ShipCore

USD: Eighteen Hours since hostile fleet incursion.

Location: Meltisar, MNS Aegis Flag Bridge

The bridge was awash in the quiet drone of officers and specialists quietly going about their work. Admiral Parks had retired for a break. That was odd, considering the situation, but then again, he likely had a point. If everyone was exhausted by the time anything happened, they’d be worse off than if they had taken the time to rest before.

Either way, her clock was much longer than a human’s and she was well aware of her own limitations regarding sleep. If needed, she could easily push it back a few days before it even began to affect her seriously.

The map plot showed the three hostile fleets that had entered Meltisar and was oriented in a square, placing each one on a square with Meltisar and its gas giant in the center. The fourth corner had remained empty, the Corpo fleet that had been expected completely missing.

That seemed to have thrown whatever plans had been made into disarray. The first fleet had formed around the MNS Aegis and placed itself in front of the Imperial Fleet. The second and third had placed themselves in front of the Ertan Republic’s, while the fourth and fifth had formed in front of the Solarians. That left the sixth fleet around Meltisar itself, ready to reinforce wherever it was decided it was necessary.

The Ertans and Imperials were closest to each other. Alex also knew they didn’t get along, presumably worse than the Corpos and Solarians… and the latter were in an actual shooting war with each other. If the plan had been for the fleets to cross around to the tentative allies before closing in on the defenses in one large mass, that was thoroughly shot, with the Corpos missing.

Alex let out a tense breath. The question was, would whatever treaty or agreement trump however much they hated each other, and if they felt bringing Meltisar to heel today—and not delaying until a better time—was critical to them.

A green dot appeared transiting through the FN Virginis jump point. She could feel her breath catch as the immediate transition message flashed on the console.

| No Transit Activity |

Nothing exiting Corpo space out of the usual had been detected. Her eyes flickered to the transit map detailing the distances in jump points for that system. It was a dark one, with relatively large lanes between its triangular route between the three jump points there.

Even at best speed, which would have been ruinous on a fleet’s propellant tanks, they were at least a day out. The approximately 84 picket ships were only cycling once every twelve hours, which ate away at that buffer time, but it was looking more like the Corpos were not going to show up to the party.

Which was odd, because she would have expected them to be the first to jump at a chance to claim Meltisar for themselves.

Alex’s eyes widened slightly and slipped over to the Solarian fleet position on the tactical map, then down to the western frontier systems. Maybe they were driving their fleet somewhere else, taking advantage of the knowledge that the Solarians would be out of position by a dozen systems to respond to anything they did in the war zone?

She wondered if the Solarians had considered that as well. Veliana’s deal with Tia had already tentatively given them the ‘Solarian Fleet retreats’ card. They had been planning to fight the three remaining fleets off on their own. Everyone else other than the highest echelons in the Admiralty weren’t even privy to that information, so morale about being able to win and defend Meltisar hadn’t been very high.

Everyone had mobilized and taken their stations and prepared to face down their nation’s enemies, anyway.

There were no further orders from high command other than to hold their positions. Light-lag had placed them several hours out of touch, leaving the bulk of the system processing to Tia for the first time since they had taken control of the system. Nameless was busy in the background, burning away computation time on the permanent computronic modules that had been installed on the flagship.

It was almost like he was going through optimization withdrawal, because every twenty minutes he had a new ‘better optimized’ formation for the fleet to adhere to.

Alex wondered if the lack of orders meant Tia and the High Admirals had come to some interminable deadlock on what to do. That wouldn’t surprise her. There were millions of lives at stake—no, literally trillions. It wouldn’t have surprised her if the decision to glass Meltisar to simplify things had already been made by their opponents. The history between the collapse and now certainly hinted at such.

A plan began to form in her head on its own. If they sent the Solarians away, it would be at least 14 days before they could return; that was just the hard math on the 7-day jump point round trip time. Any ships that fled through the jump points would be faced with the same thing.

If they forced them out, then regrouped all of Meltisar’s fleets and then attacked the Ertans and Imperials, they’d easily outmass and outnumber them. But they would almost certainly flee and decline to give battle. They’d be right back to square one.

There was no way for any of the Meltisar fleets to give chase for the same reason as anyone departing would take nearly two weeks to return. If another fleet was waiting to slip in, it could do so unopposed, and the packet-boat nature meant that it would take at least 168 ships doing hourly transits to get frequent updates; and all of those ships would be at risk of being swamped on the other side with no idea of what they’d be flying into or out of.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The fleet did have a lot of corvettes; it was part of their duty in the first place; 700 of them could do approximately fifteen-minute updates even.

No… they needed to engage the Imperials and Ertans in a battle that didn’t make them flee immediately. Lure them deeper into the system while thinking they were winning, and then trap them and destroy them.

On her personal terminal, Alex pressed the Icons for the First and Second fleets forward. The Ertans would be on par, and the Imperials would have a numerical advantage. She slid the third fleet back to a point between the Meltisar’s First and Second, to act as a reserve. The computer calculated the losses, hopefully semi-accurately, but she pulled both fleets back in retreat before much damage could be done. The Ertans and Imperials were drawn closer together.

She wondered just how badly they would operate when forced to work together. They’d still have a numerical advantage against Meltisar’s first three fleets, enough that any Admiral would consider the advantage decisive.

Her eyes turned toward the Solarian fleet and then the reserve fleet, still in a high orbit around Meltisar’s gas giant. They wouldn’t pounce while there was any chance that Meltisar’s forces could reinforce them in time. She pushed the 6th fleet icon toward the Solarians.

That would leave Meltisar naked and undefended except for the fortress orbitals and fixed defenses. Those were formidable in their own right, it was entirely doubtful that even after consuming Meltisar’s defense fleets they would easily be able to overcome those, too.

But they wouldn’t need to. Meltisar couldn’t replace any of its losses, while they’d be facing a completely rebuilt Imperial and Ertan fleet in a matter of months. They didn’t even need to engage today to win, they could just continue to build up and overwhelm them in less than a year.

Alex groaned and wiggled her head back and forth, trying to think of better bait. Would the chance to deal a devastating loss and achieve a heroic victory be worth it to whoever was commanding the Imperial and Ertan fleets?

Her eyes closed, and she rubbed her temples, setting her thumbs against her jaw. Her HUD reported that she’d been thinking hard on it for almost thirty minutes already.

A voice pierced her introspection. “Need some rest, Ensign? Admiral Parks likely had the right idea when he went to take a nap.”

The Captain sat down at the tactical plot across from her, staring at her with an appraisal that could almost be felt.

“I’m fine, Sir. I’m younger than the Admiral and my sleep clock isn’t even near ten percent yet,” Alex replied. She struggled to remember his name. A HUD element lit up and highlighted him and fixed that for her.

| Captain David F. Young |

| Age: 49 |

| Merits and Previous Commands as Follows: … [Truncated] |

“You don’t need any rest yourself, Captain?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Captain’s work is never done, especially in times like this. Besides, you keep ordering the fleet to adjust positions.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just… a habit. Leaving traffic control on Meltisar to go on the trip has made constant tweaking of things…well a constant that’s suddenly been turned off,” Alex explained.

The Captain frowned. “Isn’t Psi Celestia taking care of Meltisar’s systems?”

Alex’s spine jumped into her throat as she realized her mistake, but a quick repair was easy to think of. “Yessir, but she often needs to rely on her subcores to take up the slack. So doing some traffic work helps her not stress out as much.”

He let out a noncommitment hum before glancing at the tactical screen. “You look like you’re wracking your brain off,” Captain Young replied. “Care to share your thoughts?”

Alex bit her lip and took a deep breath before answering. “I’m trying to come up with a plan that will destroy the Ertan and Imperial fleets, without anyone—without major losses on our side.”

He stared at her for almost a minute before replying, “So you’re trying to come up with miracles. With the Corpo fleet missing, I think we almost certainly can force the Imps and Erties to retreat.”

Alex shook her head. “That’s not good enough. We can’t let them flee. They will just come back.” They would come back even if destroyed, but at least it would give them more than a few weeks’ breathing room.

Captain Young frowned. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

She ran her tentative plan on the plot map for him.

“This plan seems to express a very high level of confidence in the First, Second, and Third’s ability to win while outnumbered. They have NAIs in both their fleets as well, you know. Besides, in this type of engagement, I don’t believe that advantage is as decisive as you think.”

Explaining about the shell crates she’d secretly distributed across the fleets’ battleships briefly crossed her mind, but she’d told no one so far and a secret shared wasn’t a secret any longer. “I’m confident in my force analysis here. I can’t tell you why. The biggest issue I have is forcing them to commit to battle and then stopping them here.”

Captain Young grunted and looked back at the map for himself. “If only we had a way to plop something in the way of their path out of the system after luring them further in. But I think you already have a solution you just don’t want to consider.”

Alex blinked. “What is that, sir?”

“You’re trying to save too many people in the fleet.”

Her entire body tensed up, and a fear gripped her throat. “Sir?”

“Your plan is calling for retreats before there are many losses on either side. They will realize you are trying to draw them in and will fall back.”

Alex frowned. “I know. That’s the problem.”

“If you wait until the fleet is torn up and then retreat, they won’t be as suspicious. Your plan calls for the Ertan and Imperial fleets to be together? I’m still not clear on why you believe we can destroy them with our numbers, but I am guessing that will still be possible, even if half the fleets are gone?”

“Sir… That’s… That would be half a million people.”

He reached down to the tactical plot and dragged the Meltisar fleet icons onto the Imperial and Ertan ones, then flicked them off the screen. “That’s six or twelve months before they can try again. I assume the High Admiralty isn’t insane and has some type of plan for things, otherwise they would have already surrendered and found a way to off Celestia and yourself—or at least got themselves killed trying.”

Alex swallowed before admitting he wasn’t completely wrong. “There’s…several plans of varying importance in place. At least I’m hopeful. At least if we have more time.”

“Did you know that the life of the average person today would be unrecognizable to a person a thousand years ago?” Young asked.

Confusion filled her about the relevancy of the question, “Umm. I guess?”

“Even those on UBI have a quality of life that Old Earther’s wouldn’t even recognize. Unlimited food, healthcare, shelter, and a social support net with countless people willing to help anyone that needs it doing a part-time job because they want to, rather than they need to. Random small crimes are nearly abolished, and it’s rare that any murder goes unsolved. People don’t have to fear about others taking away the things they need to live.”

He raised his gaze from the table and stared at her. “We have NAIs to thank for most of that. Not that things weren’t supposed to be good in the Old Federation, but now things are optimized. If you look at the statistics, there are twice as many people alive today than died during the collapse. Why aren’t you optimizing?”

Alex swallowed memories played in her head from what felt like long, long ago. “I’ve made mistakes before. Got people I cared about hurt…and killed.”

Young nodded, his serious expression and gaze not faltering. “Almost like you’re human.”