Dead Star Dockyards
Life will eventually come to an end. This is a truth born from the laws of entropy. But the life of 'Humanity' will not come to an end from something so boring as the universe's heat death. But what would happen if this was no more than a simulation, not a digital, or even psychedelic hallucination. What if it was the result of something's curiosity about sentient life and the conditions that invoke it's creation? If it was interested about the possibility of life in the complete absence of something that it possessed in abundance? What if we have been working with a universe that is incomplete, missing an important element or piece that augments and sustains life in perpetuity? What if, in spite of this entity's power, it is unable to save us from a quick and painful end borne of our own progress, but which we could have never seen coming. What would happen to a humanity reduced to but two individuals if they were thrust into an ancient intergalactic society, constantly warring with itself over such minor inconveniences as spilled milk? Groomed from a young age to perform this task without his knowledge or his permission, our protagonist must figure out how to safeguard the future, and he has an idea as to how.
Preemptive Strike 3
172 hours.
Don did not fashion himself to be a particularly social creature, but not having contact for this long was a serious draw on him. ARC was good company and all, but it lacked something he didn't realize he needed.
A face.
ARC had everything that made someone proficient socially, except for the corporeal form.
Certain things he had never noticed about how he communicated and interacted with others were beginning to cause him problems. Not being able to give a high five when excited, a quick rap on the shoulder after a crude joke, a pat on the back after a job well done, none of these were possible without a body.
Luckily this shiny new objective folder was going to give him something interesting to do.
Fairly exciting too.
A rapid strike on the capital ships moored at the docks of Uranus. A declaration of war had been delivered and reciprocated mere hours ago, so they qualify as military targets, but that means they'll probably be crewed and at least somewhat ready to fight.
Definitely won't be expecting a strike group with the capability to fire accurately from twice their range to come screaming past with the momentum of nearly a day of acceleration.
That might sound like a lot, and certainly it was, but the relative speed of the orbiting moors with their flight path will mean they are only passing at a mere five time the speed of sound. They will only be in attack range for five hours and some change.
At an average of one salvo every three minutes, and five hours to unload tungsten, the big boys will only have 100 salvos to ruin as many hulls as possible.
Usually even small scale fleet engagements last eight hours.
Don was going to be departing an hour before the strike group gets within range, painting targets, designating threats, and generating target solutions for the incoming hulks using their predicted flight paths.
The strike and combat craft aboard the Calibration are to be launched 30 minutes before the capital ships open up. They will get close to the debris belt and tear towards the dockyards, focusing their strikes on the less armored targets and repair facilities. They are only going to get one strike off, so they will have to make it count.
It was likely that he was also going to need to provide a heads up for the incoming craft, lighting up weak links, threats, and HVT's for them is going to be headache.
Most of that stuff could be left to ARC, it was built for this after all. The real point of stress is going to be the missile storm that the majority of the fleet is going to launch over the course of the hours they are closest to the yard.
Despite being extraordinarily fast, the distance meant that they were going to be en route for nearly two hours before they reached the point defense screen.
As such, his jobs are as follows,
1. Direct high caliber fire to priority targets.
2. Direct strike craft to targets they will be effective against.
3. Direct an hour long missile barrage at targets not important enough to warrant the attention of the large railguns and too well defended to be damaged by the strike craft.
4. Accurately determine the degree of damage to enemy ships, as well as when to switch fire to keep it at it's most efficient.
5. Report the status of a fleeing enemy.
6. Mitigate friendly fire incidences.
7. Use the railguns onboard to finish off any targets not worthy of a concentrated salvo.
"Oh? Great. I've been given the jobs of a fire coordination group, strike director, ballistic computer, damage control officer, and assassin."
Even with ARC's help, this was going to be a veritable hell.
"Are we absolutely certain this is a one person job?"
"Even if it isn't, we are past the point of training a second pilot."
It was painful to Donovan. Not anything physical. It was painful to him that a second pilot would solve literally all of his problems, and yet those rats at central (his opinion of them had degraded to this point) had determined that this was a job a single person would be capable of. There was ample space in the cabin for a second person to live, so why didn't he have a partner?
Even most fighters had two operators, one pilot, one countermeasures officer, as the jobs required to not die required too much attention to be reliably done by a single person.
Yet here he was, getting prepared to do the jobs of seven experienced officers and a computer.
He wasn't happy, but orders are orders. Perhaps out of pity, he was given permission to eliminate injured targets with his railguns. He only had 20 shots, about an hour of continuous firing, but that was more than enough to rip apart a resilient cruiser or battleship.
Once again, Don found the futility in complaining. Once again, he shut up and strapped in.
The fleet at Uranus isn't gonna sink itself.