Gods Dogs, Book 3

I am to misbehave.

Nathan Fillion (Firefly)

The human admiral was Raymond Schultz. He was in command of the defense of the galaxy due to his combat record.

When the Empire of Man began its move against the League of Worlds, it did so during a sustained period of peace. Gradual reductions in the space navy and marines cut costs and seemed the right thing to do.

The Empire of Man encouraged that illusion by subverting neighboring worlds into civil war. Then their navy came in to help in negotiating a peace. That included killing off rival politicians so that the Empire annexed the world with a consenting vote of the population.

League Intelligence identified the threat, alerted the Senate, and construction of new ships did begin.

Then, though a series of independent actions, some including Coyotes, the Empire of Man attacked. Commodore Raymond Schultz, undermanned and with a stripped down navy, began a brilliant defense of the League.

The other admirals in the Congress recognized his strategic genius and agreed to place him in overall command. At the moment, he was frowning at the holo-tank. It showed a real-time representation of the battle in space.

About 2,700 of the enemy capital ships and platforms were destroyed or neutralized. The other 2,300 were pounding his fleet with a more accurate by the hour barrage of mixed weapons fire.

He was taking casualties, but so far the defensive fire from his platforms was giving them a fighting chance. That would change when the distances between the fleets diminished.

The carrier-based operation was still ongoing in the enemy’s rear, but the enemy was ignoring it. The active ships of the enemy line moved relentlessly towards his.

“Computer,” he addressed the fleet battle A.I., “when will the carriers be free to flank the enemy?”

“No time soon, admiral. I estimate three hours before any of the ten carriers will be able to begin stage two of the plan.”

Schultz continued to frown. He knew he was now in a battle of attrition. Space battles were all about the set-up. Once engaged, there was little opportunity to mount surprise attacks. Indeed, the surprise attack at the rear, his opening gambit, had been only partially successful. The enemy may not have been able to see the smaller craft by their heat signatures, but they found them by watching for their passage across space, how the ships occluded the backdrop of stars.

It was an inferior form of tracking objects through space, hence the success they did achieve, but it worked well enough to make this battle a toss-up – a lengthy and costly battle of attrition.

“Admiral,” the battle A.I. said, “we’ve received word that a Coyote team has captured an intact command ship. They are in pursuit of the main enemy fleet.”

Schultz’s frown slowly turned into a grim smile. “Make sure we aren’t targeting that ship. If I miss my guess, our superior A.I.s are about to wreak havoc.”

“Message sent, admiral, but I don’t understand your optimism. It’s one ship.”

“The enemy only use NSAIs. If we now have their codes, the Coyotes’ sentient A.I. implants will be able to run right over those NSAIs.”

“I see," the battle A.I. said. "They plan to commandeer other command modules.”

“And turn those weapons it controls on their own fleet.”

“There is light-speed time lag.”

Schultz sighed. “I know. They will need to get close to make it work. I doubt the ship will survive the battle, but that’s what Coyotes do, computer. They find a way to win even if it costs them their lives.”

The battle A.I. didn’t answer. It did quickly review what the Congress knew about the Coyotes, and found agreement with the admiral’s assessment.

Then the A.I. said, “With a meaningful disruption, it should give the second phase flanking attack a better chance of success.”

“I know,” the admiral said.

River was saying, “I’ve sent off all the data to our flagship. I included how we captured this ship. I’m hoping somebody else can get another one.”

Quinn smiled. “I hope we have enough prize crews to man them.”

River chuckled, then she said, “Moss and Pax are patching up Murphy’s marines, and the repair bots are fixing our hard suits. They don’t have reloads for our backpack missiles, though.”

“Understood. How long to intercept?”

“Another hour.”

“What’s the intrusion plan?”

“Wait for them to contact us, then our A.I.s swarm in and capture their NSAI. We cut off their air to knock them out, and then retarget the weapons they control to pound nearby targets.”

“Any chance we can capture the ship?”

“There’s always a chance,” River grinned.

Their target was another lone disc. Its companion was apparently destroyed, but the ship they controlled was operational. The enemy strategy was for two command ships to follow their dreadnaught, battleship, or platform. One ship was the primary control vessel; the other was backup and primary damage control vessel.

The tactical plan Quinn devised was to target this configuration – a lone disc that they were coming to help. Once the enemy disc made contact, the cyber attack began. Once they controlled the ship, they would direct fire on the nearby ships, especially those that had both command discs in operation.

The captain returned to his chair and said, “My crew is running computer simulations. We are feeling more confident that we can fight this ship.”

“When they figure out what we’re doing, captain, they’ll send the cruisers after us.”

“With our armament, we ought to be able to handle a cruiser or two.”

“Yeah, but not a squadron,” Quinn pointed out. “River, is there any way we can enhance our communication with the fleet?”

“The carriers are half-a-light-minute away. The main fleet is a light minute away but getting closer. And we don’t have an ansible. So, no, we’re stuck with light-speed lag.”

“Okay. Let the main fleet know we will paint the cruisers, that I’m sure will be after us, for a missile attack we’ll ask for.”

River clarified, “You’ll ask for a missile bombardment on the cruisers attacking us. We’ll paint them so the missiles get a lock.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I can do that and define what our signal will be so the missiles know what to look for.”

The captain observed, “Won’t that put us danger close?”

“Yep. Can’t be helped,” Quinn answered.

“Okay,” River said. “The target disc is calling us. Battle-net ready. Here we go.”

River’s eyes closed, and she reopened the gate for the four A.I.s to flash through the comm link. There was no firewall in place this time, and they pounced on the NSAI on the enemy disc.

She watched from Becky’s point-of-view as the NSAI retreated. Before it could sound an alarm, it was trapped in its kernel.

The four A.I.s separated to do their work. Life support shut down with no alarms sounding. Targeting instructions were rewritten. After a few minutes, blast doors dropped, trapping the soldiers in their upper level barracks.

“Okay,” River breathed as she opened her eyes. “Minimum life support. They should all be unconscious. Targeting packages are prepped. They should be firing at their new targets in ten or twelve minutes. No alarms were sent.”

“Can we dock with them?” the captain asked?

“We could,” Quinn answered, “but a follow-on boarding party allows us to continue our mission.”

“That’s true. Let the carrier know.”

“Now we just hope the enemy doesn’t get lucky and blow up the disc when they take out the rogue dreadnaught,” River observed.

Fifteen minutes later, River reported, “Two cutters are inbound. Looks like Jolene and a bunch of marines with a prize crew.”

“Make sure she has the info for painting the cruisers.”

The dreadnaught, now under their control, turned its massive firepower on its nearby neighbors. At a fraction of a light second, effectively point-blank range, the fire was immediately devastating. Four capital ships went up in a blaze of exploding plasma.

“Recycling,” the gunnery officers told them. “We’ve got five energy beam shots per minute and eight KEWs per minute.”

“Carry on, “the captain said.

Quinn allowed himself a small smile. The captain was growing into his role.

The dreadnaught fired for almost five minutes before the fleet returned fire and obliterated it. A few dozen enemy ships were destroyed. River sent the disc racing at 3gs up on the elliptic to get clear of the damage, and then down to hide in the radiation and shrapnel clutter.

An hour later, Jolene’s crew boarded the disc.

“Target two, helm,” the captain ordered.

“Aye, captain. Course laid in. We’re accelerating to 1.5gs.”