The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #4, Retribution (10 page)

Within moments, the automated repair systems had sealed the breach and begun reintroducing atmosphere into the compromised section
s
… but the damage had been done. The
Yorktown
was forced to briefly withdraw, which allowed the
Tidepool
to enter the fray.

That had been several hours ago. Both sides had received reinforcements during the interim. The GCP
Mador,
under the command of Commodore Ruck, as well as the GCP
TaPol
, a
D’
lralu heavy cruiser under the command of Captain Tosh, had joined the fray from the Coalition. The Modos Syndicate had been joined by four ships; two dreadnought-class ships, the
MS Stonefish
and
MS Broken Claw,
as well as two frigates, the
MS
Bluewater
and the
MS Early Tide
.

The Modos forces had more ships, but the GC
P’
s vessels were vastly superior in terms of shielding and weaponry. The long and the short of it was that the combatants were evenly matched. Cat knew that in such a draw the Modos won the day, because absent GCP help the insurrection taking place on the plane
t’
s surface was doomed to fail. She needed to change the balance of power, and she needed to do it soon.

It was a shame that the WhimPy platform, cloaked in high orbit, was prevented from joining the battle by virtue of its ethical subroutines. The Heshe weapons platform was by far the
most powerful force in this sector of space. Already on Ca
t’
s orders it had destroyed several additional nuclear payloads launched at civilian targets on the planet below.

Cat opened a voice channel to the weapo
n’
s platform.

“
101
?
”

“
Admiral
?
”

“
I’
m looking for ways to break the deadlock in this battle. I understand the Heshe have adapted your programming to limit your activities to defensive postures only. But within that context; what are the options you can offer to assist in our fight against the Modos Syndicate
?
”

“
Regrettably, none, Admiral. Unless they directly threaten a GCP protected population center, I am prohibited from intervening
.
”

“
So you cannot attack the Modos ships directly. Do your ethical subroutines allow you to intimidate
?
”

There was a pause before the powerful AI answered. Cat knew the WhimP
y’
s intellect operated many orders of magnitude faster than hers, so the delay was probably a subroutine designed to ease interactions with organic intelligences. When 101 did answer... it was a single word and not one she expected.

"
Yes.
"

***

The sight was a startling one. One second the Modos fleet was facing three large but manageable GCP, ships and the next the unimaginable happened. A massive ship, that looked more like a flying brick studded with weapons and shield emitters, suddenly shimmered into existence between the combatants and the planet of Naanac. It was easily ten times the combined mass of all ships in system. Its shields rippled with untold energy. Sensors were totally useless.

A powerful message, in some cases coming close to overloading the communication circuits on the Modos ships, was transmitted on all Syndicate frequencies. The Heshe weapons platform called 101 declared this system under its jurisdiction and that all Syndicate vessels were commanded to power down their weapons and prepare to be boarded by Coalition personnel. 

Captain Moss, the younger brother of General Moss, spun the
Broken Claw
around one hundred and eighty degrees and ordered a full strike launched at the weapons platform. This included six high yield nuclear missiles, a barrage from both forward rail guns, and a continuous-fire 16 peta-joule plasma beam.

Energy roiled across the massive ship's shields, but they showed no sign of weakening.

Frustrated, Captain Moss signaled his comm officer to open a channel to the other vessels in his battle group.

"All ships follow my lead. Redirect fire against targets I designate. Let's take out that beast!"

On cue all three Modos ships redirected their fire to a single point on the weapons platform's shields. The shields glowed and for a few brief moments they were brighter than the systems K-type main sequence star. When the barrage finally stopped the shields on the massive weapons platform were unfazed.

The coordinated attack was a strategy the Syndicate ships had used against the
Yorktown,
earlier. It had failed then, too, but for a different reason. If the GCP had not developed protocols for interlocking shields which allowed the
Mador
and
TaPol
to essentially cover the
Yorktown
with their shields, the outcome would have been very different. As it was, neither attack succeeded.

Having been attacked, certain constraints were lifted by the WhimP
y’
s ethical subroutines. In response, 101 powered up a single collimated anti-proton beam. It took the systems, which had been in a powered down cold state, exactly 6.2 milliseconds to power up. WhimPy 101 used the time to contemplate several thousand permutations based on the actions he was about to take. He choose one that offered the highest degree of success while minimizing casualties.

A blistering white beam lashed out from the weapo
n’
s platform. It played across the shields of each of the Syndicate ships. In each case the shield array on the ship in question immediately overloaded and critical power conduits to various weapo
n’
s systems were surgically cut. The ships were now essentially defenseless and with very limited offensive capability.

Captain Moss waved smoke out of his face as he looked around the shattered remains of his bridge. Various control panels that had been functioning just moments before where now dead, smoldering, and in some cases even on fire. Fire suppression teams were even now being dispatched all over the ship. The power of that new opponent was beyond imagination. Why had not the Coalition used it before? If the GCP had more of these weapon systems then the Chairman was in for a rough tim
e
… no matter how many ships he brought into the battle.

He nodded to the communications officer to open a channel to the other ships and at the same time signaled his older brother on the plane
t’
s surface. The fleet, such as it was, would be forced to retreat. When the image of his brother appeared on the holographic projector in front of him, he bowed. This would not be a pleasant conversation.

***

The fully automated Modos Internal Auditor probe
Bottom Line
slowly backed away from the scene of the battle. The IA
Bottom Line
was an easy craft to miss. Although Syndicate stealth technology was nowhere near as sophisticated as that used by the GCP, it was still remarkably effective. Metamaterials designed to bend visible light and LiDAR signals coated its exterior. Special electronics and associated sensors allowed its electromagnetic signature to effectively hide within the normal background chatter present in everyday solar emissions. On top of this, it was smal
l—
far too small to carry a life-support system. Instead, it carried a sophisticated (although not sentient) artificial intelligence.

Like all IA ships the
Bottom Lin
e’
s
mission was a simple one: observe and report. It had seen all that it needed to. The automated probe opened a jump portal and exited the system. WhimPY 101 watched it leave and noted its destination was an uncharted nebula some six thousand light years distant.

***

Cat sat back in her seat aboard one of the
Mado
r’
s
troop shuttles. She had left Ken in command of the
Yorktown
and Jason Ruck in temporary overall command of the task force while she was on planet. She did
n’
t expect to be on the surface long. She was meeting Lt. Commander Pete LeAnder on the plane
t’
s surface. He had located the computer core she had sent him to fetch, but there was a problem retrieving it.

It seemed the Syndicat
e’
s engineers never designed the core to be moved. It was, in fact, constructed as a distributed storage and processing system that spanned a significant portion of the headquarters complex. Given that LeAnde
r’
s forces controlled most of the area of Harromog near the Syndicate headquarters, Cat decided an on-site visit was in order. Ken had objected that her presence in a combat zone was too risky, but she reminded him that she was
n’
t all that easy to kill and had an even harder time staying dead.

The transport was carrying the final load of Army Rangers from the
Mador
to augment the Marines already on planet.

“
Admiral! We are detecting an active targeting radar from the plane
t’
s surface
.
”

“
Any other activity
?
”

“
Negative, m
a’
am
,
” the shuttl
e’
s copilot said, as she continued to scan her board.

“
Report the location to ground support and continue to monitor
,
” Cat said.

“
We should be at the landing zone in two minutes, Admiral
,
” the pilot reported
.“
Commander LeAnder is standing by to escort you to the headquarters building
.
”

“
Thanks, Kristi. Have a shuttle on standby to take me back to the
Yorktown
once I check out the situation down here
.
”

“
Very good, m
a’
am.
I’
ll keep the Puddle Jumper on standby
.
”

Cat unbuckled her safety restraint as soon as the shuttle touched down. As promised, Commander LeAnder was standing by to guide her to the control center he and Lieutenant McKinney had discovered a few hours earlier.

“
As you can see
,
” he began
,“
this does seem to be the server control room, but as far as we can tell they use a distributed information archive, much like Eart
h’
s old-style Internet
.
”

Cat surveyed the room. It looked remarkably like a server room on any planet she had ever visited. Certain things were dictated by function. True, the labels changed and the input devices tended to reflect the physical attributes of the races they were designed for, but environmental controls, system monitors, storage, and activity displays all tended to be present. Most races with substantial interstellar capabilities tended to use holographic memory systems simply because of the inherent speed and data density they provided, but every now and then a race came along that bucked the trend. It appeared the Modos was one such race.

“
Clearly we are not going to be able to just pick up the computer core and take it with u
s
” Cat said
.“
We are going to need to build some type of data-extraction unit
.
”

“
I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I had a brief conversation with Lt. Sanders from IT. His concern was the time it would take to fully move several petabytes of data through their systems into whatever we were going to use as an interface and storage device
.
”

“
Normally I would agree
,
” Cat said, with a grin
.“
But in this case we are going to cheat
.
”

LeAnder raised an eyebrow.

“
My internal AI is of Heshe origin
,
” Cat explained
.“
It has more than enough storag
e—
several thousand times over. I
t’
s also tied directly into my encounter unit, which acts as my comm-link. All we really need to do is reprogram a few of my self-replicating nanites to follow the data streams in their distributed network and report back via a permanent quantum entangled link
.
”

Commander LeAnder whistled softly to himself as he realized the enormity of what she was suggesting. There really was no data network that was secure when she was around. It was a good thing she was on their side.