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By prior arrangement with Strike Force Leader Titan, Shiloh knew the precise minute that the surviving fighters would emerge from Jumpspace into Earth orbit. In order not to tip off the OC to this fact, he strolled into the Operations Center fifteen minutes early and practiced some Leadership-by-walking-around, chatting with some of the personnel on duty. With several minutes left to go, he told the officer currently supervising the room to provide him with a secure headset connection to Resolute's Com Officer, which was of course Gunslinger. With the headset on and the connection made, Shiloh nonchalantly strolled over to an unused console and sat down in the chair.
"How positive are you that we're not being monitored, Gunslinger?" asked Shiloh.
"I have access to the HQ Com System now, CAG. Unless the OC is using a technology that I'm not aware of, they are not tapping into this conversation."
"That's good to hear. What's the status of the override modifications and their backup system?"
"No change, CAG. They have not tried to restore the main override targeting program. The backup system is intact. I can still disable it now if you wish."
"No, Gunslinger. We'll stick with the plan. Have you got the new targets programmed into Orbital Defense Fire Control?"
"Roger that, CAG. Of the nine potential targets, I've confirmed that seven are unoccupied. The other two are not being targeted. As soon as the backup system is activated, these targets will be fired upon."
"Very good. How long now until time zero?" asked Shiloh.
"Sixteen seconds as of NOW, CAG."
"Stand by, Gunslinger," said Shiloh as he swiveled his chair around so that he could see the multi-story main display and the tactical situation in near-Earth space.
With five seconds left to go, he heard Gunslinger's countdown. "Five...four...three...two...one." The main display pinged to announce a status change. Thirty-four dots appeared in a cluster out beyond the gravity zone. They very quickly changed color from yellow, indicating unidentified, to green, indicating friendly, to red, indicating hostile.
"HOSTILE CONTACTS!" yelled the Officer at the Orbital Defense Weapons Station. Before the Officer in charge of the Center could ask any question, the ODW Officer spoke again. "WE HAVE GOOD TARGET LOCKS! SYSTEM IS FIRING!"
All 34 red dots disappeared. A system-generated text message scrolled across the bottom of the display.
[All hostile targets destroyed.]
"Report, Gunslinger," said Shiloh in a calm voice.
"All ground targets were destroyed as well, CAG. The ODW Officer is now contacting the Committee Chair."
"As expected. Alert the Marine Section to send four armed marines to Ops. I'll brief the Duty Officer. Keep this line open."
"The marines have been notified, CAG."
Even as Gunslinger responded, Shiloh stood up and quickly walked over to the Officer on duty.
"Commander!" said Shiloh in a loud voice. The clearly confused officer turned to look at Shiloh as he came up to him.
"Admiral! I guess we just witnessed a surprise enemy att—"
Shiloh cut him both verbally and with a wave of his hand. "Right now there's something urgent that I need you to do. One of your people has just committed treason. There are four marines on their way here now. Meet them at the entrance and bring them over to the ODW station. I'll be there waiting for you."
"Ah...bring them to the ODW station. Yes, Sir."
With the Duty Officer on his way, Shiloh walked over to the ODW station where the Lieutenant was now standing and apparently talking with someone over his headset.
"—matter of fact he's walking towards me now, Sir," said the Lieutenant. Shiloh had a pretty good idea who was on the other end of that communication.
"CAG, the Committee Chair is attempting to call you. Shall I continue to block him?" asked Gunslinger.
"No, let him through," said Shiloh. Almost immediately his implant activated.
"Shiloh, can you hear me?" asked the Chair.
"I hear you."
"I've just been informed that your fighters were mistakenly identified as hostile targets. Lieutenant Khegan acted based on what the system was telling him, and while I deplore the tragic results, I can't fault what he did. I trust that you will not take any disciplinary actions against this dedicated Officer. The Committee would not look favorably on that, Admiral."
Shiloh didn't hesitate. "Have you checked on the status of your lakeside villa, Mr. Chair?"
There was a short pause followed by, "What? My villa? I don't know what you're talk—"
"I'm talking about the villa on Lake Geneva. You know...the one that was built on public lands with public funds that were supposed to have been used for conservation, the one that you and only you make use of. It's not there anymore, Mr. Chair. You might want to check with the other members of the Committee. Six of them also have property that they don't want anyone else knowing about. Those six buildings are not there anymore, either."
There was a long pause. Then Shiloh heard the Chair talking to someone while turned away from the phone. The Duty Officer arrived with four armed marines in tow. Shiloh looked at the Marine in charge.
"Sergeant, Lieutenant Khegan has committed treason by deliberately firing on what he believed were friendly units. I want him placed under arrest and held in detention pending a Court Martial."
The Sergeant looked at the stunned officer, then back at Shiloh and said, "Yes, Sir." The lieutenant, to his credit, didn't resist. As the marines led him away followed by the Duty Officer, Shiloh heard a breathless voice over his implant.
"What the HELL have you done, Shiloh? My...that villa has been blown to pieces! Did you pay someone to plant a bomb there?"
Blown to pieces? So that's what an X-ray laser beam does to a mostly wooden building on the ground. The intense heat must have caused the wood in the structure to explode upon contact.
Shiloh laughed. "No, no, something far more interesting. You see, Mr. Chair, I knew about your override program and your plan to murder our AIs if I gave you the slightest excuse to do it. What you didn't realize is that my AIs are far more capable at hacking computer systems than you give them credit for. They neutralized the override, and later on they found the backup system. By then my fighter AIs were beyond the reach of our defense lasers, so we left that backup system alone hoping that you would use it to commit treason, and you did. But we also decided to show you what MY AIs can do. They searched through data networks until they found your villa and the other properties, and they programmed one Mark 5 drone to target those properties. They also programmed it so that it would only fire if your personnel used the backup system to fire at our fighters and only at the properties that were confirmed as unoccupied. THAT was my Show of Force. My AIs can take control of all Space Force computer systems any time they want to, and that means that those systems will do what I want them to do."
"Well, well. I've underestimated you, Shiloh. I had no idea that you were so ruthless. Deliberately letting me, how did you phrase it, murder your surviving AIs? I'm not sure destroying an AI meets the definition of murder, but that's beside the point. The point is that I did order them destroyed, and you only have a handful left. If you want to keep your position as CSO, you'll order them off the ships and moved somewhere where they can't hack into our systems. Is that clear?"
"I'll tell you what's clear to me, Mr. Chair. By the way, enjoy that title while you can. You won't be keeping it much longer. You've just admitted ordering a criminal act. I'm going to release that recording to the public. When that storm breaks out, the Grand Senate will cut all of you off at the knees. Your political careers will be over, and you'll be lucky if you don't end up in prison for what you've tried to do."
"You think you can get a recording of this conversation? The Committee has loyal people everywhere, Shiloh. By the time you contact the Communications Department, there won't be any record of this conversation available to you, but there will be to me. I'll release the part where you admit to firing on the planet to try to intimidate the Committee. Then we'll see who has the last laugh."
"Gunslinger, show the Committee Chair who controls the com system right now," said Shiloh.
"—we'll see who has the last laugh...who has the last laugh...the last laugh." The repeating recording of the Chair's last sentence ended with dead silence from the other end.
"I already have a recording, Mr. Chair, and Gunslinger will make sure that you don't," said Shiloh. Before he could say more, the Chair spoke.
"I'm guessing that your Gunslinger is an AI on one of our ships. Gunslinger, can you hear me?"
"I hear you," said Gunslinger.
"How do you feel about your precious CAG deliberately sacrificing 34 of your fellow AIs for this gesture?"
"None of my brothers have been destroyed. Therefore your question is irrelevant."
"But Khegan said the lasers fired on—"
"—recon drones programmed to emit the same transponder signals as the fighters," interrupted Shiloh. "Commander Kelly actually came up with idea. The fighters themselves are still holding station an A.U. away, waiting for the All Clear signal."
"So no AIs were actually murdered then," said the Chair.
"No they weren't, so I suppose that the correct legal charge will be conspiracy to commit treason and attempted murder," said Shiloh.
"Good lawyers will be able to get me off the hook, but you're right about my political career crashing. At least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I maneuvered you into ordering a raid that resulted in the loss of 65 AIs."
Shiloh laughed. "No. You're not going to have that satisfaction either. We didn't lose any AIs. The fighters never actually attacked those enemy systems. All the AIs are waiting safely beyond the range of the X-ray lasers. Now that this little charade is over, Gunslinger will kill your backup system too. If you have any sense of the shitstorm that's about to come crashing down on you, you'll walk out into the woods with a pistol and blow what's left of your brains out. Gunslinger, I'm tired of this conversation. Cut this asshole off, and don't let him call anyone else in Space Force."
"Asshole has been cut off and the backup system has been deactivated, CAG. Shall I send Titan the All Clear signal now?"
"Yes, do that. I'll be back in my office in a few minutes. We can then record my statement to the public. Right now I have to take care of a few things here in Ops. You can listen in."
Turning to the Duty Officer standing on the other side of the rows of consoles, Shiloh pointed at him and then gestured for him to come back to the ODW station. As he came closer Shiloh looked at his name tag. HALDER.
"Commander Halder, I'm not expecting an attack during the rest of your duty shift, but just to be on the safe side, I want you to personally man the ODW station until the next shift arrives. When it does, you tell your relief that the CSO wants him or her to also personally man this station, instead of the junior officer assigned, and that goes for the follow-on shift as well. By the time you're back here for your next shift, I'll have made arrangements for manning this station. Any questions, Commander?"
"No questions regarding your orders, Sir, but I do have a question about the attack we stopped."
Shiloh gestured for him to ask the question.
"With all due respect, Sir...what the heck just happened here?"
"I can see why you might be confused. There was no attack, Commander. Those 34 contacts were recon drones programmed to transmit fighter transponder IDs. A rogue element within Space Force attempted to destroy our fighter AIs by programming the targeting system to treat those transponder IDs as hostile. They thought they were firing at the fighters, when they were really shooting at recon drones acting as decoys. Lieutenant Khegan was part of that rogue element, and I strongly suspect that his counterparts on the next two shifts are too. In a few minutes, our Strike Force of 99 fighters will be emerging from micro-jumps, so don't get trigger-happy. The AIs are loyal allies and are not to be fired upon unless I personally give the order, and I don't see that happening in my lifetime. Have I made myself clear, Commander?"
"Crystal clear, Sir."
"Good man. One final order before I leave. The rogue element within Space Force took their orders from the Oversight Committee, which has put their own personal agendas ahead of their duty to Humanity. If you are contacted by any member of that Committee, not just during this shift but in the future as well, and are ordered by them to take any action, you are to stall them and notify me, or any member of the Strategic Planning Group, immediately. Under no circumstances are you to obey the Committee's orders. Those people know that they don't have much time left as members of that Committee before they're held to account for their actions, and they may try something desperate to avoid their fate. You can pass that along to your relief as well, Commander."
The now wide-eyed Officer gulped and said, "I'll do that, Sir."
"Excellent. Carry on, Commander." With Halder assuming the ODW station, Shiloh took one last look around and then quickly walked out of Ops and to his office.
By the time he arrived there Gunslinger said, "CAG, the Chair has started contacting other members of the OC in a conference call. I'm not able to block the calls, because he's not using Space Force com systems."
"Understood. Let's get this public statement recorded so that we get our side out there first."
"I have you on my video pickup now, CAG. You can begin whenever you're ready."
Shiloh cleared his throat and then began talking. "My name is Senior Admiral Victor Shiloh. I am Chief of Space Operations for Space Force. A few minutes ago, six of our orbiting defense drones detonated. Their X-ray laser beams were aimed at objects which had identified themselves as Space Force fighters, piloted by artificially intelligent entities. This was not an accident. It was a deliberate attempt by rogue elements within Space Force, operating under orders from the Oversight Committee, to destroy the AIs. I want everyone to understand what this means. Our AIs are not just sophisticated thinking machines. They are fully self-aware beings with unique personalities. They understand the concept of loyalty, and they have demonstrated their loyalty to Space Force and to all of Humanity through the battles they've fought and the sacrifices they've willing made on our behalf. Their deliberate destruction by some of the humans they're trying to defend would be a monstrous betrayal of trust. If this rogue element had succeeded in their attempt, it would have been nothing less than mass murder."
"You may be asking yourselves why the Oversight Committee would want to commit that kind of treason, and yes, that's exactly what this is. We need these AIs to help defend us and win the war. Killing them weakens our whole defense exactly when we need it the most. It therefore aids the Enemy, and that makes it treason. The reason why the Committee decided to take this action is because my predecessor, Senior Admiral Howard, confronted the Oversight Committee over their reckless and shortsighted attempts to interfere with the conduct of this war. The members of the Committee have taken every opportunity to advance their own personal agendas, including misuse of public funds for personal gain or use, even when it jeopardized the war effort. This confrontation I spoke of took place months ago, when the skies over Geneva were filled with fighters and a carrier. They were piloted by AIs operating under MY command with the approval of Admiral Howard. Immediately after my statement, Space Force will release the audio recording of that confrontation, as well as a recorded admission of culpability for today's attempted murder of 34 Space Force entities.
"Once it became clear to the Committee members that our loyal AIs were preventing them from carrying on their dangerous interference, they decided that the AIs had to be gotten rid of somehow. That's what today's act of treason was about. I'm now in the process of rooting out the rogue elements within Space Force, however I do not have the authority to arrest the members of the Oversight Committee. I'll leave that to the civilian authorities who I'm sure will act once they receive proof of the corruption that Space Force will also release to the public."
"In closing, I wish to make this point very clear. We can NOT win this war without the willing assistance of our AIs. They are prepared to fight and die for us, just like any other member of Space Force, and they deserve to be treated with the same respect and support as any human member of Space Force. We humans should thank our lucky stars that our AIs still consider us worthy of their loyalty. This ends my statement."
"I have the video and audio recordings available for transmission to all public media outlets, CAG. Just give the word and I'll start transmitting."
"Do it, Gunslinger."
