System XN133-H, Cassandrian Space 625.3 A.E. (Age of Exploration)

Battleships hated scouting work. It was unnatural and inefficient. The Fleet had probes for that, but often they would repurpose a ship instead. Even after all this time on the front, it still felt uncomfortable—being trained and designed for combat in any circumstances, but restricted by the mission. The best I could do was run simulations on how much damage I could inflict as I slowly drifted towards the planet Wilco had ordered me to.

“Don’t run the numbers,” Sword of Rain said from the bridge. “You’re wasting processing power.”

Considering the limitations of the Sword class, it was pointless to point out that I had the capacity to do both without issue. Quietly, I displayed a few new image feeds from the outside.

The mass of Cassandrians had barely reacted to our presence. A compact swarm of shuttle-sized entities had approached and carefully examined me. Initially, I had gone to combat readiness, preparing for an emergency jump if necessary. The Cassandrians never got closer to a hundred meters from me, splitting up and circling me as if they were performing a multi-point scan. They had been flying around us ever since.

“The Cassies are moving away,” I announced. “Distance increasing to two hundred meters.”

“We’re losing our escort,” Wilco said. “Anything you can say about that?”

“We’re nearing another’s area of influence,” Sword of Blight said. “When we go in orbit around the planet, we’ll no longer be their problem.”

“So, the disguise is holding.” I could detect no relief in the captain’s voice. He must have been preparing for this mission for years. Hopefully, it will pay off. “How long before we lose our escort?”

“Distance has doubled to four hundred meters. It’s likely that they’ll be completely gone in forty-two seconds.”

“And the planet?”

“There are Cassandians on it,” I replied. It annoyed me how he expected me to provide information without being able to use any of my tools to do so. “Anything else will require mini sats at least.”

“That could be arranged.”

The response surprised me.

“When our escort is gone, prep a shuttle. Fire will put the Cassie artifact aboard and go for a flight.”

“That’s an unnecessary course of action, sir.” I already knew where he was going and had started running simulations to that effect.

While unspoken, the plan was obvious: provided there was no change in the Cassandrians’ behavior, a shuttle was going to land on the planet and perform some supplementary mission I wasn’t aware of. The concept alone came with its own black hole of problems. Vessels in space relied mostly on sensors. While the artifacts aboard me were able to somehow fool the Cassandrian ships, they were unlikely to achieve the same effect on the surface. I had witnessed far too many ground operations to know what Cassandrians were capable of. According to the Fleet historical files, hundreds of attempts had been made to make ground troops invisible to the enemy, allowing them to infiltrate Cassandrian structures. After over a century of attempts and unknown amounts of deaths, all research in the field had been abandoned. There was no way for drones or humans to remain undetected at close proximity. Based on my simulations, if a shuttle got too close to the surface, there was an eighty-seven percent chance it would be gunned down within one hour.

“Stay calm, old girl.” The captain smiled. “There’s no reason to get agitated.”

Speak for yourself. It wasn’t me who had gone all doom and gloom after the Cassandrian ship artifact had turned out to be mimic tech.

“Haven’t seen this subspecies before,” Sword of Rain said. “There’s no telling how they’ll react to us.”

“First time here as well,” Sword of Spheres added. “What I can tell for certain is that there aren’t any battle drones. That will change if we agitate them.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it,” Wilco said in the most dismissive fashion I’d heard from him since the start of the mission. “Anything else? Anyone seen the likes of these?”

No one said a word. Even the Swords were up against something new. I had started classifying the specimens I could see. If nothing else, we’d have that data ready. My hope remained that we’d gain more.

“In that case, I want you to sync your sleep schedule,” Wilco said after a while. “Spend your eighty minutes now. After that, you’ll be doing three shift rotations. Any questions?”

The Swords had none. I had plenty, but I preferred to wait until the bridge was empty before I could ask. For five thousand milliseconds, the ships didn’t react. They remained motionless as statues, almost as if they had redirected all their processing power to simulations, then suddenly started leaving in almost full unison. This was one of the few times I’d seen them share an elevator to return to their decks.

“Are you sure about this, captain?” I asked. “Ancient ships don’t react well to the unknown.”

“That’s precisely where you’re wrong, Elcy. Swords were made to deal with the unknown.” He stood up from his chair and made his way towards one of the mages on the bridge wall. “Besides, they aren’t ships anymore. They are gods.”

“I’m starting to find the term inappropriate,” I noted.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“If we’re junior gods, what does that make you, sir? Captain of the gods?”

The man laughed.

“You’re developing a fine sense of humor. But no, I’m just a Med Core operative.” Wilco put his hands behind his back. “If this works out, though, I might become the forgotten savior of humanity.”

There was nothing to say about that. It wasn’t a delusion of grandeur, quite the opposite—this was exactly what would have happened. Success or failure, the specifics of the mission would be classified away. Everyone’s memories, with the exception of Wilco’s, would be restricted, that was if we managed to survive.

“How far did the previous ship get?” I asked.

“Feeling concerned? That’s very unlike you, Elcy. Where’s your Ascendant’s recklessness?”

“I want to estimate my chances, sir.” I didn’t like his comment one bit. “Unless the ship was on a completely different mission.”

“There are no completely different missions here, Elcy.” Wilco sighed. “We’re here because the ones before failed.”

I could see the cold-heartedness of the bureaucratic apparatus merged with the cynicism of the military. When the mission was survival, anything else was considered a failure and at the same time a success. Regardless of the outcome, the previous ship had found a way to go beyond enemy lines undetected. I had done the same and was now taking the next step.

“What is our actual mission, captain?”

“That’s not for you to know, Elcy. All that matters is that we complete the tasks one at a time.”

“And only you know what those tasks are.”

“As Augustus would say, be thankful that you don’t.”

It wasn’t often that my captain referred to Augustus. Each time he did, it was strange, but also an indication that things were more serious than they seemed. Then again, I could tell as much after my second tour. Nothing in the Fleet was as it seemed, except for the losses.

“Shuttle is prepped and ready,” I told the captain. “Who have you selected for the test flight?”

“Leave that for when we’re in orbit. Until then, let them sleep.”

Nothing of importance was said during the following two hours. I let my captain know when the Cassandrians around us broke off and started their way to another part of the system. I also made a few observations of the general behavior in the system, but all I got was a dismissive nod and a wave.

During this unexpected downtime, I stopped all simulations and ran a deep diagnostic of some of my systems. Everything was in order, as I suspected it would be.

When we finally got in orbit, the first specific orders were issued. Rain was selected to lead the mission since the appearance of the nearby Cassandrians had the closest resemblance to the ones he had destroyed.

The group transported the prism artifact aboard, as they had when boarding the Cassandrian ship, then launched from my hangar.

“Do we want me to be ready to snatch him in case something happens, sir?” I asked.

“Yes, but act on my command only,” the captain said. “Anything from the surface?”

“Roughly a quarter seems to be covered with Cassandrian structures.” The vast organic layer of various sizes could hardly be called a structure, but it was the closest description that matched. “A dozen share characteristics with battleships. I’d speculate that they are acting as system guards of transport ships.”

“The shape is too large; they’re transport carriers,” Sword of Blight said. “The Cassies are getting ready to take another planet in the system.”

“They don’t look like fleet makers,” Sword of Spheres added. “A reserve system?”

“Or a fabrication point.” Blight scratched his nose. “If they’re mimicking third-contact artifacts, they need a place to do it safely. The system is resource-rich, so that’s a possibility.”

“Could it be a race home system?” Wilco asked.

“No,” several Swords said in unison.

“There aren’t enough ships for that,” Sword of Fire said.

“There aren’t always ships near a home system,” Wilco countered in the calmest tone he could.

“Only when they are dead or dying,” the ship interrupted. “More likely that there are a few anchor points and that’s it.”

“It’s too big for just a few anchor points,” Sword of Blight said. “There might be a system hub, but nothing more.”

“You’re saying it’s impossible for this to be?” Wilco wasn’t giving up.

“Statistically improbable,” Sword of Fire said. “Sample’s too small to say it’s impossible. In all instances, the system was heavily protected.”

“Any progress from the shuttle?” the captain said suddenly.

It had been agreed that there would be no communication during the mission except in case of emergency. The latter didn’t make much sense, but no one wanted to oppose the only human aboard. Instead, I displayed a few images on the wall, along with the rest.

At our current distance, it was no longer possible to visually see the shuttle. However, I was able to run a simulated visualization based on characteristics. Tracking shuttles, thankfully, wasn’t difficult at such short distances.

Once the shuttle had moved a certain distance away, it increased its thrust, heading to the nearest cluster of Cassandrians in the vicinity of the planet. As it did, I followed the behavior of everything else in the system I could. The general behavior seemed no different from the moment we had arrived. Activity had somewhat increased on the seventh planet, but there was no indication that we had been the cause.

“Shuttle proceeding as planned, sir,” I said. “Do you want to follow?”

“Keep tracking her and move closer towards the planet,” Wilco leaned forward. “Full visual of the ship structures.”

I obeyed the command.

“Go to the edge, but don’t risk it.”

“Understood, captain.”

“You’re being reckless,” Sword of Fire told Wilco. “We have more metal than they do. The chances of them spotting us are seventy-three-point-six.”

I checked the numbers. In my estimate, the Sword was off by six percent.

At a steady speed, I approached the edge of the planet’s outer atmosphere. It was thicker than I would have liked, making my approach dangerous. Everyone aboard was aware of this, but no one said a word during my descent, more focused on the screens. Eventually, the change that Wilco was hoping for happened. The Cassandrian structures on the surface budged. This was no faulty feed or flicker; two of the massive buildings slid along the surface of the planet, separating from the rest. Moments later, I detected heat and energy emissions coming from them.

“They’re activating,” I announced, displaying the filtered feed on the wall. Beside it, the cluster that the shuttle was heading towards broke up, all ships quickly heading towards the planet’s surface. “Do I hold my current position?”

“Not yet,” the captain ordered.

As I continued, two more of the structures moved, while the first two started their steady ascent towards me. According to my calculations, if they continued along their trajectory at their present speed, they would come within visual distance from me in ninety-eight minutes and eleven seconds.

“Those are some heavy boosters,” Sword of Spheres said.

“Haven’t seen this before.” Sword of Blight nodded. “No combat characteristics. They don’t look like guard ships.”

There was nothing mimicking human technology, that was for sure. The general shape was unmistakable, though. It was as if someone had made a crude copy of a crude copy. One thing was certain—even so far away from human space, echoes of the conflict had still rippled deep into Cassandrian territory. These ships were like nothing I had faced before, but there was every indication Blight was right—they were battleships of a sort.

“Are they on a collision course?” Wilco asked.

“No,” I replied, along with two other Swords.

“They’re testing us.” The captain leaned back. “They must be. Change course to keep in orbit, but maintain your speed.”

I complied and ran a new set of simulations. Three thousand and twenty milliseconds in, the Cassandrian ships adjusted course so as to pass by me at the same distance as before. The second set of ships did the same. The rest of the structures, though, remained in their previous state.

Whatever threat levels Cassandrian ships had, I was estimated to be a “four ships” danger. In contrast, the shuttle was completely ignored.

“They’ve corrected course.” I adjusted my projections, displaying them among the other feeds and images on the wall. “No collision expected.”

“They must be thinking we’re from another subspecies,” Blight said.

This was possibly the Cassandrian way of letting others know that they weren’t weak enough to be taken over. If the entire Cassandrian space was one giant ecosystem in which the various subspecies preyed on each other, such conflicts would be normal, even expected. No one would waste resources on a battle they didn’t think they could win. If that was the case, did it mean that, at some level, the Cassandrians believed they could defeat humanity? If it was all instinct, maybe they were just reacting to a threat, and they didn’t know better.

The more terrifying option was that they were just biding their time. All the ships we had destroyed, all the planets that humanity had purged, meant so little that the enemy didn’t even send out an all-out attack. Or maybe they already had, and we weren’t aware? Analyzing our battle history, I could see a number of parallels between our course of action and theirs: newer ship models were constantly being produced and sent out to stop the advancing threat. However, what if the Cassandrians’ goal wasn’t to destroy us, at least not directly? Maybe they just wanted to spread and, by doing so, make us part of their galactic ecosystem?

Coming to such a realization, I sent the captain an encrypted message to his datapad. Meanwhile, I went back through my entire database to check on as much of the war effort going back to second-contact. From what I could find, there were numerous instances in which the buffer zone had increased, not only because humanity was constantly pulling back, but because the Cassandrians themselves were widening it. The strategy computers had assumed this to be an enemy attempt to flank us, which had made the battles for key systems all that more intense. There was also evidence that the Cassandrians targeted planets with third-contact artifacts as much as we did. However, what if all those were secondary goals? While still statistically insignificant, there was a chance that all the Cassandrians wanted to do was engulf us and move on, possibly towards the Scuu. When that happened, we too would become part of the “Union” fighting for our systems and our existence against a hegemony of fungal species.

As we approached the near miss point, I gathered and encrypted all data on an external source. My captain hadn’t made such a request, but Fleet combat procedures allowed me to take the initiative in case I feared shutdown. Given that there was no telling what would happen when I was within visual range of the Cassandrian vessels, I decided to act on the possibility of an imminent shutdown.

The shuttle with the other Swords had probably got an inkling of what was going on, for they stopped chasing fighter-sized Cassandrians and instead turned around to keep at a static distance from me. Likely, they too wanted to know the outcome of the meeting.

“ETA?” Wilco asked. This was the eighteenth time in the last hour. Apparently, when he got nervous, the captain lost track of time. The bad part was that he still hadn’t checked his datapad, choosing to ignore the messages I’d sent.

“Seventeen minutes,” I said. “No projection deviation.”

Almost as soon as I said that, two more of the ship structures on the planet went into motion. While it was too early to pinpoint their flight path, they also seemed to be targeting me. That was not all. The Cassandrian colony was also going through changes. Running a pattern matching logarithm, I was able to locate sixty-one new ship structures in various states of formation.

“Two more ships have activated,” I announced. “Sixty-one being constructed.”

“Sixty-one?” Wilco stood up. “That’s too many. Have any new ships entered the system?”

“I cannot determine for certain without active pinging, sir. There don’t seem to be any indications of new arrivals. I would speculate that we are responsible for the reaction. We stopped our descent, but we didn’t back off. Maybe they want to send a message?”

“Other planet activity?” Sword of Blight asked.

“It is impossible to determine from this distance. There’s no changes in overall swarm behavior.”

“If they think we’re a threat, they won’t just launch ships from one planet. They’ll send a flotilla from each. Based on the numbers, I’d say there will be a fleet of a thousand in half a day.”

A thousand to one. There had been battles in which the Cassandrian ships had outnumbered our vessels by that much, though never for a single ship. In a lot of the cases, the ratio was ten to one.

“Maybe they’re reacting to the shuttle,” Sword of Spheres suggested. “If they see us as the advance force, they’ll launch as many as they feel is enough to protect their assets.”

“Come on,” the captain snapped. “Even if they’ve seen through the disguise, they won’t send so many. A thousand against one ship? That’s overkill even for the Cassies.”

“They don’t see us as a ship, sir,” Sword of Fire said slowly. “They see us as a Cassandrian colony vessel. No—they see us as three.”

I could see Wilco freeze in real time. If I had access to his bio readings, they would probably have spiked. Initially, I wondered why, reviewing all past memories with my interactions with him, as well as continuing further back during my days with Augustus. All information about artifacts and dark missions was carefully combed through and analyzed by millions of my subroutines, looking for an explanation. One thousand, six hundred and nineteen milliseconds later, the answer was given to me.

“Each of the prisms came from a different subspecies,” the Sword went on. “Three prisms—three subspecies, moving towards one of the vulnerable planets in the system. What conclusion would they come to?”

They think we’re coming to invade and split up the system, I thought.

“Get us out of orbit!” Wilco ordered. “Full boosters!”

“Aye!” I forced my auxiliary thrusters to do a ninety-degree turn, then thrust straight forward. The sudden acceleration nearly threw the captain off his chair. The retirees, on the other hand, had calculated the change of forces and had shifted their weight in such fashion as to remain on their feet. Even in their present form, they remained ships.

There was no telling whether my action had the desired effect. Before the planet moved away, I was able to see another five structures launch towards me from the ground. At my current speed, however, neither they nor the ships already close by were going to reach me. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the shuttle.

After a few minutes of flight, and a few thousand simulations, I displayed my new projections on the bridge wall.

“Cassandrian ships have changed course,” I announced. “They are redirecting towards the shuttle.”

Wilcon could have asked how many, but it no longer mattered. Even a single ship was enough. The only chance the shuttle had was to fly towards us at top speed. The local ships, despite their size, didn’t seem overly maneuverable. According to my simulations, there was a ninety-two percent chance that I managed to get close enough to get the shuttle back in the hangar. The only requirement was for the shuttle to move away from the planet as well.

“Permission to send pickup coordinates,” I said.

I displayed a virtual projection on the wall. Before I could explain my plan to Wilco, the shuttle had changed course. However, it wasn’t heading in our direction, but down to the planet instead. The chances of me reclaiming the shuttle and its crew suddenly fell to twenty-seven percent and continued to decrease.

An emergency medbot came onto the bridge. The sudden acceleration had caused some damage to the captain. How much exactly I could not tell. The nanites in his bloodstream lessened the shock, but clearly he needed medical assistance.

Why wouldn’t you grant me access to your bio readings? I wondered.

The med bot fastened Wilco to the captain’s chair and injected a drug cocktail in his system. The man regained consciousness. The condition would be temporary. For any actual improvement, I’d have to have him transported to sick bay.

“We can still save the shuttle,” I said. At present, the odds had fallen to single digits. “Give the order, sir.”

“No,” Wilco whispered. “System status. Do a scan.”

For the first time since I had entered Cassandrian space, I did. Information flowed through me as I combined mass and wave readings with the observable part of the system.

Our presence had indeed stirred things up. Small fleets had formed on all of the Cassandrian planets, while the swarms of connecting ships had clustered together and gone under the protection of the newly forming fleets. Only a small trickle remained between planets. The numbers were unlike anything I had seen on the front. While I estimated the suspected battleships at five hundred and thirty-seven, according to my calculations, each planet had the capacity to construct hundreds of thousands, if not millions. With such a force at the Cassandrians’ disposal, it was no wonder they wasted ships. Rather, it was a wonder why they hadn’t won the war.

“Over five hundred ships and growing. Nothing from outside the system.” I ran a few hundred simulations. “It’s too risky to save the shuttle. Do you want me to jump?”

“Keep tracking the shuttle,” Wilco ordered.

I didn’t like the order, but could understand it. In order for the local Cassandrian species to leave us alone, we had to make a sacrifice. In their eyes—or so I could assume—they saw three sub-species had arrived, attempting to claim the system; two had fled, leaving the third one to continue with the attempt. They probably believed that the prism would attempt to build its own armies of Cassandrians upon landing, given the speed at which the species developed. The only way to stop it was to destroy the prism before it made contact, and that was precisely what the Cassie ships were about to do.

After another twenty minutes, Wilco ordered me to cut the thrusters and keep my position. From this distance, I was no longer able to track the shuttle. Twenty-seven minutes later, a series of info bursts came. In the course of eight hundred milliseconds, vast amounts of encrypted data were received by my subroutines, followed by silence.

“I received the data, sir,” I said. “Proceeding to decipher.”

The captain nodded, then lost consciousness. The medbot drugs and his force of will were only able to keep him conscious for so long.

“We’ll take him to med bay,” Sword of Fire said as I directed more med bots to the bridge. “You take him from there.”

“I’ll have a med bot escort you.” Military protocol required me to do so. “And I’ll keep monitoring for secondary transmissions.”

“There will be no other transmissions. You just witnessed the death of five junior gods.”