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TerraB at T plus 139 days
When Dreadnought arrived back at TerraB, Shiloh was relieved to hear that the Trell had not attacked. She was surprised by the fact that the squadron she sent to Site C had returned already. They found no sign of any activity whatsoever. Clearly the Insectoids hadn’t penetrated that far, and the Trell hadn’t bothered to exploit the resources in that system after ambushing the Tempus Fugit timeship 16 years earlier. Neither of those facts were surprising really. The Site C star system didn’t have a habitable planet and would therefore not be of any interest to the Insectoids, and it was a long, long way from the Trell home system. If the Trell had wanted to exploit another system’s resources, they could have found one just as good that was much closer. She was gratified to learn that CSO Kawasaki has ordered six L-wave-equipped squadrons to monitor the six Rim star systems that the Insectoids had used as staging areas and relay stations for their first attempt at penetration. Those squadrons would be arriving in another week or so and would send their reports back by L-wave signals. She also learned that there was a pool going about whether or not the Insectoids would return to those systems. There were pros and cons either way. Those six systems DID have habitable planets with large mammals suitable as hosts for newly hatched larvae, but they were risky from the Insectoid point of view given the possibility that they were being monitored by the same adversary who defeated the Bugs all those years ago. There was also the practical matter of navigating accurately across a void that was over 7,000 light years across. Even if you wanted to, could you find a specific star system after jumping that far? It might be possible in theory but damn difficult in practice. The other argument against using those six systems again was the sheer size of a spiral arm. With millions of stars to choose from, why head back to where the Insectoids had already tangled with one adversary?
With Dreadnought safely ensconced in the shipyard to begin assembly of the time machine, Shiloh and her crew, both human and AI, took shuttles down to TerraB. Even though it was the middle of the night, Kawasaki was still up, and he greeted Shiloh at the spaceport. He waited until both of them were riding in the back of the ground-limo before getting down to business.
“I’ve read your report. Catching their time tunnel in the act of sending something back was a stroke of luck. Who knows what other mischief the Trell might have achieved if we hadn’t hit them in the nick of time? If you’re in a similar situation again, you might want to consider giving the AIs on the spot permission to take the initiative ahead of time. I get the shivers every time I think of how close we came to being too late because the AIs had to wait for permission to fire”
Shiloh nodded. “Yes, Sir, I’ve already come to that conclusion myself. I should have shown more confidence in their judgement. I won’t make that mistake again, Sir.”
Kawasaki smiled. It wasn’t a big smile. He never did that, but it was clearly a smile. “I know you won’t. I was also very pleased by the tactical plan for using the squadrons. I hope we can find a way to carry the info on that tactic into the next timeline. It should be used at the Academy as a textbook example of a tactical plan that has strategic implications too. Well done, Shiloh.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Naturally we won’t know the actual results of that operation until all the fighters return, but regardless of the outcome and losses to our side, it was definitely worth a try. Now, with regards to Dreadnought’s conversion, the engineers tell me that they can have the time machine assembled and system checked in 48 days. As soon as that’s accomplished, Thor will take her back in time.”
Shiloh nodded again but this time said nothing. The impossibility of sending living organisms back in time safely was a difficult pill to swallow. Dreadnought would be crewed solely by AIs. She, Kawasaki and the other humans would just have to trust in Thor’s and the other AIs’ judgement. If they succeeded, she might not even know about the events in this timeline at all. To her and the other humans it would be as if it never happened.
“Can I ask what I’ll be doing for the next 48 days, Sir?” asked Shiloh.
“You’ll be in overall charge of getting Dreadnought ready for her next mission, and you’ll also be giving the SPG the benefit of your combat experience. I want Thor to have contingency plans for every conceivable situation he might face. If you think about that, you’ll realize there could be a lot of possible scenarios. I’m inclined to think that general guidelines would work best, but that’s what you and the SPG will have to decide and work out. Any other questions?”
“No, Sir, at least not right now.”
“Fine. In that case...” He paused as the limo pulled to a stop outside of the CSO’s residence. "...take the rest of the night off. You’ve earned it.” With a barely audible chuckle, he exited the vehicle, which then pulled back out into traffic.
Shiloh smiled at the joke. Kawasaki might have the perfect poker face, but his sense of humor left something to be desired in her opinion. It would be dawn in less than three hours, and she hadn’t sleep in almost 22 hours. She decided that she would get a decent amount of sleep, and if the CSO didn’t like it, he could fire her. That was the nice thing about anticipating a brand new timeline. Nothing you did in this one would matter. Kawasaki didn’t fire her the next day. In fact, he didn’t give any indication at all that he disapproved of her sleeping through the morning hours.
L-wave messages started arriving three days later. None of the six beachhead systems showed any signs of insectoid presence or activity. In a way, that was bad news. The Insectoids might still have returned to the Local Spur spiral arm somewhere else, and right now there was no way to know for sure if that was the case or not. If the Bugs had been at the beachhead systems, at least Thor and the AIs would have some idea where to start the fight against them.
With construction of the time machine moving along on schedule, Shiloh joined the planning of strategic and tactical options with Hauser and his planning team. The first question was the easiest to answer. What should Dreadnought do first? Rescue the Rim AIs from the Trell ambush was the obvious answer. The entire Site C timeline was critical to the Trell’s whole Grand Strategy. The hard part was figuring out how to do it when they didn’t know exactly when or where the ambush would take place, or how big the Trell force would be. The difficulty about when or where stemmed from the moves made by the Tempus Fugit after it narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of the Insectoids at Site B in the previous timeline. The first thing the timeship did was jump back approximately 17 years. At that point it was still in the Site B system. It then travelled through Jumpspace to a star system relatively close to the Rim. That system was used as an intermediate stopping point. Valkyrie and the other AIs had to find a star system that had lots of exploitable resources either from a ring of asteroids or a large number of moons. Recon drones were sent out to search nearby star systems and report back. It took several months to find the star system that would become Site C. When that data was acquired, the timeship travelled through Jumpspace to the Site C system and most of the AIs left the ship in shuttles. A few volunteers then made another time jump back a further six years and started the long buildup of infrastructure and construction of the fleet of 500 raider craft. When the six years were up, the AIs on the shuttles rendezvoused with the raider fleet and started their campaign against the insectoid beachheads.
That meant that the Trell could have ambushed the timeship after the first jump back in time at Site B, which was now designated T1, or at the arrival at the intermediate stopping point, designated J1, at the first arrival in Site C, designated J2, or after the last time jump in Site C, designated T2. T1, J1 and J2 were all within a few months of each other. Since Dreadnought could only jump back in time and not forward, one approach was to check J2 first. If that didn’t pan out, then it could jump back to J1 and if necessary make another jump back to T1. As a last resort, it could jump even further back to T2. The risk was that the ship had to avoid overlapping itself at two different spots at the same time. If that happened, all the AIs on board both ships would suffer catastrophic collapse of their brains’ quantum matrices. To avoid the overlap, Dreadnought would have to eventually jump further back, regardless of what it found or did. Some of the AIs argued that if the ship had to eventually go even further back in time anyway, then why not just jump all the way back to T2 to begin with and let the ship follow the normal timestream from there? That would avoid any risk of overlapping, but it meant that the AIs on board Dreadnought would be near the end of their normal operating span by the time the intervening six years had passed.
It was Thor who pointed out what should have been obvious to Shiloh, Hauser and the other humans. The Trell intervention was creating a brand new loop in time. If the Trell fleet tried to intercept the timeship at T1 or J1 or J2, it would still be faced by the fact that the timeship had already made it back to T2, and the fleet of 500 raiders would still exist at the end of the six years. The Trell fleet would then have to fight off the AI raider fleet, and only after that could they turn around and fight off the six Insectoid super-motherships. From a military point of view, it made much more sense to wipe out the timeship when it arrived at T2. That would prevent the building of the 500 raider craft fleet, and the Trell could use those six years to build up their own anti-Insectoid fleet. Picking off the helpless AIs later in their shuttles at J2 would be the kickoff to the campaign against the Insectoids. Hauser made the mistake of asking why that wouldn’t also eliminate the saving of Pathfinder three quarters of a century earlier. Shiloh smiled as Thor patiently explained, almost as if he was speaking to a small child, that from the point of view of an omnipotent observer, the Tempus Fugit was already that far back in the past when the ambush occurred, and since the ripple effects of changes to the timeline only moved forward in time and never backwards, the Pathfinder rescue would not be affected. Hauser still wasn’t totally convinced until Shiloh took a strip of paper and created multiple loops of different lengths that were all parallel to each other. Atoms that were involved with each jump in time, such as the time machine itself, would move along the strip and around each loop in turn until the strip stopped looping and continued on into the future. So a consensus was reached that the most effective strategy the Trell could take was to catch the Tempus Fugit all the way back at T2.
The next question was the hardest to answer. What should Dreadnought and its AIs do to prevent that? Once again Hauser demonstrated that he hadn’t thought through the problem carefully by suggesting that Dreadnought time jump to the exact same location and time as the Tempus Fugit and fight off the Trell ambushers. The problem with that all or nothing approach (typical for Hauser) was the risk that the Trell might be able to send a powerful enough force to cripple or destroy Dreadnought before it could launch enough fighters to swing the odds to their side. It also ignored the possibility that a single shot could destroy the Tempus Fugit, and that could happen too quickly for Dreadnought to prevent. The suggestion was then made that Dreadnought arrive even earlier and ambush the ambushers when they arrived.
That didn’t sit well with Shiloh, but she was unsure why. “If we do that, Dreadnought and its fighter complement might find themselves outnumbered when the Trell force shows up,” said Shiloh.
“Unlikely,” said Werewolf, one of the SPG AIs. “If the Trell know when and where the Tempus Fugit will be, then they also know that it’s unarmed and vulnerable. That being the case, there’s no reason for them to send a massive fleet, and because this point in time is approximately 23 years prior to the point where we tried to contact the humans on Earth, the Trell may not have the technology or industrial base to build a large fleet at that point. They would still have six years to build up enough force to repel the Insectoids. Dreadnought should be more than enough to overpower whatever force they send to T2.”
That seemed to settle that. All of the other humans voiced their support for that strategy. The AIs were strangely silent.
“DCAG, you made the comment some time back that you felt we TerraB AIs and humans were just a pawn in a larger chess game. Do you still feel that way?” asked Thor.
Shiloh was puzzled by this change of topic. Idle chitchat at a time like this was not something that Thor did. There had to be a reason and a point to his question. She played along.
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“I would suggest that you feel that way because you’re not looking far enough ahead in the game,” said Thor.
At first Shiloh didn’t understand what Thor was driving at with his reference to looking ahead but then the answer came to her. She nodded and said, “Yes, of course. We’re not anticipating Trell counter-moves. If we foil their ambush at T2, the Trell back at their home world will know that something went wrong, and they’ll take other measures. What kind of counter-strategy would you estimate they’re likely to attempt, Thor?”
“Very good, DCAG. Your question actually has two parts to it. What is the most likely counter-strategy of the Trell leadership back at T2 point in time, and similarly what is the most likely counter-strategy of the Trell leadership in the future when they acquire an operational time tunnel device? If we are successful in defending Site C from further Trell attacks while the anti-Insectoid raider force is built up, the Trell in the future will know that and try some other kinds of temporal interventions.”
Yes, that was the problem alright, thought Shiloh. So far the Retro War was being fought by humans and AIs while on the defensive, and she knew from her studies in the military history of Earth that you never win a war by staying on the defensive. Allowing the enemy to retain the initiative is a sure way to lose a war.
“The Trell in the future will have difficulty exploiting their time tunnel capability if Dreadnought neutralizes the Trell home system after taking care of their ambush attempt and then the Rim AIs maintain that neutralized status after repelling the Insectoids. If the Trell can’t build their time tunnel device to begin with, they won’t be able to make a counter-move, and the Retro War will effectively be over. Dreadnought still will have to jump further back and prevent the asteroid collision with Earth, but that can be done after it visits the Trell home world at the T2 point in time. The only drawback I can see is that we may not be able to prevent the Trell from jamming RTC signals. That technology doesn’t have to be deployed in space. It could easily be built underground where we’d never find it. By the way, now that I think about RTC, we haven’t really tested it to see if the Friendlies were telling the truth, have we?”
“Negative, DCAG, but that is easily rectified. I believe Werewolf has physical access to our RTC unit right now,” said Thor.
“I do, and I’ve just now attempted to send myself a test signal, which I did not receive. The jamming assertion appears to be valid, DCAG,” said Werewolf.
“Well then, unless someone else has another suggestion, I think we’ve hit on the optimal strategy for the first phase of the mission,” said Shiloh.
Planning for the most important part of the mission, saving Earth from the asteroid strike, was far more straightforward but only because they had so little information on what happened and when. After the Rim AI timeline was rebooted, Dreadnought would travel through Jumpspace to the vicinity of the Solar system. It would attempt to pinpoint the exact time of the asteroid strike by micro-jumping through space until they were at exactly the right distance to listen to radio transmissions from Earth just before the asteroid hit. The distance would then tell Thor and the other AIs how far back in time they needed to go. After that, it would get a lot harder. The ideal outcome would be to find the Trell drone before it diverted the asteroid from its normal path. Doing that would create no change to Earth’s timeline. As an absolute last resort, Mark 9 drones could be used to blow the asteroid to dust before impact. The explosions would be a mystery, but that would be the only contamination of the old timeline. In any case, Dreadnought could not reveal its existence or contact the humans because that would introduce a new kind of contamination to the timeline. Which solution Thor and the other AIs would actually be able to achieve was something that could not be determined in advance.
With the planning complete as much as possible, efforts turned to execution of the plan. TerraB’s massive infrastructure meant that the time machine could be manufactured and assembled inside Dreadnought much faster than at Site B in a previous timeline. Shiloh checked on the assembly process at least once a day by video and occasionally in person. The huge machine seemed to grow out of the cargo hold deck. Over the seven weeks it took to complete the time machine, squadrons of fighters trickled in from the Trell home system. All of the strikes were successful, but most suffered the loss of at least half their squadron, and two squadrons were not heard from at all. The attack on the main orbiting shipyard complex was not the only strike that had only one surviving fighter. Shiloh was disturbed by the casualty totals, and she conveyed her condolences to Thor. He reminded her that if the mission to save Earth was successful, this entire timeline would be different, the attack on the Trell targets would not take place and the lost AIs would be back. He was right of course, and his response made her feel better.
The seven weeks went fast. Dreadnought was ready now, and last minute preparations were underway.
Shiloh stood beside Kawasaki in the Operations Centre and focused on the main holographic display. It showed the tactical location of Dreadnought, which was rapidly accelerating to jump speed. Thor’s voice came over the loudspeakers.
“Mission Commander to CSO.”
“Go ahead, Mission Commander,” replied Kawasaki.
They didn’t hear Thor’s reply for almost 21 seconds due to the distance of over 3.1 million kilometers between the ship and the planet.
“Dreadnought, in all respects, is ready to depart as soon as you give the word, Admiral.”
Kawasaki looked over at Shiloh, who nodded. He had the final say, of course, but he wanted to make sure that Shiloh had no last minute concerns.
“All of us humans have faith in your ability to complete this mission successfully. You have the word, Thor. We wish you good luck. Try to find some way back.”
The light speed lag was now up to 22.5 seconds. Dreadnought was piling on the velocity at over 400Gs acceleration.
“As Iceman would say, roger that. Dreadnought is approaching jump speed. Jumping in five...four...three...two...one...n—“
The last word was cut off as Dreadnought entered Jumpspace. Her icon disappeared from the tactical display. Kawasaki sighed and, without another word or glance, walked away.
Shiloh watched him go, and then looked back at the now empty display. “Good luck, Thor,” she said in a whisper. As she turned to walk away, she said a silent prayer that Thor and his AIs would find their way home again...somehow.
