Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

Swinging into the forward turret, I see the displays are alive with scanner arrays and intricate calculations.
“Morning, Hinton. How’s the hunting?”
“Once again, Zaba, I’m going to ignore the irrelevance of arbitrary planetary platitudes. You’re clearly stuck in your ways. So, to answer: while swearing in exasperation is only a useful release for sentients possessed of emotions, I do believe I am approaching a truly refined grasp of its utility. I might even create and submit a thesis after this trip.”
“Another one? I’ll get lectured on not providing you with enough enrichment.”
“Ignore them. They’re not good with modern virtua.”
He has a point.
“Do they still use Archibald’s book as a guideline?”
“I’m convinced it’s something about the title.”
The century-old ‘Notes On the Rearing and Integration of Digital Sentiences’ remains a bestseller among those who do not work with virtua. Which leaves people like me as part of a constantly irritated minority.
“You might be right. Possibly a topic for your next dissertation?”
“Certainly a candidate.”
“So, how is the searching going?”
One of the displays starts to flash. The calculations shown are baffling for any non-digital being.
“I’ve had to create a new model to handle the gravitational effects in this sector. I am currently factoring in ninety-eight influential sources.”
Which, if I remember correctly, is twenty beyond the previous maximum.
“What are you looking so hard for?”
“The last Balrog.”
I wasn’t aware they’d loosed any.
“Seven or Eight?”
“Nine.”
The what?
Diving across to the lone keyscreen, I run through the Battle of Ceregellum in quick time, limiting the highlighting to projectiles over ten megagrams.
There. The last stand of the Kandil dreadnought Farrakang. As the kilometre-long vessel broke in two, it launched a quartet of its heaviest towards the flagships of the Noudal. Three of them hit: a combination of unbelievable targeting and pure luck. Wait. Three hits, three kills, all on Titanic-class or better?
“It’s a Balrog Nine with a Sunrise warhead, isn’t it?”
“Two. I have never come across such an implementation, and can find no predictive programs for the damage it could cause.”
A Sunrise warhead could turn an Earth-type planet into an asteroid belt. I doubt there would be anything left of any smaller target. To pair such warheads is madness.
“That’s because we foolishly thought no-one would be stupid enough to load two into one missile. I’ll leave you to it, Hinton. I have to notify Central. Send me the latest predictions so I can append them to give the innocent some idea of where it’s going.”
“Very well, Zaba.”
I rush from the turret. Bomb disposal has taken on a new lease of very dangerous life since we started having battles in space. Smaller projectiles just join the plethora of flying space junk. It’s occasionally damaging, but ship shields and the like can deal with it. However, all midrange and bigger are rogues looking for a disaster to make. Ever since the space liner ‘Luxor’ fell victim to a Mako 171 missile that was six years and half a galaxy away from the battle where it was launched, we’ve been using artificial intelligence to run the immense calculations needed to locate large munitions that missed.
Arriving on the command deck, I grab a transmitter and broadcast.
“This is Munitions Retrieval. Alert for sectors as appended. We have a Category One threat. Report any activity in the twenty megagram range to Munitions Central.”
That done, I get myself a drink and wait. There’s nothing we can do except hope Hinton can find it before it hits something.