The Gotland Deception полностью

GIDEON-AI. The Guided Intelligence for Decisive Enemy Obliteration Networked-AI. Some contractor’s idea of a biblical reference, as Gideon went up against a much larger and better equipped force and still won. Trammell appreciated the symbolism, even if the acronym was a bit forced. Then again, all the ACVs seemed to have been named after different MMO games. He guessed that was what happened when you put a bunch of gamers and engineers in charge of creating autonomous warships.

“TAO to Bridge,” came Meilof’s voice over the net, clear and direct. “Combat systems are green across the board. All autonomous platforms show link integrity and are holding final tasking.”

Trammell allowed himself a small smile. His tactical action officer, Lieutenant Commander Alice Meilof, had a way of cutting through military stuffiness that either charmed or infuriated her superiors. Lucky for her, Trammell fell into the former camp.

“Acknowledged,” Trammell replied. “I’ll be in CIC in five.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll hold the conn,” Lieutenant Walsh said.

Trammell stood, timing his movement with the ship’s roll. Years at sea had tuned his body to the subtle shifts underfoot — momentum, steel, and balance forming an instinctive rhythm. He paused at the bridge wing door for one last look at the formation: manned command at the center, unmanned teeth fanned out like wolves on the hunt.

He stepped through the watertight hatch and into the stairwell, the sound of the storm dulling behind armored bulkheads. The ship vibrated faintly beneath his boots, not from stress or strain but from the quiet hum of hundreds of processors working in concert — the digital nervous system of a new kind of warship.

Two decks down, the hatch to CIC hissed open, and he walked into a radically redesigned combat information center. The Intrepid was one of four of the new Flight III variations of the Arleigh Burke destroyers, designed to manage and operate more than a hundred autonomous combat vessels (ACVs) at a time. A portion of the forward section of the original CIC had been converted into a flagship operation suite with billeting for an additional twelve personnel should an admiral make the Intrepid their flagship. The biggest change was the halving of its flight operations, repurposing half the hangar deck into a battle management control room (BMC-R). The BMC-R would manage the task group’s ACVs while the CIC would manage the overall battle, much like the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers had prior to being retired.

Trammell entered without ceremony, the operators focused solely on their tasks. He wasn’t one for enforcing outdated protocols, requiring people to rise when he walked into a room. They were too busy and too focused on their jobs for him to insist on breaking their concentration just to acknowledge him entering or leaving. That kind of protocol was for shore duty and vessels without the pace and demands of the Intrepid.

Gone were the rows of outdated cathode displays, gray-painted consoles, and banks of operator chairs arranged like a Cold War command post. Intrepid’s CIC had been rebuilt from the keel up — sleek, light-paneled, and immersive. The ceiling was lower, more insulated, fitted with embedded LED light strips that changed to match the ship’s alert status. The space was quieter too, and divided into sections that managed subsurface, surface, and airspace, making it easier for each group to remain focused on their assigned areas.

A panoramic augmented-reality wall spanned the forward bulkhead, giving real-time overlays of the maritime battle space, with autonomous vessels marked in pale blue, enemy positions in red, and the Intrepid’s systems woven into the tactical mesh in gold. Dynamic mission zones hovered in soft rings around each ACV, updating live from GIDEON’s predictive matrix.

To port, a transparent projection surface hung in the air, displaying the weather cell in vivid 3D. To starboard, a smaller holo-table rendered the nearby island terrain, helping the ACVs plan terrain-masking and sonar screening paths through choke points. A digital heat map of sensor occlusion bloomed and contracted as weather and wave action shifted.

To the rear of the CIC was the battle management control room. This was the brainstem controlling and coordinating the ACVs. Unlike the CIC, this space was designed with rows of reclining operator pods that ringed a central command pit, a quarterback calling the shots, integrating the various types of ACVs. Depending on the function of the ACV the pod was manned by one or two sailors, typically overseeing a cluster of autonomous vessels. While the operators didn’t drive them, they coached them, ensuring it was a human who gave a kill order, not an AI. Like quarterbacks scanning for a receiver, the operators made the final call in engaging targets.