"And sooner the better," said Laura. "If this is what they're planning, we may be already too late. But perhaps we can still slow them a little. Regarding your observation about the resources . . ." She nodded toward William. "I've ordered resources as priority targets for raids. We should soon see how the Kaitians react to it."
"William? Any news from the Sea of Boston?" asked Milton. "Our genetic weapons research has nearly stopped. We need live samples."
"No news." William shook his head.
"I'm not surprised," said Laura. "We rarely engage them in close combat and they fight fiercely and die rather than be captured."
"But I'm sure Jiao will get us captives," said William. "It's just a matter of time."
"Hopefully they won't be too late," said Milton.
"Anything else?"
Everyone shook their heads; even Mr. Grey, the Grand Admiral of the Rg'Tkeen, had nothing to say. William thought that he'd been very quiet during the call. When he thought more about it, he realized Mr. Grey had been quiet ever since the war began.
"All right, then," said Milton as he ended the conference call. "Until the next time."
21
"Sir?" said Commander Marya Wade.
"Yes, Commander?" said Bruce.
"We detected enemy ships at the edge of the system," she said. "Should we circle them?"
Bruce knew that the enemy might see through their cloak and it would be a risk to try to go near them. Their target, a Mopian mining colony, was located on the second planet of the system, and the orders from Coalition Command made it clear that their new primary mission was to interrupt the enemy mining and other resource operations and to avoid engagements with the enemy as much as possible.
"Circle them," said Bruce. "They'll come after us when we attack the mining colony, but we'll be gone before they can engage."
"Yes, sir," said Marya and went to relay the order to navigation officer, Lieutenant Julie Hall.
Circling the enemy meant that they had a few extra hours before the attack.
"Marya," called Bruce after she'd relayed the order.
"Sir?" she said.
"Since the circling the enemy takes a few hours, tell the bridge officers to relax," said Bruce. "We need sharp people when the attack starts."
"Excellent idea, sir." Marya smiled. "And you should relax, too, sir."
Bruce smiled. "That's also an excellent idea."Marya went again to relay the order to officers and Bruce saw that they were relieved to hear it. All of them called the junior officers to take over and they went on to do whatever they did to relax. Bruce was mildly curious to know what they did, but he'd made a decision long ago not to get too involved with the people he commanded. In fact, he didn't get too involved with any other people either.
He was immortal and he'd seen enough death in his time--nearly the death of the entire human civilization during the Extinction Plague, as the historians called it now.
Bruce sighed and shook his head; he didn't want to think about it. He left the bridge to follow his own orders and relax before the attack.
***
"What do you see?" Bruce asked his science officer, Lieutenant Gordon Ball.
"Large mining facilities," he said. "The Kaitians have expanded the facilities at least threefold compared to our records of the system. From the looks of it, they run the facilities at nearly perfect efficiency."
"A-ha," commented Bruce. "Life signs?"
"Only a few Kaitians," said Gordon, "no Mopians."
"Really?" said Bruce, delighted. "That's good news."
It also meant that Bruce didn't have to decide what to do with civilians in the target area. The orders from Command hadn't said anything about civilians; it had said only that their mission was to disrupt enemy operations, and Bruce thought that they wanted to leave the decision about civilians to him and other ship captains.
"How many Kaitians?" asked Marya.
Gordon glanced at Marya, "A moment, ma'am. The structures interfere with our sensors."
"What kind of interference?" asked Bruce. "Could there be Mopians but we just haven't detected them?"
"Good point, sir," said Gordon. "There may be."
"What's on your mind, sir?" asked Marya, who was looking at Bruce and noticed his thoughtful expression.
"I want to be sure there are no Mopians," he said.
"Keep scanning the facilities. Let's keep this position for a full Mopian day," he said to Marya, "and make plans for attack. We'll attack after we've made sure that there are no Mopians there."
"Sir?" asked Marya. "What if there are civilians?"
Bruce didn't answer immediately. He'd thought about it, but was glad he hadn't had to make that decision yet. But now, since Marya asked, he had to make the decision and he had to stand by it in the future. He sensed that Gordon was all ears and that his decision would spread throughout the ship soon after.
He sighed, and realized he'd already made the decision. "Our mission is to disrupt the enemy resource operations. I want to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible, but the mission comes first. The objective is the total destruction of the mining facility," said Bruce. "Plan the attack accordingly."
"Yes, sir," said Marya.
***
"Are we ready?" asked Bruce after they'd waited almost a full Mopian day. They hadn't detected any Mopians and Bruce assumed--correctly--that the Kaitians had had no need for them and killed them.
Bruce's cloak detector--which he'd kept secret--had shown that there was one cloaked Kaitian frigate patrolling near the mining station and the nearby planet.
"As ready as we can be," said Marya.
"Good," said Bruce. "We attack in ten minutes. Tell the crew to prepare."
"Yes, sir," she said.
In ten minutes, hoped Bruce, the frigate would be farther away and wouldn't be able to come to defend the station. Marya relayed the orders and put up a silent countdown to the attack. Her attack plan was flawless, and she had simulated it with the computer countless times. This time the computer would do the attack run for real.
The countdown steadily counted toward zero. Bruce sat in his chair, and Marya thought he looked oddly relaxed, not knowing that Bruce was not relaxed at all and making a great effort to appear to be.
The frigate was farther away, as he'd expected, but the ships that patrolled at the edge of the system were coming their way.
Unfortunately for them, they too were too far away when the countdown reached zero and Bruce's Behemoth decloaked in front of the mining station and started the attack.
***
"Ayieee!" shouted the Kaitian captain who commanded the frigate that was assigned to patrol the area around the mining station.
"It's the Behemoth!" shouted one of the officers.
"Full speed!" ordered the captain. "We must defend the station!"
But they were too far away. The Behemoth was unopposed and it methodically destroyed the entire mining station. The attack was very precise and obliterated the station.
The Behemoth left before the frigate was within firing range, and the captain collapsed in his chair.
"Damage?" he asked, but he knew the answer.
"Total destruction," his first officer said, after getting reports from the scanners. "Nothing is salvageable. Absolutely nothing."
The captain looked at the first officer, and his look showed that he was afraid.
He was the one who had to inform the Divine Command that the mining facility had been destroyed and he knew that it would set back their plans to continue the attack on the Godless Others.
22
The corvette Lake of Nevada stood still in the emptiness of space somewhere between Earth and the Ooktian Empire, far from any star system.
"All right, Udo," said William. "Show me."
"Yes, sir," said Udo, and ten fighters decloaked in front of William.
"Which of them are piloted by AIs?" asked William.
Udo cleared his th
roat. "I was hoping that I'd let you observe yourself during the exercise, sir."
William smiled. "Fair enough. I'll do that. Let's start."
The ten fighters turned around and went away from view. William opened a map in front of him to follow the exercise. The fighters were divided in two wings; the first wing had been taught Kaitian tactics, as much as they knew about them, while the other wing used new Coalition tactics, combined from all the Coalition Navy’s fighter tactics.
This exercise was only the third exercise with the combined tactics. Although the first two exercises had resulted in Coalition loss, they were still better than any one tactic alone. Major improvements had been done for this third exercise. The improvements were clearly effective; the Coalition fighters had already killed two enemy fighters.
When the exercise was over, the fighters using Coalition tactics had won--but not without losses. Two fighters had been killed before they managed to destroy the last enemy.
"Good work," said William. "Very good work."
"Thank you, sir," said Udo. He was, most of all, very relieved that the exercise had worked. He and his team had been the main authors of the new tactics--with help from others, of course.
"Did you guess which ones were AIs, sir?" asked Udo.
"I think it's obvious," said William confidently. "The fighters posing as Kaitians were AIs."
Udo smiled. "Wrong, sir. Mostly wrong."
"Oh?" said William surprised. "Which were they then?"
"All the survivors and the last two Kaitian fighters," said Udo.
William was indeed surprised--all human-controlled fighters had been destroyed in the exercise. "Excellent work, Udo!"
Having AI-controlled fighters would be very good asset against the Kaitians. So good that they could launch counter-attacks and start pushing the Kaitians back to their own space.
"Commander?" interrupted the ship's computer, an AI itself. "Message coming in from Advisor Milton."
"Put him here," said William, and Milton's hologram appeared in the middle of the bridge.
"Hello, William," said Milton and looked around, "and hello everyone."
"Hello, sir," said the bridge officers in unison.
"Milton," said William, "to what do we owe this pleasure?"
"I have some good news, William," said Milton, smiling.
"That makes two of us," said William. "The AI-controlled fighter test succeeded."
Milton's smile widened; he had not expected results yet. Especially not good results.
"And, as a bonus, they are equipped with cloaks," said William.
"That's great news!" said Milton. "It opens up new possibilities. And just at the right time. Have you seen the latest reports?"
"No," said William, "not yet."
"Take a look then," said Milton and a map opened between William and Milton's hologram.
"Show all the resource worlds in the occupied space and the Kaitian movement in the last week."
A number of bright dots appeared to the map and they moved toward all resource worlds--except four.
"Our Behemoths raided those four worlds," said Milton. "They report total destruction and no casualties. They were poorly defended. But, as you can see, that has changed. It's obvious that we struck a nerve by targeting the resources."
"Where did those ships come from?" asked William. The number of the ships seemed to be a lot higher than they'd anticipated.
"Most of them are new ships," said Milton. "Their defenses in the manufacturing worlds remain the same. Or they strengthened them, too."
"That means that their manufacturing capabilities are very efficient," said William, "much more efficient than we thought and better than our own."
"Right," said Milton, "not to mention the crews of those ships. They must have a lot of soldiers waiting to be deployed."
"Or," said William, "they also use AIs to control their ships."
"Or they use AIs," agreed Milton.
William was thoughtful. The number of enemy ships and the efficiency of the manufacturing was a surprise, and it seemed to enhance the suspicion that the next attack would be on at least four fronts.
"We need to continue our attacks," said William, "against both resource and manufacturing worlds."
"I couldn't agree more," said Milton, "but our resources are limited."
William nodded. "AI-controlled cloaked fighters will help us."
"Yes, they will," said Milton. "Teach them to attack capital ships and facilities. I want first attack to happen within a week."
"Udo?" asked William.
"Sir," said Udo, and paused just long enough for it to be noticed. "Yes, sir. The first squadron will be ready for attack."
"Excellent," said Milton, "I'll send you the targets later."
Suddenly Milton looked somewhere else and his hologram disappeared.
"Udo?" asked William, "can you do it?"
"It will mean that we sleep less in the coming week, but yes," said Udo, "we can do it."
"Then get to it," said William. "First checkpoint is tomorrow morning."
"Yes, sir," said Udo and went to work.
"William," said Milton when his hologram came back, "Rachel is here."
William's heart jumped. It had been too long since he heard from her.
"A moment," he said, "I'll go to my office."
***
"Rachel," said William, once he was in his office and the hologram of Rachel had appeared in the middle of the room.
"How are you?" He moved close to the hologram. If she'd been real, he would've kissed her.
"I miss you," said Rachel.
"I miss you, too," said William. Seeing her, he realized just how much he missed her.
"I . . ." started William and then stopped. Something obvious had just occurred to him.
"Rachel," he said with sudden delight.
"What is it?" said Rachel and smiled at William's delight.
"Where are you?" asked William.
"I'm aboard the Thoughtful Flame," she said.
"I just thought . . ." William smiled again. "We could go to the Miccvan home world and to our house. We can work from there. You have facilities there and I can communicate easily with my team from there."
Rachel was surprised. Why hadn't she thought about that? Nothing had ever stopped them from doing just that.
"That's an excellent idea!" she nearly yelled. "Let's do it now!"
Now was William's turn to be surprised. Now was just as good time as later. And why not?
"Udo!" called William.
"Milton!" called Rachel, and they both smiled.
William ordered Udo to change course to the Miccvan home world and Rachel told Milton, who did the same.
They talked about how they couldn't wait to see each other and about many other things before Rachel changed subject back to war.
"Have you heard anything from the Sea of Boston?" she asked. "We can't do much until we get live samples."
"No, I haven't," said William. "I'd hoped they'd be already back but I guess finding suitable targets is more difficult than we thought."
"Maybe so, but I hope they return soon," she said. "Have you read my reports about the Kaitians?"
"I have," said William. "If the swords do indicate their elite soldiers, they lost a great deal of them when we blew up The Village of War. And it may be one reason why they haven't started their next attack yet."
"It may be the main reason," said Rachel.
"If so, they'd probably want to build up their fleet to compensate the loss of elite soldiers."
"That's what I was thinking, too," she said, "but I haven't been able to verify it."
"Perhaps the captives can enlighten us," said William.
"Perhaps," said Rachel, "if we decide to question them."
"Sir?" interrupted Udo, "We need you on the bridge."
"Ah" said William smiling, "I have to go, Rachel. See you soon."
"See you soon." Rachel smile
d and blew a kiss to William who delightfully caught it mid-air.
23
“Come on in!” called Jiao from her office to Jeffery. He was behind her door at precisely nine o'clock, waiting to hear what she had to say.
Jiao had wanted to talk to him the previous evening, but he had requested a free night--to spend time with Ellen, Jiao knew. She had granted the free night, and had not wanted to interrupt them.
Jeffery walked into the office and saluted, “Admiral.”
"Commander," said Jiao, "did you have a relaxing evening?"
Jeffery couldn't contain his smile, "Yes, ma'am. We did."
"I'm happy to hear it." Jiao smiled. She waved her hand and a map opened above her desk.
"This is our target," she said and pointed to an unremarkable star system deep within Miccvan space, far away from anything. In the middle of nowhere, so to speak.
"Why do you think we'll find the Kaitians there?" he asked.
"The Arash colonel thinks they're there," she said. "He told me something very interesting about that star system. And, coincidentally, about our own history as well."
"Ma'am?" asked Jeffery curiously.
"What I'm about to say cannot leave this room," she said. "You must not say anything to anyone. Including Private Girard."
"Yes, ma'am," said Jeffery.
"Horacio told me that if Kaitians are as good as they seem to be, they would've found about that system when they invaded the Arash home world. He said that the information is, or was, deeply hidden, but it wouldn't be a problem to those who conquered the planet.
I'll start from the beginning. Just as Horacio did.
"He said, in these exact words: 'As you know, this all started a thousand of your years ago on Earth,'" said Jiao.
"He said that?" asked Jeffery incredulously. "Really?"
"It gets even better," said Jiao.
I can't wait, thought Jeffery skeptically. Jiao noticed that Jeffery didn't believe it, just as she hadn't believed at first.
"I didn't believe it either," she said, "but I couldn't show Horacio that it was new information to me.
He said that the first encounter with Kaitians happened on Earth, about a thousand years ago. The Rg'Tkeen who'd been in contact with us found a Kaitian scout in our star system and they followed it to Earth, where it self-destructed. But they, of course, didn't know it was the Kaitians at the time, and the Coalition sent their own scouts all across the galaxy to find out more--and they did. Eventually they traced the scouts deep into old Hwzeenn space, where they found the Kaitians. It was a great surprise then; no one ever knew that the Kaitians even existed."
"Why?" asked Jeffery.