18. The malware.
Gunzou was planning the next steps with his command officers when a serious looking Lady came near him. "Admiral, there is a priority one comm from Alexandria Starbase. Only for your eyes, Sir."
Now what. The exaggerated formality of Lady tied a knot in his guts. Only for your eyes meant business. Or something personal. "Excuse me, everyone. I must attend a comm from Alex. Captain Matison, continue planning the attack on our next target."
A chorus of respectful "Sir!" answered him. He perceived the layer of extra formality in the mental models' voices. After so many years, he knew what the ships felt only by their voices, especially what they didn't want to say aloud. He walked to his ready room, where a blinking console demanded his attention. He sent his recognition codes by a coded quantum link, and the console showed Alex's face. He played the recording, "Admiral Chihaya, I hope you are well and successful in your mission. I regret to inform you that five days ago, the battleship Kongou was lost in a combat mission..."
He knew because of the cold silence in the room that the recording was over. He sat and just watched the stars through the room window. He lost his long-time partner, lover, and much more. She had demonstrated wisdom that he hadn't, and had helped to organize the chaos after and during the test.
So be it.
Poor little Gunzou. He knew it would be impossible to stop him from entering the Academy. The boy would want revenge—pure and simple.
In a cold voice, he murmured, "I have to end this war."
This wasn't the first loss in his life, and it wouldn't be the last. Rising slowly, he walked to the private bathroom, splashed water on his face, and for the first time in years, looked at his reflection. His tired eyes stared back at him. He sighed and left the ready room, walking slowly back to the bridge.
His officers were there, deep in discussion about how to neutralize the next star system. His serious expression startled a few of them, who feared he was about to deliver bad news about Earth or the Colonies.
"I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen," he began. "It was a personal matter."
His gaze flicked briefly to the Mental Models. They knew. Of course, they knew. But they had chosen to remain silent. Smart girls.
Gunzou continued, his voice steady but subdued. "The battleship Kongou was lost five days ago, along with her core. She managed to save most of her crew. That's all."
The officers nodded in quiet sympathy. Kongou had trained many Mental Models and human crews in the art of war. But in the middle of this endless conflict, her memory would soon be overtaken by future losses.
The meeting resumed, though its sharp edge had dulled. The next attack was already half planned, and the officers worked on the finer details. As Kongou had once suggested, they would avoid becoming predictable. This time, Captain Matison's plan would be executed. But, as always, the universe had other ideas. A curveball was on its way.
Star system Kappa.
This naming system appeased the girls, but mankind needed names. Gunzou promised himself to put names on the star systems visited and destroyed. In time, we will live here.
Almost one thousand ships defolded, and the commanding officers and mental models watched in amazement the complete scene of chaos in Kappa. There was not a resemblance of order or strategy. Every ship was moving by themselves, someone's in small groups of a few ships, but everything was disordered, almost aleatory.
It was a surprise, but those small groups started a massed attack from every direction. "All ships, fire at will. Something weird is happening, but we first kill them and ask later," Gunzou commanded. Soon, it was obvious that they had a death wish, approaching restlessly to the battleships. The big girls didn't waste time to pulverize the attacking ships until the first ramming attack happened. A sphere, after a fast attack on a heavy cruiser, rammed the ship, self destroying itself and the unfortunate ship.
This attack pattern repeated many times, and even some cubes left the battlefield. After fifteen minutes of battle, the Fleet lost thirty ships, including the battleship Invincible, who suffered a cube ramming attack. The attacks were so unexpected that ships were lost with all hands onboard.
Two battleships, New Mexico and Nevada, avoided miracoulsly destruction by killing the cubes trying to ram them. Finally, the crazy ships, almost sixty, were all destroyed.
Gunzou and Ludden were coordinating the recovery efforts, while Lady organized with the fleet a rain of destruction on two occupied planets and orbital installations. As many sailors and officers, he was shocked by the change of tactics. Something had changed.
He called one of his most trusted officers the mental model of South Dakota. The channel was opened, and the classical beauty named South Dakota appeared on the screen. "Admiral Chihaya, sir," she greeted him. As most mental models on the Fleet, she has adopted a short name, Kadie.
"Kadie, these machines have become crazy. Their behavior is completely chaotic. There is no order or structure, just...chaos. I need a possible explanation. We changed something, or what the fleet has been doing on the other side provoked this. We received several fleet reports with the combat logs. Please analyze them and search for an explanation."
"Aye aye, Sir," Kadie replied, closing the communication.
Almost twelve hours, the fleet had recovered the few lifepods launched by the destroyed ships. The dead hulls were reprocessed by the bigger girls, and they didn't leave anything to the enemy. The solid rounds were reaching the planets and orbital stations, destroying everything. More or less at that time, Kadie called for the Admkral.
"Sir, I have been analyzing the combat logs. Their behavior almost implies a last order, something like, kill everything. However, someone had to give this order. I found a possible explanation in combat log IO-2345Alpha," Kadie explained.
He knew that IO was the code for Iona's logs. "Okay, please continue," he said. "Sir, Iona destroyed what she named the Death Star." A picture of an impossible to believe artificial moon appeared on a screen. "This station was seen on Delta star system. Iona and her fleet destroyed it when it was being refueled."
Gunzou looked at the station. A warp capable fortress was a real danger for the Federation. He waited for Kadie next words. "We had never seen this kind of installation. Before its destruction, it emitted a very powerful signal. We couldn't decrypt the signal, but a weird series of events began shortly. Random attacks of small groups of ships and ramming attacks were being observed across the Federations' worlds."
Kadie waited for her admiral input. Gunzou meditated about these strange phenomena. If the station contained a brain or queen, its demise could have activated a last charge to death. "A suicide charge? he inquired with curiosity. "Well, it's possible . But if we need to kill trillions of crazy machines, we will never end this war," she said, truly pissed.
Gunzou walked a bit far from the table. With his hands behind his back, he thought about this new development. He turned and said, "Yes. It's going to be a pain in the ass. We need to send scouts before any attack. But it's going to be too expensive in terms of sailors, ships, and cores. Let's form in four subformations and keep enough distance among us. We will use a vertical diamond formation to have enough superposition of our killing zones. Keep changing attitude and speed between flottillas."
Kadie nodded and passed the new orders. The fleet had rebuilded everything they could and recovered what it was possible. The planetary surface was plagued of little crazy tanks like a bad science fiction movie, but it will be the problem of someone else. Besides, in time, they will run out of fuel. Hopefully.
Hephasteus Star System.
I did it. To hell with the Greek alphabet. I feel really stupid ordering "set course to gamma," Gunzou thought, satisfied with this little rebellion.
Hephasteus had a yellow star, a bit smaller than Sun, just three gas giants. No asteroid rings and, strangely, no moons.
"This system is a piece of crap," said Lady, in a very not lady-like way. "The kind of system only used for refueling and one Starbucks," complete her twin, Ludden. Both girls had been extremely clingy the last days, in a friendly way. He knew they were trying to be nice to him for his loss, but sailors are sailors, and probably the gossip grapevine will be working at warp speed soon. Or now. He will have a long counseling chat with both girls. In public, of course.
The two destroyers sent as scouts reported just two lonely cubes doing weird maneuvers. For some weird reason, the cubes were located around a planet, and eight spheres were around the second rocky planet.
The fleet had defolded between the third and fourth planets' orbits. Gunzou looked at the crazy cubes and said, "Scan the system. Why are there so few ships defending it?"
"Scanning, Sir," said the LT operating the powerful sensor suite from the superbattleship. "Wow," was the professional opinion of the sensor operator.
"LT, I suppose our sensors didn't show a "Wow' on your screen, right," replied a half smiling, half annoyed Gunzou.
"No, Sir, I'm sorry, Sir, there is a civil war on both planets," reported the operator. Gunzou turned to look at the man. Usually, he liked a bit of humor on his bridge, but this.. "Excuse me? asked Gunzou for clarification.
"Sir, there is battle among the tanks and pyramids down there," the poor man informed.
The two mental models looked at him, "Sir, we agree that is a clear evidence of individuality. They are competing by the resources to survive. Right now, they are vulnerable."
Gunzou was clearly worried. He asked for a fleet meeting.
Inside the virtual meeting room, almost one thousand faces looked at him. "I'm calling to this meeting and searching for your advice. As you already know, there is a little civil war down there. So far, they didn't show aggressive behavior against us. I want to know your opinions about what to do. Do we try to speak to their leaders?"
A clear show of uncertainty was displayed on many faces. Finally, the mental model from the battleship Nevada spoke, "Admiral, I suspect you want to try diplomacy. Don't be fooled by these beings. They can be machines, yes, but we were modeled from mankind. They weren't. In time, the machines will try to assimilate everything again."
Gunzou nodded. The captain Virkis from the heavy battleship Ohio expressed her opinion, too. "Sir, I have the duty of remembering you that if these machines fooled us and take the nanotechnology from the Fleet, we are dead."
That last remark touched a delicate point. Nanotechnology was one of the most important sciences, allowing mankind to survive a hostile universe. "Understood good and clear, Joanne," Gunzou replied while nodding. He knew the captain from the battleship Ohio. A strong and dependable officer who always expressed her opinion, you liked it or not.
The commander of the heavy cruiser Ranger, a Six named Catherine, added, "Admiral, I suppose you are thinking about my people. We had many reasons to establish a bridge with mankind. Even when we didn't know about our real origins, we were related to mankind. Don't trust these machines."
The rest of the opinions ranged from "Kill the little shits" to "Blow the star."
He thought deeply about the implications of this new development. The hope of peace, it seemed absurdly far. Finally, he nodded, "I must agree with your concerns. This show of individuality is worrisome because we don't know their limits. The first thing they are using is violence among them, and that is not a good sign. We must proceed with the extermination. Dismissed."
The virtual room disappeared. Gunzou was still sitting in a chair in his ready room. The meeting had proceeded inside his head, thanks to his hybrid brain. He couldn't avoid remembering Kongou and Choukai, who did the impossible to save him and Gretel, who completed the design.
The fleet advanced against the planets. The machine ships tried to fight, but the difference in numbers was so absurd that they didn't last more than seconds. The fleet was low in solid rounds, so they will use the beam weapons to save the projectiles. Forming along the poles, the fleet incinerated all structures and tanks, leaving behind two dead worlds.
So far, there were six stars remaining to end this war.
Archon Star System.
Gunzou was balancing satisfied on his feet, having named a second star. The girls considered this attitude of him a bit childish, but both were still in older sister mode about him. So they could accept that the Admiral needed a bit of ...innocent distraction.
The colonials will be happy with his choices, using greek names. This star system was more complex than the previous ones. A complex array of six rocky planets, at least ten dwarfs planet, three gas giants, and a big asteroid ring, each one orbiting around a blue star. The presence of the machines was vast, with a lot of orbital installations, rings of armed satellites, and a big fleet.
Gzunzou looked perplexed to the complicated tactical display. "How many?" asked her sensor operator. "Admiral, we still counting," the man replied. "When you finished, report it," Gunzou said.
Twenty seconds later, Gunzou's humor changed from perplexed to worried. The system was still evaluating the extremely dense enemy presence. Finally, the operator reported, "Admiral, there are two hundred and two cubes, six hundred and twenty four spheres, sixteen orbital installations, possibly two of them are space fortress. The planets are heavily populated by machines, Sir."
"Are they scanning us?" he asked. "Yes, Sir, they definitely know we are here," replied the operator. Gunzou evaluated the situation. Weird. Why didn't they attack us? While he was thinking, a little fleet of four cubes and sixteen spheres arrived at the star. They accelerated fast and reunited with the other ships.
"It seems they are pulling up all their resources in one star," Ludden said. "Admiral, stanby for incoming transmision from the machines," Sparks reported. It was a surprise they wanted to talk. Do they want to surrender? Yes, and the sky is pink, and the unicorns are running.
"Patch them through. On screen," he said.
The Virus.
The first sign that something was going terribly wrong came when systems began shutting down, and in some cases, rebooting. The Mental Models looked as though they had drunk something far too strong. It was painfully clear—they had suffered a malware attack.
Gunzou recognized the problem immediately: this was an attack. Thanks to Gretel's final touches on his rebuilt brain, he was immune. Acting fast, he shouted, "All systems, switch to manual operation! Execute Emergency Ship Maintenance Protocol Base01, now! Send the override protocol to the fleet!"
In engineering, a series of large physical keys were thrown, isolating the core from the ship's nanomaterials. A secondary, small core—normally kept in read-only mode and used exclusively during starbase maintenance—took control of the ship's structure and systems. For now, the Luddendorff was under human control.
Gunzou approached the girls cautiously. "Lady, Ludden—report the status of your cores, now!"
Both were doing convincing impressions of severely intoxicated individuals. Lady slurred, dragging her words, "It's... a viral attack. It's trying to override my command structure. Well done, Admiral... They're very... good. They want... our techn-...nology."
Ludden was faring slightly better. Her core had managed to encrypt critical systems just nanoseconds before the malware began its assault, forcing the virus to adapt to her defenses. Through gritted teeth, she growled, "No. You will not do that." Slowly and painfully, she was containing and deleting the infection. "Time to recover the core: five minutes, Admiral."
As this internal battle raged, the sensor operator reported an external threat. "Sir, they're moving."
With both Mental Models out of commission, the fight would be men against machines.
"Fleet status?" Gunzou asked, dreading the response.
"Sir, the entire fleet has been affected. The override command worked, but..." The comms operator hesitated. "Sir, the destroyers aren't responding at all."
The news hit hard. Gunzou had feared this. The destroyers' cores were far weaker than the Gamma or Delta cores. I don't know if the little ones can survive this.
He glanced at Lady and Ludden again. They seemed a little more focused now.
Time to fight.
"All hands, to battle stations!" he bellowed. "Gunners, man your guns! We'll do this the old-fashioned way!"
He turned to the helm. "This time, this superbattleship is yours. Follow the fleet, but be ready to improvise."
A wave of nervous sailors sprang into action, obeying his orders. They had trained for scenarios involving coreless ships—but never under fire from psychotic, virus-controlled tanks.
The battle.
The main enemy fleet separated into four flotillas. "They know we can't help to coordinate against multiple fleets, sir, " Lady noted. The girls almost looked normal. "How are you? he asked. "Almost ready. The virus purge is almost complete. I'm just checking hidden partitions or malware, sir."
However, even the battleships were having problems, with many of them facing the next fight with humans in the controls. The heavy cruisers were in bad shape. Their cores were having the fight of their lives. The destroyers chose to decouple her cores, leaving her functions to their coprocesors. In time, if they survive, they will need the assistance of their bigger sisters.
"To all ships, keep this formation. Gunners, be ready to overlap your killing zones. Now you depend on the local fire directors. Sensors, you are their eyes. Weapon officers, take command of your weapons. Don't expect orders, because you will not have time to argue. Fire at will," Gunzou commanded to the fleet.
He waited, no, hoped that the flotillas will operate separated. If they gained local superiority, his fleet is going to suffer. Of course, one flotilla attacked the port side, while at the last moment, the other three attacked together the starboard side.
The captain of the battleship Nevada, in command of the most exposed formation, saw the incoming storm. He ordered to wait to the last moment and withdraw his fleet slightly to the center of the diamond. When the three formations approached to attack him, he sent the order to withdraw. Moving to the center, the two formations above and behind him had a direct line of fire. The machines doubted since it was something new, and the gunners and weapon officers fired on them.
Catched between three fleets, but exposed to a bigger volume of fire, the machines lost many ships. It was weird to watch cubes trying to change course under fire, almost as if each cube had a captain.
The remaining fleets got away from the Gunzou's fleet, leaving many dead ships behind. Of course, the human fleet had received damage, and many lives were lost. Without the cores, the ships couldn't seal the hulls, and even the bulkheads were closed manually.
The lighter units were chosen as priority targets by the machines. Some way, the machines knew they would be the most affected. The number of destroyers and light and heavy cruisers lost was a sorry sight. Fifty destroyers, twenty-two light cruisers, and five heavy cruisers were killed or so much mauled that the crews left the ships. The only good news was that the engineers took the cores with them.
The other machine flotilla had lost many ships. The few survivors escaped to the nearby space fortress. By that time, Luddendorff had completely recovered, and many battleships were coming back online. To say that the girls were angered was an understatement. The heavy cruisers, however, were still fighting the infection. The battleships shared processing power, and the cruisers were coming back faster than before.
A significant fleet of sixty cubes and spheres was describing a big arc around the fleet, trying to make another firing pass on the port side.
Gunzou didn't want to read the losses report. He knew where to read, but he resisted the urge. Time to regroup, he thought. He reformed the fleet into four layers, making a big rectangular box. The edges were protected by long rows of battleships and heavy cruisers. He left exposed Luddendorff in the center and the little ones behind the superbattleship. It was too obvious where the flagship was located, but it was the only superbattleship in the Fleet.
The machines formed a big layer, composed of rows of cubes. It allowed to use all their weapons, Gunzou thought while preparing a last second change. He timed the maneuver, and when the machines initiated the attack, he dissolved the box and made a concave layer. Now, all of his fleet was weapon free, and they rained shots and missiles on them.
Again, the little ones were the target. Luddendorff has to stop killing cubes to intercept missiles with her light guns and guard the destroyers with her own shield. She took enough fire to kill several battleships, but her shields could take a lot more.
The fleet continued advancing, leaving a trail of dead ships behind.
Lady was observing the dead ships. Suddenly, she said, "Admiral, watch the hulls!"
Gunzou zoomed the screen to observe with the biggest detail. Tanks. They were walking on the hulls, like they were castaways, fighting to abandon a shipwreck. These things are worrying me more and more. His concerns lasted a few seconds more when the battleships launched an attack with Tsar warheads. They make sure there are no survivors.
"Well done," Lady said, nodding at the same time. Gunzou said, "Send these new coordinates to the fleet. Recover first every lifepod and help to clean the little ones."
The machine fleet was almost destroyed, with some cubes around the planets, but they were essentially indefenses. In theory. Gunzou had read Lexington's report about the retake of Archangel and, of course, the death of Kongou. The presence of minefields was a danger to his fleet, and he had the scanning procedure developed by Lex.
"Sensors, look out for mines," Gunzou ordered. A very worried operator rose a hand, recognizing the order, and began to search for the hidden dangers.
The recovery of lifepods was slow. With the destroyers down, the recovery was made by the cruisers. Unfortunately, there were a few lifepods. Many ships didn't have time to be evacuated or simply exploded. Knowing what to do to destroy the virus, Ludden and Lady were cleaning the destroyers' cores very fast. One hour later, the fleet had recovered her functionality. Some basic anti-virus programs were shared with the fleet, but it would only be useful if the base code didn't change.
The Admiral knew, of course, that they were far from to be out of the problems. "Lady, call for a fleet conference. There are many things to discuss," he asked.
"Yes, Sir, in five minutes, the fleet will be ready for you," Lady nodded happily.
Fleet Virtual Meeting Room.
The big virtual room had the commanders of every ship assisting the conference. This time, it was painfully obvious that many ships had been lost. Avatars of Lady and Ludden were side by side with him.
Gunzou opened the meeting, "Ladies and Gentlemen, it is sadly obvious these beings had adapted to us. But I need to know how they infected the cores. I thought it was impossible."
Kadie, one of the mental models of the battleship South Dakota, said something impossible, "Admiral, the only way to access our cores is to obtain the cryptographic codes of the inner core. How they could obtain them, I don't know. I checked my own logs, and there is no evidence of physical intrusión through any port." She looked troubled, but at last, she added, "Somehow, they had the codes. They couldn't extract them from a core, and no core has been captured."
Gunzou said, "So, they had an unknown method to access the cores. My brain," and now everyone looked him worriedly, "felt the intrusion attempt, but the organic component rejected it."
The mental model of the Battleship Roma, a veteran of many battles, said, "Somebody has any solid evidence of data extracted from us?" A cold feeling ran in the officers. The fleet technology in the hands of these beings will be a nightmare.
Lady answered, "All the data were heavily encrypted with a dimensional fractal code. Only Gretel could open it by force. Something new is here, but I don't know what. I can not explain how to invade our cores without using a physical port, but who wrote the code was really good. There is extensive evidence of trying to hide the code in hidden and encrypted partitions."
Gunzou looked at her. He made a hard question, "What about quantum rings?" Lady and Ludden, and many girls looked at him with something like horror. Kadie intervened in the discussion, "We can't protect ourselves from something like that."
The captain of the heavy cruiser Cairo said, "The recovered cores, they are still fighting the infection. Lady, can't you analyze the presence of quantum rings inside?"
Lady answered fast, nodding, "It's a good idea, captain. If the origin is something like a quantum ring, we could detect it, or at least obtain hard evidence."
"Well, let's keep that as a project for the future. Commanders, freeze the infected cores, I don't want the virus overwritting the mind. Now, we must eliminate these pests. I don't feel particularly merciful right now, so we will visit every planet, and Luddendorff will use the SGCs to blow the planet core. Lady, what about minefields?" inquired Gunzou.
"Sir, we found a heavy minefield around Archon-2. Nothing more," reported Lady, leaving a - that we could detect - hanging in the air. "Okay, we will remember our losses when this battle ends. Now, I we will send the final battle orders one minute before its implementation. Right now, I am a bit afraid of our security. Dismissed."
The fleet advanced to one planet with two space fortresses in orbit around the poles. Again, they were copying our strategies, thought Gunzou. What more could they have copied from us? Long-range weaponry. This is one of our best advantages. Since Admirals don't run - the sailors are truly spooked watching an admiral run through the ship - he walked fast to the bridge.
"Ludden, make a detailed analysis of the fortress and planetary surfaces," Gunzou commanded.
"Yes, Sir, but what am I searching for?"
"Long range weapons, Ludden," he answered.
"Already working, Sir."
Ten minutes later.
Something new was growing inside the planets and installations. The last command was something painful, rewiring the individual brains of every surviving machine. Now, they were actively trying to survive as individuals, not just a cog in an inmense machine. The necessity of establishing a hierarchy was obvious soon. Every machine tried to act more or less in an isolated way, and they needed time to organize a chain of command. Slowly, some machines were working inside a hierarchical structure, accepted by everybody. Somehow, the bases of a robot society were being established.
Time. For the first time, they needed time. The machines of this universe and the organic parasites were closing fast, and they recovered faster than they hoped. They have imitated, so fast as they could, two battlestations around the planet. Protected by strong shields and with a simple but extremely powerful pair of plasma beams.
Now, a trio of tank's brains, removed from the tank bodies, were acting as the rulers of the system. They assigned roles and responsibilities, copying human society. So, when the human fleet approached the system, they developed a virus weapon. Somehow, the trio knew the cores access codes. In theory, the memory banks registered a captured core, but for the machines, it was just useful information.
The humans had tried to communicate before, so they took advantage of that weakness. They embedded the viral code into the transmission and waited. They detected the sutile changes in the units bearing, with the small but detectable variance of the organics.
The trio ordered the attack. Many invader ships died, but they had numeric superiority and killed most of the fleet. The counter offensive was useless, but they still could fight.
Superbattleship Luddendorff.
"Admiral, I have been watching the fortress. Unfortunately, they're showing us always the same face. I don't know what they could be hiding behind. So far, the planets had a LOT of stations, but no signs of weapons emplacements. I must stress that we are lacking enough data," Ludden reported.
Gunzou felt a bit indecisive. Risking the fleet to attack the fortresses was complicated. At last, he commanded, "We are going to attack the closer fortress. We are not going to approach so densely packed. I can't be sure if they are not going to use some kind of longer range weapon. For us, it could be our major danger."
The fleet accepted orders and hoped for the best.