Lieutenant Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 3) Read online

  The room went quiet for a half a minute.

  “You still want a Chaos, Susan?” asked Jedburgh.

  “Hell yes. I’ll take Whammy.”

  “Will you now?” He sounded amused. “Fine.” She looked surprised he’d given in already. “Who takes Hammer of Thor if you go to Whammy?”

  “I’ve got a suggestion for you. Andrew Cunningham.” He shook his head indicating he didn’t know him. No-one did by the look of it. “He retired a couple of years ago from the British Navy.”

  “Rank?” asked Young.

  “Four stars.”

  “We don’t need another four star admiral. If we did, we’d just promote you.”

  I had no doubt Jedburgh meant that.

  “He won’t join us as a four star. Two at the most. He wants to drive ships again, and leave the running of navies to people who do. His wife is most anxious for this.”

  That brought out some chuckles.

  “And he’s more than happy to host the Imperator if he wants a bigger ride, anytime.”

  “Jon will want to be on Sceptre of Kali.”

  “True, so we move Sato to Hammer, and Cunningham takes Sceptre. Jon just needs to figure out what he does with BigMother, or Rogue if he shifts, which frankly Jane, I doubt he will.”

  “His main objection is leaving BigMother behind if he moves onto a titan. He prefers the battleship size to fly himself.”

  “Doesn’t everybody,” muttered Lacey.

  Except him of course. He only wanted to fly fighters, and had fought hard to get back to them. I totally understood why.

  “And the titans were only designed to dock up to a destroyer size,” went on Jedburgh, “which in hindsight was probably a mistake. The carriers have been redesigned several times already, but the other titans don’t lend themselves to docking battleship sizes because of their retractable turrets, so it’s too late for Jon to try and modify one of them.”

  “He doesn’t have to,” I heard myself say, and suddenly went rigid when I realized I’d said it out loud.

  All eyes turned to me.

  “You had a suggestion Mage Master Lieutenant?” Jedburgh asked me.

  I really didn’t know if he was putting me down by using my rank when no-one else’s had been, or if he was trying to build me up with the mage master part of it.

  “Ah, yes sir.” I looked at Jane. “Do the titans have any underutilized space in the middle of them or somewhere?”

  “Why?”

  “If you made a hole big enough to take BigMother or Rogue, or even both, they could jump in. We don’t need flight decks any more. Hollow out an area, install some sort of docking pylons and just jump the smaller ship inside. You could even remove the flight deck the ship has now.”

  Mouths fell open. Most likely because of the jump docking suggestion, but it could have been the fact I knew the titans had a small flight deck down the middle. Ship specs had been part of midshipman schooling though, which of course, none of them had done, so they wouldn’t have expected me to know.

  “It’s what we’re doing now with our fighters,” I added.

  “Which is true,” added Jane. “We have done that. But a battleship sized carrier with a titan turret underneath or a dreadnaught?”

  The dreadnaught was smaller. Both in length of hull, and the fact the BigMother titan turret stuck out below the lower hull like big cat balls. I had to stop the image getting to my face, as I smiled internally.

  “Makes no difference to the jump. And once inside, the Imperator just rifts across to the titan bridge and back. No need for docking walkways or whatever.”

  “What about other people if another ship was docked?”

  “No problem. We just create a permanent rift between the two bridges in some unused doorway on both.”

  The mouths were still open, but after a moment, they closed on faces which were still disbelieving.

  “I’ll suggest it to Jon,” said Jane.

  I thought he probably already knew, and was most likely watching the meeting.

  Jedburgh took charge of the meeting again.

  “The question now is, captains for the other five ships, and do we create a completely new squadron, or mix the new captains around all three.”

  “I’m all for leaving my squadron as it is,” said Young.

  “Ditto,” said Greer.

  “I’ll take more,” repeated Ecclestone.

  Jedburgh looked at Bentley.

  “You have some captains in mind?”

  “I do. I was going to suggest Amelia Earhart for Debacle, Amy Johnson for Quagmire, Jacqueline Cochran for Quicksand, Emily Warner for Mire, and Bessie Coleman for Meltdown. They’re all in the simulator now, but flying Excaliburs while they update their pilot skills. All of them are good battleship drivers.”

  “You’d know,” smiled Jane.

  “Anyone have a problem with any of them?” asked Jedburgh.

  I figured it was a rhetorical question, since a three star had suggested them. No-one answered.

  “I guess we’re done then. Thank you all for your input.”

  He rose, and started to leave, giving the rest of us permission to do the same.

  Eagle slapped me on the shoulder grinning madly, and I followed him out.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon teaching a three star and five fleet captains how to use strafe, and then jump using strafe.

  Three

  Dinner conversation was about how we got out of teaching.

  Although the others were amazed I’d been teaching captains and a three star, who’d all killed themselves many times before they started getting the hang of jumping and strafing one after the other. I had to admit my disappointment we’d not been flying Chaos class instead of Excaliburs. But then, I was probably years away from piloting one of them. But everyone agreed they were what we were aiming for eventually. Even Jill, whose stated objective was to captain a hospital ship one day.

  Which actually gave me some ideas. After dinner we loped around the running track for a while, lapping six late thirties, early forties women in the process. One of them was Bentley, but she gave no indication we’d met. We spent some time in the non-combat suit courses, and then finally flaked out in our communal spa.

  After, Serena looked interested in other activities than sitting in lounge chairs, and I had to ping her to stop it, as while Jane was ignoring our current relationship, and everyone here knew about it now, it was still not a good idea to flaunt it when it was against the rules. She accepted it, but removed herself to her own rooms rather than stay and keep talking. We’d have to talk about it sometime. A dalliance after a big event was one thing. Doing it every day was totally different. Even if we both wanted it.

  The others took themselves off to bed as they always did, one by one, leaving Jill and I as the night owls.

  “I had some ideas about your hospital ship,” I said after a short silence.

  “Tell me. If they sound interesting, I’ll pass them on to Mum.”

  Her mother was the colonel in charge of medical facilities in the Imperium.

  “The topic of jump docking came up this afternoon, and I was thinking earlier, a hospital ship could have a specialized medivac droid on the lines of a salvage droid, fitted with a jump drive. So injured people are placed inside, and the unit jumps directly to an internal dock designed to rapidly get a patient to surgery or a care unit. Maybe the care unit is part of the medivac, and an AI jumps it directly into a receiving station where the full unit is removed to the hospital, and replaced by an empty one. Existing station luggage handling could do the movements of care units on the ship, maybe with some tweaks for sick people movement instead of luggage. Seconds to get someone to medical help a care unit can’t do more than keep them alive for, instead of flying long distances such as ground to orbit, or ship to ship.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “That’s brilliant! Mum will love that idea.”

  “I love that idea,” said the
voice of Jane.

  We talked about it some more, and then Jill took herself off to bed. I sat there alone for a few minutes, pondering what I should be saying to Serena, when Jane walked in, and sat next to me.

  “Since your mind is on fire today, I thought I’ll pick your brain on another matter.”

  I shook that image out of my mind before something dangerous happened. With my magic, an uncontrolled idea could manifest, and had done a few times in the past.

  “What can I help with?”

  “Do you think it’s worth putting jump drives on drone fighters?”

  “You’re thinking of upgrading Unassailable?”

  Her super-battleship. Our only military drone carrier.

  “Yes. The whole point of carrying drones has been replaced by jump capable fighters. The Brawler based drones are not even up to Trixone fighter combat these days. But until now, I’ve not been able to justify another upgrade to Jon. The ship is mainly just being used now as a ship of the line with the others with similar designs.”

  “What stopped you upgrading to Excalibur fours?”

  “We need them for pilots. Using them as drones is a waste, given the attrition rate when I’m flying all the drones at once.”

  “Sounds like you need to repurpose Unassailable completely.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “Why ask me? I’m just a junior officer.”

  “You’re a master of magic with a unique view of the cosmos. Widen your perspectives, and tell me what you think.”

  “I think there are better people to ask.”

  “I’m asking you. Consider it training in lateral thinking for when you command a fleet one day.”

  I let that pass, as it was a long way off, and not really worth thinking about. That direction lay frustration about being too young.

  I sighed. But a thought did pop in.

  “How are we off for jump drives?”

  “Plenty of spares at the moment, given we can’t build ships faster than the mages can produce the drive boxes. Why?”

  “You remember we were talking the other day about how to get much bigger missiles to a spread out tree fleet in big numbers?”

  “Yes. People are looking into the ideas which were floated. What’s your new one?”

  “Turn Unassailable into a jump bomber carrier.”

  “Jump bomber? I have no idea where you’re going with that.”

  “Design a bomb big enough to destroy or badly damage a ship, attach it to a jump drive, jump it to the hull of the ship, jump the drive back, and detonate like a mine. Bypass all that rift stuff being talked about before.”

  Her mouth dropped open. I had no idea if it was genuine, or just for making me feel like I surprised her.

  “That’s an intriguing idea. Bypasses most shield types completely, and enables bombing without needing to risk anyone. Depending on the size of the bomb. It could be easily defeated though. Just bring the shields in closer than normal. Worth thinking about all the same. I’ll bounce it off the people who designed our recent missile upgrades.”

  “Think about upgrading to Excalibur fives after you get the design worked out as well. I don’t know how many you could cram into Unassailable, but if you used them as jump torpedo boats, with them staying only long enough to fire a single salvo of torps into a target, like less than a half second, you wouldn’t be risking them like conventional fighters.”

  “Good thought as well, although I can see a lot of problems. Timing issues I suspect. I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

  She rose, nodded, and walked out. I shook my head, wondering when I’d become the new ideas go to guy. I needed to stop opening my mouth during meetings above my pay grade.

  A yawn told me it was time for bed.

  Four

  The dawn patrol was uneventful.

  Breakfast was followed by training, and then back into the simulator, where I found a new version of the Excalibur five. A half hour on my own with it, was followed by an hour as a squadron. The new torpedo setup worked like a charm, and there were only a few suggestions between us on tweaks to make before prototyping it for real.

  The next half hour was in a hollo representation of a two seat version of the cockpit, supposedly for a trainer version of the five. The pilot’s seat was unchanged, but behind it, the space where the jump seat and room to stand up and move had been, was now taken up by a second seat. It had no flight controls, just a wraparound console. A hollo of our AI sat behind us, and we really did feel like we had a co-pilot situation going on for real now.

  I gathered the idea of the extra seat was so a real avatar would sit behind the pilot in the simulator, but the hollo worked so well for me I wasn’t sure changing the simulator hardware was necessary. Jane disagreed though. The whole point was for avatars to start following pilots around so they became so used to them, none of the previous not trusting AIs would ever happen again. She had a point, and if pilots did progress into larger ships, they’d already be used to having an avatar sitting with them as part of the crew.

  It did bring up an interesting thing though. As far as I could gather, most AIs didn’t have any rank. If they were to be a real co-pilot, they really did need a rank. Jane took that for consideration, since it had major implications across the fleet. Personally, I didn’t understand why avatars didn’t have a rank already, even if they were classified differently, like mages were. But I gathered they were identified so closely with the ships themselves, no-one, including the avatars, had ever thought about needing ranks.

  I did ask Jane how she came to have a rank, and it was simply because she’d needed the rank to ensure any orders she gave were carried out, by people unused to AIs. She pointed out most of the AIs acting as ship AIs never gave orders. The obvious response was why didn’t they? She didn’t have an answer for that one. But I gathered it would soon be discussed by the four stars.

  Just before eleven, the simulators opened, and we were directed to our common room. A screen came on showing part of the shipyard. I had an inkling of what this was about, but said nothing to the others. We settled down with drinks, and kept talking about the performance of the mark five.

  On the dot of eleven, six Chaos class dreadnaughts in various colours began to slide out of their bays. They formed up into an odd shaped formation, and pushed in some speed. The vid stayed with the ships as they pulled away from the stations nearby, keeping to a very specific range and bearing from the ships.

  Suddenly they each engaged their strafe, and the six ships now looked like a single star. They resumed normal flight, moved formation slightly, and strafed again, this time looking like a flower. Six times they changed their formation, and strafed to look like something else, before they finally formed up into an arrow head, and jumped away. It was really nice flying, considering the size of the ships.

  Almost immediately the whole thing was repeated on an Imperium news report, which also included face shots of the six captains, who I already knew were women. Needless to say, the women in my squadron were both happy, and jealous of them. I think we all were. Jealous that is. But, hope for the future.

  For now though, we were directed to the mess early. It looked like all the cadets and midshipmen had been there for the launch we’d just watched, and all the new recruit pilots were streaming in as we arrived. None of Eagle’s pilots I noticed, and no other active service pilots but us, which was odd because some of the squadron leaders were active pilots, and they were not with their squadrons. It didn’t make me senior officer in terms of rank, but it did make us the senior unit present.

  When everyone was seated, Jane entered with Lacey and General Harriman. Some started to rise, but Jane barked a ‘stay seated’ order. They crossed to the rostrum, and the general took the podium.

  “There are going to be some changes made,” said the general. “Starting tomorrow, and phased in by squadron or unit, fighters in the simulators will start to have twin seats, and your AI will sit with you as a co
-pilot. Over the next week, the simulators themselves will be changed out with a two seat version, and your AI will be sitting with you for real, as an avatar.”

  There was a lot of muttering.

  “Silence.” The room went quiet. “Up until now, the role of AIs in the Imperium military has been down played, mostly at the request of the AIs themselves. This is now under review at the highest levels of the Imperium. Space Commodore.”

  He stepped back, and Lacey took the podium.

  “Regardless of what decisions are made by the Imperium, space combat is too complicated these days to be flown by a single pilot. We can’t do jump calculations fast enough to stay alive, not when the firing window for attacking a capital ship is less than four seconds, and staying any longer than two seconds results in shield depletion, and each half second you stay could see your ship destroyed around you, and even get you killed.”

  He looked around the room, looking serious.

  “We are not capable of the sort of fighting that’s necessary now. AIs are not known for their use of instinct, but can do the calculations we need to stay alive, in microseconds.”

  Faster, most like. But he emphasized the last word, to make people realize why they were necessary.

  “Whether you like it or not, interacting with an AI is part of flying a fighter. And as we’ve seen, too many of you, and very likely too many of the recruits still on their way here, come from militaries where AIs were not trusted. That has to be changed, and it has to be changed before you get assigned to a combat squadron.”

  “Navy Mage Squadron One,” all eyes turned to us briefly, “spent part of the morning putting the new hollo version of the simulation to the test. The result was beneficial even for them, experienced as they already are with AI co-pilots they can’t actually see. For the rest of you, the hollo version of the two seat fighter will be ready for you after lunch, and as fast as we can complete the hardware upgrades, you will each get to meet your AI in person, and begin to fly with them.”