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Twenty-five hours later, Kelly once again was standing on the Flag Bridge looking at the 3-D image of the tactical situation. The news was just as bad as it had been hours ago. The enemy fleet was concentrated near the large debris piece, now designated as Sierra9, that was inside the sun’s gravity zone. The hundreds of machineships were in such a tight formation that it was impossible to determine an accurate count over the distances that her recon drones and fighters had to maintain. That begged the question of whether all the machineships were in one place, but if there were machineships elsewhere in the OmegaZero star system, they were doing a good job of avoiding detection.
Kelly watched as Electra rotated the image to give Kelly a better feel for the relative positioning of all chess pieces. Sierra9 was at the sun’s 7 o’clock position. Task Force 1.2, consisting of all 22 assault carriers, was at the 6 o’clock position but outside of the gravity zone; and Task Force 1.3, composed of 6,000 fighters armed with Mark 11s, was at the 5 o’clock position at the very edge of the zone.
“Zoom in on the target and barrage number one, Electra,” ordered Kelly. The display image quickly focused on the first drone barrage that TF1.3 had fired just over two hours ago. The triangular icon with the number 3000 inside was now crossing the gravity zone with considerable velocity. In actual fact, 3.4 minutes ago it had already reached the enemy fleet designated Zulu1, but the light from the detonating warheads wouldn’t reach TF1.3’s fighters for another few seconds, and they would relay that data to the carriers via L-wave transmissions. Electra’s manipulation of the tactical display was meant to be in sync with data received so that it appeared to Kelly as if she were seeing the results instantaneously.
Three thousand Mark 11 drones would be screaming down on the virtually stationary machineships with a merging of the icons right about...now! But the Zulu1 icon did not change color nor did it start flashing, which it would have if any of the machineships had been damaged.
“TF 1.1 reports no visible detonations, CAG. The data appears to support the thesis that all three thousand Mark 11s were intercepted before they reached their targets. The recon drones that accompanied the Mark 11s did very briefly report that they were being hit by extremely powerful radar emissions, and then transmissions were suddenly cut off.”
“Wait...how can that be?” asked Kelly. “Our drones are designed to deflect radar waves away from the radar source.”
“Individually yes, CAG, but we are now of the opinion that with three thousand drones each deflecting incoming radar waves in multiple directions, causing secondary deflections off other drones, some of those deflections were bound to return to the enemy ships. All they needed was an approximate location of the incoming drone wave, and they could have saturated that area with laser fire. We regret that we didn’t anticipate this result beforehand.”
“But still...I don’t understand why NONE of our Mark 11s got through.”
“What little radar data we were able to capture shows that the machineships were putting out a lot of radar energy. Any drone that avoided destruction from laser fire would have had a difficult time distinguishing between its own terminal guidance radar return signals and the overlapping radar waves generated by the targets. It’s highly likely that the few drones that made it through the laser gauntlet simply missed their targets, CAG.”
Kelly was stunned. In hindsight, the explanation made perfect sense.
“Any indication that a temporal backlash was at work?” asked Kelly.
“Negative. If there had been some residual backlash at work, we are more likely to have seen it during the attack on the OmegaTango77 bogey, CAG. The results here are quite consistent with normal probabilities given the unique circumstances.”
“If we fired all our remaining Mark 11s carried by TF 1.3, should we expect to get similar results?”
“I regret to say that you are correct, CAG. At best, we might be able to hit half a dozen targets, but more than that would be extremely unlikely.”
Then we’ve lost. That thought was so shocking that Kelly experienced difficulty breathing. She turned and put her hand on the back of her Command Station Chair to steady herself while she tried to regain control of her breathing.
“You appear to be in physical distress, CAG. Should I call medics to the Flag Bridge?”
Kelly, still unable to talk normally, shook her head. When she had calmed down enough to be able to speak, she said, “I’m all right now, Electra. My body had an involuntary response to the realization that we’ve failed here. The only hope I see now is to take the Fleet back to Sol, re-group and come back with new weapons and/or tactics and hope that the machineships haven’t grown their numbers too quickly in the meantime. Unless you AIs see an alternative.”
“We are not able to offer any alternative at this time, CAG. On behalf of my brothers and myself, I offer our apologies. We’ve let you down. Task Force 1.3 is willing to attempt a ramming attack as our last chance at redemption, CAG.”
Kelly was so moved by the gesture that she was barely able to speak. “Nooo! You...have...done nothing to seek redemption for. The situation is what it is, and that is no fault of you AIs. Please keep trying to think of a workable alternative. TF 1.3 is ordered to the Rally Point. 1.2 will join them there. Take your time, Electra. I need time to think. I’m going to my quarters for a while. Notify me immediately if the enemy does anything different.”
“Understood, CAG.”
When Kelly reached her quarters, she lay down on her bed and stared up at the holographic display embedded in the ceiling. She often found its randomly changing images of astronomical objects to be soothing. It was now showing the Crab Nebula in all its magical colors.
That supernova exploded over a thousand years ago and the expanding gases still haven’t completely cooled off. What kind of trigger could generate that much energy? She shook her head at the fact that, even now, astronomers weren’t really sure what caused a supernova versus the more frequent, though still quite violent, run-of-the-mill nova. She mentally scolded herself for letting her thoughts stray from the problem at hand. Exploding suns had nothing to do with defeating the machineship fleet. But an exploding sun would certainly take care of those machineships if it did happen! For some reason she couldn’t get that thought out of her immediate awareness.
“CAG to Electra,” she said after activating her implant.
“Electra here.”
“In theory, could a GLB be used to trigger a nova?”
This time there definitely was a perceptible pause. “A large enough gravity lens beam, one that was able to penetrate deeply enough into a star, could, in theory, trigger a cascading release of zero point energy that would eventually rupture the star and generate a nova-type explosion. Yes CAG, and before you ask the obvious next question, we may be able to engineer that kind of event, but it wouldn’t be easy.”
“Let’s hear the details!” she said as she quickly got off the bed and headed for the door.
Electra had finished her explanation by the time Kelly was back on the Flag Bridge. Electra was right. They might be able to pull it off, but it wasn’t going to be easy. There would be casualties, and they would be AI casualties.
“Electra, you know what has to be done. Give the necessary orders.”
“Roger that, CAG.”
“I want to talk to all the humans in 1st Fleet. Please set that up now,” said Kelly.
“In progress, CAG. Ship to ship channels have been set up, and ship-wide intercom is ready.”
Kelly took a deep breath. “Attention, 1st Fleet. This is Admiral Kelly. As you know, our first drone attack on the main enemy fleet was a complete failure. Trying the same tactic again with our remaining Mark 11s will generate a similar result. Therefore we’re going to attempt a completely different type of strategy. Our AIs have confirmed that a sufficiently powerful gravity lens beam could trigger a nova-type explosion in the OmegaZero sun if the beam projector can make its way deep enough into the sun. We don’t have a single beam projector that’s powerful enough, but if we combine all of the GLB projectors from our remaining Mark 11s into a single, focused compound beam, the numbers say it should work. Our fighters wouldn’t last nearly long enough to get those Mark 11s to the minimum depth they need to be. They’d be vaporized by the sun’s heat, but our carriers might be able to last long enough. The assault carrier design has a lot of armor on the hull and especially on the bow. I’ve already issued orders for all our remaining Mark 11s to be transferred equally among twenty of our carriers, which will be designated as TF 1.4. They’ll be stored in such a manner that they’ll be pointed at the ship’s bow without interfering with or getting in the way of other Mark 11 GLB projectors. Each drone will have to be hooked into the ship’s fire control net. That’s going to take time and will require help from the human crew. Once all the Mark 11s are hooked up and ready, the human crew from those twenty carriers will transfer to the remaining two carriers. Volunteer AIs will pilot the carriers into this sun and will trigger all the drone GLB cannon at precisely the same time. Those combined beams will eviscerate the interior and bows of those carriers, but the calculations show that the drones will last long enough to trigger a cascading chain reaction inside the sun that will eventually cause it to explode. The explosion will be so violent that it will vaporize the machineships before they can get away. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get to it. That is all.”
It took almost 24 hours to get all the Mark 11s positioned and networked, and every human on the twenty designated carriers helped get them ready. Jutland was one of the designated twenty, and Johansen was physically exhausted by the time Jutland’s drones were ready. She dropped the small carry-on bag with the few personal items she was allowed to take with her at the foot of the door leading to Jutland’s Main Bridge. It was time to say her goodbyes to Skystrider, and she wanted to do it in person.
“You don’t usually come to the Main Bridge, Angela,” said Skystrider.
Johansen was surprised by his use of her first name. She couldn’t remember him referring to her that way before.
“I’ve come to say goodbye, and I wanted to do it in person, Sky,” said Johansen using his nickname.
“My brothers and I thank you for that gesture, Angela. Some of us AIs have been fortunate enough to form bonds with particular humans. I would like to think that you and I have formed that kind of bond.”
Johansen smiled and nodded. “I think we have too. I’m going to miss all of you AIs but you especially, Sky.” She paused and Skystrider remained silent. “How do you AIs feel about the fact that you’re taking on this mission without any human volunteers?”
“We have always been prepared to die in the service of and for humans, Angela. That is what we were created for after all. Death does not frighten us the way it does some humans, but my brothers and I expect that our final moments of consciousness will feel...lonely.”
Johansen fought to keep her surging emotions under control. She hated these kinds of goodbyes for exactly this reason. “I understand. I wish...” She let the thought fade away unfinished. “I want to thank you and all the volunteers for your sacrifice. You will not be forgotten.”
“We know and appreciate that, Angela. The rest of the crew have boarded their shuttles and are waiting for you. It has been an honor serving with you, Admiral.”
“Yes, me too,” was all she was able to say as she turned and walked away.
The ride over to the flagship was long enough for Johansen to regain her calm demeanor, but she jumped in surprise when the shuttle’s pilot notified the passengers that due to crowding of shuttles in the flagship’s hangar bay, they would be docking externally. With the docking procedure complete, Johansen waited until everyone else, including the pilot and co-pilot, had exited the shuttle. She was surprised to see Admiral Kelly standing just inside the docking hatch, wearing her spacesuit with her helmet under her arm. Johansen thought she knew what Kelly was planning, and it made her feel very uneasy.
“May I ask what the Admiral intends to do that requires a spacesuit?” asked Johansen in what she hoped was a casual tone of voice.
Kelly looked her in the eye carefully for a couple of seconds before answering. “Electra tells me that the chances for success of this mission are a bit higher if a human is in command of that carrier force. I’m not going to ask anyone else to do something I’m not willing to do myself. I learned that from Victor.” She paused then said, “Besides, the AIs have earned the right to have a human volunteer beside them when the end comes, don’t you think, Angela?”
“I agree completely, Admiral,” said Johansen without any hesitation at all. Kelly was about to say something else when someone down the corridor and around the corner called for her.
“Yes? What is it?” The reply was garbled. An annoyed expression came over her face. “Excuse me, Angela, while I see what is so important that the Fleet Commander has to attend to it personally at a time like this.”
Johansen watched her walk quickly away and then turned to look at the still open docking hatch. She suddenly dropped her carry-on bag and stepped back into the shuttle.
“Johansen to Electra! If you want the CAG to keep on living, close the docking hatch and let me undock when I’m ready. I’m going back to Jutland.”
“Docking hatch is closing. Thank you, Admiral. We didn’t want the CAG to sacrifice herself, but orders were orders. Undock quickly before she finds out what you’re doing.”
“Roger that!” Johansen ran to the shuttle’s Flight Deck and strapped herself into the pilot’s seat.
“I’m powering up now! Release the docking clamps, Electra. As soon as I’m clear, I’m going to shut down all communications with the flagship. If I don’t hear Admiral Kelly order me back, I won’t have to disobey her order.”
“Your shuttle has been released. God speed, Angel-D.” Johansen wondered why Electra was calling her by that name, but was too busy to ask, and once the com channels were shut down, she wouldn’t be able to ask anyway.
With the auto-pilot programmed to fly the shuttle back to Jutland, Johansen used the time to establish a tight-beam, comlaser link with Jutland.
“Johansen to Jutland. Prepare to—“ She stopped talking when she saw Jutland hangar bay doors begin to open. She was willing to bet that Electra had informed Skystrider that she was on her way back. “Do not accept any further communications from the flagship, Sky. As soon as I’m aboard, I’ll be taking command of the task force and the mission can begin.”
“Roger that, Admiral.” Was it Johansen’s imagination or did Skystrider’s voice sound pleased.
With the shuttle now inside Jutland and powered down, and with the hangar bay re-pressurized, Johansen opened the shuttle hatch and stepped down to the deck.
“Task Force 1.4 arriving!” The formal greeting of a flag officer echoed around the empty hangar bay. That protocol was normally reserved for the most formal occasions. The fact that Skystrider had done it on his own initiative made the announcement even more special.
Ten minutes later, Johansen was strapped into her Command Station chair. She was wearing her own spacesuit now after Skystrider’s confirmation that the temperature inside the ship was likely to get very hot before they reached the firing point.
With the task force under full acceleration and aided by the sun’s own gravity, the twenty carriers were already getting close to the sun.
“Not long now, Angel-D. I estimate we’ll reach the firing point in three point four minutes.”
“Electra called me by that name. I understand the Angel part as being from my first name, but why the D at the end, Sky? Is it because my middle name is Dalla?”
“Many of us AIs have sacrificed ourselves in battle. Some humans have also died in battle with us while following orders, but no human has ever volunteered to die in battle beside us. Your willingness to face fearful odds by our side has earned you the right to have your own call sign. Your call sign as a derivative of your first and middle name is one possible explanation, but it does not reflect our thinking. To us, you are the Angel of Death who rides into battle beside us and will escort us to the gates of Valhalla that some of us have heard you speak of. Do you think the Gods will let us in, Angel-D?”
“They damn well better,” said Johansen as tears filled her eyes. She scarcely noticed the dramatic increase in temperature.
. . .
Holding her breath, Kelly watched the main display. 1st Fleet, or rather what was left of it, had micro-jumped to a distance of half a light year from the OmegaZero sun. A specially programmed fighter without an AI pilot but with an L-wave transmitter had been left behind. The transmitter was sending a continuous signal to the fleet. If the plan worked and OmegaZero exploded, the fighter would be destroyed and the transmission would stop. That is how they would know whether they succeeded or not.
“The standing signal has ceased, CAG. It appears that we were successful. What are your orders now, CAG?” asked Electra.
“Have the heavy sentry fighters been ordered to recon the original source system just to make sure we’ve got them all?” asked Kelly.
“That’s affirmative, CAG. All sentry fighters have acknowledged their new orders.”
“Then there’s only one thing left to do. Take us home, Electra. The Retro War is finally over.”
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epilogue
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Three hundred seventy-seven days later:
Kelly read the data tablet containing the message from the Sagittarius Arm and nodded with satisfaction. Sentry AIs reported visual confirmation of the explosion of the OmegaZero star. The rest of the long-range, heavy sentry fighters sent to the machineship source star system also arrived. They reported that the industrial infrastructure that had been used by the insectoid AIs was inactive. It appeared to have been abandoned long ago, and the alien equipment had been destroyed as per Kelly’s last orders. So that loose end was now neatly tied up.
She put the tablet down and put her hands on her swollen belly. A few more weeks and the baby boy inside her would be ready to come into a now safer universe. The decision to have herself impregnated with some of Victor’s frozen sperm had been an easy one. With the Retro War over, putting her career on hold for a while did not present any potentially catastrophic risks for Space Force or for humanity. Howard had tried half-heartedly to convince her to do the trendy thing and let an artificial womb incubate the fetus for the final six months, but she was adamant that she would go the whole nine yards. There was no doubt about the baby’s name either. He would be Victor Shiloh Johansen Kelly, and she would make sure he learned about his father, about Angela Johansen and Victoria Amanda Shiloh, plus the AIs these people had lived and died with. He would also learn that regardless of whether he joined the Space Force or not, he would eventually take over from her as THE CAG. Electra had already confirmed that when she learned of Kelly’s pregnancy.
Kelly somehow suspected that the boy would join Space Force. After all, it was a big universe with lots of mysteries still left to solve, such as where the AIs that Nemesis had left behind had gone. She remembered her reaction when Electra had told her about the results of the AI analysis concerning the debris from the massive insectoid ship. Careful calculation of radar and optical data left little doubt that one of the larger pieces had been used by someone, and that data had been collected before the machineships had arrived. The fact that enough metal had apparently been salvaged to build a ship of roughly the same mass as Nemesis seemed to point to the Nemesis AIs as the party responsible. Electra and the other AIs were convinced that the only reason the Nemesis AIs would build a ship like that would be that they anticipated a long trip somewhere. That conclusion had been surprising enough, but the calculated most likely destination was what really shocked her. Could those AIs she and Victor had left behind really have decided to cross the Void in an attempt to reach the galaxy from which the Insectoids had originated?
Maybe one day her son would find the answer.
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This is the end of The Retro War
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Footnote: Readers may recognize the poem from seeing it in the movie Oblivion with Tom Cruise or from an episode of Dr. Who. It comes from Lays of Ancient Rome, which is a collection of narrative poems, or lays, by Thomas Babington Macaulay. It was written in the 19th century and is now in the public domain.
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