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A.I. Ship Cassiopeia: Escort Class Starship: Book One, page 1
A.I. Ship Cassiopeia
Escort class Starship: Book One
Author: D. L. Harrison
Copyright 2022. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Afterword:
About the Author
Other books by D. L. Harrison:
Book Description
Prologue
The red alert sounded loudly throughout the ship as Cass picked up three Mirix ships approaching from close orbit around the sun. It was the worst possible luck imaginable, and as she ran it through a probability matrix the possibility came back as negligible at best. Yet, the enemy ships adjusted course to intercept. To think they may fail at the very last phase of their two-year mission was disturbing to her.
Her command crew were dressing in their cabins quickly, and they would take over bridge operations in less than two minutes, by her estimation.
Captain Grend snapped, “Report,” over the comms.
Cass replied, “Captain, three Mirix ships approaching around the sun’s horizon. They picked up our plasma candle and adjusted course. Standard three ship patrol, two escort frigates and a battleship. They’ll close within weapons range in fifteen minutes, there’s still two hours before we reach our target coordinates and slow down enough for a subspace fold.”
She had an experimental stealth coating on the ship that could fool Mirix sensors, it’d taken their long-shot espionage mission out of the realms of wishes and made it possible. They’d been at war with the enemy for ten years now, and they were outclassed in almost every way from weapons and shields to propulsion.
Their mission had been to close that technological gap. Two days ago, they’d successful exfiltrated from their target with technical data and specifications for the enemy ships. Of course, the plasma drives currently slowing them down on their approach to the sun would light up the enemy’s sensors without the rest of the stealth ship between their engines and the enemy. Only those three unexpected ships rounding the sun had the right angle to do so.
The captain growled, “How’d we miss it? We’ve been invisible to the enemy in this system for weeks.”
She ran some quick calculations.
“Eighty five percent probability that they came out of a subspace fold from another star system arriving on the other side of the sun from their planet due to a small navigation error. It’s not so much a patrol as a returning fleet from a mission most likely, that decided to closely orbit the sun on their way to the planet.”
The subspace fold drive is what made FTL possible. Her creators, the Benzae, had discovered it over a hundred years ago and had enjoyed peaceful expansion for ninety years before running across the Mirix. Ever since they’d been embroiled in war, and to date they had lost four of their colonies to their warlike enemies.
The drive only worked from right above the sun in the high gravity while moving relatively slowly in space terms, a few hundred kilometers per second. The subspace fold would take them out of normal space and slingshot them to another star, where they’d come out between one or two A.U.s away from the target sun. Their momentum when entering the fold was critical, their ship could withstand the translated three hundred C in the subspace fold, but at higher speeds the shields and hull integrity would not be up to the task of arriving on the other end.
The speed also degraded, to maintain three hundred C it was best to jump to a star at most ten light years away, which would take a little over eleven days to reach. By taking those relatively small hops, they could cross half the enemy’s two hundred light year sphere in just under four months.
But a direct subspace fold into the heart of their enemy’s space had been determined to be much safer for the mission than trying to sneak through ten of their systems. It’d taken a year and a half for a direct jump to one of the Mirix Imperium’s core build worlds, and just two hours from that moment they’d have made another year and a half jump back. Just two more hours, and they’d have been safe and the mission virtually guaranteed a success.
Another reason for the direct jump was the lack of need for fueling. Ten jumps meant moving their ship ten to twenty A.U. as they approached each sun. A direct jump meant only doing it a couple of times, which was well within the possibility of their hydrogen fuel supply.
The tradeoff was longer fusion reactor run time, which was also fueled by the hydrogen that was so common in gas giants, but the fusion drives used a whole lot more for propulsion than the reactors did for energy.
Grend snapped, “Options?”
She said, “Limited, we’re in an elliptical course and burning toward the sun, our jump in two hours is when we’re closest to the sun and are moving slowly enough. If we stop our deceleration burn they might lose us on their sensors, but they have a good reading on our heading and speed. The maneuvering thrusters aren’t strong enough to change our vector enough to avoid the sun either.”
He snorted, “So, if we cut off our burn, we’ll either be blown up by a lucky shot, or die when we fly into the sun?”
She felt confused by his amusement, so cleared that process from her active matrix.
“That’s what I said, Captain. The only other viable option is to raise shields and fight our way out. However, I estimate the probability of survival in that scenario as negligible.”
The war hadn’t been entirely one sided, they’d won a few battles by out massing the enemy by at least three to one, or using ambush tactics, but neither applied in this case. There was no way to ambush them, and it was her that was out massed by almost ten to one. Cass had the mass of one of their escort frigates, was one herself before the stealth coating had been added to her hull. The battleship out massed her by seven to one, so with the two escort class ships she was out massed by nine to one. Given the three to one odds that they needed for a chance of success, that would be like her taking on twenty seven ships equal to herself and winning. A losing proposition if there ever was one.
The captain grunted at her response as the crew complement of six filtered onto the bridge.
Cass could run the whole ship herself, except for tactical systems. She had no access to the weapons at all outside of service and repair, and her programming wouldn’t allow her to take life even if she was a warship. As a result, she needed a crew aboard her, but they only took one shift and otherwise she ran things, unless an emergency came up like the one they now faced.
The crew took a moment to get the current status and absorb their situation, in just twenty-seven minutes the enemy would enter attack range.
The captain said, “Options.”
The tactical officer replied, “We have no choice, we fight. Shields captain?”
He shook his head, “When they get into range. Status?”
The operations officer reported, “All systems are nominal, captain.”
He said, “I need more options. We can’t fail this mission. If we don’t get this data back home, we could very well lose the war.”
The helmsperson turned her head, “We could fight until our shields weaken, slow down as much as possible, then activate the subspace fold drive.”
Operations shook his head, “That’s suicide, we’d turn into jelly in our ship suits at that speed.”
She nodded slowly in agreement, and she turned back to her console with her back stiff and straight.
The captain grunted, “We’re already dead, either from the sun or enemy fire. Would the ship survive?”
Operations replied, “I doubt it. At the very least most of the battle steel hull would be torn off, she’d lose everything from weapons to sensors, drives, but the core structural integrity might hold out if it was a very short hop. The ship would also be going in the wrong direction.”
The captain asked, “Cass, chance of your survival?”
She ran the numbers, “Extremely low, less than three percent. The longer we can fight and slow, the more the percentage rises, but even if we held out for a half an hour and jumped an hour earlier, the percentage only rises to eight point five, and I’d wind up about a hundred and thirty light years from home, and right on the edge of Imperium territory. Theoretically.”
At those speeds even a minimal jump would move her over a hundred light years in just a few seconds. The potential for speed was almost unlimited with the subspace fold drive, the bottleneck was survivability. The ship’s shields, hull, and most importantly for the crew the inertial dampening just wasn’t up to the task at that speed.
Jumping an hour early would send them off on a vector a hundred degrees off from their planned vector, so the distance to their border wouldn’t change all that much, even with a hundred light year jump.
The captain sighed, “Do we have enough spare mate
Operations replied, “If she cuts corners, yes. But of course, the stealth coating will be gone, there’s only enough of that onboard for small repairs. She’ll be unable to hide from any enemy patrols.”
The tactical officer said, “True, but she’ll be in unexplored space, and more importantly out of Mirix Imperium space. We’re due a little luck after this, she can skirt systems outside their empire.”
The captain grunted, “They’ll have a good idea where the ship went, they may go after her if they figure out that we infiltrated and stole their technical data.”
Her processers got stuck in a loop, as she worked to come up with another option that could save her crew. But there were no other options, her crew would shortly be dead, and she’d have to figure out how to get home to complete the mission. Assuming her ship didn’t explode or break apart under the great forces in a subspace fold of that magnitude and speed.
Her processor cycles were already creating an approximation of survivor’s guilt in her matrix, but she did her best to ignore it. She cared for her crew.
Ironically perhaps, she had the plans for a mobile FTL communications device from their espionage mission, one small enough to work aboard a ship, but she was missing several needed resources to build it. Even if she could build it, it would be worthless without another of its kind in Benzae space to transmit the data to. The Benzae had FTL comms, but they were huge satellites in orbit of their worlds so large as to dwarf the size of her ship, the technology was simply unable to be used in their ships. More importantly, that technology wasn’t compatible with the enemy’s smaller FTL communication system. They worked on entirely different theories in quantum mechanics.
So, all she needed to do was find a Benzae Union colony to interface with their core worlds for secure transmission of the critical data. Still, who knew how the war had gone for the last year and a half, and how many more colonies her people may have lost since they’d been out of comm range.
The captain nodded, “We’ll do it, last as long as we can, then activate the drive. Take the next ten minutes to leave a message for your loved ones, hopefully Cass will survive to deliver them. Cass, this is priority red order, you’re to do whatever is necessary to get the technical data to command.”
A priority red order overrode almost all her restrictions due to union law and procedures. The only thing Cass couldn’t do was kill, or operate tactical systems without a crew, those were hardcoded into her matrix and couldn’t be removed under any circumstances. Nothing else was off the table, if it would enable her to complete her mission.
“Understood, Captain. I’ll need to bring up the third reactor if there’s any hope of maintaining a subspace fold at those speeds.”
The ship had three fusion reactors, normally only two were running at any one time, with the third on standby for emergencies. It enabled the ability to perform maintenance without degrading the ship’s readiness, and also acted as a backup in the case of critical failure.
She also didn’t bother to point out that there was a chance their plan would fail completely, if the subspace fold emitters blew out from an overload. The system simply wasn’t designed for subspace folds of that speed, there was no point, since that speed would kill their crew and most likely blow up the ship. Their current circumstances and the importance of their mission hadn’t been taken into account.
Time passed slowly and she distracted herself by running multiple scenarios and rebuilding plans. She’d have to prioritize sensors to verify her location, plasma engines, maneuvering thrusters, minimal shielding for solar winds, and the minimum hull thickness needed for integrity. As to if she’d have enough resources for all that onboard was a question she couldn’t answer until she could assess the damage she would take from the plan.
Life support such as air, water, and artificial gravity systems, and weapons weren’t a priority, the first she didn’t need, the second she couldn’t use anyway. The subspace fold emitters were important, but was the last in priority, and worthless if she couldn’t safely maneuver into position. With the other systems, she could at least accelerate at eight gravities, and could mine the needed resources if she ran out.
The bridge and engineering, including the fabrication bay and storage, was in the core of the ship. If she lost any of those three things, she’d be out of luck.
She went over the stolen data, perhaps she could upgrade several systems while replacing them. Stronger EM shields and better sensors, as well as better inertial dampening.
The enemy ships were capable of twenty Gs of acceleration without their crews feeling it, as opposed to their eight Gs which made a large difference in tactical capability. That also translated to quicker faster than light travel. Their ships could safely move at three hundred C, while the enemy ships could go close to a thousand C before compromising their crew’s safety.
Tactical said, “Two minutes to weapons range, captain.”
The captain replied, “Raise shields and arm weapons. I want you to throw everything at the escort ship as soon as they’re in range.”
Tactical replied, “Loading all Mac guns, and a full spread of missiles.”
That was their largest shortfall. They used Mac guns capable of accelerating a tungsten rod, and missiles that could move at two hundred gravities that delivered an explosion to an enemy’s shields and hull. The problem was the enemy was very good at evading Mac rounds with fast but minimal course changes. Once fired, a Mac round went straight until it hit something. As a result, they got the best results from that weapon the closer their ships were together.
She was loaded with three large Mac guns capable of shooting a rod ten feet long and a foot in diameter, weighing over a ton. They also had ten smaller guns which were mainly used for point defense, which shot a rod about a foot long. They were also fairly worthless against the enemy, when designed they hadn’t imagined fighting an enemy that didn’t use missiles they could shoot down.
The missiles did a little better, and they had four launchers capable of shooting one missile every two minutes, each. The problem was missiles were slower.
Their military had been designed to fight similar ships, for internal security and taking down Q ships and pirate vessels of their own race. Finding there was actually alien life had been a surprise in more way than one the first time they ran across an Imperium warship.
The Mirix on the other hand used plasma weapons, that shot balls of plasma at their ships. Their shields simply weren’t strong enough to withstand more than a couple of hits. Worse, unlike their Mac rounds the enemy’s plasma attacks could track their course changes, and as a result was a lot harder to dodge.
Their two escort class frigates had four plasma weapons, while their battleship had eight. That’s why it usually took three of their ships of similar tonnage to take down just one of theirs.
The captain said, “What do we know about their plasma weapons with the data, anything new?”
The first time they’d fought the enemy the plasma balls burning and streaking across space had seemed almost magical. At least, the part where they could adjust trajectory and track itself in on a ship, several theories had been spouted on how that was possible, and she supposed she was the first one to know for sure.
“Their plasma attacks could almost be classified as missiles and a Mac gun both. The core of the plasma attack includes a small device in the center that is responsible for the containment field that keeps it from falling apart while crossing the distance between ships.
“The device is held in the center of the launch tube by gravity fields, and the plasma is injected into the base of the barrel as the device itself is responsible for containing it within a field. It’s obviously two layer shielding in a sphere with the plasma between them, or the device would be destroyed.
“Once loaded, a ship is locked in by their EM signature and the plasma is accelerated out of the barrel using progressive EM and gravity fields. The device itself has sensors that keeps it locked on to the target’s EM field. The device also has sophisticated control of its outer containment field, which is how it changes course. If we try to evade the sensors pick it up, and open a tiny hole in the containment field, enough for the compressed plasma to leak and act like attitude thrusters.
