Retribution: The Augmented Human Rebellion - Book 2 by Terry Lefler Page A

resources, for convoy protection.  Even adding one warship
per convoy would decrease the number of Verm warships available for attacking
Darinx infrastructure, by at least 1,000.
    This should be the easiest target on Sweetwater’s list.  The problem
so far, has been in locating a convoy.  Deep Space is a very, very large
place and convoys are hard to find.
    After a week of searching, Admiral Meyers decides to take the Fleet to a
Verm supply depot, and to watch and wait for a large convoy to launch.  If
they can intercept the destination coordinates as the convoy launches, the
Sweetwater Fleet can follow after them.  It will not be as ideal as
setting an ambush, but it will have to do.
    ***
    Outside of the Woofen System
    The Sweetwater Fleet is stationed outside of the star system while scout
ships reconnoiter the Woofen Supply Depot, which is in orbit above the planet Woofen . 
The Fleet has spent a month trying to develop a technology, which will allow it
to intercept destination coordinates, over long distances – but without
success.
    The Sweetwater Fleet could easily destroy the Woofen Supply Depot, and its small contingent
of defending warships.  (The Admiral mentally adds ‘ Woofen Supply Depot’ to
her list of ‘soft targets’.)   But a convoy is to be targeted. 
The number of Verm Navy convoys is thousands of times larger than the number of
Verm Navy supply depots. 
    Chief Scientist Barnard has spent the month trying different ways to
intercept the destination coordinates, but without success.  The
technology, which previously worked, was to send a probe close to the depot in
order to intercept the destination coordinates.  But the Verm Empire has
greatly improved its probe detection technologies, making the use of probes no
longer a viable solution. 
    And even though the Sweetwater AIs invented a projector , which allows AIs and augmented humans to communicate over long distances, the invention hasn’t
helped here.   Apparently the distances are too great in the Woofen system.  The
comm links at the Supply Depot are unreadable.
    ***
    Admiral Meyers rethinks her strategy, and calls for some brainstorming
sessions. 
    What the Sweetwater Fleet really needs to be able to do is to know in
advance what the destination coordinates will be, a few jumps away from the
supply depot.  Then the Sweetwater Fleet can set an ambush.  
That should convince the Verm Navy that the Darinx Navy has new technologies,
which enable them to find convoys in deep space.
    The brainstorming session decides that they need to copy the orders that
the Verm Navy will give to the Verm convoy.  The ship that is certain to
have those Transit Orders will be the Verm Navy escort warship.
    Now the brainstorming session moves on to thinking of ways to copy the
convoy’s Transit Orders, from the computer aboard the Verm Navy escort
vessel.   
    ***
    It’s in times like these, when Admiral Meyers needs her AI the
most.  Shiela gives the impression that she is a teenage girl, with the associated growing
pains and scatterbrained thought patterns.  But there is no AI in the
Fleet who is better in battle, or who can think better outside of the box . 
She is sorely missed in this meeting.
    There are two other AIs present for the brainstorming session, and they are able to answer questions
concerning the feasibility of one plan or another.  But neither has any
fresh thinking to contribute. 
    ***
    Finally, the Admiral dismisses the brainstorming session members, and
sits alone in the Command Conference Room, for some hours, waiting for a good
idea to pop into her head - that is another technique that has worked for her
on previous occasions.  She lets her mind wander, wherever it wills, and
quietly observes.
    Her mind skips from thoughts of Shiela ,
to thoughts about her graduation from the Darinx Officer Candidate School, to
that embarrassing time when a drunken sailor walked into her shower room by
mistake.  Many thoughts