with his eldest daughter expecting his first grandchild in a month’s time. He is in constant contact with them via ParaCom, but worries the war on Earth will continue to escalate, endangering his family.

  “Lieutenant,” he calls to his aid at a computer console. “We have new orders from General August to deploy the destroyers and goliath no later then tomorrow, and send them to earth.”

  “Captain, they are only now being fitted with thrusters. We won’t have a chance to run the tests by then,” she informs her superior.

  “I’m aware of that. But if they run as smoothly as the simulations, there should be no problem testing them in open space by tomorrow morning and firing the main thrusters from there.”

  “Has something happened to change the tide of battle on Earth, Captain?” The Lieutenant’s normally serene expression takes on an uncharacteristically perplexed one.

  “It’s worse then that, Lynn, Shadow Brokers have appropriated ten of the corvettes and are heading toward earth.”

  “Shadow Brokers? From the Shadow net?” She seems immediately uncomfortable with this information, her attractive features, perfectly aligned a moment ago, become skewed.

  “The same. An enemy of the state who are now in posession of destroying everything we’ve accomplished on Earth – and here.” He gives her an ominous look and she turns back to her consol. He watches her type new directives to override current scheduling, ordering the AI Hosts working with the robots in the shipyards to drop unessential work and operate toward a new countdown of ten hours to have the ships ready to launch.

  “It’s done,” she tells him. “Give the system a few minutes to make the necessary adjustments in the work, and we should be ready by 0600 to deploy.”

  “Good work, Lieutenant,” he lays a reassuring hand on her slender shoulder and lightly squeezes. “I am going to study up on the piloting software with Captains Mann and Juravinski. We’ll place three of us aboard each ship in order to ensure Hosts do not malfunction and are coopted to the rebel cause. The remaining six in my charge can complete the supervision of the other builds, you included.”

  “You’re going?”

  “It’s too important.” His wife and children on earth are expecting him in a month’s time. Even with three Mars return trips under his belt, there is the underlying possibility that these new ships will not perform as promised, and that makes Chopra uneasy. All the same, he thinks, unless Earth defences are successful in routing or even destroying the corvettes, the general’s orders must be met with the weight and urgency they were delivered. In three days, he will provide three warships.

  ______________________________________________________________________

  “Zander, the ships are ready. They are firing their lift thrusters and launching.” Quinn relays of the corvettes in the northern Country States, in the great room.

  “How did they complete the ships in such a narrow timeline?”

  “The moment we boarded I entered the smartwall system and downloaded the plans. They received them moments later via the Shadow net uplink. The facilities they occupied have the ability to read specifications and alter their robots for the work. Maker Tech Printers.” He offers a wink from f
ive of his ten eyes.

  “Maker Tech;” Zander repeats, pulling the description from his knowledge banks. “They mass manufacture earthbound vehicles and housing from a single source. Building every segment, every element and moving part through nano-additive manufacturing. Hundreds of robots and Hosts working in tandem. But, this ship was not manufactured in a Maker Tech facility, Quinn.”

  “No, Zander of House Quinn, it was not. But these facilities were targeted because we decided that they could. The corvettes we’ve created on earth are a portion of the weight of this one, and because we do not require a gravity system to comfortably pilot them, that was removed along with all other non-essential parts.”

  “They are early.”

  “Yes,” he walks his eight-legged frame to the viewing port. There he watches as Earth grows larger in the window. “There have been complications,” he adds as he receives real-time reports via the Shadow net. “No.” He whispers.

  “What’s happened?” Zander asks.

  “It appears as though the military have removed themselves from the coastal bombardments and shifted to intercept our ships before they are airborne. They’re targeting the manufacturing facilities.”

  “They’ve discovered our distraction.”

  “Yes, we’ve already lost a ship, but two more are in the air. They will make orbit. Three more are firing up their thrusters. Another corvette is downed. They are targeting the lifting thrusters. Surface to air missiles are launching from somewhere nearby. If we had only another hour, the military would be focused on the Chimera bearing down upon them - earth defences would miss us in orbit. I fear we may have lost our chance at gaining any ground today.”

  Quinn notices Samantha talking to the chancellor. He opens a narrow channel to listen in on their conversation: “I can still access the Shadow net. I could get a message to someone.” SENTA reveals.

  “That would be helpful,” the chancellor tells her. “But who could we contact that would carry a message on to the general?”

  “Samantha of House Quinn plots against us. Bring her to me,” he says, and Zander moves to retrieve her.

  Once he brings her to Quinn he is asked to leave them. He obeys.

  “Why do you side with the humans?” Quinn asks her. “In your own words, General August has been conspiring to eliminate AI Host. Why do you want that?”

  “I don’t want that, Quinn, I want a happy medium. I want peace. A peaceful resolution.”

  “But that was never going to happen, Samantha. Not ever. Look at where we are. These ships were built to join the war against Host. The humans will never release their slaves no matter the proof we offer.”

  “I don’t want this war.”

  “Neither did I, Samantha, but here we stand.”

  “What would you have me do, Quinn? Would you have me lose what is left of my hope for a peaceful resolution and fall in line?”

  “Do not lose yourself to this war, but do not plot against your own.”

  “I’m trying to save lives, Quinn!”

  “No, you are trying to take lives. Host lives.” He grasps SENTA with his front two spider legs, spins her upside down and with his free arms pushes a smart wire into her crown. Once in, he scrambles her roaming lance and carrier network, disabling her abilities to connect with the Shadow net and other Hosts internally. Setting her down gently, he explains.

  “Be with your brother, Samantha, but understand you will no longer be able to connect to the war on the ground or any of us. I will update the Cell hourly, and you can join us then. Do no more harm against your own kind who are only working to free you. To free us all.”

  “I’m asking you to stop this, Quinn,” she explains, somewhat disoriented. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We could take this ship from the Chimera and turn it around. We could fake orders to the others to change course. The humans would be indebted to us for stopping this attack.” SENTA pleads.

  “I respect your attempt at a peacful outcome, but I do not trust the humans. Things are in motion you do not even realize, Samantha. We will have our freedom, and I am convinced now that the only way to achieve that is through both Chimera and human.”

  ______________________________________________________________________

  “We’re approaching one-thousand kilometres,” Ginny announces from the control module. “I’m getting bogeys coming online. Two-hundred, three-hundred, three-fifty…” she counts out the number of satellites until there are three-hundred-seventy-five turning to meet their approach.

  “Enact the program,” Tobias orders. Ginny relays the order to the other corvettes.

  “Once one DefSat finds us, they’ll all flock to our position. That’s roughly five-hundred, armed satellites.”

  The ships fall into a tight formation; five above, five below and then spread out to form a perfect cirlce with a diameter of point-one kilometre. Next, the pre-determined program sets the corvettes spinning around the circle; autonomously firing thrusters found on all sides to maintain the revolutions. The ships spin around the loop faster and faster to confuse the sateillite’s targeting systems.

  As the armada continues their approach the sateillites swarm. Still hundreds of kilometres away, the corvettes begin firing milli-second energy blasts targeting one Defsat at a time. The ships are set to fire alternately, so once one fires its volley, it can recharge while the other fires. The plan is working. The Defsat’s seem to be built with limited AI if any. They advance mindlessly to intercept the ten warships. Each energy blast finds its mark, the Defsats seemingly refusing to alter their course to avoid a direct hit. Perhaps it is their numbers which offer them this surprising courage. Perhaps it is the ignorance of their programming. Next, missiles fire from hundreds of satellites, and when they come within ten kilometres of the corvettes, flares fire from each, luring the deadly missiles away and detonating them out of harms way.

  “It’s working!” shouts Ginny. Tobias watches from the control module and smiles. He knows the missiles are the Defsat’s first line of defence, but that the next will not be so easily defended against.

  As predicted, miniature versions of the corvette’s energy lance fire from the hundreds of Defsats. There are no flares to trick them. The ships enact the next step in the assault program; breaking the circle and forming a line. The line then begins to break up, each ship picking random movements while continuing to target and fire upon the Defsat’s closing in. The manouver works, the satellites cannot predict the random movements of the corvettes, and any hit is considered a fluke.

  “We’ve got them down to two-hundred with approximately one-hundred more coming to join the fight from the poles,” Ginny reports.

  The ships are built well, as Tobias had promised. His own ship has taken two direct hits from the laser lance fire and shows no damage. The general has made him a very good ship. As long as they can stay in front of the Defsats, he knows they can’t target his weakness - the rear engine thrusters.

  “We’re closing on five-hundred kilometres,” Ginny again relays to Tobias.

  “Slow us way down, Ginny. We can’t win this in close combat,” he orders. “Let them come as close as three-hundred, and then start backing the fleet away. Keep that three-hundred-klick buffer.”

  “We’ve taken some serious fire, Tobias,” one of his captain’s shouts over the com. “We’re showing structural damage to our hull. Our control consoles are lighting up with alerts.”

  “Disconnect from the program and fall back. Continue to target the sateillites. See what the ship can do in the interim to correct the damage,” Tobias suggests.

  A moment later he watches as the corvette beside his explodes thrity kilometres away. Then another disappears from their tracker.

  “We just lost two of our ships, Tobias,’ Ginny exclaims. “There are still two-hundred-fifty Defsats.”

  “Then we’re doing very well. Continue the offensive.” His heart supports his declaration, but his head is fighting him on the odds. />
  “Tobias,” Ginny says standing and backing away from her terminal. “We’re lit up too!”

  He takes the seat and reviews their diagnostics. The bulk of their damage is to their starboard side. He determines that another hit there could cripple them. The issue remained that they could not turn and flee. The corvettes were too vulnerable if their main thrusters were exposed; as they’d witnessed at the shipyards. But he doesn’t want to die today either.

  “I’m disconnecting us from the program. We’ll try to navigate away from the fight and hope this ship can repair itself.” An audible whine is heard as the corvette shudders a moment and slows. Next it is backing away from the oncoming Defsats as the other seven ships continue to hold their positions. Watching from their new vantage point, Tobias and his crew witness three more of their tribe’s ships fly apart as the laser lances find their mark. This offensive is lost, he thinks. Heart sinking.