Sentient 03

His ships fired again, triple plasma balls that weren't as blue as the beam, but were still much more powerful than the yellow plasma being shot at his ships. Nine hundred and eighty of the thousand ships went up. They lost another two ships when the last twenty got another shot off before they were taken out.

The enemy had made a mistake, they should have attacked all at once. He'd have lost ten times more ships that way. Then next group met, and although he lost another hundred ships in the enemy volley, they didn't get a second as their light blue triple shots took out every ship. The third and fourth wave went similarly, he waiting for the enemy to break...

"Why aren't they retreating? They have to know the odds aren't going to change."

Aide frowned, "It's the other side of their emotionally sterilized evil. I don't think they even have a sense of self preservation, all they have are bad orders. Probably one of the reasons the Sthellan have been able to match them."

He blurted, "But that's stupid!"

Aide replied, "Yes, it is. But for them it's a simple equation, if they need to throw away ten ships for every one of ours to beat you, that's what they'll do. Next time they'll come back with ten times as many."

He shook his head, "Hopefully Kiara will have them sorted before that happens. Any idea how they knew about the beams and how to defeat them?"

She replied, "There is a seventy point three percent chance they have a stealth probe in the system. I can only guess of course, but we know they can hide from us and they must have seen our last battle with the Sthellans. Perhaps they tried beams in the past and already knew a counter for them when they saw ours. I'll keep trying different ways to scan for it, no cloak is completely perfect."

He cringed as another hundred ships were lost and a thousand enemy ships were destroyed. It was... an insane trade.

He asked, "Has there been a pattern to which ships they target?"

She answered, "Yes, they haven't deviated at all."

He pondered that a moment, "Could you route most of the shield power to those hundred ships? I know we can just rebuild them but..." he trailed off.

She didn't answer, but a few seconds later when the next group traded fire, only four ships were lost to their thousand. On the next wave they lost fifty ships when the enemy started going twenty to one. This wasn't much of a battle, why wouldn't they pull back?

He was tempted to get up and walk off the bridge, but despite the apparent stupid actions of his enemy he wouldn't chance it. So he stayed and watched as the last few waves of the enemy were slaughtered.

He knew it was the right thing, but he was disgusted by it and left the bridge without a word. The universe was a strange place.

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The high minister Chorin stared at his scientists for a moment before asking, "Did you get what you needed?"

The scientist said dispassionately, "Yes, we believe we understand what the rogue AI has done. The concept is actually genius. I believe as long as they stick to thirty of their carriers, we can destroy them with sixty stealth cruisers on a sneak attack. Narwell had the right idea, he just lacked the firepower in his one ship, despite the human ships not having any active turrets. Two for each ship should suffice."

The high minister replied, "Make ninety just in case. How long?"

The scientist replied, "A week for the ships. Once crewed it will take five days to reach Earth."

Chorin ordered, "Do it, I'll have the crews by then."

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Kiara walked through the space station. She passed by every airlock and walked around the central area. This was the third place she had stopped in the last week. She imagined the nanites were spreading quickly in all directions by now, but she planned to stop at least three more times before approaching the high minister if she could help it.

She knew there would be major problems if most of the population was not exposed when the time came to activate the DNA update. She returned to the ship and started out for her next destination. So far she hadn't been questioned at all, she believed the trend would continue but had a cover story prepared just in case.

--------------

Over the next nine days another three thousand seventy two ships were added to those looking for Sthellan worlds. Aide believed the search was over as they had found one hundred and eighty four solar systems spanning approximately six thousand light years occupied by the aggressive race in one form or another.

Most of the worlds had between three and five thousand ships. Only their home world had more than that at twenty thousand. She already had enough ships to overwhelm their defenses simultaneously across the empire. At over six thousand ships, that was thirty plus she could send to each world. Still, she considered sending five to the weakest planets, fifteen to the stronger ones, and sixty to their home world.

She had more than enough to continue the explorations and look for other civilizations. Once the enemy was grounded, most of those ships could be freed up to do the same. Though it wasn't time to move yet, she was still searching for any she might have missed.

She heard the door open and turned. Olivia was practically skipping as she walked over and kissed Aide.

She asked, "What's the good news?"

Olivia grinned, "I found the probe."

She considered accessing the appropriate files, but didn't want to ruin Olivia's excitement and decided to check later, after.

"How?"

Olivia smiled, "The range is limited, maybe thirty light minutes. So we won't be finding stealth ships or probes from far away, but in the same solar system they're toast. I actually didn't find a way to directly scan them. What I figured out is... One sec..."

Olivia brought up a scan of the solar system out to the ort cloud. Then she brought up a secondary blank scan.

Olivia continued, "What I did was send out a graviton pulse sphere. Basically just a bubble of gravity that expands in all directions. Then, I follow it with the normal sensors. The sensors detect the minute changes to the pulse as it passes through any mass."

The second scan filled up slowly over several minutes, the gravity pulse did not exceed the speed of light which was probably the reason for its limited distance. The first and second scan looked pretty much the same. Aide managed to see the minute difference in the millions of objects, but waited patiently for Olivia to finish.

She didn't want to steal the girl's thunder after all.

Olivia smiled and said, "Then I ran a simple comparison and removed all the objects that are included in both scans," she pointed at the one object left close to Pluto, "That's the only thing different, our normal scans don't pick that up, but there is mass there."

She hugged Olivia and called for Kris to join them. She was impressed, she wouldn't have thought to use a non-scanning wave and measure the changes to it with the sensors. It was a good approach. She built and initiated a program that would run every thirty seconds to scan for stealth objects.

When Kris came in they explained it all to him.

When they were done Aide asked, "Should we destroy the probe?"

He shook his head, "No, leave it. It might be an advantage if they don't know we can see them yet. If we start doing anything new I'll reevaluate that decision, but the damage is already done."

She nodded and also filled him in on the stats for the currently known Sthellan systems.

He replied, "Good, search for another week? If it all looks good still we can remove their access to space and quarantine the planets."

"Sounds good, that will give me enough time to be thorough, make sure I didn't miss anything. Also, if we are going to simultaneously attack them all, you may want to take the time to create attack plans I can follow. Then during the action you'll only have to worry about the unexpected."

He blew out a breath, "I can do that. Thank you both, that stealth cruiser has been giving me nightmares."

Olivia said, "My pleasure, we should do another beach night to celebrate."

He smiled slightly, "I'd love to, but Stacey wasn't feeling well this morning. So... maybe?"

Aide nodded politely but kept her lips zipped. She suppressed a smile, she knew what the problem was of course, but thought it would be better for them to figure it out for themselves...

Chapter 26

It wasn't a week later, only a couple of days, but Aide was 97.2 percent sure they had found all the Sthellan worlds. She had found thirty two planets scattered around the Sthellan's sphere of space that could support life, eight of which held intelligent life. None of these worlds were advanced, only one of those eight had approached a technological level comparable to Earth's industrial revolution.

She was sure the Sthellan wouldn't have left any of these planets alone had they known of them.

She left eight of the carriers at all those worlds and informed Kris of her early findings. She knew he was still in the midst of creating all the generalized attack plans for her to follow. So far another Sthellan wave had not been launched, but there were indications of increased ship building efforts in four of their systems.

It was her, Kris, Olivia, and Stacey on the bridge.

When she finished her report Kris said, "I'll try and have the plans done by tomorrow. Also I want at least three ships at the FTL line in all those systems, just in case they do the unexpected and run for it when we arrive."

Aide replied thoughtfully, "I suppose that's necessary, I'll see to it."

She didn't really need him to explain, with ships outside the FTL line it would be easy to intercept any ships by using FTL to intercept their vector, no matter which way the enemy ran. She didn't think they would run anyway, they were too aggressive.

A warning flag went off in the sensor computers and she took a look. What appeared to be ninety stealth ships just dropped out of FTL by Neptune and looked to be moving their way.

She reported, "Kris, we have ninety of those invisible cruisers coming our way. They should be here late tomorrow. If I had to guess, they sent three for every one of our carriers."

He frowned, "Can we target them while they are in stealth mode?"

She shook her head, "We could estimate, but these aren't FTL sensors, so the data would be suspect unless we were very close."

He grunted thoughtfully, and then said, "But when they start charging weapons, we have half a second before they can fire right?"

She shrugged, "Yes, but we have to assume the instant beams won't do us any good, we need that half a second as well, unless we tip our hand. They'll see it if we charge weapons right before they get here."

He asked, "How many of our fighters would have to attack at once to destroy one of the cruisers?"

She replied, "With the light blue plasma triple shot... fifteen to be sure."

He nodded, "But we have twelve thousand fighters with thirty ships, that's..."

She smiled, "One hundred thirty three."

He grinned, "Thanks, so with that many per enemy ship..." he trailed off.

She waited patiently while he worked through it.

He shook his head, "It takes five seconds to launch the ships, too long to launch and charge weapons. It's too dangerous to try and sucker them in. We have to assume they'll open fire as soon as they get in weapons range. Are there any ships that will be completed before the battle?"

She shook her head, "No, I just started a new batch."

He frowned, "What if you halted work on two thirds of them, we don't need a thousand, just concentrate on building three hundred. You can have them done before they get here right?"

She blushed, "Of course."

She was embarrassed for not thinking it through and just spitting out the data like a computer program. Then again, it was a very human mistake...

He nodded and looked satisfied, "Okay, once they get close to Mars, launch ten thousand fighters from thirty of the new ships and start following the ninety in, at the same time, we'll launch our fighters and move out toward them. Also at the same time, send the additional two hundred seventy ships toward the FTL line.

"We can catch them between our fighters away from any of our carriers. If they cut a right angle and try to vector out and run, it will be too late anyway, our ships will reach the FTL line first and can intercept. Although I'm not sure about that last part yet. If they leave I might let them go."

He asked, "Anyone see any flaws or have a suggestion?"

Olivia asked, "What if they don't drop their stealth field when they figure out they're in a trap?"

He answered, "Well, they will do one of two things, panic and believe the stealth is not effective at all, and attack anyway in desperation, or they could figure out what we're doing won't give us a good target lock and try and make a run for it. In that case, we will wait until we are at point blank range, which for space I guess is within a few thousand miles, and then fire off the sensor data results. Light speed at that range should be good enough for a pinpoint accurate lock, especially if we are attacking from a hundred different vectors. Someone is bound to hit at that point even if they change direction fast enough, which is doubtful."

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That night Stacey lay in bed thinking. She knew they couldn't go back to the Earth and live there, it would be too dangerous. Not necessarily for them, with their internal shields, more for any friends and neighbors. Not to mention the U. S. Government when foreign agents are deployed on their soil. But she missed her family.

She was more happy than she'd ever dreamed being with Kris. She'd also been making great progress in gaining understanding to Alion science. Thanks to the implant and nanites, she never needed to relearn anything, so it went fast. She was sure she would have a satisfying and productive life, even if she couldn't share her discoveries beyond a handful of people.

She was also pretty sure she was pregnant. She'd missed her period. She frowned, she'd told Kris it didn't matter, but she wasn't so sure of that now.

She blurted, "Love, I changed my mind."

He looked up at her with a questioning look and she blushed.

She said, "I know we can't live on Earth anymore, but I miss my family, and I do want to get married. I want to share that moment with my family and our friends, and have everyone know that we chose each other. Oh, and I'm pregnant."

She looked unsure and asked, "What do you think?"

She sighed with relief and melted against him when he gathered her up in his arms.

He said softly, "Whatever you want love. Where do you want to get married? You're pregnant? Tell your dad to leave the shotgun at home, I'll marry you even if you're reputation is sullied," he added in a humorous voice.

She snickered, "You're taking this better than I thought you would."

He kissed her neck and she sighed in contentment as he whispered, "I'd already gotten used to the idea of you being pregnant, plus when I mentioned you felt sick Aide had nothing to say, it made me suspicious. As far as the marriage part, how could I not want to make you happy?"

She said softly with tears of joy in her eyes, "In our meadow, between our ranches. Just a small one. My parents and our friends from your ranch, and of course, Aide, Olivia, Nate, and Paula"

He nodded, "We can do that."

They could plan the rest out later she decided and drew him into a deep passionate but gentle kiss. They made love for hours that night before they feel into a restful and satisfied slumber.

-----------------

The next day Kris finished up the attack plans for the concurrent invasion of one hundred eighty four solar systems. He only needed to create eighteen plans, most of the solar systems were similar after all with few exceptions the plans only deviated based on the number of defense ships and platforms.

He had a little time before the enemy hit Mars orbit, so he called Tony and Terry. They talked for a while, but eventually he got to the point and asked Tony to be his best man. He wasn't sure how they would work out a bachelor party, but he had faith his friend would take care of it and have him at the wedding in time.

He'd been a little surprised at Stacey's choice of maid of honor. He'd expected her to pick Terry, but she'd asked Aide earlier this morning. He hadn't realized how close the two had grown, but he realized it was a good thing, it wasn't like they would have a surfeit of friends for the rest of their lives. They were kind of stuck as the six of them.

I did concern him a little, they would be fine with it all, but what happened when their children grew up? How could he raise a child in virtual isolation and still be a good father? Not that he had to worry about it for a while, but it was an active concern in the back of his mind.

The time came and the ships were launched. The enemy had some time now to make decisions before the inevitable happened, he patiently waited to see what they would do.

----------

War Councilor Reina, acting captain of the flag ship, thought this mission was distasteful, but would follow her orders to the letter. She was aware of the risks of another civilization with their technology, but she also knew they needed help against the Sthellan. It seemed a gamble either way and she wasn't sure why the high Minister was so adamant this race needed to be destroyed.

As far as she knew, this race had not fired one shot at her people except in defense.

If she didn't know better, she would think he was afraid. Perhaps he simply had information he had not divulged to her. Though, more than likely it was simply the same scorched earth policy they seemed to be following lately.

The sensor officer disrupted her musings, "Captain, the thirty carriers have launched all their fighters and they are moving toward us on an intercept course. At current speed we will be in weapons range in thirty minutes. There are also ten thousand fighters following in our wake, though at speed they are not gaining on us."

Her first thought was there must be another reason for their launch. Even their own sensors can't see a stealth ship. They only know where each of the ships are because of quantum connections for direct, fully secure, and constant positional updates.

After reviewing the scans however, it was obvious the enemy was somehow seeing through the stealth field. She considered this for a brief time. The mission parameters were to destroy the ships, but a surprise attack was essential for success. There was no way her ninety ships could take all those fighters. She considered contacting the high Minister for orders, but decided against it.

She thought there was a good chance he would make them attempt it anyway. She would probably be censured, perhaps even killed. But at least her fleet would be intact.

"Send out orders, I want thirty escape vectors to FTL calculated so neither group of fighters can overcome us, then send the ships in threes."

Her first officer stood up and pulled his weapon, "Belay that order."

She raised an eyebrow, "Explain."

He replied, "I was given orders to stop you if you attempted to abort this mission."

She nodded slowly, "So what would you have me do? They can detect us, the mission has already failed."

He was silent for a moment. She sent a mental message to the ships AI. It was nowhere near as sophisticated as their first contact AI's, but it could get the job done.

"Disable my first officer, charge is mutiny."

They first officer stiffened and fell to the floor, knocked unconscious by his own control implant.

She asked curiously, "Does anyone else want to be charged with mutiny?"