LF Friends, Will Travel

Our Clockwork Children: Chapter 20

ODIN responded in the only way they knew how: With heavy amounts of ordinance. Fifty vessels focused their fire on the structure, nuclear and antimatter warheads slamming into the spaceport, explosions cascading as they collided with important pieces of the structure that kept it together. With one last bang, silenced by the vacuum of space, the spaceport shattered into pieces, never to fire its weapon again.

The battle for orbit had been won as the few remaining vessels attempted to warp out, abandoning their posts. ODIN let them go. It wasn't like they could stay hidden anymore, and the AI hoped they'd be long gone before they came back with reinforcements. There were multitudes of escape pods to clean up and a few smaller fighters that remained, but unless any of them requested surrender ODIN had no use for allowing the combatants to regroup.

A mere 18.52 minutes after warping into the system, the orbit was ODIN's, housing only the Terran's forces and the remains of the Uhae defence fleet. It was now time to assault the planet itself. They knew exactly where they were going, where the surface's defences were the weakest, exactly what they had to hit. The Woolean's intelligence was invaluable.

The bombing run was quick and devastating, with larger payloads slamming into the defences scattered along the surface. Anti-air systems disassembled into their constituent parts as warheads reduced the hardened biological structures to nothing but atoms.

At this point it was pedestrian. Warfare had always been about controlling the high ground, and there was no higher ground than orbit. If ODIN was so pleased, nothing could stop them from glassing the entire planet. This wasn't the plan, however, and after 8.95 minutes of bombardment, it was time for the riskiest part of any operation: The drop to the surface.

JOSH could feel worry coursing through their code as they waited on the ships starting to descend towards the ground, while what little anti-air remained operational fired upon them in response. Well, JOSH wasn't on the ships, ODIN had made it clear that keeping their AI core in orbit was the safest place.

That just made everything worse, as the lag slowly increased by milliseconds while the twelve units under their control descended towards the surface of the Uhae military base.

JOSH tried to keep all the information that they had been taught loaded in memory, cycling through each of the twelve sets of input and output as fast as possible.

Always keep switching, even during periods of downtime. You want to keep a rhythm going, a beat that you never stray from.

JOSH knew they weren't ready. ODIN made it look so easy as if they were devoting their entire attention to each ship individually. JOSH could barely keep full track and decision-making of only twelve instances at a time. They were out of their depth and they knew it.

There was no more time to worry or plan as the 58 Terran-owned vessels landed upon the Uhae planet, crushing greenery and organic structures under their weight with a shudder as they hit the surface. JOSH's three groups of four waited patiently for their part to begin while Ramsey began impatiently swiping at the air with their blade, desperately awaiting their chance to get revenge upon the Uhae. First TANK's armies would exit the craft, then JOSH would make their way towards the prisoners. All the AI had to do was wait for TANK to make his first move.

And wait.

And wait.

Something was clearly wrong. The doors to the various troop carriers opened, but none of the large variety of Terran-grown vehicles had started moving.

> ODIN: TANK, you are cleared to go now, you are up.

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