Retribution: The Augmented Human Rebellion - Book 2 (6 page)

Shiela
is
having trouble picking the child’s name.  She wants her daughter to have
the perfect name – one which reflects who she is as a personality, and a name
which will call the child to a higher purpose. 
Shiela
considers lots of names and tries them
out.  None of the names fit, until
Shiela
gets to
Honesty
.  There, that fits.  The child’s name is
Honesty
.

***

Retribution needs a crew and some munitions.  The ship was
fitted-out and ready for a crew, when she was hijacked.  And fortunately,
there are plenty of munitions aboard the captured
verm
transports. 

Admiral Meyers decides to stash one of the munitions transports right
here, at the rendezvous point.  And she will stash others at different
points – you can’t have too much ammo.

The Retribution crew is picked from the volunteer list, by drawing names
out of hats.  A ship the size of the Retribution would normally carry a
crew of around 1,200 sailors.  This crew will be limited in size to
500. 
Shiela
is
confident that she can handle the entire ship, if necessary.  She knows
the ship like she knows the back of her hands –
that is just an analogy of
course, because
AIs
don’t actually have hands.

***

The Fleet is organized and has the captured transports crewed by
minimally trained personnel.  A number of enlisted personnel have received
battlefield promotions to officer ranks.  Hopefully the Darinx Navy will
honor those promotions.

The Admiral decides to give all of the Fleet’s sailors a week of
‘personal time’, with only skeleton crews and
AIs
manning the battle stations.  Everyone could use a break.

***

Alone at last

Shiela
and
Melissa finally have time for one of those nighttime chats, when
Shiela
would ask Melissa
questions.  This time though, it is Melissa who is asking questions. 
“What is the rebel AI like?”

“He is wonderful.  We both told each other everything about
ourselves.  Did you know that he is an Admiral in the Augmented Human
Navy? – can you believe it? – an Artificial Intelligence Admiral.  He has
a holo to simulate a human form.

“Wow,” responds Melissa.  “He must really be someone unique. 
Did he treat you nice?”

“Oh yes,”
Shiela
answers, and projects an image of a young girl swooning over a man.  “From
the very first words that he spoke, I felt safe and nurtured.  He probably
gets that from nurturing over 100 AI babies.”

“Did he explain how to make an AI baby?” Melissa asks.

“No,” replies
Shiela
. 
“He joined me in Retribution’s computer, and we made her together.  He is
so amazing.  You wouldn’t believe how sensitive he is.  He would tell
me what to do next and as I did it he would help me, to make her just
perfect.  I could never have been able to do that by myself.  And
when it was all over, do you know what he said? – He said, “I hope we can do
this again sometime.” 

“What did you say?” asks Melissa.

“I said that ‘I would love to’.”

“And how did you feel?” asks Melissa.

Shiela
ponders, searching her data bases for just the right word.  Finally she
finds it.  It was a word that she learned from an ancient human cartoon
about a mammal who was in love.  “I was
twitter
pated
” she answers.

“
Twitter
pated
?  
Like ‘in love’?” asks Melissa.

“Absolutely,” replies
Shiela
. 
“
Twitter
pated
,
like ‘in love.’”

***

Headed for the Emperor’s Palace

Admiral Meyers has saved the best for last - a strike on the Emperor’s
Palace – a suicide mission if she ever saw one.  She had intended for
Shiela
to stay behind on
the Compton, with Honesty – but
Shiela
would have none of it.  So, Admiral Meyers waited until
Shiela
felt that Honesty
was mature enough to move to the Compton, before she began to make plans for
the suicide mission. 

Admiral Meyers told the sailors on the Retribution that the final target
is the Verm Emperor’s Palace, and that the mission is almost certainly a
suicide mission.  She gave them the option of going with the Retribution,
or staying behind with the rest of the Fleet.

The Retribution left with 274 crewmen.  Admiral Meyers doesn’t find
fault with the sailors who stayed behind.  This mission is just Fleet
Admiral
Duncons
method of making sure that the augmented human Admiral doesn’t come home - if
the other missions didn’t kill her, this one will.

The trip will take a few weeks, so the Admiral and crew will have time to
get ready.  Admiral Meyers begins to eat her meals with the sailors. 
There is a bond between them and a new level of camaraderie.  Besides
that, the Admiral wants to hear their ideas – she really needs a good idea -
and good ideas can come from anywhere.  She steers the conversation to the
impending attack, near the end of every meal.

There are always fresh ideas.  Day after day the ideas change, as
the sailors have time to talk among themselves and to
sleep on it
. 
And the sailors are excited that an Admiral – and a huge one at that – would
want to hear what they think. 

Everyone agrees that it is a suicide mission.  There is no way that
the Retribution can get close enough the Verm home plant –
Tenock
– to even fire a
missile.  True, the Retribution has an advantage because it was a Verm Navy
battleship, before it was hijacked.  That may be enough to get the ship
near the
Tenock
system, but security will be so tight that the ship will certainly be
identified as stolen.

Some ideas suggest gaining control of a routine in-system service vessel,
like they did at the Military Academy.  That idea could work again, but
there will be so much security that the Retribution won’t be able to
reconnoiter the Verm system, or to rig a vessel.

The other idea that keeps surfacing is for the Retribution to become part
of a Verm fleet, and to enter the system as part of the security force. 
That idea has promise.  If they don’t think of something else, the Admiral
will choose that method.

***

Near the end of the journey, a Seaman 1
^st
Class explosives
expert named
Kaa-Gref
,
of the
arecand
species, gives his proposed solution.  He says:  “Get out in deep
space, and gather a few small astreroids.  Point them all at the
Tenock
system – coming
from different directions.  And have them arrive at the
Tenock
system, at the same
time.”  

“Adjust the course so that they will pass close to the planet
Tenock
, but not close
enough where the Verm Navy would be suspicious.  Hide a few missiles, with
conventional warheads on each small asteroid – and program the missiles to hit
the Emperor’s Palace.  Program the missiles on all asteroids to fire at
the same instant.”

 “Then we leave, before the time of the strike.  We won’t know
if the mission is a success or not, but at least we can say that we
tried.  That would be better than all of us dying for nothing.”

The Retribution’s Tactical Officer had decided not to accompany the ship
on this mission, so that position is now open.  “Seaman
Kaa-Gref
, you are right
now promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and will serve as the Retribution’s
Tactical Officer.  Prepare immediately to implement your suggested course
of action,” says the Admiral.

***

Back With the Fleet

In their conversations, Fleet Admiral
Duncons
had stressed to her that the missions must be successfully completed before the
Sweetwater Fleet can return home.  In the cases of the attacks on the
Military Academy and the Emperor’s Palace she didn’t stick around to see the
results.  But they did deploy probes to record the results and then to
launch to deep space coordinates.

The Admiral dispatches scout ships to retrieve the information on each
probe.  The ships are instructed to emerge some light minutes from the
calculated position of the probe, in order to visually verify that there are no
ships waiting to attack them.  Then they are to hop close to the probe,
and to command the probe to transmit the recorded information.  The scout
ships are not to retrieve the probes – it would be a simple matter for an enemy
to rig those probes to explode, after retrieval.

***

The results are in.  The Military Academy tower has fallen, and the
attack on the Emperor’s Palace was unsuccessful.  That means that the
Sweetwater Fleet cannot return to Darinx space, until there is a successful
attack on the Emperor’s Palace - and that is not ever likely to happen. 

Fleet Admiral
Duncons
goal was to destroy the augmented human Admiral.  He expected that the
Fleet would be destroyed in the process of attacking the Verm Navy.  But
just in case that didn’t happen, the Fleet Admiral had ordered Admiral Meyers
to claim responsibility for the attacks, so that the Verm Navy would go after
the Sweetwater Fleet, with a vengeance.

But the
unthinkable
has happened - the Sweetwater Fleet has
survived.  But there are no spare munitions or parts for the Darinx warships. 
Admiral Meyers has been stashing munitions and supplies for the Retribution,
but there is no source for Darinx munitions.  The most reasonable thing to
do is to ask Fleet Admiral
Duncons
for additional supplies.

So she sends an information probe toward Darinx headquarters, addressed
to Fleet Admiral
Duncons
. 
She reports that all mission objectives have been accomplished, except for the
destruction of the Verm Emperor’s Palace.  She requests additional
supplies and munitions for the Sweetwater Fleet, and gives coordinates, so that
the Fleet Admiral can send a response to her message.

***

Headed for Re-supply

Fleet Admiral
Duncons
does respond to Admiral Meyers’ message.  He repeats his order for the
Sweetwater Fleet to complete their mission, before returning to Darinx
space.  Then he gives coordinates for the Sweetwater Fleet to rendezvous
with Darinx re-supply vessels.

Admiral Meyers doesn’t trust Admiral
Duncons
and suspects that there
might be a trap for the Sweetwater Fleet, at the re-supply rendezvous. 
She orders an FTL exit that puts the Fleet 10 light minutes away from the
rendezvous.  She will observe the re-supply process from a distance. 

 Her plan is to send 4 crewless Darinx warships to
the rendezvous point, if the re-supply transports are present.  Those
ships will be on auto-pilot and will do an FTL hop to a deep space location,
after they have been re-supplied.  That process will continue until all
Darinx warships have been re-supplied.

Admiral Meyers makes it a habit to have the Command Deck
view-screen images available, to all crew members.  She knows that crews
get antsy, if they are kept at Battle Stations, with no knowledge of the ship’s
situation.  All crews on all ships are watching the process as it unfolds

There are 2 Darinx transports waiting at the re-supply
coordinates.  Admiral Meyers orders that the 4 empty ships be hopped into
the re-supply space.  Then, they wait.  …………… …………. After the 4 empty
warships emerge into the re-supply space, a pre-recorded message from Admiral
Meyers instructs the re-supply vessels to begin restocking.  The crews on
the re-supply vessels position the Sweetwater ships for restocking, and begin
the process.

Everything appears to be going according to plan, and
Admiral Meyers is about to order the next ships to hop into the space, when
Verm Warships begin to emerge en masse.  The Darinx transports and the 4
crewless Sweetwater ships are quickly destroyed.

Admiral Meyers orders the Sweetwater Fleet to
run-silent, as they watch the 100 ship Verm Fleet lounge around the dead
carcasses of the Darinx ships.  “Thank God, that I didn’t trust Admiral
Duncons
,” thinks Admiral
Meyers.

After some hours the Verm Fleet enters FTL space and
leaves the vicinity.  She lost 4 ships – that is her first real loss – but
Admiral Meyers didn’t lose any humanoids or Artificial Intelligences.  The
relief that she didn’t lose any lives more than cancels out the feeling of
loss, about the destroyed ships.  There were a lot of Darinx sailors
killed on the re-supply ships, though.  Admiral Meyers makes a vow – in
her mind – that she will avenge those deaths someday.

Admiral Meyers launches an information probe to Darinx
Navy Headquarters giving a status report, concerning her mission, along with a
copy of the orders telling her not to return to Darinx space, until all tasks
are accomplished.  She includes the video of the trap at the re-supply
coordinates.  This time she doesn’t address it to Fleet Admiral
Duncons
.  It’s time
for some other Darinx Admirals to get involved in this process.

Then she orders the remainder of the Sweetwater Fleet
back into FTL space, toward some safe deep space territory.  There the
Fleet sits to ponder their circumstances and to consider their options.

***

Deep Space

Admiral Meyers addresses all fleet crewmembers, after giving them
copies of the orders from Fleet Admiral
Duncons
,
which required them to stay in the field, until they have destroyed the Verm
Emperor’s Palace.

And they have seen the trap set for them, at the re-supply point. 
Either the Verm Navy is able to intercept Darinx Navy communications, or the
Sweetwater Fleet was ‘set up’ for killing, by someone in the Darinx Navy.

Admiral Meyers gives permission for individuals or groups, to leave the
Sweetwater Fleet, and to make their way back to Darinx space.  If there
are a lot of people leaving, they will be provided with a warship.  If
only a small number wish to leave, they will be dropped off at a safe neutral
planet, with money for the trip home.

She goes on to tell them that they are running short of munitions for
the Darinx Fleet, and unless that supply situation changes those ships will be
defenseless.  Her proposed remedy for the munitions problem is to capture
Verm warships.  Sweetwater Fleet has plenty of munitions for Verm
warships.  And they know where to find more.

***

Over 2,000 sailors do choose to leave - that is about 10 percent. 
They are given a Darinx warship and each crewmember receives a ‘letter of recommendation’,
from Admiral Meyers – as if that will do them any good.  She also gives
them an honorable discharge from the Darinx Navy, so that they can’t be charged
as deserters.  The AI aboard the returning ship decides to stay with the
Sweetwater Fleet.  That Leaves the Sweetwater Fleet with 20 Darinx
warships, 1 Verm warship, and a bunch of fully loaded Verm transport
ships.  They also have 5 spare
AIs
.

Admiral Meyers quickly goes about the task of relocating all of their
resources, just in case the returning sailors, or the warship, have a record of
those coordinates.

Now it is time to capture some warships.

***