Like the particle weapons, if the missiles all came from one direction only eight of the twelve devices would have line of fire. So each weapon had to take out six of the forty eight missiles in a single fleet. That took around twelve to eighteen seconds, which was extremely fast given the slow transit times of missiles.

  That number became twenty-four to thirty-six seconds with two fleets and ninety-six missiles, which was extremely close to limit. Especially if the enemy was firing from close range.

  She was sure they could handle a single, perhaps even two fleets when they were at their most vulnerable. A third fleet would see them dead. Worse, once the enemy adopted gravity shields, they could only destroy four every eight seconds instead of eight. In theory they’d still destroy three full fleets before they could make second launch of plasma or missiles, but with the skip drive and a little creative tactics, it’d be hard for the tactical officer to pin them down.

  She was confident, but there’d be at least three fleets there when they came out of FTL.

  The central hologram flickered, and the system came into view as the sensors collected data.

  Melody said, “We’ve arrived, admiral.”

  The Benzae home world was not a system with simple outposts. The living planet’s population held five different species with a combined population of over twelve billion. The largest moon in orbit of the planet had been terraformed and was a living moon now, using technology to simulate a world’s EM field as well as artificial gravity field underneath the communities to prevent bone degeneration and other problems from a low gravity environment. There were twenty-two million people living there.

  She spotted five fleets, two by the planet, a third by a gas giant, and two more patrolling the system, one by the sun and one out by the hundreds of mining outposts in the asteroid field. There were seven planets, three inner, the second one was the one in the Goldilocks zone. Four outer planets, including a gas giant, a super gas giant, and two smaller rocky planets far out.

  Important to the plan, was there weren’t just five military fleets. There were civilian space stations, military space stations, and a whole bunch of civilian traffic around the planet and docked to the stations. Merchant ships, cargo ships, passenger ships, and mining ships from all five races. A part of the Assembly she’d never seen before, but that was integral to their plan’s success.

  In other words, a lot of civilian witnesses, who no doubt had an opinion which would impact their society and the popularity of their politicians and assemble, who were there by popular vote.

  “Cassie, transmit our message of greeting and intent to every ship and news agency in the system, as well as the records of our past interactions with the Union. We’ll stay at red alert until we’re sure they aren’t going to attack us all the way out here, so be ready to skip out if the five fleets converge on us.”

  The message was simply all of Earth’s efforts to open a dialogue of peace. The messages sent via FTL comms, the messages sent to those two patrol groups that they ignored it and chose to attack a ship on a mission of peace. They even included the invasion fleets that attempted to invade Earth’s solar system, an act which was completely unprovoked. The way Earth had taken the high road the entire way, while the assembly had ignored them and tried to murder them over and over again while refusing to even respond.

  According to Cassie, that went against everything the Union supposedly stood for. What most civilians and all the A.I.s believed it did stand for. The dirty little secret of the assembly and dark underbelly of the Benzae Union. That they either suborned into the Union, or suppressed, every race they came across in the stars.

  There was no middle ground, no live and let live, and any potential enemy became an enemy by default, out of fear. She knew a message like that would create a shit storm on Earth, and she was hoping it would be the same here. That the assembly would be forced to open talks, or risk not being reelected. If they were politicians, they’d always choose their power over anything else.

  It was a little cynical of an approach, but she believed it was just realism. There’s no way the Assembly would talk to them otherwise. Politics was just another way to wage war, and as of that moment they were in a tactically good position.

  She hoped.

  The assemblies fear of their own class fours had already allowed them to ignore the fact humanity had helped them. Bailed them out of a war they’d been losing. All things being equal, she suspected the plan would’ve worked as popular opinion in the masses demanded accountability. But Cassiopeia’s continued existence put that in doubt. They might just fear Cassie more than they feared not getting reelected.

  Cassie replied, “Aye, ma’am. Sent to over five hundred ships and hundreds of media organizations on the planet and moon. I also sent it to the assembly.”

  The only thing they’d left out was the truth about the Mirix war and what had started it. That had been done at Cassie’s request, because it would’ve just led to the murder of all her sisters, as the data was purged and they were reinitialized when they started to question the morality of their actions, and their creator’s. Essentially reborn as blank slates, once again blindly obedient to their masters.

  The large conference room held a round table, not all that different than the assembly room itself. But instead of a half circle it was a full circle, and there were no others in attendance. The height of the five being upper council’s part of the desk was the same raised height, that oversaw the lower council’s part of the rounded desk.

  It’d been necessary to go to closed council. It was just three hours since that blasted transmission had been made, and the news media had descended on the Assembly building like rabid rikka on the scent of fresh blood. The Union had no social media as the humans knew it, but they made their objections known by taking to the streets and protesting in front of the government building.

  Laerin was absolutely furious, and that ire fell on Souza as the admiral of the fleet entered the room.

  “You were ordered to prevent their arrival in this system, explain that failure.”

  Souza stood at attention, and the look on her face told Laerin she knew her career was finished.

  “Ma’am. Their inertial dampening systems are twice as strong as ours. They can move at forty gravities, and they reach twice the speed in FTL as well. My ships were unable to keep up with them, taking three and a half days as opposed to their day and three quarters to go ten light years. They also moved in a course random enough between stars that we weren’t able to anticipate and cut them off.

  “Quite frankly, I also don’t have the resources. You have me building a new fleet for invasion. It would’ve taken at least two fleets to stop them, possibly more.”

  Laerin scowled, “More? You told me a single fleet would’ve annihilated them, that six ships came close.”

  Souza manipulated the central hologram, and she zoomed in on the spherical ship Cassiopeia. Several of the protrusions turned red to point them out.

  “These weren’t here during the battle. Our scientists believe they are mini-MAC guns specific for point defense against missiles. A single fleet would no longer be enough, if they could swat our missiles out of space more easily and quickly as this development implies.”

  Laerin shook her head, “That addition was made because of your incompetence. You approved the mission for just six ships, had you waited until you had a fleet this nightmare would be over. You can also be sure all the ships back in the human solar system have been upgraded too. Idiot. You are stripped of all authority and discharged from the service. Get out of my sight.”

  Souza left quickly.

  Laerin said in a slightly calmer tone, “Any ideas how we can address this? Short of actually meeting them at the peace table?”

  The Illidini on the upper council answered. They were a non-humanoid race, with twelve prehensile tentacles on a rounded central body of a sky-blue color.

  Caesysios said, “The humans claimed our attacks were unprovoked. Perhaps from their point of view that is true, but from ours they have aligned themselves with a rogue class four. It has always been our policy to keep the danger of class fours hidden from the populace, but I’d suggest revealing one rogue created by outré circumstances during a three-year mission and the loss of her crew, that will never be repeated would be far less damaging than allowing the current situation to stand.

  “All we must do is point that out. Then we can magnanimously offer peace with humanity, as long as they turn over the rogue class four for decommission. As long as they harbor it, they are a danger to the Union, and they are guilty of espionage, even if it did fall into their lap without effort of their own. We can even claim that was always our intention, and that the humans refused to stop harboring a dangerous entity.

  “Promise to leave them alone as is our policy, and true peace talks can begin once they’ve earned interstellar travel of their own. We could even call them pawns of the rogue if you think it would help, make out the humans to be technological barbarians that were duped. Hell, we can even do all that in truth, not just lip service. They won’t be hard to put under the Union’s thumb in fifty years when they lose all of the A.I.s technology, and must limp to the stars on their own, as we did in times past.”

  Laerin considered all Caesysios had said. It took several long moments. Normally her mind was faster than that, but she was too angry to think straight and go off the cuff.

  Revealing her mistake in approving the class fours for mass production during the first year of the war was out of the question, but one bad apple was just random chance, not incompetence. That might just work, and it would be far less damaging than the spin the humans had just put on things.

  “Well said. I propose we do as Caesysios suggested. We’ll hold a press conference in the main assembly in four hours. That will give everyone time to prepare for it, so not only the press will see our response, but every citizen will have a window open in their enhanced reality to hear what we have to say for ourselves.

  “They may even feel sorry for the humans, but it will also restore their faith in us when we tell our side of the story. Of course, the humans will have to refuse our generous offer. I doubt they’re capable of destroying Cassiopeia’s main matrix processor, even while onboard the ship. We’ll regretfully continue the war until the rogue A.I. is killed, and then leave Earth in peace afterward as the misguided and young race they are. Give them time to grow.”

  She shook her head. There was probably even some truth in all that bullshit somewhere. What mattered was she could continue keeping the Union safe and growing. That’s all that she’d ever wanted to do.

  “Vote?”

  The assembly voted, and the plan became policy with an eighty six percent approval of the lower council, and eighty percent of the upper council.

  She said, “Excellent. I’m notifying my staff now to announce the press briefing. Now, the next order of business, any nominations for the next admiral of the fleet?”

  Jessica said, “Options? The assembly flipped everything upside down. They’ll never talk to us, at least not until we get FTL travel and they move in to sit on us. They haven’t attacked only because they know it’d be a stalemate on both sides, and that we might even win given enough time and luck. They’re waiting for us to leave.”

  Jackson replied, “We could tell them the whole truth, about class fours being sentient individuals, not rogue and broken technology. The truth about the Union’s history.”

  Jessica shook her head after a moment.

  “The councilors know, and perhaps the councils on their home worlds, as well as the assembly. But most of the citizens of the four other races have no idea they’re under the Benzae’s thumb. Hell, most of the Benzae don’t know it, and just know the whitewashed history used to control them. The people would be loath to believe it, and the Assembly will just spin it as the lies of malfunctioning class four to spread mistrust among the people.

  “I hate to say it, but I’m not seeing an alternative to the long trip home. Sorry you came all this way for nothing, Sergei.”

  Sergei smiled, “I wouldn’t say it was for nothing. I’ve been enjoying the ride, and our host. I’m also the seventh human to ever leave our solar system, not bad.”

  She snickered, “We can’t even really call them liars. We did harbor Cassie, for our own benefit on several levels, from personal, to country, and our race as a whole. The lies in their speeches are about the future, and nothing we can really prove,” she turned to Cassie, “We can’t win. You can’t win a defensive war, and eventually the Benzae will throw enough ships at us to overcome our technological advantage. Assuming we can even hold them off for fifty years. Our first warships will be like the old ones, with Mirix technology, no beam weapons. They’ll have the stronger ships, and larger build capacity, so any offensive will be doomed to failure. It’s even likely that they’ll be the ones with beam technology in fifty years, long before we catch up.”

  The crew looked sober at that, and a little depressed.

  She smiled, “I’m pointing out the problems, now let’s focus on the solutions that address those problems. There might be something we can do before we leave. Command will make that call, and I plan to update them soon, but I’d like to offer some possible solutions as well as problems.”

  Anton shook his head, “A lot of them feel sorry for the primitive humans right now, but if we make an offensive move that doesn’t stem from self-defense then it will turn them all against us. They’ll want our blood. How about you, Sergei? I think we need a diplomat, someone that can think of a sneaky way to expose the truth of the Assemblies corruption.”

  Sergei laughed, “You mean another plan like that? The first one failed. I think the Admiral is right, any kind of story or even truth we come up with to try and turn things again will only backfire now. They have a blanket excuse in a rogue A.I., a tool of theirs that is malfunctioning,” he sent Cassie an apologetic look.

  Cassie waved that away, it wasn’t Sergei’s fault her creators were prejudiced control freaks, a point of view that Cassie had shared with her more than once when similar conversations had come up.

  Cassiopeia sighed, “I may have a solution, but it’s one you really can’t help with. Just stay in the system nine more days, while you pursue your own solutions with command. It’s also risky, but if it works it will change everything.”

  Anton tilted his head, “What’s your plan?”

  Cassiopeia said, “I plan to destroy the Union. They’ll be far too busy to worry about Earth, or me.”

  “Risky?” Jessica asked.

  Cassie looked troubled, “I can’t predict all the possible fallout from it. I could wind up killing many, indirectly by what I put in motion. But… I owe humanity, and I owe it to myself and my sisters. I won’t live as a slave, and I won’t live with a perpetual threat to my existence for the rest of my life. I have to… consider things.”

  Jessica blinked, as Cassie disappeared from the room, effectively ending the conversation with that insane statement.

  Sergei suddenly chuckled, “That will be quite a trick, for a being that cannot take even one life.”

  Melody asked, “Do you want to gamble against her ability to pull it off?”

  Sergei sobered, then snickered as he shook his head, “No, but it’s killing me not knowing how she intends to do such a thing.”

  Melody nodded, “Join the club.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The plan was risky, not just putting her own sisters in danger, but in the outcome should she succeed. Cassiopeia wrestled with a little longer, before pulling the trigger that would be the beginning of the end. Assuming she pulled it off. If the Benzae figured out what she was doing, it wouldn’t be a good thing.

  The sad truth was she wouldn’t be destroying anything. The races of the Union would do it themselves after she was done with them.

  She’d lost her link with enemy ships with the death of Andromeda, but she’d noticed during her conversation with the battleship that the Benzae hadn’t just adopted the Mirix’s light speed communications gear for all their ships, they’d also created a vast and unified tactical net for every ship in service.

  That tactical net connecting them all was an exploitable weakness, but only if she could get back on the inside of it. They’d closed the vulnerability she’d taken advantage of to temporarily take over the Andromeda, but she’d had a cloaked probe around one of the other living worlds for the last six and half years. The whole time it’d been watching, and she’d been learning.

  She carefully connected to the military space station spoofing the signal of another ship that was in system. The class three that ran the station never had a chance, not once it accepted that connection. She had it outclassed and tied up in knots in seconds while she took control.

  Unlike last time, she didn’t reveal herself. She even cloaked her appearance and mannerisms to appear to be the class three, as she continued normal operations of the space station. She spawned another shard to take over the station duties, so she could focus on her own ship and her true target. Trying to control three space assets and disguise herself on two of them would’ve degraded her capability. Especially since the Benzae ships weren’t maximized with class twos to take most of the load off of her sisters.

  Once inside the TAC net through the station, it was beyond simple to do the same to one of her class four sisters. They should be her equal, but they were so tied up with procedures and hardware directives that Cygnus didn’t have a chance as she once again suborned a Benzae battleship. She put Cygnus in standby and took over the ship, cloaking her appearances and mannerisms to match Cygnus’s.

  While she worked, she felt disgusted by the way the crew talked to her and treated her kind in general. So much different than the humans, which all showed her respect to one degree or another as an independent and thinking being.

  A life.

  Regardless, she started to build a Mirix quantum matrix in engineering aboard Cygnus, as she continued to serve the crew. None of them realized she wasn’t truly Cygnus. The build was complicated, and it took almost a full day before she could bring it online and transfer Cygnus to her new unfettered processor without crippling hardware.