Xylla, Cassandrian Front – 607.4 A.E. (Age of Expansion)

“Requesting further orders! Emergency priority!” Second Lieutenant Siton Pierce’s communication came through. His platoon was part of the ground forces sent to purge any remaining Cassandrian presence on Xylla 5.

Technically, he was considered part of my crew, though that only applied while aboard. Ground troops had their own command and hierarchy, and, when on planet, they took orders only from their own. In theory, the ground army was subservient to the fleet, but one had to be at least a full fleet admiral to hold them in the chain of command.

I went through the database while half a dozen subroutines reviewed the video feed archives of the lieutenant and his squad. The first few hours were standard: the troops had boarded the shuttles, then gone through a rapid descent onto the planet surface. Since no atmosphere was present, the descent was quick and stressful, leaving three-quarters of the squad unconscious for over thirty seconds, when the emergency suit systems had kicked in, injecting a cocktail and stimulants to get them combat ready. Fifteen minutes, later all visual and audio feed had been restricted on orders from ground command.

“Command, this is Second Lieutenant Pierce, requesting further instructions! Emergency priority sigma one!” the man said again. “Does anyone read this?”

“Lieutenant, this is battleship Light Seeker,” I replied. “We have been ordered to maintain full communication blackout until all Cassandrian forces have been dealt with. I am unable to retransfer your request. I suggest you contact your sector command for instructions.”

“Local command has been wiped out!” the Lieutenant shouted. “The entire regiment is scattered. We’re under fire and taking heavy casualties! I need someone with authority to get us out of this meat grinder!”

“Understood. Please hold your position.” I rechecked the feeds from the surface.

From the data I was receiving, all of my ground troops were alive and in good condition. Their bio readings were slightly elevated, but nothing unusual for combat maneuvers. There was no indication of communication disruption, nor mass casualties. All my attempts to establish a line with any command structures on the planet ended up being ignored.

“Lieutenant, I can’t get in touch with anyone in command down there.” In other words, I was being thought quarantined. This was quite common for ships, though I hadn’t experienced such a blanket order before. In effect, the entire planetary surface was hidden from me. The only reason I was able to register the Lieutenant’s transmission was because of the emergency priority request that sliced through the bureaucracy. “Let me know what you need and I’ll coordinate with other ships in the sector. Do you need evac or reinforcements?”

“Forget the evac!” Rapid fire registered in the background. “We’re inside a Critter ship, facing heavy resistance! Main force is dead. I need a mission objective! Do we pull out or keep on?”

It took me less than a millisecond to figure out what was going on. The only people who used the term “Critters” were ground troop veterans who had faced Cassandrians frequently enough to know what they looked like. All talk on the subject was strongly discouraged and, as far as ships were concerned, censored and quarantined before they registered in my cores. The only things I had heard were second-hand accounts that were as vague as they were questionable. For a lieutenant to claim he was on a “Critter ship,” he either had to be part of a boarding party, or we were facing something new.

Encrypting the communication line, I performed a full scan of the system. After our major victory, seventy-three Cassandrian ships remained in the system in various degrees of damage, rounded up by our system forces. I, along with three hundred and seven other battleships, remained combat ready in orbit round the three contested planets of the system, in the event that ground support was needed. From what I could tell, there were no enemy ships anywhere nearby.

“Captain, I’ve received a mission query from one of our ground troops,” I told my captain in a secure transmission, as I devoted a million of my subroutines to create a simulation based on the existing data. “He’s claiming to be on a Cassandrain ship and wants to know how to proceed.”

“That’s for ground command,” Augustus said under his breath.

“I’m aware of that sir, but we have received an emergency priority sigma one,” I persisted. “We are required to assist.”

There was a long moment of silence. I’d known Augustus for twelve years. During that time, I had gotten to know most of his behavioural peculiarities. In the past, when there was a disagreement between us, he would either yell at me or ignore me, as his captain’s prerogative allowed. This time, he didn’t do either.

“What’s the word from the other orbital ships?” he asked, leaning back in his command seat.

“None of them have received similar requests.” They’re also aware of the thought quarantine. Interestingly, only two of the planets were under quarantine. The last one continued to transmit full streams of the ground troops unimpeded. Resistance there proved to be minimal, with the largest parts of Cassandrian presence being rounded up and eliminated. As was the standard fleet policy, no prisoners were taken. “Should I respond?”

“Go ahead.” Augustus stood up. “Mark that I’m taking full responsibility.”

The instant he said that, all readings from the planets changed. Images of carnage streamed through all feeds, along with the screams, yells, and gunfire. Over three-quarters of the ground troop feeds suddenly flatlined, the remaining peaking far beyond the fleet safety level.

A total silence filled the bridge as all officers stared at the partial feeds I was relaying on the screen. Free of the quarantine restrictions, we now saw the real picture of the surface. In our sector alone, the Cassandrians had inflicted considerable damage, devastating our forces, despite suffering three times as many losses. Their whole strategy was to drown their enemies in overwhelming numbers, hoping to crush them or push them back. Unfortunately for humanity, the strategy seemed to work. Even with an increasing amount of victories, we were only slowing the Cassandrian advancement. As for ground battles, the situation there remained unclear. It was well known that humans and Cassandrians couldn’t live in similar conditions, which was claimed as one of the reasons that neither side captured enemy prisoners. And yet, command was intent on systematically purging any planet of Cassandrian presence, regardless of its strategic significance. Observing the video feeds from the planet, the feeling seemed mutual.

“Displaying Lieutenant Pierce’s feed,” I said, as I simultaneously reviewed his video log since shuttle departure. Thirty-nine seconds after landing, local ground command had issued him a new set of orders overriding everything else.

Memory restriction imposed!

General fleet access one required to visualize memory element.

Quarantine imposed.

Quarantine bypassed.

The new set of orders directed the Lieutenant’s entire squad to separate from the main force and head to a new set of coordinates and await further instructions. Speeding through the rest of his log, I understood why.

“There are two Cassandrian cruisers planetside, captain.” I brought up a frozen image of the Pierce’s video feed. “Based on shape and size, they look like Rixxon Three Cruisers.” They were also filled with enemies. Censor protocols prevented me from seeing any details, preventing anything Cassandrian related. The only thing I could see were large voxelized shapes fighting against the Lieutenant’s squad, and the shapes were winning.

“Tell the rest of the ships,” Augustus ordered. “Verbal warning only. No visuals from the planet. Who’s left in charge down there?”

I linked to the rest of the orbital ships and ran a search. According to the readings data, there were supposed to be over two million grounds troops still active.

“Quarantine protocols are making it impossible to tell, sir.” The highest-ranking ground officer was supposed to have landed on the other side of the planet along with three defense regiments. His bio-data claimed him to be fine and in a relatively relaxed state. Based on my recent revelation, I knew that information to be false. “Based on my simulations, the local ground command has been overrun.” More concerning, there was no data of Cassandrian ships landing on the planet. The spy probes that had been sent prior to the offensive had scanned a total of seven hundred and twelve enemy ships, all of which had been accounted for. “According to the video feeds, twenty-one high-ranking officers broke off from their detachments and headed towards the Lieutenant’s location. As far as I can determine, all have been killed in the process.”

“Clever Critters.” Augustus let out a dry bitter laugh.

“Light Seeker, what are our orders?” Lieutenant Pierce shouted. All but seven of his squad had been killed, with the Cassandrians surrounding him on all sides. Following the path he had taken since entering the enemy ship, his location was supposed to be somewhere near the weapon systems—an ideal place for stealing weapon technology. Likely those were the orders he was given. Unfortunately, at this point, the mission had less than a one-point-three chance of success.

“Stand by, Lieutenant,” I transmitted. “Captain, the ground squad has three minutes life without sky support. Permission to launch combat sats and coordinate combat efforts in the area.”

“Quarantine protocols up,” my captain said under his breath. Instantly the feeds vanished, replaced by empty static and standard bio readings. “Prepare for orbital bombardment.”

“Understood, Captain.” Six years ago, I would have protested both to the captain and to command, naively hoping that would have the power to change anything. Now, I had been through enough to know what was going on, though that didn’t make it less painful.

“You’re shooting against ships, Elcy,” the captain added. “Remember that. Ground troops are none of your concern.”

* * *

Ground troops are none of your concern…

Ground troops never were part of anyone’s concern. In the past, they seemed like a totally different world, although I tried to keep informed what happened of all that walked in my halls. Some of the repeat veterans I even considered friends. At this point, all of them were either dead or retired. Soon, however, that was about to change. As I had just been informed, the Firescorch class ship carried a permanent ground troop contingent of one-point-two million soldiers—considerably more than necessary for a flying space station.

Deep in thought?

A new message appeared on the datapad screen. There was no telling who had initiated the conversation with me. At this point, the only thing I knew was that they had shared some interesting information.

I was going through my past, I replied.

Good plan. Once you start the mission you won’t have time for such stuff.

Thanks for the heads up. As a ship, I didn’t need much sleep, though my unknown chatter had a point. Once aboard, I would be able to go peek at restricted memories as often as before. Why the interest in me?

I glanced throughout the shuttle. Ten minutes had passed since our departure from Libra station and already most of the passengers were asleep. A few, all of them station bureaucrats, continued writing on their datapads, preparing reports before they even set foot on the ship. As Gibraltar liked to say, bureaucracy never sleeps.

Because you’re interesting. Also, I think you could use some help. You don’t know anything about the ship’s mission, right?

Not much, I resorted to the standard lie. I assume it has to do with the Scuu front split.

The ship is a system purger.

The fact alone didn’t come as a surprise; it was all the details surrounding it that made me worry. Why had the administrator been so insistent to take me on a purging mission? There wasn’t anything I could do better than a squad of veteran soldiers with exoskeletons. To be honest, I didn’t see any need of cadets on a ship of this class.

Its entire point is to drill a tunnel that paves the way to humanity’s next expansion.

And what’s my purpose?

To be a safeguard.

My core went into overdrive, going through various possibilities. There were a lot of assumptions I could make, but without any real data, none of them were reliable. At times like these, I missed having my battleship processing capabilities.

Safeguard against what?

Good luck, Light Seeker. It will be fun working with you.

You’re the new ship, aren’t you? I asked, but the datapad had powered off. I waited for a few seconds, hoping I would get a final response. When none came, I turned the device back on and skimmed through the available news flows.

The one nice thing about being added to a group of high-profile bureaucrats was that I had a vastly superior choice of information sources. Most of the information remained restricted to those with the appropriate access levels, but a lot of commercial networks remained.

According to the latest civilian news, a new movement had begun gaining strength, demanding changes in the fleet codex. For the moment, they were only popular in a few of the core systems, but if they continued to gain ground, humanity might enter a new universal paradigm. The block—calling itself the Preservation Alliance—had one main goal: to diminish the amount of human death that was forecasted to go on the rise with the latest Scuu developments. In order to achieve this, the block was set out to abolish the notion of ground forces, replacing them entirely with an android battle force. The notion was opposed by the military echelons, and so far didn’t have the support of any major political power. If it were to happen, though, it would change the face of war for generations to come. Personally, I had mixed feelings on the matter. It was undeniable that it would save human lives, but it would also create an entire class of replaceable sacrifices to wage humanity’s wars for them. If the ground troops were also equipped with conscience cores, they’d be no different than ships; and if ships were only less valuable, it would make combat losses more acceptable. A scary thought, though decades away.

Other prominent news topics ranged from speculation about the war to matters I knew nothing about nor in which I held any interest. A few proposed changes in the colonization procedures caught my attention for a while, though barely enough to make me dig into the subject. Half an hour later, I turned off the datapad once more.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” I turned to one of the few people awake. “What is our ETA?”

“Our what?” the woman stared at me as if I were a chemical compound.

“Estimated time of arrival, ma’am.” I offered a smile. Half a year in the fleet had made me forget how little civilians knew of military terms.

“Oh.” The woman’s lips pursed, as if I were at fault for her not knowing the term. “Five hours,” she said curtly. “Then two more until we reach the Gregorius.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Now it was my turn to be somewhat annoyed that a bureaucrat had more information about my mission than I did.” Apologies for bothering you.”

Now that I couldn’t request privacy mode, seven hours seemed like a long time, even if I skimmed through the news feeds every fifteen minutes. It almost felt as bad as my first day on patrol. At least there, I had the processing power to run hundreds of battle simulations while floating on an unremarkable journey between two points.

“You really don’t know, do you?” the woman whispered after a few seconds.

“Know what, ma’am?”

“Nothing.” The woman turned around, refusing to provide any explanation.

Time crept on. After twenty-seven minutes, I had become familiar enough with the civilian news to know that there was remarkably little information of value there. I had made a few attempts to talk to the shuttle, but soon found out it was equipped with a simple AI system, despite its unusual design. I was just about to start running combat simulations to pass time, when I felt our speed start to decelerate.

Prepare for docking in one minute. Bright red messages appeared on the walls and ceiling of the shuttle. In a civilian flight, this was considered normal. My only concern was that it happened four and a half hours earlier than expected.

Hey, Elcy! A familiar voice said. I finally get to see you in person!

Radiance? I asked.

Radiance was one of the few ships I had gotten to know in the modern fleet and the only one that considered me to be something of a mentor. The title wasn’t official or even entirely deserved. I had simply happened to be the only ship she was able to consistently have a conversation with. Credit for this was mostly due to my academy roommate, who had managed to introduce me to Rad before being transferred to her next assignment.

So far, I had no idea what Radiance’s blueprint or weapon systems were. The only things that I did know were that she was a classified latest gen vessel, with more processing power than I ever had, as well as a battleship. She was also reckless and extremely curious, as all newly created ships were. That said, she had helped me out in a difficult situation, so I owed her more than a thank you.

Let me guess, I leaned back in my seat. You flew all this way to wish me good luck.

I knew you’d say that, Rad chuckled. Actually, I’m here to escort you through the buffer zone, though you didn’t hear that from me. She added a virtual wink. The Scuu splintering has caused some major shifts on the front. Can’t afford to risk losing Greg’s new crew. There’s loads more, but I’ll tell you all about it later.

So, you’re my escort. The thought made me feel mild unease, though no more than having her tell me “loads more.” For all her positive qualities, Rad tended to be somewhat lax with information.

You really need to up your processing power, Rad laughed. I’m part of the Gregorius! she added with a virtual grin. Didn’t I say we had a lot to discuss?