Better Than Instinct 2.0

The Rat Bastard was a human cruiser of the Nimrod class, a prism of dark metal studded with half-globes like tumors. Never pretty, she was now a mess. Her superstructure was scarred and pitted, and half her turrets were melted away. None of them were manned anyhow. She was a mess, but not a wreck. Yet.

Inside the spiraling corridors-- proof against variable gravity turning a corridor into a vertical shaft-- there was the same dingy wear of combat, and many signs of patchwork repairs. And few people. What was left of the Rat Bastard's crew was gathered on the bridge, serving watch on and watch off. There had been four of them, but – “Meghan's died,” said Reagan. He slumped through the door, and sat in the engineer's station. It was not his place, but Prentiss kept silent. There had not been an engineer aboard the Rat Bastard for many weeks.

"That leaves the three of us,” said Perez. “I vote we go for it. Sir.”

“This isn't a democracy, Perez,” said Captain Prentiss. “We should wait another day.”

“For what?” cried Reagan, the marine sergeant. “Even if we do hear from another vessel, all we could do was abandon and transfer your flag.”

“Ok,” said Prentiss, and stopped. The others waited.

“Treason isn't subject to military discipline, Cap'n,” said Perez, after a time.

“Damn right!” said Reagan.

“Ok,” said Prentiss. “We'll go for Kronsteen. Logged and...noted. Work it out very carefully, Perez, because we can't give too much leeway on our approach.”

Perez nodded and turned to his computer console to begin charting a course.

The Rat Bastard came in close to Martau Station, too close for regulations, and it nearly killed them. The crew writhed in their acceleration beds as Perez brought them in at 10g.

“Hot enough for a Dirket”, muttered Reagan, and Perez laughed. Prentiss did not join them.

“Got station?” he said thickly.

“Acquired and synched,” said Perez.

“Breach it,” said Prentiss.

“Five minutes,” said Perez. “Shake a leg folks!”

The Rat Bastard approached Martau Station. She was dwarfed by the glistening tailed half-dome of the station. The Rat Bastard slowed fast and hard but still hit the station docks at 40 kilometers an hour. Titanium tore and crumpled as the ship buried itself in the lock of the station.

The bridge of the Rat Bastard was strewn with electronic wreckage but was still relatively intact. The remaining crew of the Rat Bastard began to rouse from their beds of gel.

“Skip the armor,” said Prentiss. “We won't need it if we hurry.”

“Up and out,” said Reagan.

In simple spacesuits, with slung scatterguns, they made their way out the upper lock and onto the twisted wreckage. Reagan, the marine, shot a line onto station's upper side, and the other two followed. Perez, the navigator, took up the rear and let his captain have the middle position.

Briskly they shuffled along the shiny surface of the station, beneath the maser emplacements that would have vaporised them instantly had they been able to track inwards.

At the peak of the station's dome, they halted, and Reagan breached an airlock with a shaped charge and thermite. Each of them readied their scatterguns, and they entered the station.

Inside the lights were set to emergency red, and they found no one in the corridor. Air howled past out the broken airlock, and the carpet was covered with frost. Perez struck the map glyph on the wall, and they studied the holograph that issued forth.

“Left and over,” said Prentiss.

They entered the station bridge. It was also red-lit, with all the holographs dimmed, and empty. Every workstation was unfilled. The only presence was a dark grey-haired woman in a commander's blue-black tunic.

“I am Lukon,” she said calmly. “Please remove your helmets, gentlemen. Make yourselves comfortable, at least.”

“Where's Great Admiral Kronsteen?” asked Prentiss. “In bed,” said Lukon. “Will you take tea?”

Reagan walked over, threw Lukon to the floor, frisked her, and said, “She's clean.”

The three crewmen slung their scatterguns, and removed their helmets, sucked in the air of the station.

“Where is everyone?” asked Prentiss. Perez helped Lukon to her feet.

“Beyond locked doors. One person is sufficient to welcome you back to human space, Captain.”

“Yeah, some welcome. Hail the conquering heroes!” Prentiss barked bitterly. “All right, now take us to see Kronsteen.”

“The Admiral will gladly see you gentlemen,” said Lukon. “But first, Captain Bart Prentiss, I feel introductions are in order.”

“You know my name,” snapped Prentiss. “Get theirs from the same file.”

“Indulge me, Captain. I know they are your crew, but, which of you survived? We are all very interested to know. You're the first ship of the Independent Assault Squadrons to return.”

“God damn you,” said Prentiss, his face red. “You set us up and then act surprised we show up? We weren't meant to, were we? Sent out on a twenty-mission run, and not supplied or reinforced, no contact from home, losing ships every battle? You bastards expected us to be exterminated!”

“Not quite, Captain. I will explain. Do I understand that you have lost the rest of your squadron, that ten ships and a hundred men are reduced to one hulk and three officers?”

Prentiss said nothing. The others waited for him to speak. Lukon sighed.

“You are owed a great deal, and an explanation is the least I can offer. Please be patient. I will tell you all. Some of it you have heard before, of course, but it will be the whole story.”

“No,” said Prentiss, “take us to Kronsteen, and we will kill him.”

“No,” said Lukon calmly. “Admiral Kronsteen will not unlock the door until you have heard. My death will not alter that fact, Captain,” she said, as Reagan unslung his scattergun.

“Stow it, Reagan,” said Prentiss, after a long moment.

“One hundred years ago,” Lukon began, “human worlds received the transmissions of an alien race. These aliens, called the Dirket, resisted all attempts at contact, and were judged hostile. Humanity built the Fleet.”

“That I knew of course,” said Prentiss. Lukon appeared not to hear him. “ Fifty years ago, we observed a great increase in alien emissions from their closest colony. A great fleet of warships attacked the nearest human colony world and struck it from orbit with hypervelocity missiles, destroying all the human inhabitants.”

Prentiss nodded. “The first Dirket swarm.”

Lukon said, “Humanity vowed vengeance. The Fleet was deployed and sent against that nearest Dirket colony.”

“But the Dirket beat the Fleet back to human space,” said Prentiss.

“No,” said Lukon. “The Dirket did not defeat the Fleet. They nearly destroyed the Fleet. Only one in five ships escaped.” The three crewmen shifted their weight.

“I never heard of that before,” said Prentiss.

“It was kept as a great secret,” said Lukon. “Nothing more was attempted against the Dirket. It was judged prudent to do nothing.

“Twenty years ago, another spike in emissions was observed from the Dirket. This time the Fleet was deployed to the nearest surviving human colony. Another Dirket swarm attacked. They were victorious. They destroyed the human colony and the Fleet. None escaped.”

“I didn’t know it is that bad,” said Prentiss.

“It is not that bad. Your own record is merely nine of ten” said Lukon. “But I anticipate.

“There was the humanity then, with its Fleet greatly reduced, incapable of offensive or defensive actions, with the Dirket likely to attack again. All our projected solutions were disastrous.

“The facts were, in a war in space, the Dirket were superior to any human-crewed vessel. They can sustain twice as much acceleration as a human crew, can endure more radiation, consume fewer calories and less water. They fly faster and farther and can literally fly rings around our cruisers. They have evolved for space war and cooperate as a hive mind. Their brains are well-guarded geniuses, and their guards are ferocious. “It was at this low point that Great Admiral Vlad Kronsteen won the war.

You were at the Academy. Do you remember what an OODA loop is?”

“Of course,” said Perez, the navigator. “Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. The basic paradigm of three-dimensional warfare.”

“Yes,” said Lukon. “Observe the facts around you, orient your thinking to understanding how they are useful, decide on a hypothesis to test, act on that hypothesis, and observe how that works for you. Continual experimentation and evaluation. First developed for strategic air war, and applied brilliantly to space war.”

“I don’t see how it is applied brilliantly. I lost nine of ten ships,” said Prentiss.

“Yes, but you would have been slaughtered utterly in another swarm battle,” said Lukon.

“It was Kronsteen’s great insight to realize that a hive-minded entity must have a genetically fixed OODA loop. No matter how intelligent or experienced, the Dirket must react to something new at a fixed rate of observation and decision-making. A first step in a human recovery must be to accelerate our OODA loop to outpace the Dirket.

“So we created the Independent Assault Squadrons. You were assigned only the duty of making twenty combat missions in Dirket space. What you did, how you reacted, was up to you. You were an independent viewpoint, conducting twenty tactical experiments. Your logs were received, but you were not given any further support or reinforcement. Instead, new Independent Assault Squadrons were formed and assigned. Thus, we turned our military into a series of field experiments.”

“This was calculated to be the best policy?” asked Prentiss.

“Not at all,” said Lukon. “The number of missions, twenty, was randomly selected. Your odds of survival, compared to alternative strategies, were statistically insignificant.

What Kronsteen calculated was that, firstly, your actions would extend the duration of the war. Secondly, he figured, you might actually develop a means to win it. Which your Independent Assault Squadrons have done.

“You complain about the total abandonment of support for your squadron,” said Lukon. “It was purposeful. You were allowed to conduct your experiment in space war without interference. Resources that could have been employed in reinforcing your squadron were instead used to create new experiments.

“A result of the Independent Assault Squadron experiments,” she continued, “has been that human vessels can outfight Dirket vessels with odds of five to one. Their tactical advantages over a human crew are simply too great for lesser odds. However, there is no reason for us to rely entirely on a human crew.

“Our base formations are now six ships, five of them robotic drones, taking orders from a central human vessel. It was your classmate, Ryan Carcard, aboard the Flagrant Liar, who started using drones to fight. He is still out there, from what we hear.

“We calculate, from experience, that these formation will be as effective as a Dirket warcruiser. In time, a time of technological innovation, as opposed to Dirket biological evolution, they will be better than the Dirket. In time, we will destroy even a Dirket swarm, and the war will be won.

“The Dirket are paralyzed, reacting to a losing strategy of headlong strikes by unsupported units. They cannot do the optimal program of totally ignoring the Independent Assault Squadrons and slaughtering the human worlds as fast as they can reach us. They are genetically wired to do otherwise. Their brains are frustrated trying to calculate how humanity expects to win by ineffectual and suicidal raids on their colonies. They assume, you see, that our tactics are optimal, according to facts they have overlooked somehow. They are unable to comprehend a sentient race that does not react coherently. They lack a Kronsteen.”

“That's nice,” said Prentiss. “So will humanity. I don't care if he is the savior of Earth, I am still going to kill him.”

“The savior of Earth,” said Lukon, a little sadly. “That is not Kronsteen.”

A green light flashed on a console. “Kronsteen will see us now,” said Lukon, and moved to a door behind her. The four moved into what had been the admiral's cabin of the station, abutting the bridge.

But where they expected to see a desk and chairs, was a setting more appropriate for a hospital. A great tank, filled with a thick green fluid, stood against the far wall. Half a man floated in it, connected to the outside world by a mass of tubes. His flesh was raw with burns and he had one arm.

“This is not Kronsteen!” Perez objected.

“I am Kronsteen,” said an amplified voice, and they realized it was the man in the tank speaking. “I am the man who threw you at the enemy with suicidal odds. In my sinful pride, I imagined the worst to be a quicker end to the war. I do not apologize, for in desperate times we must act desperately.”

“This is Kronsteen,” said Lukon, “since the Earth was destroyed.”

“The Earth destroyed!” shouted Reagan. The others gaped.

“Five years ago the Dirket came again. We had dissipated the Fleet and were unable to resist their assault. We have lost sixty percent of the human race, and a third of our space manufacturing, but because of your sacrifice, what remains will see out the end of the war in victory.”

“What is left for us to fight for?” muttered Perez.

“Look!” said Lukon, and displayed a fleet of ships on a wall. They were squat shapes, covered with geodesic domes. The blues and greens of Earth shone within them.

“The bulk of humanity is spacer now. We are bred for space! It is no impossible hardship for us to live amidst the Void. We are the survivors! We are what is left, and we will survive!”

“You came for a definite purpose, Captain Prentiss,” said Kronsteen's eerie voice. “Will you fulfill it?”

“No,” said Prentiss slowly. “You survived as best you could. I led men to death on my orders. How can I blame you and not punish myself? The Earth destroyed! Then who are we to devour each other? I understand.”

“I also,” said Perez. “I vote for mercy, so much as I have a vote.”

“Not me,” said Reagan, raising his scattergun. “For my family, incinerated by the war!” He fired into the mass of computers next to the tank, then shattered the tank itself. Green fluid spattered the floor and walls, and Kronsteen writhed silently.

Jets of thick white gas sputtered from the ceiling and began to fill the room.

“You act too late to save that maniac,” shouted Reagan.

“We will survive the gas,” said Lukon from amid the plumes. “We will survive, and you will be rehabilitated and sent back out. We have little to waste, these days.”

“But Kronsteen!” coughed Prentiss.

“Kronsteen wanted to be judged,” gasped Lukon, and the others were almost past hearing with dizziness and stupor. “My husband thanks you,” she choked out, and fainted.

Prentiss was alone when he woke. He was confined to a white room of indefinite size, lit from all directions at once. He was on a metal cot that retracted to the floor as he sat upon it. He was wearing a breathing mask, running cold oxygen to his nostrils. He tore it off and threw it aside. He rose stiffly, wrung the kinks out of his neck and shoulders.

Prentiss waited. It was hard to measure time in that place.

They finally came for him in a group of six men. He meant to make it hard for them, but they were skillful, and he was quickly trussed and hustled outside the enclosure into a corridor full of mesh grilles, and then through an airlock, into a ship. He was sure, after seventeen years in space, that he was aboard another vessel.

They sat him in a chair and confined him with straps. Then Lukon came in.

“You were gassed too,” said Prentiss.

“We all recovered about the same time,” said Lukon. “I came to say goodbye to you, Prentiss. You were a brave man, and I hope you will be again.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” said Prentiss.

“This is your last night as Prentiss,” said Lukon. “A terrestrial military might have had you shot, or confined in a fortress, for treason. We're more pragmatic. We are going to rebuild you into a model officer.”

“For your great victory?” asked Prentiss. “Count me out.”

“You do not understand, Prentiss,” said Lukon sadly. “Your mind is tampered with. It began with the breathing mask. You inhaled the spores, full of mutated fungal prions, the same sort of agent that spreads mad cow disease. They alter your neurotransmitters. You have hours before you degenerate into a sobbing wreck. We will rebuild you, but not restore you.”

“How...how dare you..”sputtered Prentiss.

“We dare because we are the guardians of our whole species!” snapped Lukon. “We dare not refuse every advantage. We are commanded to survive! That is our ethics, our morality. And what the hell are you, you maniac, an assassin and a deserter? You deserve death, instead of a new life of honor. I loved my husband,” she hissed. “I would gladly throw the three of you into space for murder. But I know my duty, and I do it.”

“Will I remember my crew?” he asked, after a pause.

“That is unknowable, even to us,” she said. “You will not be Prentiss anymore, that is all I know.”

He began to weep.

“It begins,” she said. “Good bye, Prentiss. Thank you for your service.”

She left him and strode back through the airlock to a magnetic tram and rode to the bridge of Martau Station. She brought out a tablet and read damage control reports on the ride back. Damn these marauders! Could they expect other captains to crack?

She faced the door of the admiral's cabin. She would have liked to ask Kronsteen his plan for mutineers. But she would never hear that voice again. He was part of a vanished past.

She was tempted to breathe the spores, and gain a fresh start on things.