My ship training instructors had told me that all battles were similar events with different parameters. However, they had never expected that I would end up on the Scuu front. When I faced the Cassandrians, everything was about linking with other ships to run and execute the most efficient simulations against overwhelming odds. Often it was a race to fire all available missiles at the enemy waves while trying not to get hit. Here, combat was slow: minutes of complete silence, only occasionally broken by cascades of info-bursts.

Fourteen waves of priority one connections. Each time, they would bypass my comm protocols, filling my core with all accumulated data since the last severing. It was like watching all the action in a battlefield with a ten-minute lag. Not one missile had been fired. On every ship, all but the essential personnel had been podded as vessels on all sides changed their position dozens of times per minute. If nothing else, engines and short boost thrusters had been on constant overdrive.

Link patterns… it was all about link patterns—the ability of ships to align in a pattern so as to increase their physical and communication attacks. I could find no explanation on how that gave any of the ships an advantage, but from what Radiance had told me, the majority of Scuu attacks were based on arrangement patterns. Very much like a joseki in three-dimensional go—a sequence of moves that would provide an advantage.

The number of Scuu ships had increased to sixteen, divided into two groups of eight. Both had kept a considerable distance from each other, making attempts to engage the approaching auxiliary ships. At the same time, there was no news from the shuttles Radiance had sent for help.

“Info burst in three seconds,” Radiance warned.

I put up all internal firewalls and defensive protocols. Three thousand milliseconds later, the info wave hit me. A new image of the battlefield emerged—three auxiliary ships had engaged a group of Scuu. The remaining group of enemies kept a safe distance. They were the dangerous ones.

“Entering red alert,” Radiance announced. “Scuu attacks have commenced. Honeypots haven’t picked up anything. Cutting all links to fleet channels. From here on, we’re going dark.”

Show me a simulation of the battle, I transmitted to Radiance.

Bad idea, grandma. You’re not backed up.

I’ve been prepared for this, I lied. The Scuu network was nothing more than a glimpse into their world. Back then, I was probably a curiosity, a makeshift conduit of a madman. Here, I would be a military target. I need to know what we’re up against.

Wait till the next silence. I’ll link you to a simulation then.

The comm channel was severed without warning. The walls of my quarters, though, came to life, displaying a simulated recreation of events. The three auxiliary ships—Grace, Mercy, and Temperance—had moved together, almost to the point of touching, while the Scuu ships twirled around them like the edges of a constantly shifting origami. There was no indication that any combat was taking place, but after my experience in the fake dome, I could see the invisible battle. Each time the Scuu ships froze in a pattern, a vine of tendrils shot towards the ship, aimed at distorting every core and human brain aboard.

Grace reverting to backup memory state.

A message appeared under one of the auxiliary ships. Radiance had taken it upon herself to educate me regarding “proper” combat.

Cute, I thought. The young battleship was trying to mimic my mentoring her as well, though her approach left a lot to be desired.

Grace reverting to backup memory state.

The message flickered. Apparently, the ship had been “hit” a second time.

Grace reverting to backup memory state.

Mercy reverting to backup memory state.

A barrage of cluster missiles emerged from all three ships, spreading in space along a reverse spiral pattern. Three seconds later, the missiles burst, launching thousands of warheads, like a deadly minefield. Shortly after, the auxiliary ships split from one another, each flying along a seemingly erratic trajectory.

“Is that normal?” I asked.

“Odds are they have this one. Their hull can take the hit, the Scuu can’t.”

“What if more Scuu ships arrive?”

“Then they’ll lose.”

The Scuu instantly adapted to the strategy. The fleet broke up their formation, splitting into three groups. Before the missiles could break up, the enemy ships changed their attack vectors, moving away as fast as they could. Running a series of brief simulations, I determined that six of the ships had a ninety-three percent chance of escaping. The auxiliary ships must have run the simulation as well, since they all focused on the remaining group.

Grace reverting to backup memory state.

Grace reverting to backup memory state.

Grace reverting to backup memory state.

Messages emerged beneath the ship. For the first time since the start of the battle, the Scuu ships launched a set of missiles of their own.

Launch countermeasures, I thought. Grace, however, didn’t. A series of explosions covered her hull, most caused by the cluster missiles she herself had launched, followed by a group of stronger explosions. Three puncture holes emerged. I estimated the amount of losses to be anywhere up to a hundred and seventeen people. Three milliseconds later, the simulation image froze still. Communications had been severed once more.

“Was she lost?” I asked.

“Most likely,” Radiance replied with no regret. She was too young to feel sensations when it came to ships, just like I had been when I was her age.

“Do you think she managed to launch any escape pods?”

“I doubt it. They would only have been blown up in the missile field. Or taken over by the Scuu.”

An entire crew complement down with its crew… I felt a momentary tingling of pain. What a waste. The fleet was clearly aware, since the new class of ships were far smaller in size, with a negligible amount of crew and ground troops. Still, I saw no reason why any humans should be sent to this side of the front.

“We’re almost at the pearl cluster,” Radiance continued. I had no idea how she was taking it, or whether she had restricted her memories of the event. “Want some pictures?”

“Thank you.” I sat on my bed. “That would be nice.”

An image appeared on the wall. The debris field was in plain view. Even enhanced, no details were visible. It all looked like a single layer of red dust, lit up by the system’s sun.

“How long until we reach it?”

“Eight minutes, sixteen seconds,” Radiance replied. “Flight Colonel Nitel told me to wait for the next comm restore before I go near. Cap agreed with him.” The image of the field changed. “Was he right?”

“I’m not your captain, Rad.” I knew she was looking to me for advice, but at this point, there was none I could give. “Are the crew all right?”

“Nothing from the honeypots. Bios of the rest are mostly fine. The captain has been spiking a lot.”

“Captains tend to do that.” In my experience, only Cass had been legitimately carefree. “Tell me when we’re there.”

At least our crew was fine. From the previous info bursts, I had learned that the Gregorius had entered full lockdown. All non-essential personnel had been restricted to their quarters. Everyone else required security approval to move throughout the ship. Officially, that had been a response to the recent Scuu activity in the system. Thanks to my access to restricted reports, I knew it was a lie. The truth was that the suicide waves had increased.

A hundred thirty-seven people had died aboard the Gregorius since I had departed, all screaming the same phrase prior to their demise: “Kill the fracture.” Four attempts to storm medical facilities had been made. Each had been dealt with swiftly and efficiently by security personnel, but that hadn’t prevented the destruction of one of the facilities. The captain was trying to play down the losses, but it was starting to look like he was facing a losing battle. Twenty-one instances of disturbances and “momentary insanity” had also been reported, including an entire platoon of ground troops painting the walls of their living quarters with Scuu circles. In all instances, Gregorius hadn’t been capable of intervening.

At least the kids are fine, I thought.

A crew of millions, but the people I was most worried about were the cadets. They hadn’t signed up for this, to be sent to the front. I had already made an official request for them to be shipped out of the system, but neither Juul nor anyone higher up had responded.

“How many backups do you have?” I asked.

“A few,” Radiance answered evasively. Most likely, all of her cores were also backups.

“I’d like to take part in that simulation now.”

“You’ve around eight minutes.”

“It’ll be enough. Same place as before?”

“Yep. I’ll set it up for you.”

The last time I had gone through SR training, Kridib and a platoon of grunts were there as well, watching my every move. This time, there was nearly no one left. All the corridors to the training area were empty. The ship’s captain, no doubt pressured by Nitel, had increased the number of podded personnel to the point where there were probably only a few dozen left.

As I walked, Radiance made sure to have images of the debris field follow me on her walls. As I entered the ship’s elevator, the pearl cluster had become large enough to be seen in detail. Despite the destruction, the sight was magnificent. A piece of history, as Gibraltar would say. In other circumstances, this would have been one of the greatest discoveries of humanity. At the moment, it held a tertiary priority at best.

So, those are Shields.

Their design didn’t seem particularly impressive, although it held a lot of the unmistakable human ship characteristics. While the overall size was fractionally smaller than what I had been, the hull plating was at least triple mine. With nanite technology being in its infancy during the time of their construction, the ship architects had had to use other methods to reinforce the structure. Based on the materials used, they would probably withstand several standard missile volleys.

“Elcy, can I ask something?” Radiance said while I was in the elevator.

“Of course.”

“Do you think their cores are still aboard?”

“Quite likely.”

“Do you think there’s a chance of finding one intact? I know you told me that there’s a chance, but… they’ve been here for centuries. Even if some survived whatever caused this, they wouldn’t have had the power to avoid a final shutdown.”

“We know nothing about them,” I lied. The chances were practically zero. The fact that the Scuu hadn’t shown any interest in them was indicative enough. “We’ve no idea what backups they had.”

A single SR pod was waiting for me in the training room. All the others had been repurposed to serve as sleeper pods to contain the crew. At least now I knew the ship’s officers had a high opinion of me. Either that, or they were keeping it in case I had to be podded as well.

“Do you want your ancient husk, or something more adequate?” Radiance asked with a chuckle as I entered the pod.

“Ancient.” I didn’t have time getting used to a new body.

“Your choice. Give me a moment to calibrate.”

I closed my eyes. It was time to be a ship again. Five hundred and ninety-eight milliseconds later, I was.

Thousands of forgotten sensor readings streamed to my core as I felt the calm, cold presence of space envelop me. There was a moment of calm, followed immediately by eagerness as I found myself on a virtual battlefield.

“You don’t have any backups,” Radiance said. From this perspective, she seemed much smaller, although her weapon systems were far more aggressive than mine. “I’ve also removed your crew.”

“What are our coordinates?” There was no sun or planet in the vicinity, only distant stars arranged in an unrecognizable pattern.

“There’s no coordinates, I just want to show you the Scuu.”

Fair enough. “Transfer the basics and let’s get started.”

Checking my systems, I found that Radiance had upgraded my weapons to something more modern. A pity she couldn’t give me more subroutines.

“I’ll start with a Basic Five,” she said. A ship appeared a kilometer away from us. “For the most part, that’s what you’ll get. The heavy ones don’t fly out of Scuu territory much.”

By any standard definition, the ship was supposed to be harmless. Ten times the size of a combat shuttle, it resembled a cluster of engines merged together, with no visible weapons and little armament.

“It doesn’t look Scuu,” I noted.

“Basics don’t. The theory is that the Scuu make them out of debris and use them as patrol and scout probes.”

Performing a quick diagnostic of my systems, I launched six missiles in its direction. The Scuu ship suddenly came to life, darting off in a zig-zag fashion. I ran ten simulations of its possible trajectory and launched five more missiles in the most likely locations.

“You’re so wasteful, Grandma,” Radiance laughed. “You’ll never get it if you launch that many.”

I ran another diagnostic. The ship had attempted to send an information packet to my core, but was blocked by my viral firewall. Calculating the optimal attack vector, I thrusted forward. According to all of my predictions, the Scuu craft was supposed to accelerate away from me. However, it did the opposite. Its projected path shifted, turning to the side, then headed in my direction. A microsecond later, all communication links were severed.

This isn’t like anything you’ve taught me, Augustus.

If it had managed to take control and redirect my missiles towards me, I didn’t have the means to transmit a failsafe identifier.

“Need some help?” Radiance continued to maintain a five-kilometer distance from me. So far, the simulation didn’t consider her part of the battle.

I didn’t reply. Radiance might have been built and trained to face Scuu, but I also had gained the experience to know what to expect. For the enemy to defeat me, it wasn’t going to use missiles; it would rely on its information warfare.

Don’t waste missiles, I told myself. That was the only advice Radiance had given me so far, and the only one I’d ignore. As the ship flew towards me, I launched a new barrage of missiles, aimed directly at it. Its only chance of success was to crash into me and hope the impact would cause a crack in my electronic shield for a message to pass through. Long before it could get near, two of my missiles hit it, reducing it to fragments. The moment it exploded, communications were restored.

No hull breaches, a virtual subroutine responded to my general query. No crew affected.

“Wow, good work!” Radiance said in an overly cheerful fashion. “Nine percent fail this exercise on their first go. You really wasted a lot of ammo. All the basics are junk ships.”

“The Salvage Authorities must be very popular on this front,” I replied. Considering the standard learning curve, I considered the exercise successful so far.

“They’re all right, although we still hate them.” Radiance sent a virtual wink. “You did okay for an antique, but your attack patterns were way too slow. If there had been more of them, they could have gotten your captain or forced a direct shutdown. That’s why linking is dangerous. When you’re fighting one ship, the protection always holds. When they link, they can mess up your subroutines, your crew, or even your core, and there’s nothing you can do.”

Other than revert to a backup memory state…

Somehow, the procedure allowed ships to reset their priorities. There was no telling how many years had gone into its development, but at least it was there.

“Ready to go on?” Radiance asked.

An estimated six minutes remained until fleet communications were restored, enough for several dozen encounters.

“Yes.” All the Scuu battle simulations I had done up to this point seemed childishly pointless, almost deliberately so. If I managed to complete this mission, I would have a long talk with Lux on the matter. “Take it easy.”

The next challenge was a set of four basic drones, flying in a steady formation. Even with Radiance’s warnings, I failed the encounter twice in a row. Knowing about linking patterns did little to protect me against them. On a few occasions, I tried cross-referencing the most common patterns Radiance had given me with the Scuu circles and the third-contact symbols, but wasn’t able to find any relation. The third time, I launched all available torpedoes while rotating round my axis. The maneuver ended up successful, but left me defenseless against further attack. It would have also significantly harmed any crew onboard—the “drawbacks of an inflexible frame structure.”

From here on, combat became even more challenging. As the number of drones increased, so did the complexity of their battle patterns and the amount of their recklessness. It became more and more common for two vessels to fly at me, following a set of irregular approach vectors, while the remaining attempted a mid-range pattern formation to infect me. Each time an “infection” took place, Radiance would stop the simulation and start it again.

This is what it feels like to be outdated. My prediction logarithms could barely keep up with the ships movement, and my overall speed was nowhere close.

Five turns in a row, the encounter ended with me killing fewer than three enemies. On the ninth, I managed to disable enough of the pods to force them to flee. It wasn’t a win, but Radiance accepted it as a victory and proceeded with the next exercise. It was like following instructions from an overeager puppy that liked to show off.

The group that followed were a pair of Chranchii class ships. These were far larger than the Basics, although no more than a tenth of Radiance’s size. Precisely shaped and unnaturally symmetrical, and vaguely resembling some of the smaller frigate classes. It was as if they had analyzed a human ship and come up with their own approximation.

“No ship specs?” I asked, attempting to analyze the virtual model. “Are they classified?”

“Not to you.” There was a sense of pride in her voice. “I asked my captain and he said it was okay.”

That was a relief. At least she wasn’t as impulsive as me.

“Specs vary,” she added. “Some are faster than others, some have stronger hulls. Shapes and patterns are the only constant. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m faster.”

Centuries of war, and all humanity had to deal with were approximations. I thought there were a small number of Scuu models. Maybe that was the case, or maybe it was another illusion created by Fleet Intelligence.

“This one shoots missiles.”

“More like a real battle.” I zoomed in on the SR vessel. It was deprived of texture or markings, just a one monolithic silvery surface… very much like the third-contact artifacts. “Any combat shuttles or auxiliary weapons?”

“Haven’t seen any. These are combat ships, and they only fly in Scuu space, so we don’t get to play with them much.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I thrust towards the Chranchii.

The first seventeen seconds, the ships didn’t react, ignoring my approach completely. A millisecond later, their movement vectors shifted. As both sped up, I attempted to calculate their potential attack patterns. The processing power I had was lacking. Four sets of missiles were launched my way. My instinct was to launch countermeasures to keep the integrity of my hull. Three hundred and nineteen milliseconds later, everything around me froze. The simulation was over and I had been infected.

“Rookie mistake,” Radiance said with more glee than she should. “The Scuu don’t use missiles that explode. All of their missiles do other things as well.”

“The missiles formed a link pattern.” Knowing we had launched missiles with artifacts inside, I should have predicted the instance. Experience had made me overly reliant on enemies I knew.

“Seeders are the worst of them. Some launch hundreds of probes. I haven’t seen any, but it’s said they are strategy class ships. Most of the time they fill up systems so the main force comes in. Difficult to handle unless the fleet has crazy numbers. Severing communication helps a bit. It’s estimated that it confuses them for a while. Enough for us to get closer.”

Seeders… A ship of that class was probably responsible for the madness in System Four. Most likely it was a patrol ship, patrolling the Scuu side of the buffer zone and launching probes to any system of relevance. The Med Core had probably caught the pattern and established their observation station there.

The same thing must have happened with Kridib. Maybe the panic that had invaded everyone wasn’t the result of ship bombardment or a ground force, but illusions caused by the Scuu artifact itself. That would explain why the fleet couldn’t prevent the incidents along the border. No matter the defenses in place, there was a high probability that once in a while a probe would slip through… especially when dealing with backwater colonies.

“Want another go?” Radiance asked.

“There’s no point. I can’t predict their link patterns.” This wasn’t my battlefield, nor was I a ship anymore. “Your reaction speed must be quite fast to face that. Does your captain issue the orders or are all the officers involved?”

“I have autonomy in battle. The captain only tells me when he wants me to stop.”

“Then, what happens if he’s wounded? You continue on your own?”

“I guess. It’s never happened before. The standard procedure is to wake up the next highest-ranking officer and make them captain. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” I lied. I still hadn’t discounted the possibility that the third-contact race could drill into people’s minds even more efficiently than the Scuu.

“Okay. You sure you don’t want to try another one? We can team up.”

“No is no, Rad.” I could imagine her pouting. “I’ll leave you kids to handle the fighting. I have my own mission.”

Augustus had said something along those lines to me once. At the time, I had only partially understood it. I also understood why ships of both fronts didn’t mix; we were each specialized for our own environment, which made us weak in every other. All except the Swords.

The SR experience ended abruptly. My massive battleship body was gone, replaced by my minuscule human self.

“Are we at the pearl cluster?” I left the SR pod.

“Been there for three minutes. Still waiting for the next info burst. Quite a bit of action going on in the system. I’m getting a whole lot of mass clusters.”

This wasn’t a good sign.

“Scuu reinforcements?” I asked.

“Debris. Probably Grace. She always had something to prove. I think she—”

A video feed of the debris field suddenly covered the walls.

Priority one request, one of Radiance’s subroutines bypassed my comm protocols. Establish connection with external communication systems.

I complied. No further requests were made.

“Rad, why were communications restored so soon?” I asked.

“Not sure. Cap just got a new set of orders. We’re to remain here for now. He’s calling everyone important on the bridge. You should get back there.”

Not like I was very useful last time…

I ran out of the room and towards the ship’s elevator. The external video feed followed me as I did.

“Anything else you can tell me?” I asked.

“Nope. No idea what’s going on up there. I think they’ve got me thought quarantined. Must be something important. Will you tell me when you know?”

Of all the ships I knew, only Radiance was happy with being quarantined. Science ships despised it, battleships tolerated it out of necessity. Me, personally, I was beginning to get tired of it.

Only a handful of people were present when I ran into the bridge. Nitel and Kridib were nowhere to be seen, neither were any of the ground troops. In contrast, the video feed on the wall displayed hundreds of ships engaged in combat… all of them were Scuu.