The Far Bank of the Rubicon (The Pax Imperium Wars: Volume 1) (15 page)

The captain sat up, tugging down the corners of his jacket as he did so. “I see it, Lieutenant. They’ll turn. They aren’t going to run the border. They’re not stupid.”

What the captain failed to mention to the Lieutenant—what he would mention in his after-action report—is that he was painfully aware that he would have to blink first or risk having his much larger vessel cross the line itself. He faced a difficult set of choices. He could turn away. However, in order to do so, he would have to pivot his ship to point his engines at the border and use their fusion reactors to change the angle of his momentum. No matter what axis he chose for his pivot, he would have to present herself broadside to the enemy, allowing them to cut into his armor with their lasers. If it were a real battle, this could have been disastrous. To Jack’s mind, he made exactly the right choice—he attempted to buy time. He couldn’t be blamed if it didn’t work out in his favor. The captain made every effort to keep his bow and its plasma shield pointed directly at the oncoming vessel. It was the first rule of space combat.

“Helm, cut our engines now and use thrusters to reduce our speed. I want you to give us every second we can before we have to show him our ass. We aren’t going to be the one to cross the border, today. Make sure they have to come across in order to get into firing range.”

“Aye, captain.”

“Keep us nose-to-nose with that ship but give me all the sideways drift you can. We aren’t giving this up without a fight. Let’s see if they blink first.”

The helmswoman spoke up. “Captain! The helm is not responding. I cannot disable the engines!”

The captain stepped to the helm.

Dr. Helena Porter interrupted the presentation and stood up
from where she had been near Jack at the back of the bridge. She made her way forward to stand near Captain Ramus, who was now frozen in mid-stride. “At this point, I want to bring your attention to the system clock on the
Kronos
and the black box recorder at fleet headquarters here on Aetna.” Leaving the bridge intact, Dr. Porter drew in the air with her presentation wand, creating two digital clocks, which showed the time down to the nanosecond.

“I want to bring your attention to the fact that, already, there is a three millisecond discrepancy between the two clocks.”

Porter’s statement sent a wave of whispers and quiet commotion through the onlookers. Jack thought he caught the hint of a smile momentarily appear at the corner of Porter’s lips.

Although she was just a little over half his age, there was something Jack found appealing about the Ministry of Defense consultant. She wasn’t stunning in any cynthy kind of way.
What was it they called cynthies around here?
thought Jack.
Mannequins?
Whatever the word, Dr. Porter’s attractiveness was the exact opposite. From the hair on her calves below her knee-length skirt, to her freckles and single braided ponytail, Helena didn’t put on any pretension. As Jack got older, he appreciated people who could just be themselves. She was significantly shorter than him, perhaps five-foot-nine, with a fit and healthy build.

As he watched her amusement, Jack found his mind wandering places he wished it wouldn’t. It irritated him. He knew where that path led; in the past, he’d run down it many times.

The last four years—the last six, if you counted the two on Apollos—had done a lot to change how he viewed women, but habits of thought were the hardest to break. Unfortunately, those parts of the human mind which regulated sex seemed to have no sense of time or teleology, and so every once in a while, his autonomic systems told him to go back, despite its ennui.

“After a thorough examination of all available data, I have concluded that the most plausible explanation for this discrepancy is that the Unity was able to hack the black box system on the
Kronos
.” Porter’s statement caused an even bigger stir among the crowd. She kept silent until the crowd quieted again. Jack could see she was definitely enjoying herself.

Before Porter could resume, General Goring, the head of the Athenian marines, spoke up. The hulking general sat in the front row. He towered over everyone else in the room. “Am I to understand correctly, Dr. Porter, you are going to argue that the black box system for the
Kronos
has been hacked?”

Porter nodded confidently and looked the general in the eye. “Yes, sir, that is correct.”

“You do understand that is a faster-than-light communication system, using entangled particles? You are aware that these systems are traditionally considered unhackable?”

What an ass
, thought Jack.

All the amusement left Porter’s face. Jack thought he saw a flush of anger, but she controlled it well. Instead, she answered Goring with icy respect. “I am one of the empire’s leading experts on artificial intelligence and computer science, in general. I am well aware of how the black box system functions.”

Every Allied vessel carried a black box recorder which continuously documented its activities. The presentation they currently witnessed had been created from the black box on the
Kronos
. The system functioned using an entangled particle FTL—faster than light—communications network. It was no wonder Goring was skeptical, but to Jack’s mind, the condescension was way out of line.

Porter pointed to the two clocks she had brought into existence behind her. On the left side sat the clock from the
Kronos
—on the other, the clock from the black box system from the MoD. The clock from the MoD ran three milliseconds behind the clock from the ship. “General Goring, I understand your hesitation to embrace my argument. I was as skeptical as you when I first discovered the discrepancy. Nevertheless, the discrepancy exists.”

General Goring continued. “Wouldn’t another explanation make more sense? Perhaps time dilation? Or even a hack of the universal clock so that it showed differing times to differing targets?”

Porter smiled again. “Well, the international time system is also an entangled particle system, so it is as equally difficult to hack as the black box system on Allied vessels. Also, any disruption of that system would cause severe damage to the whole of the datasphere. Without the universal clock and FTL communications, it would be impossible to calculate time dilation accurately enough for interstellar gate travel. Intraspace also depends heavily on the precision offered by the universal clock. Anything done to the clock or the regional clock system would affect the hacker along with the rest of the empire. The principles of mutually assured destruction have tended to keep the universal clock system safe from attack. There’s too much at stake for state actors—now a lone wolf, that’s another matter.… I guess you have your choice, General Goring. You can believe that the universal clock has been hacked, and the system failures on the
Kronos
were just a matter of coincidence, or you can accept the fact that the black box system between the
Kronos
and Allied fleet command was compromised, leading to the incident in the Pluton system.”

Porter didn’t wait for the general to argue with her any further. Instead she allowed her presentation to run forward again.

It was Jack’s turn to grin at the back of the crowd. He thought Porter had held her own better than most would have against Goring.

The first officer on the Kronos spoke up. “Captain, we’re approaching the point of no return. We will need to maneuver or risk breaking treaty.”

The captain didn’t look up from the helm display, where he frantically worked with the helmswoman to try to restore some control to the vessel. he was quickly joined by the bridge tech officer. “Understood, Joey. Start broadcasting a general distress signal and see if you can hail the Korpi vessel. Tell them we are having some type of system failure.”

Until that moment, it had been common practice for ships in these kind of engagements to slip across the border for a few minutes. Both sides did it, and little was made of it by either side. As long as the ship wasn’t acting in an overtly hostile manner, no one cared—until then.

An alarm sounded in the con, and a feminine voice came over the speaker. “Proximity alert. We are now in violation of treaty.”

Without even looking, the captain waved his arm at his XO to have him shut it off.

The sensor officer spoke up, clear panic in her voice. “I have two launches from the bogey! Repeat, I have two missiles en route!”

“What?” The captain’s voice cracked as he turned to face his sensors officer. “Are you sure?”

“Countermeasures concurs, captain! I have two birds inbound.”

Ramus lost all pretense of calm. “Launch countermeasures! A full spread! Tactical, I want to know exactly how long we have until those birds reach us. Sensors, do we have any other contacts in the area?”

The bridge of the Kronos started to hum as officers and sailors repeated and then executed the captain’s orders.

“What the fuck do they think they’re doing, Joey?” Captain Ramus looked at his XO.

“I have no idea. Making a point?”

“That’s one hell of a point.”

“Do we fire back?”

The captain turned away from his XO and toward the sensor station. “How many missiles did they send?”

Sensors answered the captain. “Two, and only two.”

The countermeasures station interrupted. “Five HAKs away. Two more on standby. I have three in active pursuit, two more playing deep safety. All register nominal. We have a good launch.”

“Thank you, CM.” The captain turned back to his sensor officer. “Did they cross the border?”

“No, sir. They did not. The turning capability on that bogey is tight. It’s got to be basically all hydrogen plant, with only a couple of missiles and an air bubble for the crew. They turned on a dime and did not cross.”

“Fuck!” Ramus pounded on the console next to him. He turned back to his XO and spoke quietly.

Porter amplified the sound for the sake of those watching.

“I’m not going to start a fucking war. We violated treaty; they did not. It’s as simple as that, and they only sent two missiles. It’s just a warning. We won’t fire back.” Then he spoke loudly so the whole bridge could hear. “Weapons, keep your safeties on.”

“Aye, captain.”

Dr. Porter kept the presentation running for a few seconds more and then stopped it again. “Ladies and gentlemen, at this point in the presentation, I want to spend my time focused on the three countermeasures launched from the
Kronos
and in active pursuit of the incoming missiles.” She drew in the air, creating a three-dimensional diagram of the missiles launched in response to the attack by the unknown Unity ship. The schematic rotated slowly behind her. “But before we move forward, I do want to point out that the time difference between the two clocks has now more than tripled to just over ten milliseconds. For modern computing, it’s a huge discrepancy, one that cannot be ignored.”

“Two of the counter AI came from the Machpoint Corporation factory in Oikos here on Athena Prime. The other came from their orbiting facility around Pallas. None of them shared the same lot number. The oldest and the newest missile were manufactured separately three years apart from each other. So if the problems which follow came from manufacturing issues, then these issues were, or are, system wide.”

Jack watched as one of the executives from Machpoint shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was a balding man with a crescent of hair clinging above his ears and uptight gray clothing.

Helena seemed to notice his discomfort. “Although our friends from Machpoint can rest easy because I don’t believe there was a design flaw in the three missiles launched from the
Kronos
. In order to make sense of this, we have to move forward in time.” Helena ran her hand over some buttons on the presentation wand, and the room changed.

The captain was now standing over the shoulder of his countermeasures officer, about to get the shock of his life. Jack watched Captain Ramus’ expression. The IT officer and the helmswoman still struggled to regain control of the engines.

Up front, Helena had now cut three more black holes in the faux-reality of the intraspace presentation. Each hole brought up a tracking plot for one of the three countermeasures. “As we continue, these three plots will show the data as received by the missiles.

“I will let the holi of the ship’s bridge explain what happens next.” Helena pressed a button on her presentation wand, and time on the
Kronos
started moving forward again.

Captain Ramus’ countermeasures officer spoke up. “Number one is coming into acquisition range now, Captain.”

Helena pointed toward the tracking plot on her audience’s left. Just seconds after the officer spoke, a green dot appeared on the far screen, followed by another, and then another—then ten or twenty more. Jack heard a low murmur start in the audience. The AI started to sort through the false signals, analyzing each in turn. As Jack knew, it picked the wrong one.

“Target acquired. It’s tracking. Only a few seconds now…. I have detonation.”

Sensors spoke up. “I still have missile one inbound, and our bird moved away from it when it started tracking. It never acquired the target.”

The captain looked up from the countermeasures station. “Rian, do you show any decoys?”

“No, sir, the scope is clean. I don’t see any decoys. Just the two inbound, and ours outbound.

“Shit,” the captain muttered under his breath. “We get a bad bird at a time like this.”

Jack watched along with the other guests as the same pattern played itself out twice more, while Captain Ramus became more and more frustrated. Once the third bird had been spoofed into a track which brought it back toward the
Kronos
, the captain made a decision.

Ramus gripped the shoulder of his sensor officer and said, “Kill the other two HAKs that are on standby! We’re not going to take the risk of one of them coming back at us. That last one started flying our direction. There’s only two inbound. We’ll take them with our point defense system.”