Chapter 18: What Now?

“If your attack is going too well, you’re probably walking into an ambush.”

—Infantry Journal.

Jason called Janet and met her and the team in the conference room.

“We spent the time in transit considering our tactical choices. We are in a position beyond the most distant planet in this solar system. We sent probes and then fighters to reconnoiter the position. We then scouted the area near the cruisers and frigates and reviewed our plans. We sent intelligence units to the planet. They will report to us in the next few hours,” said Connie.

“What did you decide was the best approach?” Jason asked.

“We looked at the options and modeled them. The best outcome is if we launch missiles as soon as we are in range, then jump close to them and strike as our missiles impact the enemy shields,” said Phoebe.

“Phoebe, what kind of cruisers are they, and how big are they, and do they carry fighters, and if they do, how many?” Jason asked.

“They are Mob battlecruisers and are the size of small battleships. They are hiding close to an asteroid belt that protects them from behind. The crew linked the cruisers, using fifty-meter-long front and rear traffic tubes to facilitate transport and communication between the ships. The frigates patrol nearby. The Mob fleet is within missile and weapons range of where they expect the battleship to appear,” said Phoebe. “We don’t know how many fighters they have.”

“What do we know about the clones?” Jason asked.

“As noted, I sent several teams to the clone planet but only have superficial preliminary information so far. They expect the fleet will arrive in five weeks to transport the clones,” said Connie. “The clone planet is the fifth planet from the sun,”—she demonstrated on the hologram the planet’s location and then expanded the view to show the facilities on the ground”—and our scouts haven’t found any other ships in this solar system other than shuttles. Shuttles fly around the clone farm,” Phoebe added.

“We went through your previous simulations, and we have a wager with Patton you won’t be able to plan an effective attack with a lower risk than our lowest risk strategy,” said Janet.

“Aah, a challenge; you and Phoebe are equally competitive. I must try my best,” Jason grinned. “Please put up the holograms of the area, Patton.”

Patton established a pair of holograms. First, he appeared as the general in a tank waving at his troops. In the second, he showed a couple of linked cruisers.

Jason looked closely at the hologram and asked Patton to enlarge the images of the asteroid belt near the cruisers.

Janet and Phoebe watched Jason closely. He looked at the pictures pensively. He experienced a mild wave of nausea. It passed quickly.

Jason’s thinking felt different.

‘I will show these weak-minded primitives what I can do; then, I can bend them to my will.’

‘I expect you to show respect to my colleagues,’ Jason replied telepathically to the misogynist crystal. ‘I don’t like your attitude. I didn’t invite you onto my board. If you are in me, do your job and concentrate on the task at hand,’ thought Jason to the warlord AI.

He shook his head and steadied himself switching his gaze from Janet to Phoebe.

“You may be right, as you guys have more experience than I do, but I’ll do my best not to disappoint Patton.”

Patton created a holovid of Gen. Patton, smiling at Jason, then doffing his helmet as he inspected thousands of troops.

Jason nodded and blinked twice, the Empire equivalent of a wink and a nod.

“What do you think of our plan?” Janet asked as she played out how she saw the attack.

“It’s a good plan,” Jason observed, asking Patton to play through the plan and review the damage and casualties estimates.

“I will think about the problem briefly and consider the options. I’ve tried many unorthodox strategies when I had no other way to succeed. Please bear with me while I work through options you may have already considered and thought unworkable or less tenable than the final strategy you’ve come up with.”

Jason looked once more at the holograms and absently rubbed his cheek.

“Patton, please create a simulation as I describe the scenario. Place us on the opposite side of the asteroid belt from where they are so they don’t sense us. We will send a communication probe to our proposed location before traveling there. If the Mob has scout drones or sensors, we’ll block and destroy them. Let us consider what will happen if we commandeer several frigate-sized asteroids, fit them with missiles, and propel them towards the cruisers using missile engines.”

They watched closely as Patton demonstrated what Jason was describing.

“The asteroids are constantly in motion and colliding with each other. We pick some that are already moving toward the enemy ships. The Mob or priests know the asteroids are moving and monitor asteroid trajectories to avoid collisions with their cruisers. We can propel asteroids toward them but on a path that will miss the enemy cruisers. Each rock will carry a battery of sixteen missiles. Patton, please comment on the strategy I’ve suggested,” asked Jason.

“Colonels, I did include simulations where Jason used asteroids amongst the many I provided to you,” said Patton.

“The chance they will discover what we are doing is 0.001%. The odds of incapacitating damage to the cruisers is 76% and to frigates 96%. The risk to us of the strategy, if they detect the missiles early, is 14.3%. The risk can be as low as 0% if the asteroids perform as expected and the ships don’t intercept them. The high-risk estimate is based on the early discovery of the asteroids. If one or more frigates leave on patrol, we must tackle it separately.”

“Since we have been here, the frigates remained in positions close to the cruisers,” Phoebe added.

“Patton, how long will it take us to prepare the asteroids?” Jason asked.

“It will take twenty-two hours to prepare the asteroids. I’ve mapped asteroid movements, selected three outstanding candidates that won’t need much power to move, and are on close-to-perfect trajectories. Sixteen other candidates are also suitable. We will launch our missiles sixteen hours after we fire the engines.”

“How long will we need to replace the missiles?” Janet asked.

“We will replace our existing missile stock in fourteen hours.”

“They are not scanning the other side of the asteroid belt. Our scout fighters went behind the asteroid belt without being detected. Two scouts traversed the asteroid belt where the asteroids are widely dispersed,” said Phoebe.

“Ladies, you might as well pay up now; I told you there was a high probability that Jason would find a strategy to reduce potential damage. He does have several other possible strategies that he could have used with the equal facility but with slightly less chance of success,” said Patton gloating.

“We concede, Patton,” said Phoebe. “Jason, perhaps when you have five minutes to think about the attack, you can reduce the risk even further.”

Phoebe and Janet laughed.

Jason was deep in thought and didn’t hear Phoebe. They waited until he looked at them.

“Jason, our AI information technology and communications specialists, went through Ship’s systems and removed many time-wasting and blocking programs. They also blocked saboteur access. We can intercept any intrusions the priests attempt in a billionth of a second. They know we are on to them.

“We also looked at the medical AI software and discovered several programs that obstruct diagnosis and treatment,” said Connie.

“Please excuse me. I’m going to brief the engineers,” said Janet. “Patton, please join me when I get to engineering.”

Patton nodded, and the hologram disappeared.

“Does the medical pod pick up the poison?” Jason asked.

“Yes, it picks up minuscule amounts of the poison. The doctors confirmed the poison is a male gene toxin with a slow action onset. It only affects the Y chromosome. The poison probably comes from another galaxy,” Maj. Constance Ross noted. “We have been working on preparing the case against the patriarch. The lawyers are analyzing the information on the ship and documenting everything, including every programming intrusion and software aberration.”

“Shall I plot a jump to a suitable point behind the asteroid belt?” Stan asked after Jason briefed him.

Jason looked at his team. “Shall we proceed onward, ladies?” They nodded, and he said facetiously, “XO engage drive. Accelerate to warp five.”

“Warp drives engaged, sir; we’ll accelerate to warp five,” Stan replied using his Star Trek imitation voice.

“Jason, you are an evil influence on this ship! What the hell is that garbage that both of you are spouting?” Phoebe asked, grinning.

Jason and Stan both laughed. So much for Stan not having a sense of humor, thought Jason.

Fifteen minutes later, they heard Stan’s voice.

“We are in place as specified. The engineers are building missile platforms and modifying missile engines for the asteroids. They suggested we install steering systems on the asteroids, controlled by a missile AI or remotely by us here.”

“Excellent idea; we increase our options,” said Jason.

“You’ve turned out to be a remarkable young man, and I hope you will continue to develop and fulfill your hopes, whatever they may be,” said Stan and chuckled.

“I agree,” said Janet strolling in. “Jason, that was indeed a great plan considering you made it on the fly and so quickly! It was a viable, effective, and low-risk plan!”

“The engineers want to talk to you, Jason; I’ll patch them through, if I may,” requested Stan.

Jason nodded and waved.

They turned to the hologram to greet Jacoba Lengling, the chief engineer, and her deputy John Vesa.

“I also suggest we add an explosive charge to each asteroid. Let’s fire the missiles, accelerate the asteroids toward the ships, then jettison the engines and power supplies, so we can save them and reuse them later. We will change the trajectories and get near enough to the ships to damage them when the asteroids explode,” said Jacoba. “Jason, if you’ve any other screwy ideas, let us know as soon as possible.”

“That is an excellent idea, Jacoba. It’ll force the ships into evasive action at that point, and if we are lucky, we will damage them,” said Jason.

“Shall we adjourn for lunch as I’m famished, and I’m sure you’re ready to eat now? Jacoba, please join us,” said Jason rubbing his stomach.

Jacoba declined due to pressing work commitments.

After lunch, they returned to the conference room.

“I have another idea,” said Jason as he connected to Jacoba in Engineering.

“Do you have another few ideas, Jason?” Jacoba asked, smirking.

“Jacoba, did your people build and test any mines?”

“Yes, we have fifty in various sizes in one of our storage areas. One of our guys loved the idea and played with the concept. I assume you want to go ahead?”

“I do. I want to build mines and disguise them as asteroids. Let’s disguise them as small boulders and slowly push them as close to the enemy vessels as possible. Perhaps we can distract them so they don’t notice the missiles until too late. Program them to hit the engines and block their escape.”

“Jason,” said Jacoba earnestly, “I’ve been working on cloaking technology for the missiles. I can make masking work for the mines. The mines will be in place long before the asteroids arrive. The mines won’t alert the sensor operators, and the cloaking will help them get close enough to damage the ships. We can move the mines faster if we cloak them. If the mines trigger at or around the time the missiles fire, they will create a diversion that will delay the identification of the incoming rockets by overloading the sensors. It is a viable and useful idea.”

“How quickly can you make mines?” Jason asked.

“They are easy to make and fit out. I will place a basic AI on a few mines and make the others drones. I’ll make four hundred mines in the next six hours, but forty or fifty will be enough for our purposes. The replicators spit out one every ten minutes, and we can have ten small replicators making them. They can penetrate shields. The mine will explode twice. They explode against the hull and propel a trans-dimensional charge inside the ship. We will selectively attack the bridge, communications, weapons control, and engineering. We will be able to repair the ships quickly. We’ll also make some that look like asteroids and test one against the other,” said Jacoba.

“During the Mob war, we used mines when we discovered the Mob in an asteroid hiding their fleet. I will be interested to see how it will work out,” said Phoebe.

“Colonel Malone, can I borrow some of your Marine engineers’ AIs to help?” Jacoba Lengling asked. “We must test several alternatives before we go ahead with manufacturing our two final choices,” said Jacoba.

“I’ll send you a mixed team,” said Janet.

Jason enlarged the hologram of one of the Mob cruisers, then turned to Janet, “Janet, I suggest we consider boarding the ships when we disable them, but we must deal with the fighters. They are large cruisers, and these are fighter ports.” Jason pointed to the middle of one of the cruisers. I recall these ships from one of my recent simulations,” Jason added as Janet and Phoebe pored over the enlarged hologram of the vessel.

Phoebe finally nodded.

“Jason, I do not doubt those are most likely to be tube gates for fighters. Those ships could field thirty to forty fighters or twenty missile gunships. We carry ten missile gunships. Our fighters can carry one anti-ship missile as part of their usual armament mix. The missile gunships carry six anti-ship missiles. We can hide fighters, missile ships, and our boarding shuttles just out of sensor range behind these two large asteroids. It’ll take them three minutes to get to the ship. It would be useful to place mines to explode in or around the following likely fighter assembly points here and here,” Col. Phoebe Harris suggested. She pointed to two areas near the ship where she said that squadrons of fighters would converge before attacking the enemy.”

Jason called Jacoba.

“Jacoba, can you make mines to disable fighters?” Jason asked.

Jacoba nodded.

“How long would it take to prepare some of those?”

“I can make twenty of them in the available time, Jason. I’ll give that job to your Marines, Colonel Malone. I’ll set them to trigger if they identify a specified number of fighters in range, say three. The engineers will load the mines with twenty independently targeting missiles per mine. We use the missiles for close-in defense—we carry hundreds of thousands of them. Will this be satisfactory?” asked Jacoba, grinning.

Jacoba was a great asset and a superb engineer. She was creative and had sound ideas.

“Thank you, Jacoba, that is ideal; carry on,” ordered Jason after glancing at Harris and Malone, who looked at him incredulously.

“Why are the pair of you looking at me so strangely?” Jason asked.

“When Patton told us you had interesting ideas, we did not appreciate how far from the conventional you went,” said Janet. “This is not how we learned to think.”

Phoebe stood and stretched, then leaned forward on the edge of her seat.

“I’ll brief my pilots. Connie can talk to the cyber warfare people.”

“Phoebe, you can join me as I prepare the Marines to board the enemy ships. Then your guys will know what we are doing and cover us. We’ll add more ships to our growing fleet.”

“I am collecting information we can use to plan how we deal with the clones. I have fighters mapping the planet, determining communication and control systems, investigating defenses, and looking at the infrastructure. We launched a thousand cloaked probes to the surface. Connie has several teams of her people on the ground,” said Janet.

“Jason, we can join you in a couple of hours in your wardroom once we have set our plans in motion. We’ll have a drink and relax. We want to learn more about you and the society you come from,” said Phoebe.

Jason smiled, nodded, strolled to the door, paused, and then turned.