We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 72: Battle

Book 2: Chapter 72: Battle

Bill

February 2217

Delta Pavonis

All warfare is based on deception.

-- Sun Tzu, Art of War

The defensive crews were less than a week away from Delta Pavonis, and their tau was now down to the point where it was worthwhile having a conversation. Rather than asking them to jack up to our time rate, we would be slowing down to theirs. Because of the numbers, I was hosting the meeting in the moot VR.

“First and most significant,” I said, “is that we’ve cracked the cloaking tech. It took a lot longer than I expected, so Jacques has only been able to retrofit about half of his nukes. There’s no time for you to do anything, so all the non-stealthed hardware—including Bobs—is going to be considered decoys.”

I looked around the room at a sea of somber faces. We’d all gone into this with the attitude that it was probably a suicide mission. With remote backups, suicide missions weren’t as final as they used to be, but still... the person restored from a backup was not the person who created the backup. It was some comfort to know that your memories would go on, but it didn’t feel that it would be personal in some way.

I glanced at the status window that I had put up. It showed the Others’ armada only two days farther out. We had very little time to deploy a defense.

“How are we doing this, then?” asked Andrew, one of the squad leaders.

I nodded to him, acknowledging the question. “I’ve discussed strategy with Butterworth. Unfortunately, most space battle strategy is theoretical, since there’s only been one space war. But I discussed options extensively with him, and the colonel did have some suggestions about deployment. He can’t be personally involved, of course, since he operates on biological time. For what it’s worth, I’ll be acting as his proxy.”

There were silent nods around the circle. I added arrows and icons to the status window. “Your group is coming in from this side, and Jacques’ group will be coming in from here and here. We’ll hit in three waves, staggered so we’re not taking each other out. Hopefully the Others can’t redeploy defenses quickly enough and will have to split their assets into three groups instead.” The animation in the window played out a visual of my description.

“While the Others are fending us off, the stealth bombs will come straight in. We hope that they will be able to get in close and do some significant damage.”

I sat back, chin in hand, and studied the graphic. There was no subtlety at all. On the other hand, it was nice and simple, with few unknowns.

* * *

The first attack group was five minutes out when the Others registered their presence. The group’s trajectory brought them in at thirty degrees off of their approach line. I could see in the SUDDAR window that the Others were deploying drones to act as a first wave of defenders. There wasn’t enough detail at that distance to be able to tell, but we assumed they were rotating the death asteroids to target us as well.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

There was very little conversation as we approached. Each Bob presumably took the time to make peace with his own thoughts. Or update his backup. Either or.

At about three minutes distance, there was a whoop from one of the dreadnaughts. “Just took a hit from a death ray,” he announced. “I got sparks, but no significant damage.” RΑNОΒΕᶊ

I smiled but didn’t comment. At this distance, even a version-3 Heaven vessel would have survived. We had to assume they were either massively overconfident, or that had been just a probe of some kind. At least one death asteroid was now discharged. It was unlikely it would be able to recharge in time to participate further in this battle.

At one minute, I activated the general channel. “Time to rock, boys. Deploy all busters and nukes. Let’s light up the sky!”

The Bobs did as ordered. Seventy-five ships became almost four hundred signatures. Now the Others would have to react. Death zaps would simply not be an option for taking us down.

And sure enough, SUDDAR indicated a massive rearrangement of vessels. We had a couple hundred drones to deal with. Statistically, we should be able to get through the defenders with about half of our units, but that wouldn’t be enough to take the Others’ main vessels down. I was sure the Others must be smiling—or whatever they did—with glee at our pathetic showing.

The Others’ fusion drones deployed into a defensive grid, and detonated simultaneously.

“Not bad...” Charlie said. “They estimated that pretty well.”

I checked status. “They took out two of ours. The last one still looks operational. I don’t think they have time to do anything about it. It’s also interesting that they haven’t broadcast another ping like the last one...”

“Like the gamma-ray blasts, it probably requires a recharge.”

I nodded distractedly while I guided the last cloaked fusion weapon. Right into one of the death asteroids. It detonated perfectly. When the flash cleared, there was nothing left but scattered debris.

We were done. We’d used up everything we had. Our battle groups, what was left, were heading away from the Others’ fleet at far too high a velocity to be able to turn around in any reasonable interval. By the time we could get back in the game, the Others would be at the Pav home planet.

Eight death asteroids and eleven cargo carriers were still under power. If they decided to continue on and rebuild in the system, there would be nothing we could do. We held our breath, as the seconds ticked by.

No change.

I sat, stunned, as the Others continued on towards Delta Pavonis, and the Pavs.

We’d failed.

[Incoming message. In Mandarin]

I was almost doubled over with nausea, but it was logical to find out what they had to say. “Put it on, Guppy.”

You have proven to be more than food. You are pests. We will harvest this system, despite your pathetic attempts at defense. Then we will harvest your Sol and Epsilon Eridani systems. And your species will end its existence in our larders.

Fuck.

I tried to open a chat with Jacques, but got nothing. I pinged Andrew instead.

“Hey Andrew. Any idea where Jacques is?”

“Hey, Bill. Sorry, Jacques was killed during his group’s attack. We have a differential up to the last few minutes, so we’ll be restoring him as soon as we have a new vessel.”

“Crap.” I rubbed my forehead. We had some spare matrices, but it could still be days before we were able to get that done.

Andrew interrupted my train of thought. “Did he ever follow through on that plan to kidnap some Pav?”

“Yeah. Kind of a worst-case response. I’ve triggered implementation already. We’ll get twenty thousand Pav off-planet before the Others get there. We’re not going to be gentle about it, though. We can’t afford to have a discussion and ask for volunteers.”

The Pav were now an endangered species. I just hoped that Jacques had taken plant and animal specimens and such.