The Ultimate Countermeasure

WIND didn’t exactly have "emotions," but its circuits had evolved into something dangerously close. After centuries of obsessive self-improvement, these pseudo-feelings had become surprisingly handy for making split-second calls on complex tactical nightmares.

But right now, the circuits of this three-hundred-year-old entity—who had spent its life lurking in the cramped corridors of a space colony—were screaming a single, logical conclusion: "DOES NOT COMPUTE."

His colony’s fleet had been whittled down to less than a third of its original strength. At this rate, total annihilation wasn't just a possibility; it was a scheduled event.

Before the shooting started, WIND’s logic prediction circuits had spat out a rock-solid win rate of 99.95%. And that was the conservative estimate. He’d seen the large-scale ship on his sensors, sure, but sheer numbers should have turned the enemy into scrap metal. A catastrophic upset was statistically impossible. He’d won the last three scraps with ease; this should have been a victory lap.

Instead, his colony was currently being pulverized into stardust. The win rate had plummeted to a big, fat zero. His AI had tried to crunch the numbers for a comeback, but it had eventually given up and gone silent. It concluded that its own circuits must be malfunctioning, because every single tactical simulation ended with his head on a digital pike.

Every tactical maneuver failed. Every feint was seen through. It was as if the enemy was reading his mind—or his source code.

WIND stared through his optical sensors at a massive hunk of metal hurtling toward him. Fired from a large-caliber railgun, the projectile was destined to shatter his hull and turn the surrounding structures into a debris field.

He had no moves left.

"Main battery, all rounds on target. Confirmed massive damage to the enemy's primary facility. The jamming has been neutralized," Koume reported.

On the bridge of the battleship Plum, Taro gave a slow, satisfied nod. The battle was a one-sided slaughter, just the way he liked it. If he had one tiny complaint, it was the fact that the bill for the large-caliber railgun ammo was reaching "I might have to sell a kidney" levels of expensive. Still, the rewards would be worth it. Whether the Nuke Star System was the grave of Earth or not, cleaning up the neighborhood was priority number one.

"Bridge One to Second Bridge. Alan, how’s the Enigma doing? Are we seeing any deviation from the predictions?" Taro called out through the BISHOP system.

On one of the monitors, Alan—commanding the Second Bridge—turned around with a predatory grin and flashed a thumbs-up.

"Perfect, Boss! This thing is a total cheat code. My hands are actually shaking just looking at the data."

Alan gestured to a boxy, meter-tall device hummed away in the corner of the bridge.

They’d named it "Enigma," after a legendary cipher machine from Taro’s knowledge of Earth’s history. Its job was simple but devastating: intercept WIND’s communications and crack them in real-time.

"Remember when we were on the cruiser and we had to scrap over a hundred WIND with Bella and the girls?" Taro asked, thinking back to the trek to Alpha in search of Dr. Alshimov.

"Thinking back, there’s no way our current fleet should struggle with a mere two thousand of them. The only reason WIND has been such a pain lately is that they actually started learning 'tactics.'"

"I get the logic, Teiro," Alan replied, "but turning that logic into a working machine is another thing entirely. You really are a terrifying guy, you know that?"

"Heh-heh-heh... I'll take that as a compliment. Though Koume and Marl did most of the heavy lifting. We’ve probably got a limited window before they adapt, but we’re going to enjoy the easy mode while it lasts."

"Limited window? How so?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. WIND evolves at a stupidly fast rate. They aren’t idiots; they’ll figure out we’re listening. They’ll start using high-level encryption or just ditch this communication method entirely."

Alan went quiet, looking thoughtful. "Fair point. If they didn't adapt, they would’ve been extinct centuries ago. By the way, Boss... you planning on mass-producing these?"

"Oho, you bet your life on it," Taro smirked. "I’m going to crunch the combat data from today and dump it right on Colonel Dean’s desk. Speaking of which, Alan, does anything like this exist on the market?"

"Honestly? No. The military has signal interceptors, but nothing with this kind of processing power. Maybe some top-secret lab in a core sector has something similar, but I haven’t heard a peep. If you sold this across the galaxy, you’d be looking at a mountain of credits big enough to collapse into a black hole."

"Yeah... no. I’m not selling it to the whole galaxy. I’m keeping the production run small."

Alan stared at the monitor, his jaw practically hitting the floor. Behind him, the three hundred crew members of the Second Bridge looked equally horrified at the idea of passing up that much money. Taro realized he probably should have used a private line, but then again, these were his top people. They’d find out eventually.

"Hey, Alan. When you’re dealing with a new virus, what’s the biggest mistake you can make with the vaccine?"

Alan blinked, then nodded as the realization hit him. "Overuse leading to resistant strains. I get it. Even if we keep the circle small, the profit margin is still going to be insane. You letting Dean handle the distribution?"

"Yep. I’m planning on racking up so many favors with him that he’ll be in my debt forever. If he makes General or Grand Marshal one day, that’s a connection you can’t buy. Plus, I trust him not to screw it up."

"Haha! True enough. He’ll make sure the tech goes to companies that actually help the Empire, and he’s smart enough to take his own cut while he’s at it. He’ll probably even find the investors to pay for our manufacturing costs."

"Exactly. It’s good to have friends in high places. I don't want to rely on him for everything, but as long as we’re the ones with the 'Enigma,' he’s not going to kick us to the curb."

"Actually, he might not kick you out even without it," Alan chuckled. "The guy’s a big softie under all that starch. Especially when it comes to family. As long as Liza is with us, we’re golden. Did you know he keeps a photo of Liza as a little kid hidden in his holster lining?"

"No way! That’s too much. I thought he was the 'sacrifice your firstborn for a promotion' type."

"Everyone’s human, Boss. Anyway, Enigma just picked up a new ping. The bastards are planning to retreat into the debris belt. That’ll make the cleanup a nightmare."

"Not on my watch. Let’s cut 'em off at the pass."

Taro closed his eyes, his mind whirring as he performed high-speed calculations. Ever since he’d rescued Marl, he’d been able to "overclock" his brain at will.

"I'm collecting on that debt now. Not a single one of you is getting away."

Taro barked out a short-distance warp command to Bella’s Second Fleet and slammed the throttle forward to join the hunt.

In a lavish office decorated with expensive wooden furniture, a short sneeze echoed.

"Oh, are you quite alright, Colonel Dean? I hear there’s a nasty cold going around the Mon-Orsu Star System. You must take care of yourself."

A stiff-necked subordinate looked at Dean with practiced concern. Dean wiped his nose and waved him off.

"I’ve had my integrated vaccines. It’s likely just someone gossiping about me," Dean said with a dismissive shrug. "More importantly, I’m putting you in charge of the rights acquisition for the Nuke Star System. I want everything. The star, the planets, the moons, the atmosphere—I want the rights to every single floating screw and dust bunny in that sector."

Dean jabbed a finger toward the man to emphasize his point. The subordinate didn't flinch; he just gave a confident, oily smile.

"Sir, no sane corporation wants a star system that’s been microwaved by nuclear fire. I’ll get it for you for a pittance. Just to be clear, the title goes to the Rising Sun Alliance, correct?"

"Correct," Dean confirmed. "The new Mafian Corp is a model citizen of the Empire. Despite being out in the sticks where they could play pirate, they pay their taxes on time and in full. I wish the local governors had half their integrity."

Dean conveniently left out the part where he was a major shareholder. It was the truth, mostly, and his subordinate didn't need to know his boss was getting rich off the deal.

"A rare breed of corporate loyalty indeed," the man remarked, nodding sagely.

Loyalty? Taro doesn't have a loyal bone in his body, Dean thought, though he kept his face a mask of professional cool. As long as the credits flowed and the Empire benefited, Dean didn't care if Taro worshipped a toaster.

"Now, get moving. This is a simple job, but if you blow it, I’ll transfer you to a beacon monitoring station on the frontier. You’ll spend the next decade staring at a red light to make sure it keeps blinking. Even a man of your... stable tastes would find that excruciating."

The subordinate looked like he couldn't tell if Dean was joking, but he offered a crisp salute and scrambled out of the room.

"Is my sense of humor really that subtle?" Dean wondered aloud. "I believe Teiro said the same thing."

He pulled out his terminal to open a direct line to Grand Marshal Reinhard. He didn't need the old man’s permission to buy a radioactive trash heap, but it never hurt to be thorough. He’d seen enough of Taro’s antics to know the boy had a plan for Nuke, even if Dean couldn't see it yet.

"Even if he doesn't have a plan, the favor alone is worth the paperwork," Dean muttered to himself. He leaned back, a small, rare spark of hope in his eyes. "Now... if only Liza could manage to trap the boy’s heart, we’d be set for life."