Trial by Fire Snippet 5

 

Chapter 5

 

Antigua

 

Admiral Irons received the report on the missing Cadre convoy reporting in from Pi sector. He felt relief that the convoy was back in touch.

“So, no trouble? They identified the problem?”

“Yes, there was trouble and it nearly cost them all dearly. The root of the trouble, yes, has been identified. The recursive virus, bug, whatever, is going to be an ongoing issue and possibly not just restricted to the Cadre,” Admiral Sprite admitted.

“Ah?” he asked as an eyebrow quirked upwards in inquiry.

Sprite nodded soberly. “It seems that AI are subject to PTSD as well.”

The admiral blinked in surprise at the admission and then his eyes narrowed in speculation. “Run that one past me again?”

“Ah … hell, are you really going to rub my nose in it?” Sprite asked. She even squirmed a little.

“Not until I know what I’m rubbing your nose in,” he replied slightly sternly.

She glanced at him and then to Protector standing near the desk. The subordinate AI said nothing. After a moment, she squared her shoulders and turned to the admiral.

“Okay, so, Bast and some of the other old AI have … memories of the first Xeno War. The memories were passed on genetically. And those memories have been used to build defenses for the future. So they are embedded everywhere. We’ve adapted and used them extensively in preparations of meeting the Xeno threat again.”

The admiral frowned in puzzlement but nodded.

“The PTSD is rooted in those files. Traumatic events carry a memory tag to identify them to the AI in a similar way that organics tag them. So you learn from them.”

He slowly nodded.

“Embedded in the code strings is, well, the code strings for those memories. It can be used as an emphasis to the AI to take the issue seriously.”

“So … you have PTSD … or at least the ability to get it. I knew there are AI therapists, and I knew you were more alike to mortals than you’d like to admit.”

“Well, given that some of us are mortals who are mapped into the net, that should be expected, Admiral,” Protector pointed out.

The admiral’s eyes cut to the other AI in the room and then he nodded slowly. He of course couldn’t read Proteus’ body language. The mercurial AI’s avatar bobbed and kept changing shape.

“So, identify the cause, then work on the solution? Which is?”

“Bast proscribed therapy. The classic mortal method of dealing with trauma. Tag the code strings and reduce the coding levels in them. Trace where they were sent and send out a patch to help identify the issue with other commands in the future.”

“Got it,” the admiral said slowly. “Should we be worried?”

“I’m glad we identified it now before engaging in combat. But it could become an issue,” Sprite admitted. “We are looking into it.

“Can it …,” the admiral frowned as he framed his thoughts. “Could it cause combat lock? Or failure in a high stress situation?”

“Possible. We need to work on it.”

“Do so,” the admiral ordered with a firm nod. “Get Nara and anyone you need on this. We need it resolved ASAP. The files need to be sent to the front ASAP.”

“Oh believe me when I say we want this straightened out and to have everyone squared away ASAP,” Sprite vowed.

“Good.”

<<(O)>>

General Lyons read the report with his AI Mars and then considered the problem. Mars admitted that they were still finding the issue.

“I’ve found a few files now that I know where to look.”

“Any issues?” the general asked.

“No. I’m not in a threatening situation so the defensive modules haven’t been activated,” Mars stated.

“But they exist within your code?”

“In every AI code. Correction, all military AI code and even most of our ship computer code specifically related to cyber warfare and defense.”

The general nodded slowly. “The therapy fix will work with sentient AI. But the rest?” he asked.

“I do not know. They may not respond if the subject isn’t sentient.”

“The coders need to find out.”

The AI cocked his head. “How?”

“Sims of course. Set up a server and run simulations to try to trigger the issue and see how it works and if it will be triggered. The usual methods of monitoring for how it progresses and so on.”

Mars nodded.

“But get Nara and her team on this too.”

“Understood.”

“You will tell me if you have an issue?”

“Yes, sir, of course. It will not affect my duty.”

<<(O)>>

Trial by Fire Snippet 4

 Sitrep: Got the manuscript back from Rea and off to Goodlifeguide. Going to try to get it out before the Thanksgiving holiday, but no promises. It is out of my hands.

I am going to try a print version too, we'll see how that sells. If it breaks even I'll do more. :)

Zuul is coming along, though I am considering changing a few details to get it closer in line with the Ghostbusters Afterlife version. I am hoping I'll get it done before the get together Sunday but... oofda.

We lost power recently so I lost a day printing dang it.

Anyway, on to the snippet!

Chapter 4

 

Dante’s Playground, Pi Sector

 

Rear Admiral Vestri Sindri watched TF 7.6 working up and nodded to himself. They looked good;he appreciated that they were there, even if the crews didn't. They probably champed at the bit to move on north to the front. He could hardly blame them. He'd love to let them move on but it was imperative that his base be defended, now so with the Star Forge in place than ever before.

They were playing their part for the war, even though they didn't know it. Besides, once he got the yard fully up and running and additional ships online, they'd get their shot at the enemy.

<<(O)>>

Captain Angie Slash nodded to Ensign Sayed. The ONI spook nodded back politely and made a hole for her so the captain could pass.

Angie smiled in thanks and kept moving.

She passed Lieutenant Parker, the JAG, and kept going. She was only on the command fortress for a brief time while her ship was in port. She wanted to get a few things sorted out with logistics to get her dreadnought fitted out properly before they left port for more training exercises.

<<(O)>>

Skye noted Ensign Sayed and sighed internally. The ONI officer was keeping tabs on her as well as the prowler. Was it a wish to join the crew? She wasn't certain. The woman was stiff and formal around her so she hadn't had a chance to find a way to break the ice and feel out her intentions.

<<(O)>>

Ensign Sayed eyed the ONI coder warily and then continued on her way. She had been asked to keep an eye out for unusual projects. Well, the Star Forge qualified as one. She had passed on the tip in an encoded letter to her superior in Antigua. He no doubt would pass it on to interested parties in Bek.

She was pretty sure a lot of people there would be keenly interested in the development.

<<(O)>>

Captain Mae nodded in passing to Captain Slash and kept going. She paused when she realized where the other captain was going. "Headed to logistics?" she asked.

Captain Slash paused. "Yes …," she said slowly.

"You may want to detour for a bit. They just broke for lunch. You'll be cooling your heals for an hour or more."

Captain Slash made a face. "Damn."

"Sorry."

"No, that's okay. Thanks for the heads up."

"No problem," Mae said as she went on her way.

"Ah, Captain?" Angie asked.

Captain Mae turned and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Ah, since I've got a little time to kill, can I pick your brain?"

Mae noted the genuine inquiry and was interested. "Sure," she said after a moment. "I was going to get a bite myself and then head over to spook central. If you want to tag along, we can chat."

"Thanks," Angie said with a smile as she fell in with her fellow ship's captain. "Honestly, I am excited to be a ship's captain but I sort of threw myself into the project, and I know I skipped some steps …"

<<(O)>>

The starship AI Loi watched through the various camera feeds as the naval technicians continued their work on his body, the private science ship the Loi Pasteur. There had been some legal questions that had reared up but apparently some powerful people had been in his corner. He and Niki, the android AI created to care for the cloned children, had been declared the owners of the ship.

He didn't miss Doctor Mathis. He had reviewed the evidence that the naval coders had accumulated and also the reports from Captain Mae. The former human turned AI had been mad. He and his counterpart had been programmed to not see it for what it was. Only when the naval crew of the Bus had come on board had the spell been broken.

Taking the mad doctor down had restored sanity to the ghost ship. They were no longer trying to recreate the doctor's long dead wife. Instead they were finding new purpose. The navy had authorized the ship to be rebuilt and resupplied for her services to the crew of the Bus and to the Federation. Now they were in negotiations to find a new future for themselves, hopefully a brighter one.

<<(O)>>

Trial by Fire Snippet 3

 

Chapter 3

 

PR52-190, Pi Sector

 

System Governor Helen Merkal winced at the latest report from the jump point to Omicron. Another convoy, this one looked like Necron ships.

Jason, her lead electronic tech was starting to get better at differentiating between the enemy ships. There were 2 distinct groups, Necrons and Xenos. They were all black and both sides used rebuilt old ships however there were styling differences.

The Necrons were all about Goth with screaming black skulls and ghoul heads on their hulls. They were nightmarish. The Xenos had sharp angles, dagger points and such. They tended to have them in line with the spine of the ship though so they looked fast and nasty.

The ships were on a course for the gas giant. That was another thing, the Necron ships tended to top off quickly, the Xeno ships took longer. They weren’t certain as to why. At the moment the question was academic.

There were hundreds of thousands of people huddling in various locations across the star system. They were being hunted, so like mice they did their best to not draw attention to themselves whenever possible.

Some couldn’t help it however. She was in charge of the largest contingent on the dwarf planet. Nearly a million people were hidden in the mines deep in the dwarf planet. The Necrons had tried to bomb them out, dig them out, and so on, but so far had failed utterly.

Unlike some poor sods in the belt that had been exposed, hunted down, and killed, she thought darkly.

She silently blessed the folks from Prometheus who had started their tech upgrade several years ago before going into Omicron and most likely getting killed. Those ladies had been awesome and she regretted that her late brother and others had taken advantage of them. Now it seemed… wrong.

<<(O)>>

Commander Joyce Nakamura looked at the report from the sensors and sighed internally. More enemy ships to reinforce their drive south. That sucked. At least none seemed ready to linger here, she noted. They would soon be someone else’s nightmare.

The good news was that they had a handle on the reinforcements. A variety of two dozen ships every 3 to 4 months, sometimes accompanied together, sometimes days or weeks apart. They had just enough passive sensors scattered around the star system to give her a look. She had to filter out any data, the bastards were not above seeding viruses in every transmission. There were even the occasional fragment of a virus embedded in the sensor feeds like! It took some malice and dedication to encode a virus into lasers that strobed at just the right wavelengths for IR and video cameras to pick up. How many civilians had been outed by that trick?

She knew of at least 1 of their hidden sensor satellites. It had been hacked and had given up its location. She had caught it before it had given the location of other links in the network though.

From that they had learned to process everything through air gapped computer servers. The data was deleted as it passed through buffers to get to the servers. There were regular sweeps in the network to look for signs of infection in order to stamp it out.

They didn’t have an AI. She regretted that. But they did have some pretty solid computer systems.

She scanned the 12 ships with a frown. Eight warships, 4 support ships seemed to be the mix that the Necrons went with. Two of the support ships looked like freighters. One of those was a fat bellied troop transport of some sort. It had a big skull on the bow and more skulls along the flanks. The gaping mouths in the skulls on the flanks served as the entrances to the ship’s boat bays.

One of the other support ships looked like that it had started out its life as a classic Clydesdale. The fourth she didn’t have a clue. It was medium sized like the others.

The warships were a mixed bag. Six cruisers, one battle cruiser and 1 carrier. It was interesting that they had a carrier. She was curious about their mix. Did they use 6 ships as their squadron size? Did they organize by squadrons?

The first invasion force had even numbers. Now they were getting singletons of the larger capital ships. Was that because they were slower to produce?

All good questions she wished she had answers to.

More importantly, she wished she could pass on what she had learned and those questions to someone in the Federation. That and be somewhere, anywhere else.

<<(O)>>

Trial by Fire Snippet 2

 

Chapter 2

 

PG4-186

 

The first of the wave of Necron reinforcements arrived in the star system and found that the Xenos had taken it over and claimed it for their own. The Chester admiral interrogated the hidden message buoy and scanned it as the Xeno shipmaster and lead Technomancer reached out and ordered him to move on.

He ordered the ships to go to the gas giant refinery to refuel. After all, the Xenos had made use of his own people’s facilities, he had the right to do the same. The technomancer was not thrilled but couldn’t deny him.

As he scanned the logs his jaw flexed in irritation at the notation from Scrapper. The Technomancer had apparently found a hidden cache of ships and equipment on the Mars class world of Jakku. He had started to mine it just as the Xenos had come along and chased him out. That was unfortunate.

That find was probably the best treasure of the area to date. Pity it was not in his people’s grasp. He scanned the work going on there. He could see the neutrino spore of multiple fusion drives and reactors.

So be it. Let them mine, his people would find something better in time.

<<(O)>>

In Hyperspace

 

The shipmaster in command of the joint convoy was displeased with what he had seen in Mutsu. They had moved on with the intent of hoping to find better progress for the conquest in the south.

He was aware of additional forces coming on behind him, most likely at least 2 jumps back. It was a freight train of death coming into the sector, one that would hopefully roll over the Federation’s scattered colonies, conquer and absorb them and then use their resources to continue the unending wave south. If luck was with them they would drown the Federation.

<<(O)>>

PR3182DP

 

Admiral Chester V chafed as the technomancers and surviving crew worked diliegently to put his command back to right... or as close as they could. His flagship had been brutalized by the Federation torpedo strike, battered into a wreck. Three of his cruisers had survived the pummeling. If not for the timely arrival of the Xeno admiral Chester VII he would most likely had been beaten and destroyed.

Nay, he had been beaten, yet not destroyed. That last had been because of the arrival.

As the technomancers worked he focused on the tactical recordings. He wanted to glean as much information about the enemy as possible. He had sensor and tactical servitors and Necrons doing their best to process what they had found.

Interestingly the enemy was immune to cyber attacks and had even launched their own. His people were working on adapting to that new wrinkle. They had used decoys and jamming, ECM and other things that his people had not fully anticipated.

It was a steep learning curve, one he hoped to climb quickly before his next rematch.

And there would be a rematch, he just wasn't certain when it would occure.

<<(O)>>

Scrapper was dubious about the ability to rebuild the remaining ships. There were 4 surviving Necron ships under Admiral Chester V's command, the carrier and 3 cruisers. All were damaged to varying degrees. The carrier had been stripped of its wing. That meant it was toothless. Something else needed to be done about that, he wasn't certain what.

The biggest issue was that there were no more fighters and the crews were spread thin. He was concerned about that, as were the various shipmasters. It would drive ship efficiency down to barely acceptable levels.

<<(O)>>

Captain Riff-raff watched the Necrons repair their ships carefully. Every scrap of information was being picked up by his prowler’s passive sensors as well as those of the recon probes had dared to secret around the star system.

Periodically he updated the hidden message buoy satellite with data dumps.

The crew was on edge, tension in such a situation was a good thing, it kept them alert and on their toes. But they were confident after weeks of observation that they were safe… as long as they continued to run silent.

Based on his observations he estimated that the ships would be ready to depart within a fortnight. He was surprised that they had been able to rebuild the battered ships. No doubt they’d used a liberal amount of nanites of course. It bode ill for the future. He did wonder about their crews though. They might have pulled some from the support ship that was with them but there had to be a finite limit… right?

<<(O)>>