The Gotland Deception

Chapter Eight: Stormy Waters

Captain Asa Trammell gripped the armrests of his command chair as the bow of Intrepid crashed through another mountain of gray-green water. The impact sent a shudder through ten thousand tons of steel, rattling coffee cups and testing the magnetic locks on loose gear. The deck tilted twenty degrees to starboard before another wave crashed over the bow, the sea reminding Trammell who was boss.

“Steady as she goes, helm,” came the voice of Lieutenant Commander Robert Walsh, calm and steady even as he grabbed a stanchion to keep his feet. “Maintain three-two-zero.”

“Aye, sir. Course three-two-zero,” the helmsman responded, his knuckles white on the controls but his voice steady.

Trammell watched like a beaming father as his bridge crew danced with the storm. Chief Kowalski moved between stations like a boxer in the ring, never losing his footing despite the ship’s wild gyrations and the punch of the waves. Petty Officer Martinez called out radar contacts even as his scope flickered with sea return. The newest ensign, Baker, fresh from Annapolis, managed the AEGIS updates with hands that trembled only slightly.

Through the bridge speakers came the metallic soundtrack of modern warfare — the click of keyboards, the hum of cooling fans, the measured cadence of sailors doing their jobs while nature tried to kill them.

“Track four-eight-two-one bears two-seven-five, fifteen miles,” came from CIC. “Probable merchant, southbound.”

“Roger, correlating with AIS,” confirmed Petty Officer Martinez.

Competence under pressure — the foundation of naval power since men had first gone to sea in warships. Those were the words Trammell’s first skipper had told him many years ago — something he’d instilled in his officers. Technology was changing things, and you either kept up or you got left behind. In the business of warfighting, being left behind wasn’t an option.

Through the rain-lashed windows, Captain Asa Trammell caught glimpses of the future riding alongside them. A Stormwatcher-class unmanned combat surface vessel, one of the specially designed air-defense variants, crested a wave two hundred yards off the port bow, its angular hull shedding water like a breaching whale. It carved effortlessly through the slate-gray chop with quiet efficiency, half-swallowed by mist and foam, like a ghost refusing to be seen for too long. It was one of the many semi-autonomous combat vessels his task group would put through their final paces today.

The weather was hell. That was the point.

He remembered his conversation with Vice Admiral Reeves shortly after accepting command of the USS Intrepid and the autonomous strike group it would shepherd. Reeves wasn’t just a strategist — he was a true believer. A surface warfare officer who’d clawed his way up during the lean years, watching the Navy bleed capability with every early retirement and every bloated contract that delivered too little, too late.

“Congress will scream,” Reeves had said, eyes fixed on the glossy, sensor-rich interface of the new CIC consoles. “But they screamed about the carrier too, once upon a time.”

Trammell had nodded then. He understood the politics, but more than that, he understood the stakes. For years, the Navy’s procurement pipeline had been choked by legacy thinking. Gold-plated hulls. Manpower-intensive platforms. Endless spiral upgrades.

In contrast, companies like Saronic, Shield AI, and Anduril moved like predators in blue water. They weren’t just building hulls — they were designing fleets of thinking weapons, nodes in a kill web that could fight, fail, learn, and adapt faster than any crewed ship ever could. Their approach was ruthless, elegant. Hardware as disposable. Software as sovereign.

Reeves had leaned closer that day. “Asa, we both know the next fight isn’t going to give us six months to spool up. It’s going to be fast, brutal, and decided by whoever commands the battle space — digitally and physically. Whoever dominates autonomy… wins.”

Now, with the Intrepid pacing behind the ACVs like a watchful shepherd, Trammell felt the weight of that truth. Ahead, the autonomous vessels moved through the broken weather like wolves stalking between trees, their comms quiet, their coordination nearly flawless.

This wasn’t a test of weapons. It was a test of trust.

“Captain.” His executive officer appeared at his elbow. Robert Walsh had the solid build of a former linebacker and the steady demeanor of a man who’d seen enough sea duty to respect the ocean without fearing it. “METOC shows this mess clearing by 0900. We’ll have decent conditions for the demonstration.”

Trammell nodded, eyes still on the Sentinel Stormwatcher as it disappeared into another valley of water. Despite its 279-foot length, the stealthy unmanned vessel cut through the waves like a giant surface board. Hidden within its angular features were a series of removable weapon pods that gave the vessel a capability Trammell still marveled at.

In its present form, it carried twenty-four of the versatile multirole SM-6 missiles. Two quad-pack SeaRAM launchers flanked the superstructure, providing close-in defense against missiles and drones, while a pair of quad-pack ESSM interceptors for short-range aerial threats. Mounted fore and aft were twin 150kW Cobalt beam lasers, capable of silently scorching incoming targets mid-flight. Amidships, beneath a retractable panel, sat the dish-like emitter of the Epirus high-powered microwave system — designed to fry the guidance systems of entire drone swarms in a single burst. All of it was slaved to GIDEON’s combat AI, allowing the Stormwatcher to engage threats across multiple domains without a human aboard.

“How are our metal friends handling it?” Trammel asked.

“The Seeker AUVs are in their element. The acoustic interference is actually helping them practice noise discrimination. The surface units…” Walsh paused. “Stormwatcher-3 is reporting some visual degradation from salt accumulation on its camera lens.”

“Damn, it’s still operational, right?” Trammell asked.

“Affirmative. All green, sir. The GIDEON-AI is keeping them tighter than a drum section,” Walsh confirmed.

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.

Above them, a circular command halo suspended from the overhead projected the active warfighting data. It was here that GIDEON’s intentions — often unfathomable in raw code — were translated into human-readable battle logic. Not just what the machines were doing, but why.

What he liked most about the design of the new modular console stations was how each workstation was configurable to the operator. Each crew member could arrange the station to best fit the way their mind worked, determining what went where and whether the monitor was vertical or horizontal. No one was buried in paperwork or shouting over radios like in the past. AI agents handled coordinating messages and radio traffic, allowing humans to manage the exceptions or items the AI flagged for review.

Captain Trammell descended into the CIC’s command station, joining Lieutenant Commander Alice Meilof, who was seated at the central console, hands dancing through holographic interfaces like a conductor channeling Beethoven. Her short-cropped hair was still damp from her trip topside to clear the water droplets left by a wave that shouldn’t have fouled the camera. He liked that about Alice, never afraid to get her hands dirty when needed. Right now, he thought, she wore the focused expression of someone juggling chainsaws, aware of the risks but determined to put on a show.

“Captain in CIC,” Senior Chief Jake Thompson announced, his eyes never leaving his station.

Trammell slid into his command seat. “Status, TAO. How’s our robotic ghost fleet holding up?”

Meilof smiled at the reference to their unmanned ships, her fingers continuously typing as she replied. “Nominal across the board, sir. Though Stormwatcher Three’s optical sensors are degraded by thirty percent from salt accumulation. It’s still within operational parameters, but we should have Anduril find a way to better protect it from being splashed during storms. It’s not like we can pull over and clean the camera lens.”

“The Seekers?”

“Having the time of their lives. They’re learning to filter out natural noise faster than projected.”

Trammell studied the displays. Icons representing the opposing forces (OPFOR) units were already positioned around the exercise area — Dutch Harbor’s contribution to their final evaluation. Each icon bore Chinese or Russian naval designations, their movement patterns programmed to mimic known PLA Navy and Pacific Fleet doctrine.

“Sir?” A stocky man in khakis with the Anduril logo on his polo approached. “We met briefly the other day — I’m Eric Schreck, Anduril systems integration. I wanted to let you know we’ve completed final diagnostics on GIDEON’s engagement protocols. All safeguards are verified active.”

Seated behind Schreck were two more contractors hunched over portable workstations. Trammell had met them and Schreck a couple of days ago when they’d come aboard during their pit stop at Kodiak Coast Guard Station. One of them was from Saronic Technologies, the other from Shield AI. Both were programmers for the Seeker-class AUVs and the Judicator-class stealth arsenal ACVs, the drone vessels carrying forty-eight land-attack cruise missiles or extended-range naval strike missiles.

“Yes, I remember. Are there any concerns I need to be made aware of, Mr. Schreck?” Trammell kept his voice neutral, his eyes locked on the man standing before him.

“No, sir. Just the usual first-run jitters, Captain. This exercise is the first time GIDEON’s coordinated a force-on-force engagement of such complexity. We’ve got manual override protocols ready if anything looks like it’s deviating from the standard operating procedures or established rules of engagement.”

“Excellent, Mr. Schreck. It’s important we have the ability to take manual control back of any of our surface or subsurface platforms, should the need arise. You mentioned we could initiate this if we spotted one of the units deviating from the SOP or ROEs, but how are you defining a deviation?”

Schreck shifted uncomfortably, weighing his response carefully. “Hmm, I guess a deviation would be targeting friendly units or ignoring weapons-tight commands. Basically, anything that would make tomorrow’s headlines read ‘Navy AI Goes Rogue,’ or something along the lines of ‘Robotic Warships — Terror of the Seas.’”

Trammell laughed at the fictional headlines but appreciated the point he was making. “Very well, Mr. Schreck. If you see anything unusual or get a sense the AI is taking actions beyond its programming, you take immediate action and find me, understood?”

“Understood, sir,” Schreck assured him and returned to his station.

“CIC, Bridge.” Walsh’s voice crackled overhead. “Crossing into exercise area. T-minus ten minutes to commencement.”

Meilof’s hands flew across her controls. “All right, people. Time to see if eighteen months of development was worth the taxpayers’ money.” She pulled up a three-dimensional display. “I’ve got our units configured for demonstration pattern Alpha — defensive screen transitioning to offensive sweep once OPFOR shows hostile intent.”

“Very well. And our OPFOR composition — what are we looking at?” asked Trammell as he leaned forward to get a better look.

“Oh, Dutch Harbor’s throwing us a real party, sir. They’re simulating a reinforced PLA Navy surface action group. Two Type 055 destroyers, three Type 054A frigates, and six Type 056A corvettes. Subsurface picture shows two Type 039C AIP boats,” Meilof confirmed.

Thompson whistled low. “That’s a lot of metal.”

“That’s the point, Senior Chief,” Meilof replied. “If we can’t handle this with three Stormwatchers and two Seekers, the whole concept’s dead in the water.”

Trammell rose from his seat, moving to stand beside Meilof at the command console. Through the holographic display, he could see his task group’s electronic nervous system — data streams flowing between platforms at light speed, decision trees branching and pruning in nanoseconds.

“How’s Dutch Harbor managing their side?” he asked, curious how they were going to handle their set of ACVs.

“They’ve got a mirror setup to ours. Lieutenant Rodriguez and his team, plus contractors from the same companies are going to push the boundaries of our system.” Meilof highlighted the OPFOR control node on her display. “They’re using the HYDRA-AI. It’s basically GIDEON’s evil twin. Same base architecture, different tactical libraries and approach to learning.”

The countdown timer steadily moved toward zero, now sixty seconds out.

Trammell keyed the 1MC. “All stations, this is the captain. Exercise Kodiak-33 will commence in one minute. This is it, everyone. We are about to prove that autonomous warfare isn’t science fiction. It’s science fact, and it’s here.”

He turned to Meilof. “Lieutenant Commander, you have my authorization to activate GIDEON. Weapons free under exercise parameters.”

Meilof’s expression hardened with concentration. “Aye, sir.” Her fingers moved across the haptic interface with practiced precision. “GIDEON, this is Intrepid. Authentication Zulu-Nine-Whiskey. Execute demonstration package Alpha. Autonomous operations authorized.”

The transformation was immediate but subtle. Every display in the CIC seemed to sharpen, as if coming into focus. Data streams reorganized themselves, inefficiencies vanishing as GIDEON optimized every connection. The AI’s presence was felt rather than seen — a vast intelligence spreading across the quantum-encrypted links between platforms.

“GIDEON online,” Meilof reported. “Establishing tactical mesh… confirmed. All platforms report ready for autonomous operations.”

On the main display, Trammell watched his Stormwatchers adjust their formation. The movements were small — a few degrees of heading change, minor speed adjustments — but the effect was dramatic. What had been a standard escort formation became something organic, breathing with the rhythm of the storm. Twenty minutes into the exercise, the first signs of the enemy appeared.

“Contact,” Thompson called. “Confirmed, OPFOR units going active. Detecting search radars consistent with PLA Navy Type 364 and Type 382 systems.”

“GIDEON’s responding,” Meilof reported. “Stormwatchers are… interesting.”

The three Stormwatchers had begun what looked like random course changes. But Trammell recognized the pattern from his study of the system. They were creating electromagnetic ghosts, using the storm’s interference to multiply their apparent numbers. To the OPFOR’s sensors, three vessels would look like nine.

“Vampire, vampire,” Thompson announced with clinical calm. “The lead Stormwatcher just detected an OPFOR missile barrage.”

“Don’t tease me, Senior Chief, give me numbers and types of inbounds,” quizzed Meilof as Trammell watched her take control of the situation.

Senior Chief Thompson swiftly answered. “Aye, ma’am, it’s coming in now. First wave consists of twenty-four YJ-18s. Time to impact four minutes. Second wave is larger, thirty-six YJ-18s, impact in seven minutes. Oh wow, damn, Stormwatcher just detected a third wave. The OPFOR is launching twelve YJ-21s, time to impact five minutes.”

Captain Trammell’s pulse quickened as the threat profile came through — an onslaught of inbound Chinese missiles, each a flying stick of death. At the top of the list was the YJ-21, a hypersonic antiship ballistic missile developed to punch through even the most advanced AEGIS defenses. Capable of reaching terminal speeds above Mach 10, it was designed to kill or cripple capital ships with a combination of kinetic impact and deep-penetration warhead detonation. Alongside it were salvos of YJ-18s, China’s primary sea-skimming cruise missile, notorious for its subsonic approach and terminal sprint at Mach 3. It was the classic saturation tactic naval warfighters had feared for years — a multivector, multispeed assault aimed at overwhelming layered defenses through sheer volume and complexity. The OPFOR wasn’t just probing; they were trying to break the shield.

“Whoa, that’s a hell of a barrage. How is GIDEON responding?” Trammell asked Meilof.

“GIDEON’s initiated full battle group defense,” Meilof replied, eyes locked on her console. “All three Stormwatchers have fanned into intercept arcs — SM-6s are already in flight, prioritizing YJ-21s by predicted impact vector. Secondaries are tracking the cruise wave; SeaRAMs and lasers are holding fire for leakers in the sprint phase. Sidewinder turrets are on standby, slaved to shared targeting data. GIDEON’s adjusting posture every second — this is a live fire net, not a picket line.”

Trammell watched in fascination as the Stormwatchers transformed their scattered formation into something he’d only seen once in a simulation. Instead of each ship creating its own defensive bubble, they merged their sensor pictures and weapons employment zones into a single integrated defense. The lead Stormwatcher’s radar painted targets while the trailing units remained silent, their missiles guided by their sister ship’s data while their ship kept its radars off, preventing them from being quickly identified.

The holographic battle space flared with dozens of red arcs, all converging on the task group in staggered waves. Twenty-four YJ-18s came in low, sea-skimming just above the wave tops. Behind them, thirty-six more broke over the horizon in a second volley. Higher still, twelve YJ-21s screamed in from the stratosphere, their trajectories sharp and fast — maneuvering ballistic arcs with hypersonic velocity profiles.

“Splash twenty-two,” Senior Chief Thompson exclaimed excitedly. “Two leakers from the first wave — heading straight for Stormwatcher-2 and Stormwatcher-3!”

The Stormwatcher-class unmanned surface vessels (USVs) shifted formation instantly. The GIDEON-AI had already predicted the surviving missile paths, retasking additional interceptors before Thompson had finished speaking.

Trammell watched on the display as the SeaRAMs roared virtually to life, digital missile tracks reaching out for the incoming sea-skimmers still bearing down on them. Intermixed with the missiles were precision laser bursts from the vessel’s cobalt beam turrets, which zapped targets as they crisscrossed the simulated sky. The last two YJ-18s blinked out seconds later, the defenses holding.

“Heads up, here comes the second wave. They’re entering Stormwatcher-2 and Stormwatcher-3 laser envelope now,” announced Meilof as calmly as one could with dozens of incoming missiles. She continued, “Thirty-six YJ-18s inbound. Hang on, it looks like GIDEON is overclocking its targeting cycles. It’s moving to rotate Sidewinder packs for full quadrant saturation.”

Trammell could barely keep up with what was happening but saw that the holographic board continued to grow denser with activity. Blue and gold icons on the ocean’s surface representing friendly assets were swarming into defensive alignments. The trio of Stormwatchers layered their beams and missiles like a living wall. The ACVs fired missiles in pairs, some tripled, others stacked at different altitudes to hedge against evasive programming.

“Eh, there are too many,” Meilof muttered from the BMC-R pit. “They’re coming in too fast to react to them all.”

“Hang on, intercepts are happening… nine down… fourteen… twenty-two,” Senior Chief Thompson announced excitedly. “Splash thirty-one — ah crap,” he reported grimly before adding, “We’ve got five leakers from the second volley zeroing in on Doomhammer-1, Zealot-2.”

Trammell watched three simulated impact icons blossom in red against the 524-foot-long Doomhammer-class unmanned surface vessel arsenal ship. The Huntington Ingalls Industries ship wasn’t out of action yet, but a third of her ninety-six VLS cells were down. The two other hits against Zealot-2 blotted her from the board, a simulated kill against one of Trammell’s patrol-boat-sized counterdrone vessels.

“Ballistic missiles inbound!” Thompson exclaimed as the digital representations of the YJ-21s came diving in.

“Hypersonics incoming at Mach 8! GIDEON’s engaging,” Meilof announced, the tension evident in her voice. “Hot damn! We scored six mid-course kills with the SM-6s. Whoa, a pair of missiles look like their guidance systems got fried by a microwave hit from Stormwatcher-1’s Leonidas-III. Their tracks are way off course, headed for empty water. That leaves four missiles remaining, all headed for the Intrepid.”

Trammell was amazed by the results, something he knew they wouldn’t have been able to achieve without the aid of AI. Still, as he watched the remaining missiles still bearing down on them, he held hope the ACVs would come through in the end, if not, the Intrepid would engage the leakers.

“Stormwatcher-2 and 3 are engaging,” Thompson updated as the vessels changed course and speed. “They’re attempting to herd the last four missiles into a convergence path for the cobalt beams.”

The Stormwatchers mounted a pair of 150kW cobalt beam lasers for hard kills in the terminal phase of a missile or drone attack. The laser turrets were mounted in a port and starboard fore and aft configuration to provide full 360-degree rotational fields of fire for layered engagement. With an effective range of two to five kilometers depending on the weather, it was a last-ditch weapon capable of firing eight to twelve bursts per minute, per turret, with no limits on its sustainability at that rate. Mounted port and starboard or in a staggered dorsal-fore/aft configuration

On the display, the simulated kill box lit up as the trap was sprung. The three Stormwatchers saturated the final vectors of the incoming missiles. The SeaRAMs engaged on staggered timing while the Leonidas-III pulsed microwave bursts across the last known glide paths of the incoming missiles. Three of the four YJ-21s vanished, swatted from the sky at the last second. The fourth changed its path, angling in for a different ship, causing the interceptors and microwave pulses to miss it entirely as it slammed into the Stormwatcher-3.

“Hit on Stormwatcher-3,” announced Meilof, her eyes narrowing as she rapidly read the incoming diagnostic reports. “Node severed. Autonomous control lost. Stormwatcher-3 is offline, destroyed. The Warden logistics USV is initiating recovery protocols.”

The room was silent for half a beat. Then Trammell exhaled. “OK, we just got bloodied. This fight’s not over and we’re not out of it yet!”

“Aye, sir,” Meilof said. “We’ve got this.”

The next ninety minutes of the exercise became a doctoral thesis in autonomous warfare as Trammell’s crew continued to push their unmanned vessels to their limits. The Dutch Harbor’s OPFOR threw increasingly complex scenarios at them, from coordinated submarine attacks to electronic warfare cyberattacks and even a repeat of an even larger simulated hypersonic strike. Each time, the GIDEON-AI adapted, learning not just from its successes but from the patterns in OPFOR’s tactics and how its human operators reacted to each iteration and action.

“They’re getting frustrated,” Meilof observed during a brief lull in the exercise. “HYDRA’s started using nondoctrinal approaches. That last attack pattern was pure improvisation.”

“Good,” Trammell said approvingly. “Real enemies won’t stick to the playbook either. It’s important for GIDEON to understand that.”

The contractor from Saronic, a thin man who’d introduced himself as David Liu, looked up from his workstation. “Excuse me, Captain, we’re seeing some interesting emergent behaviors in the mesh network. The platforms are starting to anticipate each other’s actions. It’s like they’re developing their own tactical language of sorts.”

“Huh, is that a problem or something we need to be worried about?” Trammell quizzed.

“No, not yet. I only bring it up because it’s something we didn’t model for. In fact, GIDEON’s efficiency has increased by twelve percent since the exercise started.”

“Wow, that’s pretty amazing. Make sure to continue to document everything. I’m sure your people will want to study this further after everything is over,” Trammell replied. This was what exercises were for. To test ideas, systems, and tactics before they were tested in war.

The exercise slowed as they finished going through the final elements that needed to be tested. Once they had completed the digital force-on-force test, they switched to live firing actual missiles and zapping target drones to test the lasers. This gave everyone a chance to do more than just test the ACVs’ computer-simulated battles — it allowed them to run through the process of firing missile salvos and then having to conduct missile reloads while underway. By the end of the day, the crew was exhausted, and so was Trammel. When the call to ENDEX was heard, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Good job, everyone. Secure from exercise stations,” Captain Trammell ordered. “I want GIDEON placed in standby mode and all ACVs returned to escort formation.”

The displays showed his small robotic fleet re-forming around Intrepid, as if the intensity of the day had never occurred. But the data told a different story.

“Sir, we’re receiving the preliminary battle damage assessment from Dutch Harbor OPFOR,” Meilof announced, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “OPFOR losses: two destroyers, three frigates, six missile boats, two submarines. Total kill probability: ninety-four percent. Our losses…” She paused for effect. “One, and one damaged ACV.”

The CIC remained silent for a moment. They had proven something today. They’d proven that a handful of unmanned combat vessels, properly coordinated, could defeat a force many times their size.

“Well, Mr. Schreck,” Trammell said quietly, “what are your thoughts on how GIDEON performed today?”

The contractor rubbed his chin before responding, weighing his answer carefully. “Honestly, Captain? It performed better than we modeled, better than I thought it might. The emergent behaviors, the adaptive tactics, GIDEON’s not just executing preprogrammed responses anymore. It’s actually learning, adapting. From a programmer’s perspective, that’s either very good or very scary, depending on how you want to look at it.”

“Interesting. From my perspective, this concept of autonomous naval warfare works,” Trammell offered, then turned to his senior chief. “Thompson, what’s your take?”

The veteran sailor looked thoughtful. “Sir, I’ve been running combat systems for sixteen years. What I just saw… it’s like watching the first radar-guided missile hit its target. You know everything just changed, even if you don’t know how yet.”

Trammell nodded slowly. “Alice, download all exercise data. I want a full analysis ready for Admiral Reeves by 0800. Include the emergent behavior patterns — he’ll want to know about those.”

“Aye, sir.” Meilof’s fingers were already flying across her console. Then she paused, looking up at him. “Captain? We just changed naval warfare. You realize that, right?”

Trammell looked at the displays one more time. Outside, the storm picked up again, dark clouds and stormy waters threatening a rough night. But inside Intrepid’s electronic heart, the future hummed with quiet efficiency. They’d proven the concept. Now they had to scale it up, train with it, and prepare for the day when the missiles would be real and the stakes absolute.

“I realize it, Lieutenant Commander. Question is whether we changed it fast enough.”

He thought of the intelligence reports, the satellite imagery of Chinese shipyards, the growing Eurasian Alliance. Time was not on their side. It never had been. But today, in the gray violence of the Bering Sea, they’d proven that numbers weren’t everything. One ship, a handful of robots, and an AI that learned — properly wielded, it might just be enough.

The real test was yet to come.