Chapter 15: Tracking Multiple Targets

The toast proved to be the last notable event of the party. I was more than a little upset at how few potential crew had bothered to attend the meet and greet. In the end, I felt that the people who had shown up showed considerable interest in building the kind of bonds I was looking for, and marked it down as a feeble, but slight success.

I took Jade and Bryn to bed that night thinking about the future. The training I had received so far seemed determined to push the idea of each citizen being an individual warrior rather than a fully integrated member of a unit. The Sa’arm were clearly a hive mind where every member lived and died to further the advance of the species. The training I had received so far failed to address the fact that coordination would be required to defeat our more numerous enemy.

Still, the next morning after I had enjoyed a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast that Bryn had brought to me, I was prepared to head to the updated training room. Bryn followed me, wanting to see how much the room had changed.

I walked fully into the room and then stopped to look around. Bryn had halted at the entrance. “So many,” she whispered as she stared at the various stations.

I shook my head. While the room had not changed in size, there were two additional stations within the room. I moved to sit in the central station that was clearly meant for the captain. There remained a helmsman’s station to the left of the chair, if you faced forward and to the right was a second station. Arrayed against the left and right bulkheads were four more stations. Clearly the bridge on a Goddess class ship would have seven people during combat situations.

“Only two more than a Patrician,” I said.

“Why more?” Bryn asked.

I tried to recall the names of the stations from my session in the sleep trainer.

“Helm,” I said pointing at the helm, I started circling the room moving clockwise so the station to its immediate right was next. “Sensors, Damage Control, External Communications, Gunball Liaison, Engineering,” I said as I pointed at each station.

“Wouldn’t damage control and engineering be the same job. It also sounds like external communications and the gunball liaison would have similar duties,” Bryn observed.

I smiled. “It might seem that way, but I expect that there is a reason for the duplication. For the communications situation, the Goddess class ships are expected to work as part of a task force, or even serve as the flagship of a task force. Many messages might be going out at once. And they can backup the internal communications station if things get hot, although you’d want to make sure you didn’t have two people giving different instructions to the gunners.”

“Wow,” Bryn said. “You answered quickly and confidently. You’ll always come home to us, right? My daughter needs to grow up knowing the goddess that protects her.”

“I’m no goddess,” I said, feeling my face grow warm.

“You are to me,” Bryn whispered. “I should wake Jade and start practicing the strut. She’s assured me that we’ll be ready before the next social you call.”

“Go ahead,” I said as I spun around in the chair to face forward. “AI, I’d like to start the first training simulation.”

“First training simulation, affirmative,” the AI called out. “A Matilda Castelon has requested to join you in any simulation you run. Do you agree to her joining?”

“She’ll join as a communications officer? Internal or external?” I asked.

“Internal for the simulation,” the AI responded.

“Allow her to enter,” I said. “It will be interesting to see if we can get on the same page when it comes to verbal shorthand.”

The seat I designated as Gunball Liaison seemed to shimmer and the ghost of a person appeared in the chair. “Tilly,” I said. “Nice to see you are interested in the training.”

“I’m not sure I’m the best person for this role,” she said. “I’m still trying to understand how the AI decided to put me on the path of becoming a communications officer.”

“Why don’t we try out the simulation and see if we can get an answer,” I said. “AI, start simulation.”

The screen immediately changed to show that our ship was in orbit around a planet of red rock.

“I want a full sensor scan of the area,” I called out. “Tracking, any sign of Sa’arm activity? Helm prepare to break orbit. I want two possible routes programmed in. One to take us directly away from this system’s star while remaining on the ecliptic plane. The second to have us dive under the planet and head on a vector that will have us end up directly below the star, but at the same distance as we are now. Do not start any manuevers. Get me status on the gunballs, are they ready for action?”

Tilly gasped. “One moment, I’m still gathering that information. Right now, I show only twenty gunballs manned and ready to deploy.”

“Let the gun commander know that I need all forty ready in ninety seconds,” I said. “Sensors where is the enemy?”

“Captain, I’m seeing a pair of Sa’arm ships in orbit around the next planet out from the sun. It looks like two of their Venti class ships.”

“Venti?” Tilly said.

“Destroyers,” I replied. “They are smaller than a Goddess and carry far fewer guns, but they are dangerous. There should be at least one more. Sa’arm formations always include at least three ships. Sensors find me those additional ships. Guns, release all ready gunballs.”

“Launch all ready gunballs,” Tilly said. “I repeat, launch all ready gunballs. Gunners if you are not ready, get your asses in gear and get your gunball to the elevators.”

“Get me a count as soon as you can,” I said. “Helm, change of plan. We are going to dive under the planet we’re orbiting and then turn to port so that we’re moving to pass to the left of the two Sa’arm destroyers we can see. I want the separation to remain at no less than half effective range for our guns. Maintain the separation and let me know if they break orbit towards us.”

“Captain, I’m not seeing any additional ships,” the voice of the AI generated sensor operator spoke.

“If you can’t find it, I’ll replace you with someone who can. We know there must be an additional ship. Sa’arm ships travel in threes. Its part of how they can accurately target objects in space,” I said. “Keep looking.”

“Captain, I have just been alerted that a messenger drone from command has entered the system. It is seeking us,” a new voice said.

“See if you can download the message and listen,” I replied. “Guns, how many hanger queens do we have. Damage control, I need teams working to get every hanger queen out on the grid.”

“Two gunballs have gone down,” Tilly said. “One has a burnt-out motivator. The other appears to have tripped a capacitor.”

“Damage control, I want a check on both units black boxes. Do we need to retrain some gunners so they don’t deadline their gunballs in the hanger? Guns, we’ll probably see one of the Sa’arm ships turn towards us first. I want every operational gunball firing as soon as we have range. The Venti class usually is packing shorter range guns than we carry. Let’s see if we can take it out before it can fire back.”

“Captain,” Tilly said. “I have a message from the gunball commander. She’s worried about a flash of light coming from the moon for this planet. She requests keeping eight guns oriented on that flash.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Sensors, if I learn that the flash is from that third Venti, I’m going to be a bit cross with you later. Did you even check the moon?”

“Sorry captain, I thought it would be further out. Routing the sensor arrays to scan the moon and its environ,” Sensors called back.

“Wonderful,” I said. “Guns, it looks like our sensors did not check the moon, make it eighteen on the flash you saw and twenty on the closer Venti we know about.”

“Captain, the drone is warning that two Volumna class ships jumped into the Trainat system. It would be about five days ago based on the travel time for the drone. What should we do?” the communications simulation said.

“Log receipt,” I said. “We have to fight the ships here, but if we come out intact. Engineering, we’re going to need all power possible to the grid.”

“Missile launch. We’ve found Venti three and fuck me, there’s two of them so its three and four, they were just to the right of the moon. We have ten missiles inbound,” Sensors called out.

“Guns, defensive fire with all guns that can be brought to bear. As soon as the missiles are destroyed, go after the two Venti. Move another ten off of the two orbiting the outer planet,” I called.

“All guns with a target, defensive fire, we need a halo,” Tilly said. “Tracking, try to provide targeting to that no more than three guns shoot at any one missile. Stay calm, we have time.”

Tilly sounded a bit stressed, but she was keeping her head and clearly communicating. I nodded as I looked over the displays that now correctly showed all four Sa’arm ships. The two at the outer planet had not moved, but the ones identified as three and four were moving apart and clearly trying to bracket our ship.

“Helm, we want to maintain a good separation and we do not want to end up between those two Venti class. Break orbit and try to parallel Venti four’s vector. That should open up the distance to three while we break down four’s defenses,” I commanded.

“Captain, all missiles destroyed, but shrapnel from the last two have damaged three gunballs, I’m being asked if they can be brought off the grid for repair.”

“What about the grid?” I asked.

“We’ve got a couple of blank spots, but none will cause a gunball to shut down,” Tilly said. “I’ve alerted damage control so they can try to route remotes.”

“Good,” I said. “Sensors, keep scanning to see if there are any other ships. And check the moon. There might be a small colony we need to eliminate after we kill these Venti.”

“Guns firing on four,” Tilly said.

The screens flickered slightly, but there was no tactile feedback from Tilly’s announcement. I watched with almost impotent rage as the screen showed the ship breaking orbit.

“Captain, the engines are taking the strain without trouble,” a new voice called out. “Request permission to detach a detail to assist in damage control.”

“Do it,” I said. “We’re down five gunballs. Damage control I need an estimate on repairs.”

“We’ve got the capacitor replaced, that gunball is heading to the elevator, it was definitely operator error. The burnt-out motor appears to have suffered previous damage that we missed. Give us five minutes. The other three haven’t come back down the elevator at this time,” Damage control responded.