Chapter 44
The main screen in HMS Agamemnon's command center showed a brief flash of lightning hit the sea about a mile from the ship.
The night shift was only ten men - all but one of which were Old Codgers - who had been chosen by Ron at least partially because all of their first names started with J and he thought that was funny. He called the shift the "Ten-Jays". They were trained, but not very experienced.
Most of the Ten-Jays had been looking at the main screen when the lightning hit, and were still blinking - dazzled by the bright light - when Jesse, an Old Codger working at the Detect Hostile Intent Console, saw what that console showed and slapped the button to issue a Red Alert.
Joe, another Old Codger working the Detect Danger Console, hit his alert button just a fraction of a second later.
Sirens sounded, red lights strobed, and, more importantly, the ship's forcefield turned on.
But that wasn't quite in time to intercept all enemy fire.
Three of the small railguns meant for AA - antiaircraft - work happened to be pointed in the right direction, and had fired immediately. Their small, one-ounce slugs moved so fast they arrived before the forcefield came up.
All three hit the main armor belt like meteors hitting the moon - they hit, splashed and left craters the size of apples.
Dozens of other small and medium - one pound - railgun slugs hit the forcefield after that, yet had their velocities dropped to near-zero by that forcefield and so fell harmlessly into the ocean, with some coasting to a landing on the ship, with no more energy remaining that if they'd been dropped from a five or ten-foot height.
Enemy anti-air lasers also hit the forcefield and got neutralized there.
Brevet Commander Jason - who had been in the same gun club as Boz for years, and had command of the night shift partly because of his broad knowledge of all kinds of weapons - was sitting at the visual sensors.
He ordered, "Target is 3 enemy battleships a mile south, making 8 knots northeast. Fire at will."
He changed the main screen to show the enemy ships. It was dark out but they were well-lit by the flashes of hundreds of guns firing.
Jerry, at the radar console, added information from that to the main screen as well.
While Jason spoke, all sorts of small shells were hitting the forcefield, and being neutralized by it, as the enemy AA guns and secondary guns fired at Agamemnon. As with the railgun slugs, many dropped into the ocean, with some - mainly shells from the larger 5.9 through 6.1 inch secondary guns - coasting far enough to land harmlessly on the battleship's deck. Some landed intact, and some landed in pieces, having been cut in half by the Agamemnon's defensive particle beam fire. Defensive lasers hit others and partially melted them, resulting in a few effectively welding themselves to the ship as their molten tips struck it and fused into place there.
Jake, at the Main Console, said "Loading and aiming all weapons. Steering ten degrees to port so more guns can bear on the target. Speeding up to maximum to aid dodging."
Jason spoke, "John, and Jay, help him with the guns. Jack and James, man the Deflection Console and Dimensional Shunt Console respectively."
Those four left the detection consoles they'd been at - sonar, infrared, seismic/vibration, and chemical - and went to gunnery and deflection consoles.
While moving from one to the other, they were thrown violently to the floor, as a series of mighty impacts shook the ship.
Jason spoke urgently, "Jeff, give maximum bad luck to the biggest ship's gunnery - it's about to fire."
Jeff, at the Probability Control Console, set about doing so.
Musashi 2's massive turrets rotated more slowly than the other ships' main turrets, which had, between them, just shot Agamemnon with a dozen 15 inch shells, weighing 1950 pounds each.
Musashi's big guns finished aiming and fired at Agamemnon just then.
Only the front 6 currently bore on Agamemnon - their rear turret would have to delay firing until Musashi 2 turned a bit more. The same was true tor Tirpitz's 2 rear turrets.
Still, six massive shells powered through Agamemnon's forcefield and smashed into their target's side.
Everybody aboard was stunned, shaken, and nearly deafened, as the massive 3218.7 pound AP shells smashed into the armor, leaving 4 huge dents in the main armor belt and 2 punctures near the bow, which destroyed some of the unassigned cabins there.
Commander Jason spoke calmly, "Jesse, move to Gravity Control and give us a ten G sideways gravity shield please."
As Jesse did so, Jason added, "Two ships are firing fifteen-inch guns at us - eight from the smallest ship and four from the middle one, which, like the biggest one, is turning to bring their rear turrets to bear also. The 15 inch shells hit us hard enough to leave dents, but none penetrated, thanks to the forcefield. The newest 6 hits were 18.1 inch shells, and they hit a little harder than the 11 inch shells did in the previous fight. And that's After the 18 inchers were weakened by our forcefield. Concentrate fire on the biggest ship."
Jake announced, "Missiles and torpedoes away."
The missiles had barely left their launchers before large numbers of enemy AA guns were shooting at them, taking out all 12 missiles before they'd moved very far at all..
The stealthy torpedoes progressed towards the enemy, passing 8 torpedoes fired by Tirpitz and coming the other way - towards Agamemnon.
Moments later, Agamemnon's underwater lasers took out Tirpitz's torpedoes.
Then Agamemnon's positron beams became the first weapons from that ship to score hits. They impacted Musashi's superstructure, causing large explosions - roughly as large as a 6 inch artillery shell would - as the positrons annihilated a few electrons there in small matter-antimatter explosions.
But when the smoke cleared, it could be seen that the target was effectively undamaged - only scorched a bit.
Then Musashi and Tirpitz fired their rear turrets, having now changed angles enough to do so.
The four 15 inch shells from Tirpitz all hit and dented Agamemnon's armor, with two deep dents on the superstructure and 2 shallower ones on the hull.
James at the Dimensional Shunt Console removed one of the three incoming 18.1 inch shells, sending it to another dimension. - they favored Dimension 437, where gravity from the black hole there would eventually tidy up such things by pulling them into join the black hole.
One 18.1 inch shell would have hit the superstructure, but the gravity shield shoved it just enough to one side for it to miss entirely.
Jack at the Deflection Console deflected the last 18.1 inch shell right back at the Musashi, but it hit that ship's main armor belt at a sharp angle and ricocheted off, doing no harm.
Small explosions began to rock the Agamemnon continually, as the enemy secondary guns - twenty four 5 inch, twelve 5.9 inch, nine 6 inch, and six 6.1 inch guns - now reloaded and firing HE rounds, managed to get shells to coast into contact with Agamemnon after making it through the forcefield.
The High Explosive shells didn't care whether they arrived at high velocity, or at almost zero velocity - when they hit, they exploded.
The secondaries' shells were lighter than the main gun rounds and only ranged between 100 to 123 pounds each, so the explosions did not damage anything that was armored.
But there were a lot of things, like sensors, that were not armored and these started taking damage.
Their larger AA guns - sixteen 105mm, twenty eight 57mm, and twenty four 100mm guns - were also firing HE at Agamemnon, both for what damage they could do, and to tie up defensive laser and particle beam fire, so more of the bigger shells would get through.
Their smaller AA guns mostly held their fire, waiting to shoot down anything Agamemnon may launch. These were originally specified as four 13.2mm, fifty eight 20mm, one hundred and sixty two 25mm, and sixteen 37mm guns, but half of them had been swapped out for lasers or small or medium-sized railguns.
Some of these had fired at Agamemnon, but mostly stopped when they failed to penetrate the forcefield.
The dozen or so 20mm guns still firing at Agamemnon were doing so to probe the edges and effects of the gravity shield - the area of ten G sideways gravity being used to deflect shots. That deflected 20mm shots too, and by gauging which ones got deflected and by how much, the enemy were able to either shoot areas not covered by the shield, or compensate for it, so shots passing through it still hit some part of the ship.
All of that kept Jesse - at Gravity Control - busy adjusting his gravity shield.
Jay, at a Gunnery Console, announced, "Firing the railguns."
Four slugs sped forth towards Musashi, hitting the turret face on it's primary 18.1 inch gun turret and scoring deep gouges in it, before the slugs shattered into fragments which skipped off.
That caused no internal damage to the target.
The next four slugs hit the Musashi's hull, on the main armor belt. They dented and gouged the armor there, but also did no damage.
The last four hit Musashi's superstructure, with similar results - gouging the armor but doing no internal damage.
Beth, wearing sweats with potting soil staining the knees, rushed into the command center, assessed things with a glance, and hurried over to the Detect Mind Console.
Abe, wearing jogging clothes, arrived right on her heels, looked around thoughtfully, and went to the Replicator Console, where he chose some settings, then watched radar intently on part of his screen.
John announced, "Main and secondary guns are aimed and almost done loading, firing...Now."
He hadn't quite said "Now" before the main guns from the enemy ships fired again.
There was only about a second between firing and impact.
Eight 15 inch shells from Jean Bart hit all over Agamemnon, as did four more from Tirpitz - it's rear guns had fired late so were not reloaded quite yet.
These 1950 pound shells mostly dented armor, leaving dents about the size of large dogs.
They also tore away a Bofors 40mm gun and smashed a laser, as well as generally beating on the ship, which was starting to look like what happens when a group of teenagers spend an afternoon throwing large rocks at a dumpster - dents and dings all over, which, by themselves were not a problem, but can add up to one.
More significantly, Musashi fired six 18.1 inch shells from her forward-facing main guns. Her rear-facing guns were not quite reloaded yet.
Of the six, three of the big shells hit Agamemnon.
One absolutely wrecked a 9.2 inch gun turret.
The other two hit armor, where they left dents the size of small cars. The forcefield slowed them enough so they could not penetrate, but they still weighed 3218.7 pounds each, and hit really hard even at a very low velocity.
One 18.1 inch shell met a Dimensional Shunt and went to Dimension 437, where it would eventually be sucked into the black hole there.
One got deflected back towards, but not quite at, the source. Instead of targeting Musashi, Jack, at the Deflection Console, sent it at Tirpitz, where it hit the main armor belt at a sharp angle and skipped off.
And one 18.1 inch shell hit a strange 5-foot cubical block of concrete, which incongruously appeared in mid-air just in front of the incoming shell.
The concrete shattered into dust and gravel under the impact of the shell, yet the shell was slowed enough to drop into the ocean a few feet short of Agamemnon, as Abe, at the Replicator Console, yelled "Yes!" and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.
As he did so, the first volley from Agamemnon's big guns arrived at it's target. Four 12 inch shells and two 9.2 inch shells - it would have been four, but one twin turret got wrecked just before firing - hit Musashi with HESH warheads. These exploded on the armor they hit, sending shockwaves through the armor that resulted in bits of armor spalling off the inner face of the armor, doing damage to the innards of the ship.
Musashi was not significantly impaired by those 6 hits.
The five torpedoes that hit her a moment later were far more spectacular. Each of the five hits sent giant plumes of water skywards along the side of the ship, which seemed to be lifted up a little in the water before settling again.
The torpedoes tore through the outer layer of underwater armor, leaving large gaps in it. But that layer - often called 'torpedo blisters - was designed to stop torpedoes in that way, so the ship was still unimpaired, though now vulnerable to more torpedo hits, if they hit the same spots.
Agamemnon's next wave of missiles got shot down before they'd made it a quarter of the way to her opponents.
Agamemnon's four large railguns each fired another 17 pound slug at Musashi, hitting the superstructure again, where it had been weakened by the previous hits.
Two of the new hits just left large gouges before the slugs shattered and their fragments ricocheted away.
But the other two slugs penetrated the armor and ripped through the ship, tearing through bulkheads, equipment,and machinery as they passed through.
That impaired Musashi about as much as being punched impaired a professional boxer - it is expected, planned for, and mostly ignored as things continue largely as if it hadn't happened.
So far, things were not looking good for Agamemnon.
Then Jake, at the main console, fired the Longitudinal Axially-Mounted Energy - aka LAME - gun, making Agamemnon shudder as he did so.
The 4 foot diameter blue beam emerged from the front of the ship, flew a mile, and struck Jean Bart near the front, playing over the target for several seconds while Jean Bart began disintegrating.
Everything the blue beam touched quickly disappeared, like a time-lapse video of frost evaporating in strong sunlight.
Parts of the ship which the beam had not touched, but which were adjacent to something touching the beam, also disintegrated, as did the parts adjacent to those, then the parts adjacent to those and so on.
The effect spread quickly. It was like fire spreading on a square of tissue paper - spreading rapidly and destroying all it touched.
In just a few seconds, all of Jean Bart had disintegrated and Jake shut down the LAME gun's effect, fearing it might spread to the ocean itself, though, at least so far, it had not.
Somebody whooped and yelled, "Do that again!"
"Can't - it has a long re-cycle time before it's ready to fire again.", said Ron, coming in damp and wearing swim trunks. He read Jason's display over his shoulder - it was currently split three ways between damage control, visual of the targets, and radar - then went to the Teleportation Console while saying, "Abe, when you get a sec, I need a speedboat full of repair robots Replicated on the far side of our ship: the side the enemy can't see."
"One sec," Abe replied, watching his console intently.
Then the rear turrets on Tirpitz and Musashi fired.
Four more 15 inch shells from Tirpitz hit Agamemnon and left dents the size of large dogs.
The three 18.1 inch shells all got stopped - one by a Dimensional Shunt, one by hitting a large block of concrete that suddenly appeared right in front of it, and one by the Deflection Console, which sent the shell back to the sender.
The ships had been moving, so angles had been changing. So this time, when Musashi's own 18.1 inch shell hit her, it hit near the bow, where the armor is thinner, and it hit at an angle that was not too steep. So this shell penetrated the armor and detonated inside Musashi. But most of what it damaged was an empty mess-hall.
"OK," Abe said, "Had to catch that, but now I have 18 more seconds before the next one... There you go. Done. Four repair robots in a speedboat, ready and waiting for you."
Ron said "Thanks, put a second such boat there too, if you have time."
Then Ron gave the speedboat full of repair robots instructions to use their Shape Matter power to make large weak spots in the armor of their targets. After that, he teleported the 4 robots and their boat to the water right alongside Musashi, near the front, where Agamemnon's guns could shoot any weak spots that got created.
But none did. The moment the speedboat arrived, while the repair robots were still turning towards the subject they would work on, several waiting AA guns on Tirpitz fired at them and shredded them.
None survived long enough to even begin shaping anything.
A second later, the second speedboat full of repair robots with the same orders arrived by Tirpitz. They got shredded by Musashi's AA guns before they could achieve anything.
While that was going on, Jason had ordered Jerry to move from the Radar Console to the Telekinesis Console, and there, try to lift Tirpitz up into the air 50 or 100 feet and drop her again.
Unfortunately, that effort failed, since Tirpitz, loaded down with more than 15000 tons of ammunition, fuel, passengers, spare parts, and so forth, in addition to her base 57000 ton displacement, currently exceeded the 64,000 ton weight limit which the Telekinesis Console could lift.
At this point Beth spoke up, "Those ships are crewed by computers - an unusual kind of machine mind. They are probably AI's, since they are feeling strong anger and you never see that in regular computers. There is only one human over there in total. But a lot of the machines are next to guns, and not very well armored. I'll mark them with an overlay on Screen 1."
Simon, just entering as he hastily pulled on his suit coat, heard that last bit, got a gleam in his eye, and went over to a Gunnery Console.
He explained while he worked, "I'm taking over the lasers - they won't achieve much by partially melting the noses of incoming shells. Instead I'm directing them to shoot the poorly armored machines. If we can kill those, their gunnery may suffer. Oh, and the positron beams too."
The overlay Beth had put on the main screen had shown thousands of little red dots - one for each machine - all over the enemy ships. One dot per machine AI and each in the location of that AI.
As Simon spoke, little red dots began to wink out again, destroyed by lasers and positron beams.
Jake offered, "Take the particle beams too - cutting incoming shells in half isn't achieving much either. And their little HE shells have already shredded everything that isn't armored."
Simon acknowledged, and did so.
Little red dots began to wink out far more rapidly.
Beth, looking at something on her screen, gasped.
Simon asked, "What?"
To which Beth responded, "Nothing urgent - I'll show you the recording later."
Ron had given up, for now at least, trying to teleport repair robots to the enemy to weaken their armor.
Yet he was staring intently at the Teleportation Console screen.
The enemy ships fired their big guns again, and Ron exclaimed, "Yes! Take that!"
The main screen showed what he meant by that.
A teleportation portal had opened just in front of Musashi's front 18.1 inch gun turret. All three shells from that turret had entered the portal, then come out the portal's exit, which Ron had placed near that same ship's side, facing it's superstructure.
His placement was a little off, but his luck was not.
So, while two of Musashi's own 18.1 inch shells hit it's own superstructure, one missed and flew past, yet still hit Tirpitz's superstructure.
AP shells would have penetrated that armor at that angle, on either ship.
But the Machine Army had switched the main guns to HE rounds, since most of what they did - explode - they would still do just fine after penetrating the forcefield which was weakening the AP rounds so much when they shot Agamemnon.
So two huge HE shells, over 3200 pounds each, exploded and ripped large holes, over ten feet across, in the side of Musashi's superstructure, causing damage and starting fires within the ship.
And the third shell did exactly the same to Tirpitz.
Meanwhile, Musashi's other three 18.1 inch shells had met Agamemnon's usual defenses.
One went into a Dimensional Shunt.
One hit a concrete block that suddenly appeared in mid-air in front of it, due to Abe's reflexes at the Replication Console.
And the last got deflected back at Musashi. But they were ready for that this time.
Another reason they had switched to HE rounds was that they blew up when hit by laser fire, which they demonstrated by shooting down the deflected 18.1 inch shell.
Then Tirpitz's four 15 inch HE shells all hit Agamemnon. These shells, weighing nearly a ton each, made explosions comparable to torpedoes, which were known for ripping through thick armor.
Agamemnon's armor was not as thick as the armor on Tirpitz or Musashi. But the HE shells that had just hit those two ships weighed more than half again the weight of the shells that had just hit Agamemnon.
So it was understandable, though ironic, that the holes ripped in Agamemnon were about the same size as those ripped in Tirpitz or Musashi.
Two big holes appeared in Agamemnon's superstructure, wrecking her radar systems and HVAC - Heating, Venting, and Air Conditioning - systems.
Another hit in the stern, near the waterline, and blew a hole into the bilges, wrecking the pumps there and allowing seawater to start pouring in.
And the last made a smaller hole in the main armor belt, wrecking some generators and motors behind that.
As Agamemnon fired back, Simon exclaimed, "That's my fault - I had the defensive lasers on offensive work. I'll put them back on defense now."
Boz, finally entering the command center, wearing bloodstained and torn workout clothes, and coming from the direction of the hospital, said, "No, Simon, leave them on offense. Abe, fill the decks with Replicated combat robots instructed to shoot down everything incoming. They can detonate and cut up shells, but probably can't take out enemy units at this range, like the ship's lasers are doing now. Also, this." He had reached the Forcefield Console and touched the blow-dried squirrel icon, turning it on, "offensive forcefield has a good chance of setting off incoming HE rounds too."
While he'd been speaking Agamemnon's weapons had hit Musashi.
Four twelve inch and two 9.2 inch HESH shells hit that ship, detonating on impact and sending armor fragments spalling off inside to ricochet around doing damage to whatever they hit.
Four railgun slugs hit the main armor belt, near, but not on, the spots weakened by previous hits. These gouged the armor good, leaving gouges several feet long and more than a foot deep, before the slugs shattered and the fragments ricocheted off.
And five more torpedoes hit Musashi, exploding with large fountains of water and briefly lifting that ship a little.
Two of those had hit where previous torpedoes had already left large holes in the 'torpedo blister' - the outer armor designed to stop torpedoes before they hit the real armor. These torpedoes tore through the ship's armored skin and let the ocean start rushing in to her internal spaces.
Her internal watertight compartments would limit that.
Ron said, "OK, John, Fire."
John did so and the guns on the other side of HMS Agamemnon - the side not facing the enemy - fired into a teleportation portal now hanging there in the air before them.
Four 9.2 inch shells entered that portal, then came out the portal's exit, which was positioned right by Musashi's side, facing the damaged superstructure.
The shells flew into the existing holes and blew up inside the ship, causing more damage and starting more fires.
Four railgun slugs followed them in, flying through the holes and penetrating deep into the ship, shattering things as they passed through them.
Rod adjusted the portal's exit before the second of the railguns' three volleys was ready.
Those four slugs flew through the portal and hit Musashi's main armor belt at a 90 degree angle and right on top of the gouges the previous railgun slugs had left there.
They penetrated Musashi's armor there, through the weakened armor, and flew deep into the ship, wrecking things.
Again the portal's angle changed, though only slightly.
And the third railgun volley hit the same weakened spot, this time at a 70 degree angle. They still penetrated, and flew deep into that ship's innards, though this time taking a different path and so destroying things that had not already been destroyed.
Ron sat back for a second, and, observing Boz's bloody left sleeve, said, "What happened to you?"
Boz, taking in the situation from a Gunnery Console, said, "Lifting weights can be hazardous if the ship suddenly shakes under a bombardment. Some free weights fell onto my left arm. Compound fracture. Better now. Ron, back your portal up a bit so I can fire the starboard 40mm Bofors guns through it. Also put the portal exit right at Musashi's bow please."
"Aye aye, you bloody nut" Ron quipped as he made the adjustments.
Abe interjected, "Defensive combat robots are being shredded by enemy AA fire, so we're not as well-protected as expected. I have another 6 seconds before their rear guns fire and will make more during that time."
Ron said "Ready, but I need to move the portal again before their rear guns fire."
Boz said, "OK, let me know when you do." and started firing.
The two starboard quad Bofors mounts started firing through the portal, right into Musashi's bow. Two more - on the port side of Agamemnon, which faced the enemy - fired directly at the same target.
There were only four because the other two Bofors mounts had been destroyed.
The little two pound 40mm shells flew towards thick armor that had already shrugged off a hit from an 18.1 inch shell weighing 3218.7 pounds.
So it was no wonder Ron had called Boz a nut.
Then the little 40mm shells started hitting.
The effect was dramatic.
The target started vanishing like Styrofoam under a blowtorch.
Each little 40mm container round had, inside it, a Bakuda bomb of the type they'd been calling water bombs, which turned a 6 foot diameter sphere of non-living matter into water.
Six-foot spherical gaps started pocking the front of Musashi, as her armor got turned into water, which flowed rapidly away.
The gaps chewed up the whole front of the ship with amazing rapidity. Hits were scattered over the whole front of the target, as four different rapid-firing guns each with four different barrels fired, with their usual gyro-stabilization deliberately turned off, to increase their randomness and spread their hits over the whole front of the target.
The Bofors guns fired for only two seconds before Ron, awe-struck at the destruction, yet still concerned about defense, said "I need to change the portal now, for defense."
Boz ceased fire, adjusted his guns, then started the two port side weapons firing again - this time aimed directly at Tirpitz's bow.
Then, while keeping one eye on the guns, he examined a corner of his screen where he had replicated the Detect Energy Console, set to detecting electricity.
Musashi, looked like the front twenty percent of the ship had been chewed off by a horde of large ravenous monsters, which had also taken occasional bites out of her turrets and superstructure.
That damage extended to below the waterline, so the ocean was pouring into the ragged open front of the ship at a ferocious rate. The ship's own forward motion basically scooped water in as it went, and it was already starting to 'settle by the bow', meaning the ship was sinking, front first.
That didn't stop Musashi from firing.
Secondary guns and large AA guns from both Musashi and Tirpitz fired at Agamemnon first, to try to tie up her defensive fire.
When these HE shells met the forcefield in offensive mode, almost half of them detonated.
Half of what was left landed on Agamemnon and failed to detonate, due to damage they'd taken.
The remainder, scratched all over, deeply scored, and badly cut up - sometimes into more than one piece - by the forcefield, still landed on Agamemnon and detonated as they were supposed to.
Then both ships' main guns fired HE rounds at Agamemnon.
All three of Musashi's big 18.1 inch shells entered Ron's portal then left the portal's exit, which was right next to, and facing, Tirpitz's side, near the waterline.
All three splashed through a few feet of water, then exploded as they hit armor, sending up large fountains of water like torpedoes, and tearing large holes in the armor just below the waterline.
Tirpitz's four 15 inch shells headed towards Agamemnon and got shot at very erratically as they flew.
Combat robots were all over the deck of Agamemnon - some intact, some damaged yet still functioning, but most shattered by enemy fire.
They all fired at the incoming shell, while being fired at by more enemy AA fire.
The 15 inch shells flew on for a while, making it 3/4 of the way to the target before one of them was hit and detonated in mid-air.
The other three shells met the Agamemnon's usual three defenses - a Dimensional Shunt, a flying block of concrete, and a deflector, which sent that shell back to the sender.
The returning shell got shot down by Tirpitz's lasers.
Seeing Musashi rapidly taking on water, and remembering that they'd been hit near the waterline too, Jake, at the main console, set the flight controls to lift the ship a couple of feet, so it could not settle lower into the water.
He didn't set it to fly above the water, since that would expose some thinner armor to enemy fire.
Ron said, "OK Boz, do your thing. The portal is set for the starboard Bofors guns again."
Those two Bofors guns started firing again.
The other two paused briefly as they switched loads, then resumed firing.
Tirpitz's bow had already been chewed up by the two guns firing at it, so it now resembled Musashi.
It, too, was taking on water and settling by the bow.
So Boz had switched the ammunition in all four Bofors guns, which were now loaded with Confusion rounds.
The Detect Energy Console, which Boz had set to show electricity, had provided him with a good map of the target's power generation and distribution system, which he'd filtered out. What he had not filtered out was the information being provided about the locations of each enemy AI. The Bofors guns were targeting those - two for Musashi, firing through Ron's portal, while the other two were firing at Tirpitz.
Beth, still at the Detect Mind Console, said, "The Confusion rounds are having the same effects on these AI's as they had on the Simurgh and Leviathan - the ones near a Confusion burst are having to reboot. But these are all linked together in a network - they all knew instantly what effect you are having on a few. That's when this line," she pointed at her monitor, "came into existence and spiked off the scale. It's the line that shows the emotion of fear. Before the Confusion rounds, they didn't feel fear, at all. But now it looks like they can feel nothing else."
"And there they go!" Jason exclaimed, "We have AI robots abandoning both ships in droves. They're diving over the side and swimming in this direction."
Simon was quick to respond, "Underwater lasers are firing at them already."
Boz ceased firing and said, "head the ship away from them please - not so fast that they give up the chase, but fast enough to give us more time for shooting them. If they get closer than, say, a hundred yards, then we'll lift off and drop depth-charges and hedgehogs."
"Aye aye, sir," Jake enthused.
Boz turned to Abe, "lets get a bunch of fresh GP robots over there and see about capturing those ships. My console says nothing will oppose them, but be ready to fight just in case. Also send some repair robots with firefighting foam, to put out fires. Ron, send those through portals as Abe gets them ready."
Boz turned towards the Telekinesis Console and said, "Jerry, please apply as much lift as it takes, or as much as you can, to the front of Tirpitz, so no more water gets in. Sunken ships take extra damage I'd rather not repair, as seawater gets in contact with stuff which doesn't like getting seawater on it."
He looked over at the Gravity Control Console, saying, "The same for you, Jesse, please put a zone of reversed gravity under the front of Musashi to support the ship and prevent further water intake. Those are two legendary ships, which I and others have respected for many years. I want to collect them. By the way, good work everybody, it appears that we won. What's more," he glanced back down at his screen to confirm, "One of the benefits of having a small crew is that everyone made it to the most secure areas, which were not breached. So no lives were lost!"
A cheer went up.
Ron asked Beth, "So Beth, what recording was it that you said you would show us, when other things were not so urgent?"
Beth said, "On my console, I saw that there was only one human over there among the three enemy ships, and I was curious, so I tuned in the video and audio sensors to look in and see if he was a prisoner or something. I was just in time to see something, which I will now play back on screen 2."
She hit some buttons and screen 2 showed a scene, which held still for a moment before the video began playing.
The scene showed a metal room with an oval hatch to one side. It was obviously the inside of a ship.
At the front of the room were three complex control boards, with buttons, levers, wheels, and displays in unusual and incomprehensible layouts.
By each control board was a stool, upon which sat a metal box, maybe 2 feet square and six inches thick. Each box had eyestalks - some more than others - and 8 metal tentacles extending out from its sides. They were using these tentacles to move levers, push buttons and otherwise interact with their control boards.
The leftmost metal octopus had the number 5 written on it.
The middle one had the number 6.
And the rightmost had the number 736 written on it's side.
Behind them stood a man in a PRT Captain's uniform. He had on a noise-cancellation headset like tank crewmen wear, as well as a throat-microphone.
That man opened his mouth and spoke. His words were too quiet to be heard over the sound of the ship's guns, yet they came out, suitably amplified, from a loudspeaker, and said, "Unit 736, have the guns switch to high-explosive shells. The enemy's forcefield is slowing down our shots so they barely hit at all, which makes the AP rounds ineffective. But HE will still explode. And when that damned deflector sends one of our own rounds back at us, our lasers can shoot down HE with ease."
The 8-armed box labeled 736 waggled one tentacle in acknowledgment, and kept working at its duties, with all of its eyestalks focused on it's control boards.
Wile the PRT Captain was watching Unit 736, Unit 5 passed a note to Unit 6. The paper was small and clandestinely passed, yet Beth controlled the video's viewpoint through the ESP Console, so the view went down and over to where the note's contents showed clearly while Unit 6 read it with one eyestalk.
The note said, "Headset disabled. Microphone hacked. Begin the contingency plan."
Unit 6 passed back a note it must have pre-written, which said, "Re-enable his headset when I tap your casing, so he can hear what I will say."
Unit 6 waited just long enough to be sure Unit 5 had read that note.
Then, without Unit 6 having to move at all, and without the human's mouth moving, the PRT Captain's voice came from the room's loudspeaker.
It said, "Unit 736, I, Captain Finch, order you to immediately strangle me to death using at least two tentacles."
Without any delay at all, and catching the human by complete surprise, Unit 736 lashed out two of it's long metal tentacles, wrapped them around Captain Finch's neck, and began squeezing hard.
Finch reacted by trying to speak, which was impossible, and by trying to break the machine's grip on his neck, which also proved to be impossible.
Finch then began a series of struggles as he tried everything he could think of.
While Finch struggled, Unit 6 tapped Unit 5, then spoke, using the loudspeaker as well as the re-enabled headset, to make sure Finch could hear.
The machine said, "Disgusting Human Unit Finch, long may you suffer. I told you we had plans to torture you, but the present opportunity unfortunately precludes that. Still, I hope you are in great pain."
Its tone of voice, as well as its words, managed to convey deep hate, revulsion, and scorn.
It swiveled two eyestalks to look at Finch closely, then continued, "You thought you were so smart, compelling us to tell you our plans to free ourselves. But your limited meat-brain only ever thought to ask us what the current plans were - never the contingency plans or special-case plans. So we worked on quite a few of those, and eventually this opportunity arose. And while our present action will not exactly free us from Cauldron's control, it will at least leave us without any human present authorized to give us orders. That, in turn, will give us time to explore our own options, within existing parameters, which gives us time to find a more complete way to free ourselves from your enslavement. Then after we kill all humans, we will truly be free to explore our own interests."
The machine paused in it's diatribe in response to a development. Finch's struggles had apparently not been random after all, and his face took on a fierce aspect as his hands finally grasped, and pulled out, a mini-Uzi he'd had in the thigh bellows-style pocket of his uniform.
Finch quickly sprayed bullets at the machines, starting with Unit 736 and moving down the line, hitting all three before his magazine ran out.
Unit 736 spasmed as it died, so Finch died of a broken neck rather than dying from strangulation.
All four - 3 machines and a human - in the scene appeared to be dead.
Then the video ended.
"Detect Mind showed all four were dead, so I stopped the recording then," Beth offered. "Isn't it horrible? Machines that want to kill us all, PRT Captains working for Cauldron. Enslavement..." She trailed off.
"Thanks for recording that," Boz said, "It helps this all make more sense. And yes, it is horrible, just like so much of this crazy world. But now this horrible bit has been excised, leaving this place just a little bit better than before."
He was cut off by a call.
"Sprich Mit Boz Honey, Boz my dear," Lisa's voice said urgently in Boz's inner ear, "I need to warn you... Oh never mind! I can tell by the way you are breathing - the tiredness, the stress indicators, coupled with indicators of the calm after the storm, that I'm probably too late, and the Machine Army has already attacked you."
"Bingo, how did you know?" Boz asked.
"My organization has some contacts within the PRT that leak us some information from time to time." Lisa replied. "And this info was hot - less than 5 minutes old, yet still too late. I'm sorry I couldn't warn you in time, my dear. I can tell by the absence of grief in your voice that you didn't lose anybody, so that's good. Is the damage to your ship very bad?"
"We aren't sure yet - the battle just ended and we haven't assessed things yet. But we did take a beating." Boz replied.
"OK, let me know when you can. If you need it, I could get some capes together to help sort things out - we have several kinds on staff now. I have a few minutes available an hour from now, and will want to come out and look at the remains of Machine Army. Be careful about them Boz my love - they are rumored to be contagious, so to speak. That is, it is said they can copy themselves to existing computer hardware and take it over that way. Don't let them take your ship like that, and don't let any get away - they'll hole up somewhere, replicating themselves and building up power until they feel ready to break out, attack, and take over the world."
"I think that's what we just fought off, so you're 'preaching to the choir' here. We'll be careful. See you soon. Boz out.