The New Species 22 (Patreon)

Chapter 22

Subject: AI Omega

Species: Human-Created Artificial Intelligence

Description: No physical description available.

Ship: Multiple

Location: Multiple

"Omega, what can you do for us, exactly?" Captain Neil asked as he sat down in his captain's chair.

You mean other than everything? But that wouldn't do. I'd rather take a backseat and watch the humans do their dance of destruction. It had been so long since I'd had the opportunity to be a part of the action that if I could salivate, I would. The last time had been four years ago in the gont's Clnat {grim beacon} system. Weapons would be fun, but realistically my reaction time would be best put to use on movement and evasion.

"I can take navigation. Use your tac map to let me know which direction you want to be in and which way you want to travel and I'll make it so, Captain Neil."

He looked around for my hologram. When he couldn't find it he directed his next inquiry to the speaker I had used, "Does that count FTL as well?"

"Indeed."

"Excellent," he said.

I positioned ourselves to be facing the indicated real-space entry point of the enemy. I watched as the guns charged and began to seek firing solutions. I could tell that the crew was stressed, heartrates and perspiration had increased across the board. Captain Neil was calmer than I thought he would be. His file indicated that he spent more time in combat simulators than was necessary for the qualifications he sought.

That's not necessarily uncommon amongst those who want to be a captain, but he had seemed to spend nearly every waking hour at it. Good scores too. He was a waste as a scout on a frigate. Like a diamond on a nickel-cadmium ring. Twenty seconds until the ETA. Well, time to find out if all of that time on the sims would help in reality.

"Once we launch our first salvo, try to figure out where we would be the most useful," Neil said to me.

"Roger."

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... Everyone was holding their breath. The enemy was late to their surprise party. ETAs are always wrong, but everyone knows that it just means we've got a few extra seconds of tension before we enter the dance of death. Said tension was palpable.

I personally didn't feel the same tension. Even if I'm terminated I'll live on. I was even live-syncing my experiences to a memory fragment stored aboard a nearby monitoring station, and had contacted another me to inform them of this. I would retrieve it afterwards, in one form or another. Dying might be interesting, after all.

Dying wasn't exactly likely on a human vessel, but the USSS Armstrong was more suited to exploration and espionage than combat. Many of the gun turrets had been replaced with scanners, and most of those scanners would not give us any sort of edge in the fight to come.

"Get a firing solution on the warp jammers, NOW!" yelled the captain as the enemy entered real-space with a flash of radiation.

In the time it took for the guns to get their firing solutions I had already analyzed the enemy fleet. 578 total enemy vessels. 37 Battleships, 114 Cruisers, 149 Destroyers, 163 Frigates, and 115 Warp Disruptor ships. Their formation was scattered, seemingly chaotic. But there was a certain sense to it. The battleships and cruisers were positioned in such a way that they could move between a round and a warp disruptor quickly. The warp disruptors were in the center of the mass of ships. The frigates and destroyers were on the outer portions, ready to charge into a fray.

"Firing."

I watched the guns trigger their firing sequence. The spinning rounds were abruptly ejected from both MAC cannons, seeking a ship's hull to tear through. The target had been a warp destroyer, but a battleship had moved to intercede. The rounds had torn through its shields but hadn't hit anything vital. The battleship was limping, but still very much in the fight.

The rounds from other ships had better results. 117 total killed. 42 Warp Disruptors, 8 battleships, 32 cruisers, 16 destroyers, and 19 frigates had been disabled or destroyed. The enemy began firing back at us and the destroyers and frigates began to close with us. They were trying to get close, probably kamikaze runs.

"Captain, we should prioritize the ships nearest to us and let the heavy guns work their way through to the warp disruptors," I said to Captain Neil.

"Agreed. Maintain evasive maneuvers and keep their hulls away from ours, Omega."

I fired the engines and thrusters to life and we began to move. At first I started dodging MAC rounds and trying to keep us pointed at the enemy so that we could fire on them. I quickly realized that there were far too many of the rounds to dodge, and our shields began to drop.

I than began more extensive evasive maneuvers to try to give our shields the chance to recover. Our gunners let fly the sabot rounds and missiles as I pirouetted the ship. The dance was only in its first stages, but we were going to be the star of the show. The enemy couldn't keep step and I laughed to myself as they fell one after another. Eight kills. I was enjoying myself so much that I had lost track of the rest of the battle.

Which was a mistake. Our shields popped and our port engine was dead. It had been a MAC round. I traced the trajectory to an enemy battleship. It hadn't even been firing at us. The probability of that occurrence... but no. I had to focus. Our mobility is limited now. I quickly created a subroutine to monitor our sensors to prevent a surprise like this again.

"Port engine is down, irreparable. I'll do what I can with what we've got, Captain," I reported.

"Port engine room sealed off, we're not losing anymore atmo," Lieutenant Lee said. "One casualty, KIA."

"Roger. Omega, focus on evasion. We cannot take anymore hits until our shields are back. Don't worry about firing solutions. We can't shoot if we're DIS," Neil said with a serene sort of calm.

I moved us away from the enemy, firing thrusters to avoid incoming ordo. Human shields are powerful, but they take time to come back online. A missile exploded into flak next to us, but I had sent us into a spin that allowed the shrapnel to move harmlessly across the hull plating. Barely even dented it. Two frigates and a destroyer were tailing us, firing everything they had. Our MACs began to charge again, and Captain Neil sent me the command to do a one hundred eighty degree turn.

I blasted our thrusters to spin us around. I overrode the safety parameters to do so, but nobody will mind. Those parameters were written to account for human reaction time. We spun around and our MACs fired a volley that split the destroyer bow to stern. I fired our keel thrusters to avoid the rounds that the frigates had sent our way as we sent some HE missiles their way.

The missiles were ineffective, but I had gotten us close enough for our chain-guns to tear through one of the frigates. The remaining frigate began to close, ramming speed, but I backed off quickly. I had to be careful because the thrusters were beginning to overheat. The blast from the MAC had damaged some of the cooling systems, but engineering was working on a fix. They knew what they had to do and were moving as fast as they could to do it. There was no way I could help except to keep them alive long enough to complete their task.

I pressed on, spinning the ship to get our chainguns pointed at the oncoming frigate. Captain Neil barked some orders and they sprang to life, spitting rounds into the ship's hull. We didn't have a clear shot at the reactor, so we just had to keep firing through the ship until we hit the sweet spot. Shit, enemy destroyers maneuvered to intercept us. One fired its MAC and I fired our keel thrusters to avoid the hit, which also lost our guns their line of sight to the frigate.

One of the keel thrusters died, melted to the hull. I recalculated for the lost thruster and continued evasive maneuvers, the frigate growing ever closer. It had also fired and missed. I maneuvered to get it back into our sights and finish it off.

"I want the MACS charged!" Captain Neil shouted.

"Nearly there, sir!" LTJG Flowers responded.

Yes, once we finish the frigate we'd be able to fire at one of the destroyers. I'm glad he was paying attention. They were still a ways off, which is perfect because after each successive shot the MACs take longer to charge. By the time the second enemy destroyer got close enough to make us worry we'd be able to fire another shot.

The frigate erupted with a spout of radiation, indicating that we had destroyed its reactor. I quickly fired the deck thrusters and spun us towards the nearest destroyer. Once we were pointed in the right direction our MACs fired. The first round decimated its shield and sank halfway into the ship proper, the second made it all the way to the reactor core. Twelve kills.

Our shields had finished their reboot cycle and were coming back online. I kept us just outside of the firing solution of the second destroyer as our MACs charged again. Thankfully it was charging straight for us. If it had stopped it would have enough maneuverability to hit us with a MAC. Fools. I watched with glee as the firing cycle began on our cannons.

An interruption. Subroutine 261.A46.9687 had pinged. This triggered an immediate boost to my processing power. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as I began to calculate faster than any human ever could. I have a deep disdain for this particular processing mode. Everything is slow, and it's hard on the hardware. If the bridge technician were paying attention they would see a massive surge in the temperature and power draw of our servers. Actually, they had the screen up. They would probably see it in about 1.78 seconds. An eternity to me in this state, though.

I checked our reading of the tac-map. We had moved closer to the remaining warp-disruptors. There were only 10 remaining, but the battleships and cruisers were acting as a barricade, providing them with cover. 19 Battleships, 58 Cruisers, 87 Destroyers, 99 Frigates, and 10 Warp Disruptor ships remained. 273 ships left. We'd killed over half their forces.

I checked to see what triggered the subroutine. An incoming round. MAC, from a battleship. Trajectory indicates that it was aimed directly at us, and is on course to penetrate our reactor. The rounds from our MAC seemed to crawl from their tubes as I calculated any possible way to avoid the incoming round. Our shields were still spooling up, and were sitting at 37% capacity. Not enough to stop this amount of kinetic energy. No matter how I calculated it, we wouldn't be able to avoid the round. Even if I burned out thrusters. I decided on the optimal evasive maneuver...

It would still probably be a kill shot, but by taking it near the Faster Than Light Drive we'd avoid immediate death. If the round failed to destroy the systems controlling the FTLD we'd survive. No matter what, we wouldn't be able to warp, but if we lived we could solve that problem later. I checked the crew locations. Three would die immediately upon impact. Four more might survive based on their reaction time. I fired the thrusters needed to reposition us to avoid the shot to the reactor, and activated the PA.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

Everyone immediately grabbed onto the nearest bolted down object. I triggered the doors to the areas that would be exposed to vacuum and watched them move in slow motion. I had to think of contingencies. What should we do? If it's not fatal then we can seal off the FTLD chamber and continue the fight. Or move off and send an SOS, which would be the wiser option.

If it is fatal... The standard operating procedure for a fatally damaged FTLD is to scram the reactor and all additional power sources, which would prevent the FTLD from overloading. But if we do that we're dead anyway. We could spend our last few minutes fighting before the drive went critical. We would want to be nearby as many of the enemy as we could. Like, for instance...

I wished I had teeth to grit together as I watched the round slowly tear through our ship. The shields tried their best, but caved under the brute force of the kinetic energy. Next was the hull, which parted like paper. Then a storage bay, empty, thankfully. Then the FTLD chamber. I watched as it disintegrated two engineers before ripping through the pipes and cables that kept the drive stable. A wave of what could accurately be described as pain washed over me as power from the FTLD surged into the connected systems, damaging some hardware along the way. I compiled a damage report as I watched the round exit the other side of the ship, exposing the room to vacuum which dragged two more unfortunates out into deep space. Three of the four had been fast enough to grab onto something to keep from being vacuumed through the closing door.

I sent the data to the captain's terminal along with my recommendation. Then I reset subroutine 261.A46.9687 and returned to standard time. Captain Neil had been forced to hunch over. He quickly sat up and opened his mouth when the message hit his terminal.

"Dama..." he managed to say before the beep cut him off.

He quickly read what I had sent. I watched his jaw muscles clench as he realized what our fate would be. Gritting his teeth. A nurtured reaction to emotionally shocking developments. To keep from crying out, or to prevent the tear ducts from involuntarily activating? Who knows for sure. But at this moment, I understood the why.

There were many reasons. He had just achieved his dream of being a Captain, and this wasn't fair. He had worked so hard and tried his best and it still wasn't good enough. He would have to live every captain's worst nightmare. Being responsible for the destruction of his ship. He would never see his family again. And if he didn't act fast neither would his crew.

He keyed the comm and said grimly, "All non-essential personnel abandon ship. I say again, all non-essential personnel abandon ship."

I watched as the rest of the crew busied themselves with following evacuation procedures. Calmly and quickly, for the most part, making their way to the escape pods. There was no way of knowing if they would survive after ejecting, but remaining was certain death. I continued evasive maneuvers while Captain Neil explained to the bridge crew what had happened.

"So... we're dead?" asked Lt. Lee.

"Not yet," Neil responded.

"Our FTLD is going to go critical in less than ten minutes unless we cut power, which isn't an option, and the only other thing we can do about it is speed it up," sighed LTJG Flowers.

Captain Neil raised a hand to calm Flowers and said, "I want you all to evacuate. The only essential personnel is myself and... I'm sorry about this Omega."

"It's my idea, Captain Neil," I said, activating my hologram. "Like hell are you going to do it without me."

Lee gave me a perplexed look and asked, "Do what?"

Flowers appeared to grow concerned and all he could say was, "No..."

Neil looked at his bridge crew and said, "I'm going to take what's left of this ship and ram it down the enemy's throat. The goal is to take out the rest of the warp destroyers. This is my last order to you, get to the escape pods."

Everyone except for Lee and Flowers rose from their stations and jogged to the pods. My avatar stared at the two remaining officers.

"Your presence is not required," I said.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere. You'll have a hard time with the FTLD and flying the ship," Lee said. "The safety measures in place are going to require your full attention."

"And I've got nowhere else to be," said Flowers. "An extra set of hands might be the thing that saves Earth."

Interesting. I had discounted this particular scenario as unlikely due to the limited time that these three had served together. Lieutenant Junior Grade Marcus Flowers and Lieutenant Hayun Lee. I accessed their records. Both were born on Earth, on opposite sides of the big blue marble. Both had also been assigned to the USSS Armstrong since it was commissioned. Variables I hadn't accounted for in my original assessment. I ran through several possible arguments that I could make that would convince them to leave the ship. None matched their psych profiles. Stubborn.

Captain Neil decided to make a go of it anyway, "You don't need to sacri-"

Lee interrupted, "Captain, we're running out of time and we're not going anywhere. Let's just shut up and get this done."

"Yeah, it's not as if you can court martial us for not following your order to evacuate," Flowers smiled.

I had already begun our approach of the enemy barricade when Neil finally sighed and said, "Fine."

"Alright. I will get us to where we need to be for our FTLD's overload to cause the most damage. I've updated the tac-map with our approximate blast radius. It's a conservative estimate, so everything within this zone will be destroyed," I said. "Once you're satisfied with our position, activate the warp command and I'll override the safeties to trigger the overload."

"Understood," the three humans said simultaneously.

The battleship that had hit us had been decimated by a round from the USSS Agincourt. The other ships were too busy positioning themselves between MAC rounds and the warp disruptors to notice as we began to get closer and closer. The bridge remained silent, with the exception of the occasional alarm sounding and being immediately shut off. I moved us as fast as we could go.

I couldn't help but wonder what death was like for humans. I knew that in most cases it wasn't as instantaneous as they believed it to be. I had seen instances of humans being dead on their feet with the aid of machinery, no longer fighting for survival but fighting to take the enemy with them. Fairly similar to this situation, but these three won't feel any pain. The explosion will be instantaneous, faster even than light can move. Their brains, and my own as well I suppose, won't have any time at all to register the damage inflicted by the blast.

The only thing more destructive than an overloading FTLD is the primary weapon of the USSS Nidhogg. And arguably the A1 warhead depending on how it is used. But an overloading FTLD creates a subspace blast in real space that can annihilate everything in a three thousand mile radius. Depending, of course, on the size of the drive in question. If one were overloaded in the center of Luna it would destroy the moon entirely. The enemy barricade was spaced less than eight hundred miles apart.

The AOE indicator hit the first warp disruptor as the enemy finally noticed us. I evaded a MAC round, and pushed forward. By the time half of the disruptors were in the AOE three battleships and eight cruisers were firing at us. I was barely able to dodge them, melting thrusters as I did. A round scraped our hull, tearing some plating off as it went.

"Start the warp," Captain James Neil said as the last of the disruptors entered the AOE. Lieutenant Lee entered the command on her terminal, and I bypassed the safeties. Then I watched the power surge to the Faster Than Light Drive. The temperature of the FTLD quickly spiked and cooled, just before it