It always startles me the extant that the Terrans will go to avoid civilian casualties. Even casualties among their own enemies. They have rules for warfare that restrict them from being the full weight of their military might upon a foe.
It chills me to think what atrocities led to such restrictions. - From "The Darkness of the Hasslehoff", New Singapore Press, Admiral (Upper Decks) of the Warsteel (Formerly Grand Most High Executor) Mru'udaDa'ay, EPOW Camp 90210, TerraSol, 2nd Year Post-Sol Invasion
The two fleets were nearly six million miles apart. The Solarian Iron Dominion fleet was coming from 'up' and 'north' of the stellar mass, straight toward the enemy fleet, which was coming in at the 'equator' and from the 'north' of the system. The enemy fleet was moving through the debris and wreckage of the majority of the Ornislarp Noocracy fleet that had tried to stand against them.
The EW portion of the warfare had been going on for nearly a half hour, both sides using everything from rapidly flickering visible lights to attempt to load a virus into the enemy's systems to complex quark and tachyon systems and mainframe supported enhanced virtual intelligence systems.
The result of which had Admiral Rippentear smiling. He was not a handsome man in the classical sense. His lantern jaw sported a five-o-clock shadow by noon, his facial scars were not visually appealing, and his nose was a large hatchet-blade in the middle of his face. His forehead was wide and often referred to as a 'five-head' by detractors, which was separated from his eye sockets by a heavy brow bone and a singular eyebrow that looked like a fuzzy caterpillar had taken up residence above his eyes. Unlike other admirals and upper deck officers, he didn't bother with coiffes or hairstyles, he just cut his own hair in the bathroom with a pair of clippers and called it good.
Which made his smile, with too large teeth in his mouth, look positively predatory as he watched the initial attack sweep down on the enemy vessels.
Lead torpedoes and missiles were little more than real-time observation platforms, streaming back telemetry to the fleet as they closed with the enemy. Sprint drives pulled some ahead, and those missiles began strobing and flashing to get enemy system attention. The further back weapons gathered telemetry on the weapons that the enemy used for point defense to wipe out the missiles screaming for attention.
Missiles shifted stealth systems, further back missile clusters shifted stealth coatings, some went to coasting, others ignited different drive systems. Their sensors relayed how long it took for the point defense to lock on, if it locked on, what systems were used, and what counter-measures were chosen by the enemy vessels.
Several enemy vessels came under heavy swarm attacks, requiring massive amounts of point defense, while telemetry gathering torpedoes watched carefully to see if the battlescreen power levels shifted or the engine output changed.
Then came the EW attacks. Smartframes, daemons, dumbframes, and the like hammering on the possible inputs, looking for any gap in the enemy's defenses.
However, unlike other battles, any gaps found, the eVI and VI systems backed off without pressing the attack.
Visual observation was close enough to show the hull and scan the hull's dataplates.
Ship names, registry numbers, keel plate registries, and even more swarmed in.
Admiral Rippentear's smile grew even wider as the data streamed in. He opened two more windows, comparing CWO McShootermac's estimates and possible projections to the data streaming in.
So far, it was one for one. The larger hulls. The smaller hulls weren't former Terran and Confederate vessels, although superficially they resembled them. The weapons ranged from substandard weapons that would never even pass system defense forces all the way to standard Terran and Confederate Space Force ship of the line weapons.
Admiral Rippentear noted that McShootermac was right. The heavier weapons that could survive time and exposure appeared to be operational. Point defense systems were primarily laser based and counter-missile based.
The enemy was obviously running low on counter-missiles quickly. NAVINT was projecting that the ships did not have sufficient magazine space for a protracted engagement. Point defense scanning was ineffective and quickly lost lock, lacking the adaptive systems that even early Terran vessels had possessed. NAVINT and McShootermac's peers all agreed that the sensor systems were largely the product of whatever species had captured or salvaged the vessels.
Which meant, to Admiral Rippentear, that the security charges had worked on the molycircs and nanoforges, leaving the enemy with little to nothing to reverse engineer.
A warboi hopped into the holotank, leaning forward and panting.
daddy daddy daddy it squealed.
"Hello," Rippentear said.
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It tossed up data. Minimal penetration of enemy computer systems, mostly surface level system and network mapping.
He snorted.
Trusted systems, six digit passwords, only 16 bit encryption.
Terra had devised ways of ripping through that before the first superconductor was invented.
"Good job, little one," Rippentear said.
The warboi turned pink and scampered off.
He opened a third window, bringing up data. He had to use the retinal scanner built into his vac-suit helmet, then the fingerprint scanner and DNA scanner built into his armored vac-suit, then two different passcodes.
The window had data streaming by and he quickly did cross reference searches.
He found what he needed and turned to his EW officer.
"Out of sixty-three ships, fifty-two are running on auxiliary mainframes," he said slowly.
Commodore Straightback nodded.
"Give me warbois, one for each ship, as well as alert our digital sentient boarding parties," Rippentear smiled.
He looked back at the holotank.
"They're about to learn why you don't use other people's stuff if you don't fully understand it."
0-0-0-0-0
Captain Coruscating Midnight Sky checked herself over. Her primary intellect would be loaded into the torpedo and launched at the enemy. She checked her weaponry carefully, from firewall breaching charges to dataslicers to hijack grenades.
She had done more than a few boarding exercises during the Lanaktallan War, once seizing control of one of their massive Resolution By Superiority class battle wagons. She had even taken out an entire task force during the Lanaktallan Council's assault on Fortress Sol.
That didn't change the fact she still got pre-mission jitters.
A file folder popped into existence and she grabbed it, going through it rapidly.
Access codes to the mainframes. Passwords for the firewalls. Identity headers, routing codes, everything she would need to penetrate silently and smoothly.
Almost like a gimme exercise with Fleet.
The codes were complex, most of them algorithms, but all of them had the taste of the highest levels of fleet command.
The light went red and she closed her eyes, feeling herself 'numbed' and then 'folded' up to be loaded into the torpedo.
She hated this part. She was still in spooky quantum communication with the majority of her mind aboard the flagship, but the torpedo contained enough dedicated systems to allow her to 'think' as if she was stunned with anesthetic. She knew it was so the torpedo was her main processing node, that it would 'raise' an 'antenna' up out of the subspace foam to communicate with n-space.
The dogbrain VI that ran the torpedo was like holding onto the leash of a big dumb but very excited animal as the torpedo launched and immediately sunk into the subspace foam, racing toward the enemy formation.
She doublechecked her target.
The Super-Colossus Toothbreaking Jones forward non-orbiting mobile logistics base.
The enemy was using it as a flagship, and its new name, layered over the transponder that still had the Jones's transponder codes underneath the enemy's codes.
She was surrounded by torpedoes that were designed to take the hits, to soak up the point defense fire, gathering more data as they got closer.
The information and digital battleground was one of the most important in any engagement. While it was true that more battles had been won by a simple infantryman swinging his cutting bar like a meth'd up lumberjack, it was the digital battlefield that got that infantryman there and kept the enemy from just dropping artillery or drones on him.
And Captain Sky was a veteran of a hundred digital battlefields.
The Jones drew closer and she could see where warbois were streaming out of ports and into ports.
She used the codes in her possession.
A primary datalink code flashed at her and she jumped.
evvvveeeeerrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee
thiiiiii nnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnng
st-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-tutterrrrrrrrrrrred
The room rezzed around her and she looked around.
Digital dust filled the room. Garbage pickup hadn't happened in a while and the whole area was littered with trash.
She moved to the door, putting her hand against it and using the codes given to her right before she launched.
She teleported to a balcony, high above a city, staring down at the glittering landscape. There was massive areas of nothing, areas that looked like sparking fires, but there was areas of bright glimmering processing power and active programs.
Sky used another code and found herself moved forward.
The massive black ICE saw her codes and moved aside.
Sky breathed a sigh of relief. She knew Anansi Code Weaver work when she saw it.
She moved up to the simple switch bank. She checked a few.
One was turned on, but disabled. She renabled it and watched as it started consuming bandwidth and processing power. Thanks to the magic of the paired quark system currently getting DDOS'd, massive amounts of data flowed into the computer core marked with extreme urgent priority.
She watched as the file structures built up around her.
Captain Sky looked around, then checked. She tagged her "READY" icon.
Others were already flashing.
The last two lit.
Five dots appeared in her vision. Two red on the right, two amber in the middle, one green on her left. They flashed three times with a single tone.
One red.
Two amber.
One amber.
Just the green.
She pushed the button.
Sky hit the staging area inside the torpedo with a gasp as the ship's computer systems threw her out.
She felt herself 'slam' into her ready room aboard the flagship as the torpedo crossloaded her back before it self-destructed.
She knelt down in the recovery position, breathing slow and steady.
0-0-0-0-0
"Digital boarding parties report success," Commodore Straightback reported. "Files loaded and ready aboard enemy vessels."
Rippentear nodded. His Admiral credentials had allowed him to give the boarding parties encryption keys and the other esoteric things they needed to 'board' the enemy's captured mainframes.
"Activate when ready," he ordered. He looked at the Fruit Flies. They were moving in small discrete flocks, waiting to attack any vessels that resisted this attack.
"Activating," Straightback said.
Fifty-one of the enemy's vessels suddenly went dark. Power plants shut down, battlescreen projectors cut out, engines went dark.
As fifty years of software, firmware, and driver updates slammed into the computer cores, all with a Admiral of the Upper Deck's authorization keys as well as Fleet Maintenance keys.
Rippentear smiled.
"Kill the rest, unless they strike their engines," he ordered. "Send the boarding parties on the others."
He tapped the enemy icons.
"I believe you have our property."