The piece below is Chapter 3. For the Prologue and the first two Chapters, see the earlier post. I announce my debt to Anton Savage, and am grateful that he
has agreed to allow me to dabble in his story-verse.
Thanx, Anton! And may any who threaten you wear lead.
jim
++++++++++++++++++
Chapter 3 - It Begins
---- HMSS Dakulavitch
Commodore Anne Tonne considered the dire display with no outward sign of emotion, but her left hand had crept of its own volition onto the great girder, and her finger tips silently traced one edge of the gold "W", the first of the letters etched so very deeply and decisively into the iridium alloy beam.
"Time to clear for action, Commodore."
This would have been profound and intolerable impudence, even insubordination, except that the words had emanated from an ethereally-translucent figure that had just appeared at her side.
"Yes, GrandAdmiral," Tonne replied, somehow not surprised. She had seen the image once before - very, very briefly - at the change of command ceremony nearly three standard years ago. The faint figure had glanced at the relieved CO, then at Tonne, then nodded to the Monarch, and was gone. Total elapsed time under three seconds. Just long enough for goose bumps the size of coins to erupt over half her body.
"Clear for action," Tonne commanded. She had no time for goose bumps now, and did not even notice the figure disappear.
"Clear for action, aye." This was far sooner than doctrine but no one, of course, would question her decision. Just as she had not questioned it.
Warning horns began to hoot and lights to blink. They continued for ten seconds - she had not included "Immediate" or a similar emergency qualifier in her order. The deck and the girder began to vibrate, then, as the ship began to reconfigure. First, gravitational transients evacuated all non-combatant volumes, then hull sections and volumes began their stately migrations.
---- TSS Paris
The Tarran Naval Consul himself occupied the command chair aboard the fleet flagship. The choice had been obvious, as every quantum-capable warhull in the entire Tarran system had been pressed into service and into this desperate fleet. Every other hull had been seized and stuffed solid with evacuating civilians. Incoming empties continued to trickle in, all owned or commandeered or simply hijacked by out-system Tarrans intent on heroism. Every hour he could buy ….
"Consul, Dakulavitch clearing for action." The information lag on the links was milliseconds at this range.
The Commodore commanding the Gryphonian antique was game, even eager, no doubt about it. Screens showed the great hull gradually begin to disappear.
"Admiral," the Consul began. "Why so soon?"
"Sir, I cannot be certain, of course," the tall man in the formal epaulettes replied. The Consul nodded him to continue. "But it could be the age of their systems …."
"But it might not be that?"
"Yes, sir, but there's nothing on the link. Sir, I see no harm in it." Other than make everyone spend not their last hour in relative misery but their last two hours, he did not add that. Instead, "Recommend we clear for action."
"Admiral, clear the fleet for action."
The Consul continued to watch the Dakulavitch, that screen a welcome distraction from the incoming horror filling all the others. Soon, however, the show was over. Gone were the hull slabs, the surface tankages, the many bays and housings. All that remained visible to the naked eye were the weapons and control modules atop stacked, truncated conical sections, and occasional glints what appeared to be fine netting tracing approximately where the inner hull skin had been. His eye could not quite focus on the center of the enclosed sphere of space.
The true Dakulavitch stood revealed: a soap bubble, with tiny flecks of matter speckling the surface, at its core perhaps the mightiest portable black hole in human space.
---- TSS Lances
The three Lances continued their odd, nearly crab-wise advance towards the vast alien armada that their navy called simply a Gamma-4. They constantly shifted positions within their formations and altered their vectors in a random choreography made possible only through the tightly supervised GT link. The AIs of all two dozen craft had been continuously flexing multiple gravitational lenses with their tiny black holes long before there had been any risk of enemy attack. They were all expending tactical masses at a prodigious rate, but they would get only one attack.
Come right down to it, they were all expendable masses. And come down to it they surely would.
Among the masses they were expending right now were irregular granite, basalt, or pumice shells filled with hydrogen compressed into an engineered substrate at the base of thick, radiating, optically transparent fibers. The objects contained almost no metal with no two the same mass so as to delay classification. The AIs and GravTechs were using their black holes to sling the masses randomly, deftly incorporating the resulting momentum transfers into the evasion patterns.
"Commander, second set away," reported Roche. "Flag has acknowledged." Only one set remained.
"Understood," Croix replied. "Lance leader, Lance-3 second set away. Data packet transmitted and acknowledged."
"All Lances," Reneall began, "Initiate ripple sequence Charlie, on my mark."
Moments later, the Lances again changed their base vector, and evasion pattern.
"Initiate third set on my mark." They were seconds away from the outer edge of what the AI caucus had predicted to be the likely extreme range for the alien war systems. They would have to penetrate deep into that envelope for their own attack.
"GravTechs - mass per mass transmittal," the military loved repeating even the obvious and many-times-briefed. "Initiate third set," the tiny screen showed them just crossing the boundary, "NOW!"
---- TSC Long Alphonse through Long Hubert
"Alphonse reports alignment. Bartholomew reports alignment …. Gerald estimates alignment in 30 seconds."
The "TS" in each "TSC" was a politeness or, more likely, a way to ensure who would control them, because the eight of them were not warships. Not really. In fact, they weren't really ships at all, even though they were built around what had been ships, and warships at that. The mightiest of their day. They were "Constructs", mobile ones, at least for some values of "mobile".
Histories state that the Tarran practice had always been to preserve the most powerful weapon systems of recently decommissioned war vessels even after the vessels themselves had been recycled. The word "always" is seldom used in histories, but had been judged appropriate in this case because the practice predated space flight.
So, when the first generations of quantum warships came to be decommissioned, the Tarrans simply continued that tradition. In this case, it was the black holes that were retained, instead of using the masses as feedstock for the much greater masses that cored each next generation. Instead, the quanta - that was the term of art - were maintained at a safe distance in solar orbit, whilst proposals for their employment were considered. And considered. And considered.
Until eventually a useful application became possible.
The "Long" part was not a politeness, though, as the Constructs were well over four kilometers in length, with one quantum near one end, the second approximately mid-span, and the third at the extreme tip of the framework - no one had ever called it a "hull" - of massive, compressed-metal members which would have been ruinously expensive before third generation quanta-assisted manufacturing.
Despite the exotic metallurgy, the Constructs remined fragile beasts. The only way they could move was to slooooowly pivot to perpendicular to the ordered course, and then to induce precisely equal accelerations at each of the three quanta. The exotic girders could not load bear within two orders of magnitude of even the smallest quantum, of course. Their immense structural strength was only sufficient to handle rebound and the injection accelerator.
The Constructs had been stationed in Tarran orbit. Getting them out to the belt had been a painful undertaking of epic proportions. It had been done, though, and done well. Perhaps someone would live to someday tell the tale.
"Flag - All Constructs aligned. Reload tugs on final approach. Commencing field excitation. On-line estimate, 30 seconds."
---- TSS Paris
"Consul, the Lances have entered the alien envelope, and the Constructs are on line. Request weapons free."
"Admiral, I am not military, and you are Tarran's finest. The battlespace is yours."
The man in the formal dress uniform gulped, and bowed to hide his grimace. He might be the best available, maybe even the best of his generation, but he would yield this honor, indeed yield his very existence, to the long absent one known in the histories as the Dark Commander. Just maybe he could have won today; the Admiral was mortally certain that he couldn't.
"Aye, aye, sir." He drew breath, pulse rising.
"Flash the links." He exhaled, and felt his heart slow. "Prepare to fire."
---- HMSS Dakulavitch
The bridge holo-display blossomed with target assignments from the Tarran Flag. Commodore Tonne studied the priorities as they shifted restlessly in real-time.
"You have committed us, not chained us."
The harsh cold monotone shocked her, but just for an instant. She glanced at the figure beside her, more substantial this time, and she thought to make out the same black Admiral's uniform that adorned the statue in the Academy rotunda.
"Yes, GrandAdmiral."
"The plan is good, but they cannot last."
"Constructs launching!" It had begun.
"I agree, GrandAdmiral."
"We must stand forth." There was no inflection, but she was not sure that was due to the machine origin.
The figure looked almost solid to her now, and she followed its deeply hooded eyes down to the great switch on the Commander's Console. The switch was the size and shape of a sword hilt. It was unique, so as to preclude any chance of error, and it was an exact match for the one in the figure's scabbard: an ancient double-edged gradii. Her key beside it, the one that had never left her person since the first time she had seen the figure, looked puny beside it.
As well it should. She swallowed, knowing what was required of her.
"I am Anne Tonne, Commodore, Royal Gryphonian Navy," she announced, beginning perhaps the gravest of rituals as she repositioned her command key. A tricky in-and-turn-then-lift.
Humans commanded ships, not AIs. Ancient nuclear submarines had had a switch called, "battle short" which - when turned - prevented any automatic scram of the reactor. Ships with Class 4 or greater AIs all came with a physical blocker plunged deep into the master control circuitry that mechanically prevented full AI control. Dakulavitch's published rate was Class 8, but Tonne had never believed it.
And certainly didn't believe it now.
"Commanding Officer HMSS Dakulavitch," she continued, reaching, ignoring all the arrested shocked faces.
After all these centuries, the AI could pretend to be anything, could BE anything.
Her hand grasped the switch, the cold, leather wrapped hilt almost too large for her hand.
She was betting everything that - whatever Class it was - it truly was Dakulavitch.
"Engaging Full AI," and she ripped the hilt out of the panel, expecting it to be atop a standard milk-glass rod, but found that she held a full sword instead.
Thanx, Anton! And may any who threaten you wear lead.
jim
++++++++++++++++++
Chapter 3 - It Begins
---- HMSS Dakulavitch
Commodore Anne Tonne considered the dire display with no outward sign of emotion, but her left hand had crept of its own volition onto the great girder, and her finger tips silently traced one edge of the gold "W", the first of the letters etched so very deeply and decisively into the iridium alloy beam.
"Time to clear for action, Commodore."
This would have been profound and intolerable impudence, even insubordination, except that the words had emanated from an ethereally-translucent figure that had just appeared at her side.
"Yes, GrandAdmiral," Tonne replied, somehow not surprised. She had seen the image once before - very, very briefly - at the change of command ceremony nearly three standard years ago. The faint figure had glanced at the relieved CO, then at Tonne, then nodded to the Monarch, and was gone. Total elapsed time under three seconds. Just long enough for goose bumps the size of coins to erupt over half her body.
"Clear for action," Tonne commanded. She had no time for goose bumps now, and did not even notice the figure disappear.
"Clear for action, aye." This was far sooner than doctrine but no one, of course, would question her decision. Just as she had not questioned it.
Warning horns began to hoot and lights to blink. They continued for ten seconds - she had not included "Immediate" or a similar emergency qualifier in her order. The deck and the girder began to vibrate, then, as the ship began to reconfigure. First, gravitational transients evacuated all non-combatant volumes, then hull sections and volumes began their stately migrations.
---- TSS Paris
The Tarran Naval Consul himself occupied the command chair aboard the fleet flagship. The choice had been obvious, as every quantum-capable warhull in the entire Tarran system had been pressed into service and into this desperate fleet. Every other hull had been seized and stuffed solid with evacuating civilians. Incoming empties continued to trickle in, all owned or commandeered or simply hijacked by out-system Tarrans intent on heroism. Every hour he could buy ….
"Consul, Dakulavitch clearing for action." The information lag on the links was milliseconds at this range.
The Commodore commanding the Gryphonian antique was game, even eager, no doubt about it. Screens showed the great hull gradually begin to disappear.
"Admiral," the Consul began. "Why so soon?"
"Sir, I cannot be certain, of course," the tall man in the formal epaulettes replied. The Consul nodded him to continue. "But it could be the age of their systems …."
"But it might not be that?"
"Yes, sir, but there's nothing on the link. Sir, I see no harm in it." Other than make everyone spend not their last hour in relative misery but their last two hours, he did not add that. Instead, "Recommend we clear for action."
"Admiral, clear the fleet for action."
The Consul continued to watch the Dakulavitch, that screen a welcome distraction from the incoming horror filling all the others. Soon, however, the show was over. Gone were the hull slabs, the surface tankages, the many bays and housings. All that remained visible to the naked eye were the weapons and control modules atop stacked, truncated conical sections, and occasional glints what appeared to be fine netting tracing approximately where the inner hull skin had been. His eye could not quite focus on the center of the enclosed sphere of space.
The true Dakulavitch stood revealed: a soap bubble, with tiny flecks of matter speckling the surface, at its core perhaps the mightiest portable black hole in human space.
---- TSS Lances
The three Lances continued their odd, nearly crab-wise advance towards the vast alien armada that their navy called simply a Gamma-4. They constantly shifted positions within their formations and altered their vectors in a random choreography made possible only through the tightly supervised GT link. The AIs of all two dozen craft had been continuously flexing multiple gravitational lenses with their tiny black holes long before there had been any risk of enemy attack. They were all expending tactical masses at a prodigious rate, but they would get only one attack.
Come right down to it, they were all expendable masses. And come down to it they surely would.
Among the masses they were expending right now were irregular granite, basalt, or pumice shells filled with hydrogen compressed into an engineered substrate at the base of thick, radiating, optically transparent fibers. The objects contained almost no metal with no two the same mass so as to delay classification. The AIs and GravTechs were using their black holes to sling the masses randomly, deftly incorporating the resulting momentum transfers into the evasion patterns.
"Commander, second set away," reported Roche. "Flag has acknowledged." Only one set remained.
"Understood," Croix replied. "Lance leader, Lance-3 second set away. Data packet transmitted and acknowledged."
"All Lances," Reneall began, "Initiate ripple sequence Charlie, on my mark."
Moments later, the Lances again changed their base vector, and evasion pattern.
"Initiate third set on my mark." They were seconds away from the outer edge of what the AI caucus had predicted to be the likely extreme range for the alien war systems. They would have to penetrate deep into that envelope for their own attack.
"GravTechs - mass per mass transmittal," the military loved repeating even the obvious and many-times-briefed. "Initiate third set," the tiny screen showed them just crossing the boundary, "NOW!"
---- TSC Long Alphonse through Long Hubert
"Alphonse reports alignment. Bartholomew reports alignment …. Gerald estimates alignment in 30 seconds."
The "TS" in each "TSC" was a politeness or, more likely, a way to ensure who would control them, because the eight of them were not warships. Not really. In fact, they weren't really ships at all, even though they were built around what had been ships, and warships at that. The mightiest of their day. They were "Constructs", mobile ones, at least for some values of "mobile".
Histories state that the Tarran practice had always been to preserve the most powerful weapon systems of recently decommissioned war vessels even after the vessels themselves had been recycled. The word "always" is seldom used in histories, but had been judged appropriate in this case because the practice predated space flight.
So, when the first generations of quantum warships came to be decommissioned, the Tarrans simply continued that tradition. In this case, it was the black holes that were retained, instead of using the masses as feedstock for the much greater masses that cored each next generation. Instead, the quanta - that was the term of art - were maintained at a safe distance in solar orbit, whilst proposals for their employment were considered. And considered. And considered.
Until eventually a useful application became possible.
The "Long" part was not a politeness, though, as the Constructs were well over four kilometers in length, with one quantum near one end, the second approximately mid-span, and the third at the extreme tip of the framework - no one had ever called it a "hull" - of massive, compressed-metal members which would have been ruinously expensive before third generation quanta-assisted manufacturing.
Despite the exotic metallurgy, the Constructs remined fragile beasts. The only way they could move was to slooooowly pivot to perpendicular to the ordered course, and then to induce precisely equal accelerations at each of the three quanta. The exotic girders could not load bear within two orders of magnitude of even the smallest quantum, of course. Their immense structural strength was only sufficient to handle rebound and the injection accelerator.
The Constructs had been stationed in Tarran orbit. Getting them out to the belt had been a painful undertaking of epic proportions. It had been done, though, and done well. Perhaps someone would live to someday tell the tale.
"Flag - All Constructs aligned. Reload tugs on final approach. Commencing field excitation. On-line estimate, 30 seconds."
---- TSS Paris
"Consul, the Lances have entered the alien envelope, and the Constructs are on line. Request weapons free."
"Admiral, I am not military, and you are Tarran's finest. The battlespace is yours."
The man in the formal dress uniform gulped, and bowed to hide his grimace. He might be the best available, maybe even the best of his generation, but he would yield this honor, indeed yield his very existence, to the long absent one known in the histories as the Dark Commander. Just maybe he could have won today; the Admiral was mortally certain that he couldn't.
"Aye, aye, sir." He drew breath, pulse rising.
"Flash the links." He exhaled, and felt his heart slow. "Prepare to fire."
---- HMSS Dakulavitch
The bridge holo-display blossomed with target assignments from the Tarran Flag. Commodore Tonne studied the priorities as they shifted restlessly in real-time.
"You have committed us, not chained us."
The harsh cold monotone shocked her, but just for an instant. She glanced at the figure beside her, more substantial this time, and she thought to make out the same black Admiral's uniform that adorned the statue in the Academy rotunda.
"Yes, GrandAdmiral."
"The plan is good, but they cannot last."
"Constructs launching!" It had begun.
"I agree, GrandAdmiral."
"We must stand forth." There was no inflection, but she was not sure that was due to the machine origin.
The figure looked almost solid to her now, and she followed its deeply hooded eyes down to the great switch on the Commander's Console. The switch was the size and shape of a sword hilt. It was unique, so as to preclude any chance of error, and it was an exact match for the one in the figure's scabbard: an ancient double-edged gradii. Her key beside it, the one that had never left her person since the first time she had seen the figure, looked puny beside it.
As well it should. She swallowed, knowing what was required of her.
"I am Anne Tonne, Commodore, Royal Gryphonian Navy," she announced, beginning perhaps the gravest of rituals as she repositioned her command key. A tricky in-and-turn-then-lift.
Humans commanded ships, not AIs. Ancient nuclear submarines had had a switch called, "battle short" which - when turned - prevented any automatic scram of the reactor. Ships with Class 4 or greater AIs all came with a physical blocker plunged deep into the master control circuitry that mechanically prevented full AI control. Dakulavitch's published rate was Class 8, but Tonne had never believed it.
And certainly didn't believe it now.
"Commanding Officer HMSS Dakulavitch," she continued, reaching, ignoring all the arrested shocked faces.
After all these centuries, the AI could pretend to be anything, could BE anything.
Her hand grasped the switch, the cold, leather wrapped hilt almost too large for her hand.
She was betting everything that - whatever Class it was - it truly was Dakulavitch.
"Engaging Full AI," and she ripped the hilt out of the panel, expecting it to be atop a standard milk-glass rod, but found that she held a full sword instead.
