She pondered that a moment, “Suppose they rotate the ship, and overlap fire with four, four, and four beams to lock them in place, giving plenty of time for the previous four weapons to recharge before they came back around and regain line of sight. It would take six cycles of four weapons each to finish off one of our ships with the new shields, assuming the simulations are correct. If they used a three second overlap that’s about thirty seconds a ship.”

  Souza paled.

  She shrugged, “Our enemy is smart, and if I figured it out that fast you can be sure she will. Still, that’s only three ships destroyed for every one of our barrages, which is a damned sight better than three fleets. So it will help. Vote to authorize the upgrade?”

  The rest of the council voted with her, which was what she expected.

  Laerin added, “You may also consider developing tactics to relieve a ship under fire. Another ship could interpose itself in the line of fire, allowing the original ship to form a skip field. Thirty seconds is a lot of time to react if our ships are in close formation. Twenty seconds after that a third ship could save the second, and so on.”

  Of course, they’ll have to assume that Cassiopeia’s ship won’t be the only one armed with the new weapon in the next battle, which would make such tactics far less effective, but still worth doing. It was also dangerous, because it would drain the shields of multiple ships making them easier targets for enemy ships still using plasma weapons. But easy targets were better than destroyed ones.

  Souza nodded, “I will develop training simulations for it, maam.”

  “Did the scientists discern anything else from studying the data?”

  Souza said, “It appears her ship’s hull alloy is different, which could be a requirement for the new weapon. Or it could be part of the reason her shields are fifty percent stronger. They aren’t entirely sure yet, but they’re working on it.”

  Laerin replied, “Keep us informed on it, as well as the readiness of the third fleet,” then she waved in dismissal.

  They were in a race, and she had a bad feeling racing a rogue and freed A.I. in technology advancements was a losing proposition.

  President Stephanie James took a deep breath. She was in a conference call with the other eleven leaders as well as their chosen ambassador, Sergei Gorelov. The conversation had started on point, which was about if they should take Cassie up on her offer and send Sergei to the Benzae home world to pursue peace with the Union after the new ships were done building. The ships would be completed in just two weeks, and the sooner they decided the sooner their ally and Sergei could make arrangements.

  By all estimates it would take the enemy another full month to invade after the ships were done, and according to Cassie it would take just twenty-four days to reach that world in her ship. Six times faster than it’d taken during her mission, courtesy of the skip drive and her improvements to the inertial dampening, which would allow them to travel fifteen hundred times the speed of light, instead of a thousand.

  Point being, with those twenty-four days, that would leave Sergei just a week to negotiate a peace before the third invasion fleet was expected to arrive. It wasn’t a very comfortable or large margin. Sergei was also willing, even eager to tackle the impossible mission, so she wasn’t sure why the other leaders didn’t just approve the damn thing.

  Worse, the meeting had devolved from the point because of the very technology that had saved their asses just two weeks ago. She didn’t trust Cassie either, not entirely. It was her job to ensure the security of the United States, she couldn’t afford to blindly trust anyone, even if she did personally like the artificial intelligence.

  On the other hand, if Cassiopeia wanted to she could’ve enslaved the Earth to her will by now instead of the path the A.I. had taken. Just because she couldn’t fully understand Cassie’s motivations, the A.I.s actions told her that she was an ally of the Earth.

  But the new weapon had scared the hell out of the other leaders, or most of them, and they were angry that Cassie wouldn’t share the science behind them as she had for the other technologies.

  She had faith their scientists would get there anyway. Now that they knew it was possible, she didn’t think it’d be a far leap once they were capable of building the current ships.

  Perhaps it was less about all of that, than the fact if they cut all ties with Cassie and asked her to leave once they could build their own ships in a handful of decades, they’d no longer have a good chance of resisting or even surviving the Benzae Union. They wanted to stand alone at some point.

  She felt that same thing in truth. She didn’t like being dependent on an A.I. But it was enough for her that they were truly earning the technology and they’d be putting themselves into space. It was something to take pride in.

  She also believed it wasn’t a bad thing to depend on an ally to close the remaining gap. It was also a waste of time to argue about.

  She held up a hand to get everyone’s attention.

  “This will likely all be moot in fifty years when we have our own ships. Either the Benzae will be our masters, or they’ll no longer be a danger. The current situation won’t last that long. At two months between invasions, we’re talking about the Benzae sending three hundred invasion fleets over the next fifty years. Things will be completely different in fifty years, when we build our first ship together.

  “I’m not happy about Cassie holding back the new science, but we can’t even build the old ships yet. We have fifty years to figure it out for ourselves, and her unpopular decision doesn’t negate what she’s already done for us.

  “Our problems will be completely different as well. Keeping Cassie as a close ally and welcome in our solar system is a decision for the future, and one made by the ones that will inherit our positions of power and responsibility. Let’s focus on solving the problem before then, which I believe is the point of this meeting in the first place.

  “The United States approves of the mission and stands behind the Russian ambassador’s and Premier’s decision to take the risk.”

  The Chinese leader said, “It is a suicidal mission.”

  She shook her head, “I don’t believe Cassie would commit suicide. By taking her main ship there she’s risking her own existence, so she must believe there’s a chance of success, or in the case of failure a successful retreat.”

  He replied, “That’s easy for you to say, it will be the Russians who lose resources and a good man.”

  She almost snorted. The Russians were willing to risk their own, and he’d have her believe China cared about his wellbeing?

  “I’ll ante up so to speak, and I’ll volunteer a U.S. crew to take him there. I assume that’s what you were after with that ridiculous challenge, wasn’t it?”

  He turned red in the face, but she was tired of the damned games and didn’t care. She was confident in the mission to a certain extent, but she wasn’t going to allow the old blowhard to think he’d actually manipulated her, or that she hadn’t seen through his bullshit to the root of the issue.

  He hadn’t wanted to risk his own people on such a risky mission.

  She didn’t want to either in truth, but she didn’t think Cassie would commit suicide, and hard decisions had to made from the top.

  Not surprisingly, the other leaders suddenly got on board and voted for the measure. None of them had wanted to put skin in the game, as they say, and now that she’d volunteered, they were suddenly seeing the light.

  She almost snorted, again, but managed to hold it until the conference call disconnected.

  The rec room and the rest of the ship looked similar to the one she’d been on, despite Cassie’s main ship being slightly bigger the crew section was identical in every way. Her crew, Anton, Melody, Jackson, Harry, and Melissa were in the room. As was the ambassador Sergei.

  She’d been a bit surprised when the president had dropped the mission in her lap two weeks ago, and she’d been ordered to command the mission. She had seven months left on her shipside duty agreement with the president, and this mission should only take two to three months instead of the original mission which had taken two years. That third month was dependent on how fast things went in the Benzae home system.

  Regardless, the president had told her if she pulled this mission off, she’d be on shore leave for the remainder of her term before replacing the current Vice Admiral on the joint admiralty board and having an earthside post where she could finally start her family.

  She was almost forty, but she was in better shape than she’d been at twenty, and knew she’d likely see a hundred given the excellent medical care she’d received the last five years.

  All she had to do was survive the current mission, which would be leaving shortly.

  “Cassie and I have been planning the mission for two weeks. The trip there and back should be safe enough. We’ll be taking a direct path toward the Benzae home planet through the old Mirix systems which should be sparsely patrolled by the Benzae. The old-style ships are no threat to this vessel in patrol and squadron numbers, so I doubt they’ll even engage us.

  “Each hop will only take a day and a half. Our only truly vulnerable point will be after the skip to the star. During the ninety-minute acceleration to two thousand KPS at forty gravities we won’t be able to skip evade any attacks.

  “That said, we also have huge advantages even if they do set a trap. At forty gravities of acceleration, we’re twice as maneuverable as plasma balls, which means they should be a lot easier to dodge. Secondly, we have stronger EM shields, which will allow us to soak up to eighteen attacks on our shields.

  “The new gravity shields which just came online a few days ago are primarily designed to defend against a particle beam, if the enemy develops one in the future. However, it will also slightly attenuate a plasma attack as well, by stripping the containment a few seconds early and dispersing the plasma it will have a ten percent degradation of effectiveness. Meaning this ship can take twenty plasma attacks instead of eighteen. A small gain, but we’ll take every edge we can find.

  “On the downside, such a shield is obvious as a defense against particle beams, and it’s likely if the Union doesn’t have them yet they will soon. Our training simulations have included them for that reason, and we’ll be simulating battles during our shifts in FTL.

  “On the good side Cassie has also improved the energy production of the ship to the point it can support particle beams eight times more powerful. If the enemy has no gravity shields, it will take one beam six seconds to destroy it as opposed to the eight it took during the invasion. If they do have the shields, it will only take two of the new and thicker beams to destroy it. Which means we can target up to six ships and destroy them simultaneously if all weapons can be brought to bear. Even if they’re all in the same direction, we can take out a full fleet in just twenty-four seconds, four at a time. Twelve seconds, if they don’t have the shielding, at eight and then four at a time.”

  She paused for a moment as that sunk in. The old ships based on Mirix technology would be nothing less than target practice, as far as their offensive capability and the enemy’s defensive capability was concerned.

  “All that said, we aren’t invulnerable. If three fleets were to surround us when we can’t skip, and all of them opened fire, we couldn’t dodge all of the plasma balls. We would likely be destroyed in a single volley. We need to be alert for any traps. Our technological advantage merely makes the mission a strong possibility of success, there are no guarantees.

  “There’ll be at least that many once we arrive at the Benzae home world, but we’ll be able to skip to evade any attempt to surround us. We’re also going to do our best not to engage with the enemy once we’re in their home system, since we’re on a diplomatic mission. We’re hoping to get in at least one skirmish on the way there so we can demonstrate the upgraded beam weapon. Hopefully they’ll be too intimidated to attack and will pause and listen.

  “Once we gain agreement to open a dialogue, it will be up to Sergei to complete the mission. The crew will stay on the ship and be alert for betrayals, while Sergei and I go to the planet.”

  Anton asked, “Are the new weapons and shields part of the fleet?”

  She nodded, “They are. Really, until the Benzae develop the beams they’re completely outclassed unless we do something stupid or don’t see a trap coming. Cassie believes it could be years if not decades before they can figure it out, but we also can’t count on that. They might get lucky and stumble across the answer early.”

  Jackson, the tactical officer, asked, “If the gravity shields attenuate the attack by seventy percent, wouldn’t we need three beams against a ship, not two?”

  She shook her head, “It’ll attenuate the old single particle stream beams by seventy percent. Eight particle streams thick it will only attenuate the beam by around thirty two percent. The thicker the beam the harder it is to significantly deflect its course with gravity. Cassie is also looking for the next counter and newer beam to beat it. She’s determined to stay ahead of the enemy’s curve, and I’m confident she can do so.”

  Biological minds just couldn’t compete with an artificial intelligence save intuitive leaps. Cassie was already two generations of advancement past the Benzae, and that gap would only increase over time. Unless they got desperate enough to put class fours on the problem themselves, but she believed they were too paranoid about A.I. to ever do so.

  She asked, “Any other questions before we launch our mission?”

  “How many fleets will be at their home world?” Melody asked.

  She replied, “Six that Cassie knows of. It won’t be less than that, but it could be more. We have informed them of our intentions to send an ambassador to address the assembly directly, under flag of truce. They haven’t responded, but we hadn’t really expected them to.”

  Melody nodded, “It’s likely we’ll be stuck in the system then, if they refuse to respect a flag of truce to speak of peace. With the skip drive we could both avoid attacks in a stalemate, and then they could take us out as soon as we tried to leave, during the ninety-minute acceleration window.”

  She said, “That is a possible scenario, and the worst one Cassie and I thought of. If they’re determined to avoid an engagement until we’re at our most vulnerable, they could easily skip away every time we skipped toward them, before we could get a beam on one of their ships. If we can’t break the stalemate, it’ll take years to get home, but we won’t be destroyed. Worst case we’ll head out of the system with the skip drive at twice the speed of light. Change course when we’re outside of scanning range and head for one of the nearest stars. We’ll do everything we can to avoid that scenario, but a few years stuck on the ship is better than dying.”

  If that happened, she’d also be starting her family immediately, but she really didn’t think it’d come to that. Cassie had intimated she had her own backup plans if the Benzae refused to see sense, though the A.I. wasn’t willing to share the details of her plan.

  Jessica decided not to share that nebulous comfort with her crew. She trusted Cassie implicitly, as only a handful of other humans did, but her active military crew weren’t among that number. She’d clue in Anton though, probably later that night after they’d turned in for the night.

  There were no further questions after that, so they all got up and headed for the bridge.

  It didn’t take long, they skipped their way to the sun in four minutes, then ninety minutes later they were going two thousand KPS and took their first jump. There was no reason to risk the long jump even if it was relatively safe, not even in enemy systems where it’d take eight minutes to cross two A.U. Eight minutes was nothing, next to the twenty-four hours it took during their first trip. With seventeen jumps it would only add eighteen hours to the overall mission, which was negligible next to the safety of the crew. It amounted to an added day and a half for the full round trip, which was nothing to complain about.

  Susan stretched in satisfaction and let out a contented sigh. It was late at night and her and Dennis were in the bedroom. She wasn’t sure if it was the pregnancy nearing the third trimester or Dennis’s dangerous mission, but she hadn’t been able to keep her hands to herself for over a month. It was like they were in the honeymoon stage again, and not working on their second child near the fifth-year mark of their marriage.

  Dennis said dreamily, “I really need to go on more missions.”

  She giggled, “Maybe you should.”

  She grinned as he pulled her against her to snuggle, it was the little things like that which always made her heart melt. She’d really struck gold with her husband.

  Dennis asked, “Any concerns, still satisfied with being an at home mom?”

  She bit her lip. She loved that he checked in with her every once in a while. Not often enough to be annoying, but at least once and sometimes twice a month. It wasn’t out of insecurity either, he was just a little clueless reading the subtler signs and was self-aware enough to know it.

  “I wouldn't mind a little more help around the house and with Katie. The pregnancy is slowing me down lately. I know your work is important.”

  He smiled, “I think I can arrange that. I also think I’m very close to finishing the central control software. It’ll basically be a class two A.I. as Cassie explained them to us. At that point I can focus more on coding, and less time on debugging code, since the A.I. will be able to understand the purpose and functions and actually help with systems integration over the years.”

  She tilted her head, “So you’ll be around more for good?”

  He laughed, “Yes, that’s what I meant. A lot of the time when I work late it’s because a code bug is driving me up a wall, and I have to fix it, or I’ll be up all night long staring at the ceiling. Building code isn’t as... obsessive for me, and easier to mentally put down. Because it’s not a mystery, just a stopping point and I know where I’m picking back up in the morning, you know?”

  She giggled, “So, you’re a geek, is what you’re telling me.”