It was another haunting memory, dredged up and recomposed by a mix of AI nudging and his own delusional brain. Gentle light from an orange sun shone through closed, beige curtains, lighting the room up in a warm hazy glow. Liu rested his head against a textureless pillow. His wife was absent, probably at work at this hour. She rarely had time off, even when he was on leave. He heard the whine of his elder daughter as she struggled with a homework problem. The younger daughter’s voice was conspicuously absent.
The entire scene was a constructed fantasy. Liu knew it right away. His old home had no curtains. There was no need for them, as they didn’t have windows. His daughters never struggled with homework. They weren’t all that far apart in age either. They would have been home at the same time. He sighed at the primitive caricature of his life.
A Neuronet alert sounded with urgency, breaking Liu out of his melancholy.
>Mission proper time: t = 59.3 years.
>Alert. Flyby of inhabited system imminent. Command staff activation for system passage.
A colorful dream world dissolved away again into gray neural oblivion, but Liu no longer struggled. He calmly breathed in the cool, humidity matched air with his eyes closed. His heart slowly warmed up and gradually accelerated its beat rate to a normal frequency. He felt nothing restraining his wrists. The transdermal injector must have already loosened.
Liu tried to move his fingers. They were sluggish and numb, but soon regained a small range of motion. The temperature gradually warmed before the chamber hatch popped open, allowing Liu to peek his head outside.
Grayson and Okeke were still struggling to pull themselves out of the chamber, their limbs still not fully recovered from stasis. The watch party of Lin and Vargas were already waiting outside.
“What’s the situation?” Grayson asked.
“Anomalous signals from brown dwarf planet prior to distal edge of the Scorpius Rift, sir,” Vargas reported.
Grayson sighed. “Can’t you take care of it yourself?” he asked in annoyance.
“The anomalous signals seem to be drive signatures, sir.”
Grayson paused to think, but Liu didn’t need to. Instead, he instinctively took charge.
“Lin, you’re with me. CIC. Share your sensor feed,” Liu said, wasting no time. “Okeke, get to a workstation and inform the task force. Remember to loop the CIC into your work station directly. Vargas, ensure launch systems are ready for any contingencies.”
The officers nodded, each crawling along the handrails towards their respective destinations.
Grayson looked at Liu with a cold rage, almost as if he was angry that his command was denied. With an uncanny level of perception, Liu turned around and added a statement of deference.
“With your permission, sir.”
Grayson nodded quietly and followed them to the CIC. There was nothing left to say.
The three officers propelled themselves into their CIC perches and fastened their restraints. Grayson and Liu stared at each other across empty space, each one’s faces distorted into grotesque masks by the dim light. Lin’s perch was far from theirs and shrouded in shadow.
“Ever plug in to Tactical Neuronet, Captain?” Liu said, looking at Lin. She shook her head.
“Simulations only, Lieutenant Colonel.”
Liu smiled confidently. There was a small rush of dopamine as he finally was able to guide someone in his skills. It was a tiny, intoxicating feeling of power and validation.
“It’s quite an experience. You are clear to connect. Just don’t be too surprised.”
Grayson, Liu and Lin each plugged in their Neuronet jack. Liu felt the floor dissolve away into the cold void of space as his vision was replaced by the sensors of the Peacekeeper. There was no sensation of mental oppression or violation anymore, only three minds in subtle contact as the Peacekeeper’s collective biological command computer.
>This is… quite immersive, sir! Lin exclaimed over Neuronet.
>Don’t get too excited. Take it from here you two, Grayson cautioned.
>Activating full spectrum sensors. VIS-IR telescopes, display all. Battlespace map, central projection, Lin commanded.
A green star chart lit up in the physical space between them. It was utterly empty except for a brown dwarf and its small, moon-like planetary system lying straight ahead in their trajectory, showing up as vectors in the task force frame of reference. Each ship was marked with an unblinking, stationary wireframe.
>Analyze for drive signatures, Liu commanded. The sensor feed was empty except for the dull infrared glow of the brown dwarf and even dimmer reflection of its planets in false color. It seemed like a false alarm.
A message went out as an expanding pulse of radio echoing through the abyss. The other ships of the task force were only visible as pale, unmoving variable stars, even through the filter of the Peacekeeper’s extended sensor vision.
>Inform the task force, Grayson commanded.
>Task Force Sigma, this is Captain Okeke on the Peacekeeper. Anomalous signatures detected. Possible unknown drives. Cut reactors and wake command staff. Peacekeeper will accelerate ahead and investigate. Files attached. Acknowledge receipt.
A few tense seconds passed due to light delay and computer validation.
>Vanguard acknowledged. Files validated.
One by one, the purple stars were extinguished, replaced only by the almost undetectable blink of infrared LED beacons and the glow of radiator heat. Negative vector arrows were attached to the fleet’s symbols on the star chart, indicating their relative rearward motion.
Unresolved icy dots glowed in the faint radiant heat of the brown dwarf system. System ingress was conducted at cruise speeds with no slowdown. They would skim the brown dwarf’s gravity well for an assist to nudge them in the correct vector trajectory. This was a desolate, small system, with only an automated relay beacon orbiting the nearest planet. Everything further away would be terminally locked in an icy vacuum.
>Deactivate reactor, Grayson ordered. The Peacekeeper AI thought for a second before acquiescing to his order.
>Confirmed commander tactical Neuronet link. Deactivating fuel feed. Magnet standby 10%.
The nudge of the fusion drive stopped. They were now floating in total stillness, suspended in the desolate starfield of the Scorpius Rift, drifting further and further from the rest of the task force as they had stopped at a higher imparted velocity.
>Overlay neutron spectrometer.
The view had hardly changed at all, only the fuzzy static of the cosmic ray background that was instantaneously suppressed by noise reduction algorithms.
>See any drive signatures? Liu looked around, suspended in the neural feed of full visual immersion. The starfield was brilliant here, just as it was on the first cruise so long ago. The Peacekeeper’s broadband sensors could see so much more than even his augmented vision. But there was no time to admire the stellar stream. They needed to see whether this backwater system had any predators lurking in the night.
>Negative on drive signature observation, Lin replied. He could see her shake her head in her transparent state. Grayson silently observed them both with a cool, neutral look, almost as if he was testing Liu’s ability to command while he delegated.
A faint flicker was detected from the terminator of the relay planet. It was almost like noise that had risen above the noise floor. A log was pulled up instantaneously and displayed to the entire waking crew’s vision. It was a slightly elevated neutron signature that had appeared for a fraction of a second. Nobody else looked worried, but Liu knew this maneuver from that fateful day in the Gamma Centauri system.
>Reorient reactor away from the planet and prepare for drive activation, Liu commanded. The Peacekeeper’s AI complied, announcing its intention with a cool, neutral tone.
>Reorienting (2,0,1), galactic frame. Course autocorrecting active. Warming confinement magnet. t = 1000 s. Drive activating on command.
The reaction wheels silently turned to reorient them. Liu was gently squeezed into the restraint straps across his chest before a gradual halt relieved the pressure.
>Liu, what are you doing? Grayson questioned, surprised at Liu giving a maneuver command.
>Neutron transient at terminator is a classical hidden missile launch signature. Someone launched something that’s now cruising dark, Liu replied, still looking around at any unusual occultation events of the starfield that would give them early warning of a missile approach. He stopped himself before mentioning that this was the same situation at Gamma Centauri.
Grayson nodded begrudgingly. It was clear he remembered too.
>Vargas, I hope those launch systems are ready. We might need them soon, Lin said with a newfound confidence in her voice.
>Missile cells ready, ma’am.
The only sound in the CIC was their subdued breathing and the low hum of electricity coursing through the Peacekeeper’s conductive veins.
>Confinement magnet active.
>One pulse, 10 Hz, Liu commanded. Just one pulse would suffice to give them enough velocity to evade a purely ballistic launch while not pushing them too far off their original trajectory. Of course, it would do nothing for a guided missile, he thought. But it would force the missile to activate its drive to give them a target. If whatever the hell this was a missile.
The drive gave them a noticeable shove as 10 lithium deuteride pellets were launched and promptly crushed to oblivion in a single second.
>See anything? Liu asked. He scanned the surrounding darkness with the assistance of the Peacekeeper’s command AI. Nothing. He could feel Lin and even Grayson look around in frustration. Suddenly, an occultation event was flagged and tracked by the ship AI. It was almost nothing, simply a faint flicker of the starfield scarcely more than a pixel wide, but there was now evidence of a dark shape gliding through the void on an intercept trajectory.
>Track occultation event. IR searchlights for LIDAR when projected trajectory <10k km. Preauthorizing automated interceptor launch.
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A yellow circle surrounding pure blackness was projected across the starfield. It slipped into existence as it crossed a group of stars, before fading back into the darkness. But something was wrong. There was another black pixel moving on a parallel trajectory, almost hiding within the labeling circle of their display.
>Get a track on the second occultation event.
>Second? Lin asked, confused. Grayson took over from her effortlessly, silently creating another targeting reticle in everyone’s Neuronet. This had turned from a teachable moment to live combat. The second circle almost entirely overlapped with the first, being on the edge of resolvability. Then another. There were at least three shapes drifting through the dark despite only a single neutron signal detected.
>We got a multiple launch, Liu muttered over Neuronet.
>Arm 4 interceptors. I think we got a party here.
The missile cells began blinking in white on the Peacekeeper’s ammunition wireframe. They were less than half armed for the cruise phase, having expected a resupply at the destination. 40 interceptors, 10 cruise missiles. That’s nothing, Liu sighed to himself.
Three combined neutron and infrared bursts, almost unresolvable from each other, lit up before the Peacekeeper’s sensor eyes. The targeting software lit them up in brightly flashing red circles, all overlapping with each other. Directorate nuclear pulse drive. Cruise missiles.
>We got 3 incoming reorienting on an intercept trajectory. Looks like they’re guided. Don’t think we’ll be able to outmaneuver them, Lin noted.
>Cruise missiles, Directorate drive. Insurgents. Arm 5 more interceptors. Release 3 for now. Cold launch 3 neutron flares, vector (0,1,0), (0,0,1) and (0,-1,0). Set command detonation.
A light jolt shot through the CIC as three nimble interceptor missiles and three nuclear flare canisters were ejected into the void. The wireframe began to blink for five more.
>Warm welcome to the subsector, eh? Grayson said with a weariness in his voice. Everyone else gave a weak, grim chuckle.
>Task Force Sigma, this is Peacekeeper. Contact with 3 bogeys, likely cruise missiles on intercept trajectory. Presumed hostile. We are releasing interceptors, Okeke broadcasted.
Another wave of infrared went out into the void behind them. After a few seconds, a reply was acknowledged.
>Fall back to task force missile defense zone, Sanchez’s mental voice replied.
Liu scoffed. Sanchez definitely knew that it was too late for them to usefully change trajectory now. To retreat back under the Vanguard’s missile defense umbrella would require a major reactor burn. Any such burn would only reveal their precise location to a neutron seeker. This bastard is trying to kill us under the guise of protection, Liu realized.
>Burn us back Liu, Grayson commanded instinctively.
>No can do. Keep the reactor quiet. Don’t give them a neutron or IR signal to lock on to.
Grayson’s face turned dark with a quiet anger that Liu remembered from long ago.
>Lieutenant Colonel, that was an order from the task force commander. Now you’re getting an order from me, he said with an intense frigidity.
Lin’s transparent figure looked between them with terror in her eyes, as if she was a mortal caught in a duel between gods. Liu spoke up.
>Commander, sir. I was the sensor officer at Gamma Centauri. I know how to deal with missile interception.
Liu hesitated for a fraction of a second before adding another phrase to soften the blow to Grayson’s ego. He knew that a straightforward denunciation would be met with more resistance than a feigned deference.
>Please sir.
Grayson’s transparent avatar looked around him with wary eyes. There was nobody else in the CIC except Liu and Lin. Okeke and Vargas were at their workstations. Lin could not be trusted. Even if an arrest command was given now, it would be minutes before Okeke and Vargas arrived to haul Liu to stasis. And the missile crisis was much more urgent. Grayson sighed.
>Carry on, Lieutenant Colonel.
Liu had been given a command mandate to solve this problem. Grayson’s transparent figure seemed to dissolve into dust before his eyes.
>Lin, manage point defense. I will manage the interceptors. Let the flares coast to at least 200 km before detonating.
>Rerouting laser bank from ICF to point defense array. Running on auxiliary. Only got 20 pulses before we need to recharge, Lin commanded.
A faint flash from the infrared searchlights emanated from the Peacekeeper. The neutron flares were gliding away at a stately 50 m/s and already at 10 km distance, with further distance allowed with a single rocket burn. Another message was retrieved from the Vanguard.
>Peacekeeper. Your reactors have not activated for a return trajectory. Explain.
>Magnet ramp is too slow, sir, Okeke said, before giving Liu or Grayson a chance to respond.
>We will have to deal with this one on our own.
There was no response from the Vanguard, neither a command nor signs of reactors powering up to rush to their defense. The Peacekeeper was truly alone.
One of the neutron flares lit its rocket motor for another push into the black. It cruised silently for a few minutes before detonating with the brilliant burst of a miniaturized 5 kT explosive. A full spectrum light shone through the empty cosmos for an instant. In that instant, a glint of reflected radiation was caught from the incoming missile swarm. The missiles were closing rapidly as detected by Doppler shift, but there was no way to range them precisely with uncontrolled reflected radiation. One seemed fooled by the neutron flare and began burning its pulse engine for terminal intercept, while the other two continued their silent cruise.
>LIDAR NOW! GET EYES ON THEM AND INTERCEPT, Liu screamed mentally. Lin instinctively gave a command. The Peacekeeper’s massive infrared searchlights poured a wave of infrared into the void. The signal was still too weak. The infrared apertures still returned only a fuzzy haze of noise, punctuated by the dim pinpricks of a sky filled with red dwarves.
>Side thruster. Vector (0,0,-1). Authorization: Liu Yang.
Clink. The gas valves slipped open. They could feel the rush of the limited hydrogen propellant as it coursed through the veins of the ship. Liquid oxygen, their precious life giving gas generated from their equally precious water reserve, coursed through separate arteries. A rocket combined them to provide high thrust with its inefficient chemical burner, never to be used for anything other than life or death emergencies. A firm shove into the perch was felt for a fraction of a second before stillness returned.
A brilliant full spectrum explosion of a 20 MT warhead interrupted their thoughts. It had detonated perhaps only a few thousand km away in the direction of the neutron flare. A flood of X-ray radiation impacted the Peacekeeper, causing the outer armor to leap in temperature. The already dissipating cloud of fission products continued a neutron afterglow that had successfully fooled one of the missiles. But the other missiles were still closing.
>Intercept now! Active homing! Release 3 more interceptors!
Small dots of neutron and infrared pulsed ahead of them as the released interceptors lit their high thrust rocket engines. Infrared searchlights wildly pulsed in modulated patterns looking for targets. Two black shapes suddenly lit up their pulse engines, matching the interceptors, ready for a sprint past to eliminate the Peacekeeper. Another jolt was felt as an additional three interceptors were launched, followed by a phantom feeling of warmth as the interceptors ignited their first stage rockets within range of the Peacekeeper’s shielding. Then, dim neutron lights blinked on in the distance as the nuclear pulse engines took over for the terminal cruise.
The infrared searchlights saw nothing. Then, the two black shapes reignited their nuclear pulse engines and began maneuvering to circle around the Peacekeeper in opposite directions. This is fucking unbelievable, Liu cursed to himself. This was typically the move of a command driven missile, but they were at least 20 light minutes out from the brown dwarf and passing rapidly. Any command guidance would lag the ship miserably and couldn’t have changed course in real time. Something isn’t right. He needed more time.
>Slow subjective time, Liu commanded. The world immediately ground to a halt around him. Even the data feed of the tactical Neuronet seemed to slow to a crawl with each output line appearing slowly and sequentially, rather than as a torrent of text.
>Lin, command guide the starboard interceptors until AI gets line of sight on the incoming missiles. I command guide the port side interceptors.
Grayson’s mind jumped into the fray.
>Reorient (-1,0,-1), galactic frame. Autotune orientation. Keep our frontal armor to enemy missile projected trajectory.
He knew what he was doing, Liu thought. The missiles were repositioning towards the Peacekeeper’s sides for maximum targeting area. Even a near miss would impart a devastating combined X-ray and plasma flux. Reorienting to present the minimum cross sectional area to targeting sensors was the only way. It’d also allow the thick frontal armor to deflect a near miss, if necessary. The Peacekeeper’s reaction wheels groaned and they were pressed into their seat as they reoriented again.
The Peacekeeper’s AI resolved the two black shapes as diverging from each other in an agonizingly slow dance. Liu’s mind raced as he neatly compartmentalized the targeting sector of his mind with the command guidance. He willed the interceptors to change course with their thrust vectoring. Their nimble frames immediately darted in the direction of his thoughts.
>Interceptor 3,4 locked on target, the Peacekeeper AI announced in slow motion.
>Interceptor 3 continue intercept burn until target neutralization. Interceptor 4, reorient to track cruise missile trajectory and cut engines.
A dim neutron signal disappeared from the display as one of the interceptors began gliding to preserve precious delta-V in case the first didn’t work. A massive full spectrum burst from the first interceptor lit up the blackness, far closer than he was comfortable with. The fireball was resolvable at this distance. The black shape rammed right into the expanding plasma and joined it in oblivion.
One more, he thought to himself. The final remaining cruise missile cut its engines in mid-burn and began drifting. What the hell is this, he thought. The command AI on the cruise missiles was advanced, but this sort of signal manipulation and tactical cunning was unexpected. These two weren’t like the first cruise missile they had tricked with a neutron flare. It was almost… human.
He turned his full attention to the starboard side interceptors. He was now searching for another occultation event, the infrared glow of a hot surface, anything. The Peacekeeper’s full spherical vision was straining to track the last missile.
>Reorient interceptor 4. Command guidance interceptors 5, 6.
The commands went silently out into space. A faint neutron burst began emitting again, but this time its neutron spectrum was slightly different. It was Doppler shifted. It was heading straight for them.
>Burn behind interceptor 4 now! All interceptors, max burn to intercept on projected trajectory!
The Peacekeeper groaned as its magnet attempted to power to full force, but there might be no time. An intelligent predator was gliding towards them through the dark.
>Emergency pusher fields first. 20 Hz pellets with propellant afterburner now! Grayson commanded.
The Peacekeeper shuddered as the gentle nudge of the drives became a torrent of ionized gas, only barely contained from melting the ship by the backup pusher fields. Hydrogen rushed through the ship before being dumped into the path of the fusion plasma, resulting in a long plume expanding behind them. Their feet were pressed into their perch. Liu’s ankles felt like they were being crushed by a vice. In the dizzying, spinning display, they could see all interceptors light their pulse engines.
One explosion. It missed the black shape, instead lighting it up in silhouette as a small clump of black pixels against the expanding fireball.
Two explosions. Another silhouette, this time becoming more clearly resolved as something missile shaped. Infrared searchlights focused on the missile. Time of flight distance: 51,200 km. Radial Doppler velocity: 0.055c.
Shit, Liu thought to himself. One last shot, he thought.
>Redirect laser bank from ICF to PD array. Cruise missile recognition. Autofire.
Three explosions. The nearest interceptor exploded in a brilliant, full spectrum burst that overloaded the sensors before their shutters autoclosed to protect them. They were blind at the last second. Liu braced for oblivion, for him and his sins to dissolve into burning plasma. But it never came. When the sensors readjusted, there was nothing left but the fading glow of superheated metal vapor slowly dissipating into the void.
>Restore realtime, Liu thought to himself. The world returned to normality as his heart pounded. The transparent outlines of Grayson and Lin seemed drenched in sweat, perhaps also combined with some other liquid. Each was panting heavily. The immersive sensor vision of Tactical Neuronet faded away as they unplugged into the mundane view of the CIC.
“What the hell was that?” Grayson yelled. “In my years of service I never saw cruise missiles move like that.”
>Laundry synths will have their hands full this time, Vargas said jokingly over Neuronet.
“I’m gonna need some cleaning done too,” Okeke joined in jest.
Liu fell silent. He looked at Lin, still panting with her eyes closed, tears of terror mixing with sweat on her cheeks. Grayson’s face was a stoic mask, but the sweat soaking through his uniform gave away his nervousness.
These weren’t ordinary cruise missiles, he thought. Either someone built an AI that behaved much like humans under our noses, or… those were humans piloted cruise missiles.
This was not a simple insurgency like Gamma Centauri. The Directorate usually commanded a monopoly on information. The Peacekeeper would be the hunter with initiative, not the hunted. No, this was something else. Someone dropped off a missile package at a desolate brown dwarf system of little strategic value. Someone knew a task force was coming. Someone, or something, was guiding those missiles from up close.
Someone was waiting.
