trans_9 | Ghosts of Battles Past

Zouichi made his way to the Sensoriums, curious to see what Anwei had cooked up. Tucked into one of his pockets was Fuyu's holographic sphere; after all, if there were some problem with the data, she would no doubt be helpful in resolving the issue.

He found Anwei with her machine, seemingly absorbed in watching the battle.

"That was quick," he said.

She turned and smiled at him, the simulated planetlight filling in one side of her face.

"Now that we've narrowed down the de-aging cause to the Melting Clock and the children are being allowed to run free, I have more time to devote to other projects. And I also found some tactical analysis software I had tucked away."

She turned back and looked at the tiny battle flicker, so small at this scale that it looked like you could hold the entire fleet of both ships in the palm of one hand. "Let me make this a little larger."

The view shifted, NiSaris swelling huge, the trailing asteroids suddenly appearing beside the planet. And the ships appeared again: a long green-outlined shape, the Macross Quarter, shed tiny green dots, while the asteroids were outlined in sullen red before spattering off their own ships, followed by a red ship that dwarfed the Quarter. Another flurry of motion, beams and missiles and blades of light, before the Macross somehow twisted, changed, struck its opponent – and destroyed it.

He nodded. "Good to hear it. There are only so many double shifts they can expect you to take before your efficacy is reduced." They were cutting it a little close, though -- he'd just run into a crew member who looked about nine. Not much of a grace period left.

Zouichi scanned the display in one quick pass; it was the last portion of the NiSaris battle, and it did appear to be accurate. "Looks like everything's in place. Interesting choice of color scheme. A little noisy, though -- I assume you can change the highlighting?"

Ildraniath slipped in without waiting for more invitation than Zouichi had given her. She'd hurried over as soon as she'd heard and for the moment, she simply watched, one hand on her chin. Interesting. She tried to remember all of it for later. Typical human combat methodology, of course. No subtlety at all.

"I just hope that the destruction of the Clock actually returns the lost years to the crew members." Because otherwise they would have to grow up all over again, and woulnd't that be a nightmare?

"We're looking at a compressed scale, of course; I'm experimenting with inserting your data into a simulation of the entire battle. Let me step it up some more."

The room went black for an instant. When the simulation returned, NiSaris filled one half of the sky, the asteroids were rough-shaped rock instead of dots too small to see, and the Macross Quarter was huge, stretching out hundreds of feet. The ships launching from it were streaks of green, and at this scale it was obvious that one ship, a dark blue Variable Fighter, seemed to be highlighted. Ships that passed in front of it leaped into their natural colors, and Shrikes turned from outlines to black shapes swooping to attack.

It was as though only ships near that one fighter were real, and everything else was just ghosts in the dark. Speed graphs and damage projections flickered alongside the missile launches, and enemy craft were pursued by long strings of momentum calculations.

Anwei's left eye caught a hint of motion, and rolled to look at the slender red-haired woman. "Hello," she said. "Are you the person Zouichi was inviting?"

"Is there a chance that it will not? That might prove quite inconvenient, for them and for the rest of us. Security has been taking a lot of losses recently." And Zouichi, with his near-nonexistent sleep requirements, was taking up some of that extra slack.

He watched intently as Anwei stepped through the simulation. Now he could see what she was trying to do. He recognized the positions of the ships, the enemy formations; they were those of the craft that had come within range of his Fighter during the battle. Or, rather, in range of his visual systems. It was like watching echoes of his own memories move through the simulated space of the Sensoriums.

Zouichi turned, catching sight of Ildraniath. Well, that had been a good deal faster than he'd expected. Maybe she'd been nearby. He smiled in greeting.

"Anwei, this is Farseer Ildraniath. Farseer, Anwei Ayles, from the Medical and Engineering Departments. She's been the one doing the legwork on the data processing."

Her eyes followed the movement, absorbed the data. Fascinating. Not quite the displays she was used to, but readable. Recognizable. She turned and nodded at Anwei, fingertips pressed together as she dipped into a little bow. "Yes. Farseer Ildraniath of Ulthwe."

She turned back to the display.

"What have you discerned so far?"

"It will be very inconvenient - for one thing, these children will certainly have forgotten some or all of their skills, or no longer be physically capable of using them. And I think it would be very demoralizing for the crew to have to put them somewhere off-ship - but here they are going to be a constant drain on peoples' attention."

She nodded her head to the other woman. "A pleasure to meet you, Farseer." To answer her question, she turned back and her fingers thrummed on the touch-sensitive screen of her omnicomm.

The battle froze, then moved in reverse; ships reabsorbing missiles and backing against the flames of their own engines. She paused it as a group of about twenty Shrikes sped towards the Quarter, psychic lances blazing. "The enemy attacks as soon as there is visual contact; because of the cover of the asteroids, we don't know what other detection they might be using besides visual.

"Their tactics seem to be very simple: bring the maximum amount of force as close as possible to the enemy, and attack. In fact, if the enemy's largest ship," she tapped her fingers and it materialized, a transparent overlay over the attacking ships, "had simply fired before clearing the asteroid field, it might have taken out the Quarter with one shot."

"They will use their own dead as shields during an attack, which could be another sign that these are non-sentients controlled from a central point; either that or the wounded are instantly demoted to non-functional units. The Firebugs were willing to fire through the Shrikes attacking the Quarter to damage it."

"The way in which they prioritized the targets of their attack seemed surprisingly predictable," Zouichi said. "'Take out the biggest threats first'. As soon as a craft proved it was capable of more damage than its neighbors, any nearby Shrikes would redivert the bulk of their attacks to address the novel threat." Not that he entirely disagreed with the Ohm's apparent assessment that the Quarter was a priority target.

"In fact, I believe many of their tactics -- during this battle, at least -- consisted of brute force algorithms. If the enemy force destroys your first wave, send another. If there is an undetectable ship destroying your fellows, fire in all directions hoping you hit it.

"On the other hand, the destructive power of their weaponry was quite formidable. I saw a Shrike shear off part of Allenby's Gundam--" he made a motion with his hands, to demonstrate, "As if it were nothing. And the Firebugs' ranged weapon, the plasma blasts... I calculate the Nightmare I was piloting would have been vaporized in an instant, had I sustained a hit."

Ildraniath raised a brow, "...that seems far too simple. Unless they really are so incapable of anything aside from brute force. If their craft are really constructs or lesser creatures..."

She circled the display for a moment. "They remind me of tyranids. Individual craft and soldiers mean nothing to them, because they are simply tools. Pieces to be discarded and sacrificed for the ultimate victory. Their tactics are somewhat reminiscent of them as well, although the tyranids were much more intelligent...."

Interesting.

"Their brute force strength is extremely impressive. The main weapon of the largest craft recharged in an impossibly short period of time - either they have a massively concentrated energy source in them, or they are drawing energy from somewhere else."

As an experiment, she reset the recreation of the battle to show a simulation of the actual ships - she'd gone down to the Hangar and taken pictures to get the data. The green and red outlines turned into painted metal and alien flesh, solid ships hanging in the plane of their vision, and above and below as well. There was a wavering, as the system decided where the 'lighting' was going to be from. A message flashed on her omnicomm: Simulated Craft Locations and Lighting - May Not Be Valid.

"I cross-correlated some of Zouichi's data with the records I could find of Zokez II. That attack did show some finesse, in that a single Ohm unit was apparently sent to attack the planetary defenses power supply before the main attack began. But after that the tactics were the same: destroy everything. Mob the strongest opponents. It's as though we were fighting an immune system rather than an army: something that just attacks without thought, and keeps attacking.

"It's unfortunate that we didn't have autonomous recording units to send out along with the fighters. We could have seen how fast they moved after they detected us, maybe taken an organic sample."

Zouichi frowned slightly. "I have only been present personally at a single battle with the Ohm, but I must agree that there must be more to them. They are numerous, but they have supposedly destroyed countless worlds; I find it difficult to believe they could have done so by simply tossing out poorly planned attack wave after attack wave."

"And it's entirely possible that the force we encountered at NiSaris was more or less a throwaway effort. It would be inefficient to throw their best resources at a people who would have been unable to defend themselves from attack -- had they known the extent to which we would be present, they might have mobilized a superior force. But in any case, perhaps someone could jury-rig some recording units for the next battle."

He looked at Ildraniath. "I'm not familiar with the Tyranids. I assume they are ruled by a type of hive mind?"

Ildraniath nodded absent-mindedly at Zouichi, "Yes. Hive creatures, controlled by synapse creatures. Destroy those and they become little more than mindless beasts; easy to destroy. I must wonder if the Ohm are the same..."

She leaned forward to examine one of the holograms. "Or perhaps they're simply drones, pre-programmed. Unfortunate that we only have the one incident to examine so far..."

She leaned back, chin cupped in one hand. "Could we ask these Dalgig for more data? Or would that simply be a lost cause?"

Anwei pointed at the giant Ohm Leviathan. "If that's what they bring along to deal with a world that can't defend itself, I wonder what they would bring in a serious assault. And what would be able to stand against it."

"Pre-programmed drones would make sense, actually. We don't have the sensors to detect if there is telepathic communications between them - I think. But we do have some video-only footage from a previous crew encounter with the Ohm, on Zokez II."

A part of the sky above them vanished, replaced with a blur of motion; an X-wing chasing an Ohm, dodging and rolling as energy flared around it.

"More data from the Daligig would be very much appreciated," she said with a sting of sarcasm. "Of course, maybe if we show them that this crew is capable of taking on the Ohm and winning, they will be more forthcoming."

"Drones... may be a problem, depending on the method used to control them -- some of the Gundams apparently interfere with communications channels simply by virtue of being in the immediate vicinity."

Zouichi frowned. "Even the Daligig do decide to grant us additional data, there may be no real way to verify it other than by actually engaging with the Ohm again. After all, we have only their word that the story they've provided us so far is true."

"Rudimentary artificial intelligence, perhaps? The humans of my universe possess them, to a certain degree," Ildraniath mused as she watched the X-Wing zip across the screen. "As for the Dalgig, I do not feel particularly inclined to trust them. However, their data can still prove useful. They are, for better or worse, our only source of information beyond active engagement with the Ohm. And that carries all of its own risks, of course."

Namely horrible death.

"Scouting missions might prove useful. I believe we should suggest deep recon into known Ohm territory. We need more information, even at the cost of lives," She continues, tone cold and analytical. "We have millions in the pods. The cost of a handful of lives to gain more knowledge is nothing."

"For our side, we may be able to affix a sensor package to the outside of appropriate craft without interfering with its flight capability. I have some components from XaXing, but I am still testing them." And testing, and testing - was there no limit to the number of tiny, hair-fine edges those traders would shave in order to defraud their customers?

She shot a disapproving gaze at Ildraniath. "The Ohm do not hold territory, according to what we know; they merely destroy it. We would need to find where their craft are being built, or grown as appears to be the case. They may be holed up in some dimension that we have no way of accessing - maybe there's a one-way barrier around it. They send out their ships to fight and die until they are destroyed, and they never return." Such a cheerful thought.

Her tone remained a little low as she went on. "And every one of those millions of lives in the pods is a unique sentient - some of them probably the sole survivor of an entire universe. They are not to be spent lightly."

"There are any number of reasons we may not be able to infiltrate a strategic central location held by the Ohm," said Zouichi, "But there's no point in inventing reasons we'll fail before we even get out of the gate. I think it would be worthwhile to investigate whether such territory exists; even if we can find no immediate means to reach it, the search may turn up some valuable points of intelligence."

"And if it does exist, I agree that the lives of the people in the pods -- and those of any worlds the Ohm may target -- takes high precedence. It would be an invaluable opportunity to gain information, and one in which I would be more than willing to take part."

After all, he was one of the people on the ship that might actually make it back.

"It is still worth investigating. Or making the attempt to recover more information. If we find an impassable barrier thrown up in front of us, then we look for another path. If not? Well, we have discovered something. As for those millions of lives - yes. They are all valuable. But to value a handful of them - a handful of this crew - over those millions? Preposterous. If, by sacrificing a few, we can obtain information or otherwise save the millions, then we must."

She nodded at Zouichi, "And as Zouichi says, we need more information."

Anwei shook her head. "So far our keepers have kept us away from places where we could investigate on our own. Gondepetil was a holiday world, with no newsfeeds. XaXing would give you - excuse me, sell you - any news you asked for, generated on the spot. I made several attempts to find valid information about the Ohm, and got nothing but rehashed old legends."

"Then there is the issue of keeping the information." She touched her omnicomm and the Zokez II footage vanished; now there was just the Macross Quarter and the Leviathan, and their attendant ships, hanging in space. "Everything on this ship is subject to Stacy's control." The ships grew smaller, diminishing with the distance.

"Even if we could somehow take control of Stacy, there is nothing to stop the Daligig from transmitting new code and taking that control back. At her scale, she could have an entire subsidiary brain hidden inside her, inaccessible to us, that comes online only when the main brain is compromised. We need to learn, and we need to share what we learn, so that it cannot be taken from us - or from the crews that will follow us." When we fall.

Zouichi frowned. "The fact that we couldn't obtain information on two planets doesn't mean that we should give up on all outside sources of information. In fact, it sounds like the less we can be sure of the information stored in the ship's databases, the more we should look without for data on the enemy."

Abruptly, the small, blue-white image of a young woman flickered into existence in the air to Zouichi's right: Fuyu.

"If there's a concern about whether the information will be corrupted if we store it on the ship, why not store it in systems isolated from its main systems, like mine?"

"Obviously we need to take real control of the ship, then. Easier said than done, of course... but there has to be a way. Records indicate a group of pirates hoped to seize the ship, correct? If they knew of a way, then we must also find a way. Being at the whim of the dalgig is not ideal. To claim that these obstacles should stop us..."

She shrugged, attention shifting as Fuyu fizzled into existence. "If this machine-spirit speaks the truth, that seems like it would be an excellent idea."

"Every location that has high enough technology to possess interworld datafeeds is a likely source of information. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, other ships. If we aren't being brought to information sources, maybe some could come to us."

"The pirates may only have been planning on keeping her and her cargo alive long enough to reach an unmonitored market. They may have been willing to inflict personality-destroying levels of damage on the ship's brain to seize and control her. How they boarded the ship at all, or transmitted their overrides...that would be an interesting question to answer. Unfortunately any material clues have been rubbed out by time, and the records are in Stacy. Who may not be a valid witness."

For a moment she fantasized: marching into Neuropathy with a squad of Vizsnunishne at her back, a hot-packed crack box in her hand. Put the personnel aside (gently!), sink the box's connectors into Stacy's circuitry, then watch as Horanckk slipped into her system, under her radar, and right into her heart...

She smiled at Fuyu. "If you are willing to store information, I would be happy for your efforts. I was thinking more of completely static datastores, unpowered, with detailed instructions on their use stored with them. Just in case no one is around to explain how they are used."

"So we don't rely on the ship." Not that Zouichi really did, anyway; it arbitrarily punished crew, it didn't answer the important questions, it occasionally burped up interdimensional criminals and then didn't bother to restrain them when they tried to knock off crew members...

"It's untrustworthy at best; at worst, it's working against us, preventing us from finding out what we want to know. Maybe Neuropathy can figure out a way to get what we want out of it, maybe not."

Fuyu nodded at Anwei. "I am willing, at least as a backup storage. And I could probably provide quicker, more efficient guidance than a manual could."

To Ildraniath, she bowed slightly. "My name is Kanoe Fuyu -- I'm an artificial intelligence. Zouichi's partner."

"Honored," Ildraniath replied to Fuyu and dropped her head in a short nod of approval. Zouichi seemed to have reliable companions and was a rather reliable person himself. She turned her attention back to the discussion at hand.

"There must still be a way and regardless of the ship or the Dalgig, we must find it unless we wish to be continually manipulated by them. It may be an impossible task. It may be hopeless; but it would be better to attempt and die than to languish and live as tools of another."

Rather ironic, coming from her.

Anwei's fingers flickered over her omnicomm again, labeling the data and deciding how it could best be transmitted back to Fuyu.

"For the moment, we are limited for data sources to where the ship chooses to stop. Possibly she is spending so much time in the Bleed to escape Ohm detection - but that also isolated us. If we send a scout away from the ship, they will have a very limited time to return or to transmit their data. We should decide what data is most critical, prioritize finding that, and then make certain the information is not lost."

For all they knew, there was someone on this ship who knew exactly what the Daligig had planned for them - but they had been repodded before they passed on their information. Or they had given the information, and Stacy had literally forgotten it.

"So when the opportunity presents itself, we should take advantage of it," said Zouichi. "There might also be some valuable information hidden away somewhere in the Media Library, although that would obviously be subject to the ship's tampering. In any case, the ship was forced to change course when the crew ended up infected by the clock on XaXing, wasn't it? It may be possible to get it to open up a larger time window for a reconnaisance mission."

Ghosts of Battles Past

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