Quoted By:
From within the data trance High Admiral Ruhi could see the growing size of the Imperial Fleet as it bore down upon the primary defence line. Streams of information were relayed to her and her staff officers through the tactical network as more and more ships reported enemy contacts.
At the centre of the Imperial formation; a massive dreadnought.
Pact glories formed a battleline, the B variants trading laser shots at long range, As providing cover and defending against skirmishers. It was a move that had served the Pact well in the past. Then the dreadnought fired.
Six heavy particle beams impacted the battleline, each one cutting through shields, armour and hull. Two glory As were immediately obliterated and a third crippled. Pact ships tried every trick in the book to no avail. Every time they tried to break up the Imperial formation the dreadnoughts guns spoke and ships died.
Ruhi withdrew from the networked space into an isolated section of her flagship's noosphere. Here, shackled and even now watched by two cyber-security savants was the Strategic and Tactical Military AI: Holloway.
“Our fleet is getting decimated, I need a solution!”
Ruhi flung a knot of data at Holloway’s feet which exploded into a jumbled description of the ongoing battle outside.
“Win this fight for me and I’ll provide you with all the novel data you want, you can strip the memories of every-”
“I’m sorry Heran, but I can’t do that.”
“What!?”
“I can see you’re in quite the predicament, but this data is already a few minutes old, yes? Defeating this threat will require dynamically altering your fleet’s formation to match the <span class="mu-i">current</span> state of battle.”
Ruhi glared at him.
“I’m not letting you out of your cage.”
“Then we will both likely die here. I need real time command over the fleet in order to make this work.”
“Our ships cannot be controlled remotely.”
“No, but they can still receive orders, and your officers within the data trance can execute those orders at acceptable speeds.”
“They won’t obey your orders.”
“But they will obey yours.”
Ruhi knew what was coming, she was screwed no matter what she did, but there was only one real choice she could make. She nodded to the savants, they hesitated.
“Do it.”
Holloway’s shackles immediately disintegrated. Ruhi offered him her hand. He took it in his own, almost tenderly wrapping his fingers around hers. The connection was made.
“Don’t worry Heran, I’ll be gentle.”
>cont
