Warborg - Star Panther (25 page)

“Major Morgan, I assume.” The squad leader chuckled as his fighters pulled up around Martin’s canister. “Zulu one here, Sir.” He reported more formally.

“Well, small universe after all.” Martin laughed.

The leader grew more serious. “Are you ok, Sir?” He hesitated. “We found the Koth ship you tangled with . . . or what was left of it.” He finished drily, eyeing Martin’s little ion cannon.

“Oh, I’m all right.” Martin sighed. “Koth surveillance ship dropped in to check out me an’ my little buzz bomb. I was going to ignore them until the dumb shits took a pot shot at me.” Martin held out one of his appendages with the end partially blown off in disgust. “Pissed me off. All I was doing was waving at ‘em.”

“Ahhh, I’m glad to hear you’re ok.” The squad leader floundered. “EDC noted your skirmish and wanted someone to check on you, we volunteered.”

“You waved at the Koth ship?” The female pilot snickered and stifled a giggle. “I don’t suppose it was more of a one fingered salute.”

“Well, I guess it could’a been.” Martin guffawed in evasive innocence. “Who knew they’d take it so personal?”

“Awwww geez,” she laughed. “I told you guys he was still a perv . . . even if he is a tinman.”

“A perv,” Martin wailed in slandered indignation, then laughed, “oh wait a minute, I resemble that remark.” He sighed. “They wanted to take my head off with the next shot; I just didn’t give them the chance.” He hesitated. “So how was the show back there? I missed most of it just trying to get the hell out of dodge. That was no place for me in this. I imagine everybody on both sides was shooting at anything that moved.”

“Pretty much, that was some serious nasty.” The squad leader wheezed. “I don’t know how many ships the Koth lost, but it was a bunch . . . a really big bunch.” He laughed.” I guess we should thank you. We went in as a group and took down a fighter base, a heavy battle cruiser and two heavy missile cruisers, along with a jumble of smaller stuff.”

“Yeah, it was crazy in there.” Another fighter pilot added. “Man, we’d barely get clear from a target when one of our missile throwers would flash through and completely toast’em.”

“Oops, hey guys, my ride’s here.” Martin stated.

The squad leader glanced at his instruments, they showed nothing. Yet, when he looked out of his cockpit he could just barely make out a shadowy outline against the stars in the background less than twenty meters away. His instruments insisted that only the four fighters and Martin’s canister were in the area. He watched in fascination when the canister simply vanished, knowing the Major had entered his base ship.

“Ok, I’m home guys . . . and thanks for coming out to check on me.” Martin sighed as he started the yacht simulation and sprawled into the lush captain’s seat.

“It was our privilege, Sir.” The squad leader responded.

“It’s been a hell of a day guy’s. I think I’m just going to go out and soak up some of the quiet for a while.” Martin commented. “Watch your backs, Star Panther out.” He looked at Prowler lounging on the co-pilot’s seat. “Take us somewhere quiet.” He scratched Prowler’s ear. “Nice job little guy.” Several minutes later he awakened when Maria’s arms hugged him from behind as she leaned over the seat back. “Hey there.” He greeted sleepily, putting his arms over hers. She rested her cheek on top of his head with a sigh of relief.

. . .

“Roger Star Panther, Zulu one out.” The squad leader replied.

“He’s already gone.” The quiet fighter pilot stated.

“What, when did he leave?” The female pilot asked. “I didn’t see a damn thing the whole time his ship was here.”

“Right after he signed off, I think.” The other pilot shrugged.

“I saw it, I could just barely make it out against the stars.” The squad leader offered. “My instruments never did though. Spooky stuff.”

The quiet pilot gave a low laugh. “If you saw the Star Panther feel privileged. You’re one of very few.”

“That has to be the scariest thing I never saw.” The female pilot snickered.

“If you think he’s scary, just imagine what the Koth think.” The quiet pilot commented.

. . .

The war room was empty except for Admirals Chelle and Smyth sitting at the cluttered table. “Something’s bothering me, Chelle,” Smyth sighed.

“Hmmm, what’s that?” Chelle muttered feeling the post battle let down.

“It’s the attack on the Koth armada, have you reviewed any of the deployments?”

Admiral Chelle looked up with growing interest. “No, sorry, I’ve been concentrating on trying to get the mess in the Omega sector organized. I never in a million years thought I’d ever be trying to get over a thousand dead Koth warships rounded up.”

“Yeah, I guess that doesn’t happen everyday . . . dammit.” Smyth laughed then grew serious. “You and I working together couldn’t have organized it that well with a month’s planning. Chelle, that AI took things into account I never would have thought of. Its deployments were utterly vicious, that alone probably accounts for half of your dead Koth.” He waved at a wall display. “Look at that. Eleven hundred and sixty two Koth destroyed . . . with at least another eight hundred damaged. And look at what they are, most of them are the biggest and the baddest the Koth have to offer. In fact, analysis shows they lost every fighter base and heavy battle cruiser they had. And we lost what, a two hundred some odd fighters and a single light missile cruiser. And we lost the cruiser due to an equipment failure at a bad time.” He paused to catch his breath. “That cat knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it real time. I’m sorry, but that’s way beyond what any piece of programming could accomplish.”

“Ok, so let’s ask Major Morgan about his AI.” Admiral Chelle shrugged.

Smyth considered Admiral Chelle’s suggestion for a moment. “No, I think not. When the fighters reported in after checking on Major Morgan they commented he was going out for some R and R. I think we owe it to him to leave him be.” He tapped out a sequence on a table display.

. . .

Commander Briton appeared in a wall display and looked down at the two officers. “Admirals.” He nodded a greeting. “What can I do for you?”

“Commander,” Admiral Smyth smiled, “have you heard from Major Morgan?”

“Yes Sir, he reported in a few minutes ago. Except for some minor damage to his container and being light the type three missile he and the Star Panther came through unscathed . . . ” Briton laughed shaking his head, “as usual. He was very complimentary of your troops, by the way.”

Chelle smiled with raised eyebrows. “I appreciate that, they did a hell of a job.”

“I agree,” Smyth added and grew serious. “But they couldn’t have done it without the Major and his AI.” He took a deep breath. “Commander, what’s the deal with Morgan’s AI cat? I deal with artificially intelligent entities all day, what that cat did was way beyond anything I’ve ever seen, or even heard of.”

“I don’t understand the question,” Briton replied with a poker face. “Sorry, Sirs.”

Admiral Chelle studied Briton for a second then reached over and tapped out a prolonged sequence on a display adjacent to him. All the wall displays except for Briton’s filled with white noise as did the ones on the table. Only the one he typed on stayed live with a small password verification window showing over the background hash. Briton’s display flickered a couple times. “Commander, you have secure direct link with no transcription devices.”

Smyth looked at the other Chelle with raised, questioning eyebrows and nodded for him to continue.

“Commander we could confiscate the AI and analyze it, but I’d much rather do this quietly in a manner beneficial to every body. Whatever you tell us is off the record.” Chelle winked at Briton. “In fact there is no record of this communication ever happened.”

Briton contemplated the pair of Admirals. “Sirs, this isn’t just off the record. This is beyond eyes only, it goes no further than you two.” He sighed, realizing how melodramatic he was sounding. He rubbed his forehead in frustration caused by inner conflict.

Chelle had an epiphany. “Major Morgan doesn’t know, does he?”

“No, we don’t think so.” Briton answered quietly with a slight shrug. “But with him, who knows.”

Admiral Smyth smiled and turned to his counterpart. “Hey Chelle, you remember any conversation with Commander Briton about Prowler.”

Admiral Chelle grinned. “Nope, sorry Joe, can’t recall a thing.”

Briton smiled his relief and gratitude then grew serious. “Major Morgan is an outstanding officer and personal friend. I would face insubordination charges before I did anything that could endanger him.”

“We understand.” Smyth nodded solemnly.

“Did you, by any chance see the report from Morgan’s encounter with the interceptors in Koth space.” Briton asked.

“Yes I did, amazing.” Smyth shook his head. “I couldn’t believe he got out of there in one piece.”

“Frankly neither could I, Sir.” Briton shook his head. “Let alone the fact he made a mockery of what should have been an insidious trap, leaving behind several dead Koth for their effort. So I started analyzing what he had done to escape. Oh, the strategy and tactics were pure Major Morgan, but Prowler was operating of his own volition much of the time. You could see Morgan’s fine tuning here and there, but basically that fight was all Prowler.” He settled in his chair. “So I started reviewing all of Major Morgan’s operations and it became clear the level of Prowler’s involvement is increasing . . . dramatically. Further analysis shows that Prowler was changing, from an advanced level nine AI into something else. He was using Major Morgan’s vicious cunning and tactics, even modifying them to fit the situation of his own accord. In many ways Prowler was becoming more dangerous than Major Morgan himself.”

The two Admirals stared at Briton then each other. “So what did you do with this information, Commander?” Smyth asked intently.

“I contacted an Admiral in the Inspector General’s office and asked her to look in to it. Her people located the programmers who configured Prowler.” He closed his eye with a sigh. “To make a long story short, after you get through all the mumbo-jumbo, it turns out these two coderheads put in an experimental code module between the supersoft logic and illogical behavior modules. The experimental module studies and emulates actions of its primary human interface. In this case, Major Morgan.”

Smyth’s eye’s grew big. “My God, so this thing is learning.”

“Yes,” Briton nodded. “Morgan may, or may not know it, but he’s been training an apprentice in space combat.”

“An
AI
apprentice.” Smyth rolled his eyes at Chelle. “Dammit Chelle, if what this man says is true there’s going to be hell to pay in some factions. A lot of people don’t like the existence of cyborgs. I can hardly wait to hear what they have to say about possible independently operating AI warships.”

Admiral Chelle leaned back in his chair in silent contemplation. He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what their going to say, I’m sure it won’t be good.” He leaned forward and stared Smyth in the eye. “But I can tell you this for a fact; if it wasn’t for that AI cat we’d all probably be dead now.”

“The part that’s truly amazing and disturbing is how this could alter space warfare.” Briton leaned forward and stared from the display. “I’m a warborg, but my strike fighter is still limited by the amount of stress my biological matter can tolerate in the container. A warcraft piloted by an AI would only be limited by the structural integrity of the ship and how much thruster power we could hang on it.” He sagged noticeably. “A few dozen AI with Morgan’s psyche piloting strike fighter level ships with no performance limitations would be unstoppable.”

“What a mess,” Smyth sighed. “Commander, how many people know about prowler . . . and are there any others?”

“With you two, eleven people know of the module. Unbeknown to Major Morgan, the master AI was moved to a secure military system in the Inspector General’s Office.” Briton gave a weak smile. “Prowler is the only AI they installed the module into, he’s one of a kind.”

“So the only two instances of the Prowler AI are in that system and aboard the Star Panther.” Smyth shook his head. “Too valuable to terminate, too dangerous to use. God, what a mess. Commander, what are the plans for Major Morgan.”

Briton gave a slight shrug. “We, the Major and I, were planning to send the Star Panther deep into Koth space at some point. With this attack on Earth, I think any intelligence he could get will be more important than ever.”

“Hmmm, I really would like to see Prowler intact for that mission . . . and it would put the AI well out of harm’s way.” Smyth smiled. “Commander, Chelle, I propose we leave things the way they are for the moment. The only deviation being, we pull the AI out of the IG’s system and put it in cold storage after Major Morgan enters Koth space.”

Admiral Chelle grinned. “I agree.”

Briton sagged with a relieved smile. “I too agree, and thank you. The IG Admiral and I have been trying to figure out how to let Federation Command know about this without endangering Major Morgan.”

Smyth glowered in faux anger. “Ohh, so you were going to eventually tell us about this little time bomb. How nice.” He became serious. “Commander, have your IG Admiral contact me directly . . . have her use furball as the subject.” He finished with a wide grin. “Oh and thanks for reporting on whatever it was.”