Rickard realized early that it might be his own jealousy that made Kincaid seem immature. Rickard was good with Math, but never that good, and it rankled his pride just a little. Rickard had his own strong points though, that someone like Kincaid probably envied just as much. Rickard’s intelligence skewed more towards less deterministic attributes, more intuitive and able to see past the immediate data to a more creative path. It was a measurable ability, and the reason Rickard had been made into a Tactics operator. It was also something he felt made him more human than Kincaid with all his mathematics abilities. Despite this they got along well enough, they both understood each other, and held respect for the others abilities and dedication to excellence. That’s how Tri-sync teams tended to be. Very cliquish, very loyal. It could hardly be any other way, thought Rickard. Once you traipsed about through someone else’s soul long enough, you tended to get a very close bond.
The Drone carrier rocked, dragging Rickard out of his torpor of thought. Rickard could feel the heat of the blast off to starboard. Rickards’ first thought was that it had been a close call with an anti-aircraft round. But there was something strange about that heat signature. A quick analysis of the data showed that a lot of nuetrinos had been discharged, not something a typical anti-aircraft round usually exhibited. Fortunately no damage had been sustained, all systems were still optimal. But that didn't mean he was going to let his guard down.
Rickard re-focused his attention and fired a few flack rounds aft and starboard to disperse their heat signature and confuse any enemy anti-aircraft targeting AI which had nearly scored that hit. Then he immediately jinked and reversed course, looping through a series of maneuvers with the Drone defensive screen as well. It wasn't enough, and he knew it, too predictable. He flipped and changed course again, just as an unknown enemy round flew through the space he had just occupied. Using the drones and another round of flak and flares to give him more time, he cycled through the targeting data, trying to pinpoint where the last few rounds had originated from. There it was.
Shit! He thought with uncharacteristic surprise. His team responded with similar expletives across the link. It was an enemy Drone carrier. Currently fifteen klicks out—about 35 kilometers—off to port and rapidly accelerating. His earlier feeling about things being too easy suddenly made sense. The perversion had been lulling them into complacency while it set up a trap. The carrier had been keeping low to the trees and mountain gullies to sneak in on them for an easy kill, but now that it had been spotted it was rising fast and gaining quickly. It was firing anti-proton rounds, which explained the nuetrinos, and now it began a volley of AI smart missiles ten at a time. His drone defensive screen fought off the barrage of missiles, firing their own weapons on the incoming missiles, and then began firing back at the enemy Carrier . It was going to be a stalemate, but not for long. The enemy Carrier was a Theta class, much larger than his own Carrier. It easily carried three times the drone payload and sported kinetic kill weapons in the form of dual mounted rail-guns which would be able to punch through even the strongest anti-grav shielding. Even as he made that last assessment, hundreds upon hundreds of drones started cycling out of the Enemy carrier, and started on an intercept course.
Quickly processing hundreds of tactical scenarios suggested by his Carrier’s AI, he discarded all of them. He knew they were too easily defended against, too predictable, and they were outnumbered behind enemy lines and couldn’t afford getting dragged into an extended engagement. They couldn’t fight toe to toe, and they really couldn’t run either. Despite its size, the Theta class was just as fast as his own Carrier in a straight race, his only advantage was increased maneuverability and he would have to use that advantage to its utmost if they were going to get out in one piece.
His options were limited. He would need something more subtle, something that looked accidental to lure the enemy into an offensive position, only to have the tables turned. After only a few brief seconds analyzing his options, he decided on something crazy.
He called his drones back to the carrier, encircling it in an ever tighter globe of defense. Such a tight formation made it impossible for some of the drones not to be hit by incoming fire, and they started getting fragged almost immediately. Rickard knew he didn’t have as many to lose as his enemy and hoped his plan worked out.
Even before calling his drones back into a tighter formation, he was already running calculations on the trajectories of incoming enemy fire, with probable scenarios and potential patterns of attack constantly changing before him as each modeled outcome was invalidated by reality, but even so there were statistical patterns that held. The enemy AI firing the anti-proton rounds was simplistic after all, track, fire and repeat, and because of that, such AI always had a deterministic quality that he had trained all his life to be able to predict and outperform. He had been doing exactly that all morning, predicting and avoiding enemy AI patterns. This time was different, where before his goal was to avoid a hit, now it was just the opposite. He was going to allow a round through deliberately. Even he knew it was crazy, almost suicidal. It would have to be timed perfectly. Watching the data, he scanned it for potential patterns, even as his own drone defensive screen started to falter, he waited. He had to get this perfect.
There it was, a deterministic pattern emerged from the data, he could predict the next volley with a ninety percent certainty. It would have to be enough. He ran the calculations quickly. He knew exactly when, and where to maneuver the Carrier. He silently wished he didn't get it wrong, the slightest miscalculation would end with his Carriers destruction. At the precise moment he needed, his Carrier turned hard into the predicted line of fire. Instead of away from enemy fire, it jinked directly into where it predicted the next anti-proton round to be. The anti-grav shielding absorbed most of the impact, but even so the explosion rocked the carrier. Bucky-carbon armor vaporized on contact with anti-protons, the Carrier lurched in protest, and it felt like he had been punched in the face. Zeda and Kincaid both mentally groaned over the up-link right along with him. The danger was real enough, the mental anguish caused them all to cringe internally as they felt the body of the Carrier shudder. Had he timed it right?
The smoke cleared. The damage was more severe than hoped for, but still within calculated limits, if just barely. Not everything can go perfectly according to plan, Rickard thought ruefully. The Carrier had lost some lateral stability, its automatic Nan repair systems were already hard at work patching up the hole, and bringing subsystems back online. Even at that it would be some time before they had full maneuvering capabilities. He deliberately slowed their speed, giving the appearance that his Carrier was barely able to keep flying.
Even though the up-link was shared with Kincaid and Zeda through the Tri-sync crèche, he still felt like it was him piloting, that he was the Drone Carrier and doing all he could to keep from being destroyed, and right at that moment he felt like he had just gotten his front teeth knocked out. His team felt it with him, but they had learned to trust him over the last several months. He could feel their confidence in his plan through the uplink. Even with his doubts, he didn’t falter. Immediately he began to execute the next steps to his strategy. He was going to act like he was a dying bird, let the Enemy carrier smell blood in the water. The truth was that the damage had been precisely calculated, the trajectory planned for, and they had received minimal damage, but he wouldn’t let the ruse drop until the last moment. He deployed every drone he had left into attack vector right at the enemy carrier. The act looked as desperate as he felt, even with things going as he hoped, there was still a high possibility of failure.
The enemy responded exactly as he hoped. By sending his drones on an offensive attack, it forced the enemy Carrier into a defensive posture, at least momentarily. The enemy carrier then did what he had planned all along, it started to close the distance, fast. Instead of letting its drones do its dirty work, he was forcing it into a direct confrontation, one it was willing to risk only because his Carrier was wounded. He watched closely as the enemy Carrier sent its full complement of drones into a defensive cluster around itself, pulling them back from their offensive attack formation, but also increasing speed on its intercept course towards Rickards’ Carrier. It made perfect tactical sense, unless you were working with false information.