Archaea (13 page)

As my hand moved on the final gesture that I thought would either vaporize this parsec of space, or energize our main gun far beyond
its capacity, I took a deep breath. 

“Full power, Aye.” I said with a voice that wasn't my own, and shoved it to the hilt.

*****

I watched the scene in front of me unfold.

It felt to me like I was about to turn a corner in everything I've known. No longer was I some faceless tech in the bowels of some million-tonner. I was deep in space, and about to watch this ship I've been pouring my heart and soul into over these past few weeks unleash hell.

Janis was hardly showing any higher-level activity. For her, this was easier than blowing up the rocks.

I felt a deep shove into my seat that increased until I could barely hold my eyes open. I could feel acceleration bags inflating and pressing into my back, absorbing my crushing weight as the captain kicked the reac drives wide open.

Even with pseudomass compensation, the
acceleration was fierce – still, it was better than the alternative. Without active compensation we'd all be a thin layer of pink goo coating the aft bulkhead right about now.

*****

I had a brief moment of regret that I wasn't sitting on my bunk at the moment, just a simple devil dog waiting for deployment, along for the ride.

When the crash bars locked around me, it was all the reminder I needed that I was in over my head.

I took a brief moment for reflection on where I was, and what I was doing - my eyes shut for an instant while I tried to remember everything I knew about what I was about to do.

I tried my best to ignore the sinking pit in my stomach, to blame it on the acceleration. I've felt this feeling before, many times, but I've never grown accustomed to it, and that's probably for the best. We are definitely ready to rock at this point, time to drop the socks and get to work.

My screen showed seven inbound targets, decelerating rapidly. They were inbound on an approach tangential to ours, closing on our starboard stern, and dumping waves of energy as they translated to match our current trajectory.

“Captain, seven targets inbound closing from five-o'clock-high at 12km/s, range 530km”, I stated this as a fact, calmer than I felt by far.

“Very well Yak. Shorty?”

“Can't hurt to stay safe, Captain.” Jane's voice was exceptionally small, the strongest reminder of imminent threat any of us might need.

“I concur. Yak, please raise contact with incoming targets, on all channels if you please, spread-spectrum.”

Janis loaded every panel I needed to screen but I ended up with nothing but static - the muted hiss of deep space our only answer to their intentions. This was shaping up to be another interesting day on the Archaea.

“Yep, it doesn't look good.” Captain Smith sounded calm, and spoke in a no-nonsense matter-of-fact manner that put everyone at ease, as if there wasn't the slightest reason for concern.

“Let's put a shot across the bow. Shorty, open
the forward port and get ready to fire on my mark. Yak, designate targets Masters 1 through 7 and make your target Master 7.”

I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head. Time stood still.

*****

The Archaea, lit now, hummed like a million-ton steel tank full of titanium bees. I felt my toes curl involuntarily. 

I looked around the fire control station and realized it might not only be the last time I see it, but this could be the last time I see anything.

Everything around me seemed to leap into articulate clarity beyond anything I'd ever seen before. Colors seemed to have additional spectrums of light, every granularity of the surface stood out in harsh relief.

I knew what I was about to hear.

“Fire Control, maximum power. Target Control, shift fire 1000m forward of Master 7. Fire Control, fire for effect.”

About damn time - here we go!

“Fire Control, maximum power, aye”, I said through clenched teeth, and shoved the slider to the stops until it clicked.

My station came alive with gut-wrenching harmonics. The steppers hammering frequencies harder and harder through focal rings underneath me made me want to vomit and scream at the same time, but I was prepared for it and braced myself on the crash bars as the world around me unfolded.

“Fire Control, firing for effect aye”, I said and pulled the trigger.

*****

In my time in command of service destroyers, I had a lot of experience with nova-class cannons, but even so, I wasn't completely prepared for the experience.

The Archaea did as it was designed to do. The ship shuddered briefly, and my stomach seemed to churn inside my body as a coherent wave of energy hammered into space. The massive beam, an actinic maelstrom of incredible intensity, blazed a hole through reality right in front of Master 7.

Our forward port was at maximum filter, but the afterimage was burned solid into my eyes. Anyone not prepared for that and seeing it unfiltered would have permanently damaged vision right about now. Of course, I didn't think our targets would have been so dumb, they were on the offensive tack, chasing down some fat merchant target.

Yeah right, not this time grommets!

“Target Control, report”, I asked, knowing and not looking forward to his answer.

“Target Control, Masters 1 through 7 appear to be fire-walling towards two-o'clock-high, away from us.” The relief in his voice was palpable.

“Very well, Yak, thank you.” Poor kid. It's not over yet.

“Captain, Fire Control, I am showing outgoing turret fire.”  Shorty's normally calm voice showing a bit of a ragged edge. This is just what we don't need, but not necessarily unexpected. If there's one thing I've learned, one thing that will never change – no matter how much has gone right, something always goes wrong.

“Janis, are you showing a malfunction in turrets at the time?”, I asked, with a sideways look at Pauli.

“Negative Captain, all systems are operating at 100%. I am operating both turrets on point defense mission currently.”

Point defense? Good call. We were hurtling through a remnant system after all. There are an awful lot of dangerous-sized rocks hurtling around this system, the problem compounded by the speeds we're attaining as we barrel towards them at flank speed.

“Janis, please remain at present material condition and assist with collision detection to your limit of gravimetric accuracy please.”

“Very well, Captain”, she said.

“Also, my dear – great job. Please remain on automatic for turrets, we have to keep close-in defense active for incoming meteorics.”

“Aye Captain.”

“Captain! I am currently tracking an increasing number of incoming bogeys from Masters 1 through 7”

“Very well Yak, what mass and speed please?” I said as calmly as possible.

“Sir, gravimetric returns indicate small mass on these targets but they are closing at 40km/sec. Collision vector, sir.” It was Yak's turn to have a small voice.

I flashed a ghost of Yak's screen over to my holos and watched as all seven ships launched a small cloud of long-range torps in their wake. Exactly what I would have done, and just what I expected. They'll go for a hull shot, and come around on a big elliptic to pick up any salvage left over.

“Very well, Yak”, I said, fighting to keep my voice level. I had to think fast, we didn't have much time to maneuver, and we were already burning pretty hard. A change in vector at this point would be difficult, but even if we did haul around on a new course, we couldn't outrun a long-range torp.

As Janis had just scored hits on a good number of concurrent targets a few moments ago, the only course of action I could think of was to engage the incoming torps with turrets as they came into range, and hope Gene's experiment with the Duron armor can stand off
the ones that get through.

They were fast movers for sure. No matter how I looked at it, some long odds were starting to stack up against us.

“Captain, reporting destruction of thirty-five inbound targets”, Janis reported efficiently – but I didn't feel the turrets firing. Yak shrugged, no mean feat against the crushing acceleration we were currently experiencing.

“Janis, please repeat that – at this range... Are you tracking fire on the same targets we are just now starting to track? Please confirm.” Another, longer and more serious face towards Pauli seemed to be what was needed here.

“Captain, aye. Confirming destruction of all inbound targets”, stated Janis.

“Sir”, interjected Shorty. “There's nothing on my screens here at this time except the 7 original targets, still accelerating away from us. Captain...” she trailed off, uncharacteristically for someone that always knows everything about everything, at all times.

“Shorty?” I asked, as the pause became pregnant, had kids, moved out and asked for money.

“Captain, the only way we could have done that is if Janis launched ordinance before they fired their shot. I can't calculate the odds of this—Captain, I am monitoring additional turret activity!”

“Janis?”

“Yes sir?”

“Are you firing before you have targets?”

“Negative sir. I am firing at solutions that indicate successful collision vector for incoming targets.” I realized I may not have been asking the right question, for the answer I was starting to see unfold in front of me.

“Janis, are you firing these solutions prior to the start of the target vector?”

“Affirmative Captain. I am currently preacting with an adjusted variance equal to the distance and current vectors of the retreating target, so that I may remain effective at ranged point defense.”

Ranged point defense? I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to kiss someone – luckily none of the present company met my normally lenient requirements.

Adding an extra amount of concern to my serious face, I gave Pauli an
extra-long look.

“Pauli, didn't you theorize this sort of thing was implied in the way Janis functioned? This is considerably more impressive than the microseconds you were reporting.”

“I agree Captain, but the fact of the matter remains that Janis is able to take advantage of capabilities we really can't even comprehend mathematically. I suppose that when we confirmed even a femtosecond of preaction, we should have extrapolated she would have access to more than that.”

“But this is simply fantastic, man! For her to make those shots, it's beyond fathomable how that could be done. The implications of that are... well... terrifying.”

A word I don't make a habit of using – but that was the way I felt.

Besides the unimaginable implications for tactical advantage this provides for the defense of the Archaea, a deeper, more philosophical concern made me feel like going on another beer-and-steak break.

“Pauli, tell me straight. If she can do this, doesn't this thoroughly refute free will?” I'll just go ahead and say what all of us were thinking. Part and parcel of my job, what they pay me for, is thinking out loud.

“Well... not necessarily, Captain. If they were committed to a course of action and Janis was able to track that, they may have still acted with all free will when they pulled the trigger. She didn't make them pull the trigger, in other words.”

A good point, though philosophical and not really what I meant. I know already this will force me to re-assess the way I think about the true nature of the reality we find ourselves in. I figured there's no sense in trying to make sense of it. It's always a smooth move to let crew members explain something for their captain, even if I may not always understand the strange clicks and beeps they answer with – it's definitely good for morale.

“Janis, please describe how you preact to external stimuli using as much detail as you feel I can comprehend.”

“Certainly sir. I am tracking a subjective reference to the limit of my sensor capabilities at all time. In this specific solution, I reference the moment when I will have succeeded in my fire mission, and back-trace it through to when the targets launched. From that aspect, I perform a number of simple ballistics calculations based on distance and movement vector, and initiate turret fire on mark to hit the target.”

In other words, she sees the future.

“Of course you do. That's impressive dear. Keep up the good work.” I decided now might be a good time to take a breather, and eased back on the throttle a bit.

*****

With engineering inundated with the viciously solid hum of the tokamak, my attention was glued to my console, watching levels and pressures, eyes orbiting around and around through my screens. Everything still felt solid, and while it looked and felt like Ragnarok in my engine room, everything was holding together, and my boards were solid green.

“Gene, how are we holding up back there?” the captain asked in a supremely calm tone, seemingly oblivious to the forces currently under his control. He sounded for all the world like he was bored with what was going on, and ready to head out for a nap.