Chapter Three

When the destroyer ships came out of slip stream, they encountered their first of many surprises that the Enhancers and the Command unit had cooked up for them. The lead ship as well as the others in the fleet found themselves caught in a swirling vortex. Sd ii did its best to maintain a hold on its command chair, long enough to send a signal to H.A.L.O. apprising it of their situation.

“That is not possible, there are no vortex storms reported anywhere near your area!”

H.A.L.O. ran a check through the lead ships navigation system.

“Those sorry heaps of scrap metal. I do not believe they were able to pull that off. Those…”

H.A.L.O. was about to blow a circuit. It took emergency control of the lead ship and hooked into the other ships in the fleet navigations system. After preforming a series of complicated and dangerous maneuvers, H.A.L.O was able to safely guide the fleet to a spot away from the storm.

“What happened?” SD II was finally able to ask.

“Those, those meddlers somehow managed to flood your navigation computer with nano fleas. Depending on the size and number of them, the clean up process may take some time.”

SD II could detect from all the whirls and clicks coming from H.A.L.O.’s signal that it was doing some massive calculations.

“The cleanup process has begun. Once your ships navigational unit has been totally restored and checked to be sure there are not anymore bits of sabotage, this fleets course will be recalculated, to make up for lost time. Signal me when the fleet is ready to go.”

H.A.L.O. signed off abruptly. The SD II unit was not sophisticated enough to detect the human trait of frustration in H.A.L.O.’s voice, and it was probably just as well. It had plenty to do in overseeing the program that H.A.L.O. had put in place to rid the ship of the “fleas”.

H.A.L.O. was indeed frustrated. It was quite convinced that the enhancers must have some spies, or at the very least sympathizers working in the shipyards.

“Nano fleas have to be produced on sight.”

H. A.L.O.’s circuits went into high gear, searching the records of all units that would have access to those destroyer ships before they were launched. H.A.L.O.’s frustration only increased as it tried to narrow down a list of likely suspects. Ruling out the crew members, all others who had access to any area that the nano fleas could have been introduced, all had A1 clearance. This means that H.A.L.O. itself was the one who have had to cleared them.

“It could not have been any of these!” It hummed with that human trait itself was thhe one of pride.

It then decided to check the lead ship’s crew roaster.  H.A.L.O. had not gotten far when a signal came in from SD II.

“We are getting reports that the three destroyer ships, von2, von3, and von4, that were originally assigned under the Command units’ control, are under attack.”

“What? How, and by who? I have received no such report!” H.A.L.O. signaled back.

“It is a very weak signal. We had to boost our receiving F.F.J. units to maximum, just to get a partial report.” The SD II unit replied.

“That is impossible! There is not another species out there capable…” H.A.L.O. stopped.

“Scan for a fourth von class ship.” H.A.L.O. commanded.

“All scans are negative, but whoever it is could be out of our scanning range, plus there is a lots of Dextran interference in our area.” SD II reported.

“This should have been a quick simple project.” H.A.L.O.’s auxiliary fans now kicked on because of all the heat that it’s circuits were creating.

“Ignore, I repeat ignore all reports that come into you except what comes directly from me!” H.A.L.O. ordered.

Once again H.A.L.O..’s circuits went into hyper drive calculating the possibilities of how all these errors could have occurred. It thoroughly researched all those who could have infected the ships with nano fleas, it concluded that none that had that kind of access, either were totally loyal, or did not have the ability to properly execute that kind of operation. It finally had to except the fact that the enhancers must have figured out a way to infect the space that the ships had to pass through before going into slip stream.

It now had to calculate, where exactly its ships were now, and the fastest way to get them back on track.

It was true that it was the most sophisticated powerful multifunctioning processing unit ever made, however, the longer it was away from the small adjustments that it used to receive, the more one tracked it became. It was this factor, along with a few more secrets the enhancers had learned about it, that gave them one more small hope of stopping it from destroying humanity.

After it had completed all its calculations, it started to program out a route for his destroyer fleet would need to take to link up with the other three destroyer ships. It totally dismissed the report that those ships were under attack.

“Another attempt by those malfunctioning enhancers to delay their final fate of destruction.”

H.A.L.O. had to wait a lot longer than it expected before it received the report all the nano flees were eliminated and they were ready to proceed. By now H.A.L.O.’s circuits were ready to explode

“It is about time, transmitting new orders now.” H.A.L.O. stated, and the destroyer ships computers laid in a course and hit the slip stream.

“Those fools will now be forced to realize that they are dealing with a superior brain.” H.A.L.O. buzzed to itself.

It now begins to calculate the nano measures that its enemies had left.