Forge and Steel

by David VanDyke

  “Probably not available until later in the program,” Lock said.

  Vango ran his hand over the simulator’s shell. “Until later...why?”

  Lock gave him a stare as if he were dense. “They obviously want us to use these things. Look at this room. No doors. Even the one we came in disappeared. Eleven of us, eleven simulators. We’re in VR, remember? They can control our environment in detail and they’re not telling us anything, so obviously they want us to play along. The others are probably experiencing the same thing.”

  Vango remembered Lock was always a thinker, even smarter and more driven than the usual elite pilot. “Fine. Let’s play.” He hopped into one of the chairs and reached for the link. The others followed suit.

  Like Stevie reported, the program put him inside the cockpit of the fastest, most maneuverable ship he’d ever driven. Sure, it might be an imaginary craft, something never built, but what point to simulate a phantom?

  And the vehicle obeyed the laws of physics. It had limits, though those limits were extraordinary, and he felt nothing of the body – no G forces, no vibrations, no feedback.

  Forgetting about his situation within the greater virtuality, he lost himself in the joy of flight, launching from and landing on moons and planets, ships small as frigates and large as carriers and everything in between, zooming within cruising fleets, buzzing his way past near-collisions in trajectories far too dangerous for reality.

  At no time was he able to see the craft itself, though, neither interior nor exterior, even reflected in shiny surfaces. He had the impression it was cylindrical, like a fuselage, although that may have been an artifact of the sim.

  After several subjective hours, just as he felt he had achieved basic mastery of the thing – building on his extensive experience with less capable craft, of course – a new section appeared on his avionics display: a standard sensor panel. It cued him to an incoming Meme hypervelocity missile.

  He easily avoided the missile, and it vanished. Two came next, and then four, then more, doubling in number each wave. Eventually he was brought down by one of thirty-two, at which point the count stabilized until he passed that level. Then it doubled again until he couldn’t dodge them all no matter how he improved.

  This exercise presaged a run of combat scenarios of ever-increasing complexity. He encountered squadrons of Meme stingship fighters, corvettes, frigates and cruisers, all the way up to Destroyers, those massive, kilometers-wide living battleships, firing at him with missiles small and large, with fusors, even with the less-common biolasers and scatterguns.

  Never was his ship provided with weapons, though he was allowed to self-destruct using his internal suicide fusion bomb, or ram when all hope of escape was lost, exploding that selfsame warhead on contact. Not an advisable tactic, usually, but something every pilot no doubt contemplated in his or her heart of hearts. Better to go out in a blaze of glory and take one of the hated enemy along.

  Fatigue began to set in. A check of the sim chrono told him he’d been at it for ten hours straight, but he pushed himself for a couple more, hungry to complete whatever process this was, to see the end of it and, he hoped, regain the real world and his freedom.

  He was still at it when he lost consciousness.

  Chapter 3

  Once more Vango woke up in the featureless room with its nondescript furnishings. This time, when he stepped into the corridor, his comrades awaited him. Vango prevented his own door from closing. “Can you go back into your rooms?”

  A couple of people opened doors. “Seems like it,” one called. “Why?”

  “I’m trying to find out how much they’re going to push us to do what they want. So today, we’re not playing in their sims.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” Stevie said, stepping up to him and grabbing him around the waist.

  “Exactly,” Vango replied with a slight blush. “We’re going to do anything but play along. Have sex, talk, play word games, whatever you like. Just don’t go to the simulators. Let’s see what happens.”

  “Ooh, I like this plan already,” Stevie said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into his room to the hoots and hollers of the others. Inside, his dead former girlfriend – or whoever she was – stripped out of her flight suit to stand naked in front of him, posing like a short, buxom pinup model. “Like what you see?”

  “Of course,” Vango said, his voice even. “Only one problem.” He stepped out of his own flight suit and spread his arms. “Not working.”

  Stevie stared at Vango’s lack of erection. “That never happened before.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “Let’s try a little harder, then.” Stevie pushed him onto his bunk and soon both were doing their best to bring about the desired result.

  “Damn,” she said after a few minutes. “These bastards turned off the fun parts.”

  “I was afraid of that. They’re not going to make it easy to entertain ourselves.”

  “I never heard of a sim like this. Even in training, there’s rules, right, Vee? They’re supposed to treat us the same in or out of the virtuality. That’s the law. They even amended the Constitution.”

  Vango stroked Stevie’s hair absently as they lay naked on the bed. “Yeah, that’s the law. The fact that they’re not following it means something.”

  “What if there was a coup? Somebody else took over when we were lying injured. Hell, it could be years later than we remember.”

  “If we’d all boarded the same ship and had the same last memories, I might believe that, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And you were dead, believe me.”

  “I’m not jonesing either.” Stevie slapped the inside of her elbow as if to raise a vein. “I mean, I kinda want it, but mostly because I’m bored.”

  “Bored with me here?”

  Stevie laughed and rolled onto an elbow. “It’s that small-town insecurity that makes you so edible.”

  Vango sighed. “Not today, it seems. Speaking of edible, have you felt hungry or thirsty yet?”

  “Nope. Haven’t even had to pee.”

  “That settles that, then.”

  “Why us, though?” Stevie asked. “Why these twenty-four people?”

  “Well, I served with all of you one time or another.”

  “Really?” Stevie jumped out of bed and pulled on her flight suit. “I don’t know most of these people, but you do? Maybe you’re the nexus. Come on, let’s go find out.”

  That possibility hadn’t occurred to him. He dressed quickly and started pounding on doors, rousting everyone into the hallway again. “I presume you all got the same negative results we did?”

  A few raunchy jokes floated his way, but all eventually agreed that sex simply hadn’t been allowed to work.

  “Stevie pointed out something I missed,” Vango said. “I’ve served with every single one of you at some time, but she hasn’t. Is there anyone here who knows everyone from before, like me?”

  No one raised a hand.

  “So for some reason, I’m the center of all this. It makes me wonder if you’re all real, or just sims within my virtuality.”

  That started them buzzing. Wild Bill, now seemingly fully recovered, stepped forward. “I feel like myself. I remember my life. I can describe it in detail if you want.”

  “Proves nothing,” Stevie retorted. “Vango says I died. I don’t remember that. But from his point of view, we could be programmed to say or do anything.”

  “How can we be sure any of us are real?” Lock said.

  “We can’t,” Vango replied. “But we seem to be consistent. If we had writing instruments, we could probably construct a time line and some matrixes showing when and where we served, what our last memories were, what all our relationships were. But we don’t even have that. Our rights are being violated. Earth law and EarthFleet regs regarding VR says nothing can be done inside a virtuality without our consent, and that we can leave at any time.”

  “Except in case of medical necessity,�
� Lock pointed out.

  “That covers keeping us here, but not failing to provide information, forcing us to do all those tests, giving us nothing to do except what they want...”

  Token spoke. “It might be operational necessity.”

  “How do you mean?” Vango said.

  “What if what we’re doing is vital to the war effort?”

  “Then why not tell us that? We’ve all dedicated our lives to fighting the Meme. What’s the point of keeping us in the dark?”

  A hand went up in the crowd, attached to a big man called Canyon. “What if it’s not friendlies that have us?”

  “Come again?”

  “What if we’re not under EarthFleet control? What if we’ve been captured by the Meme and they’re, I don’t know, studying us?”

  The pilots’ faces all reflected varying expressions – shock, skepticism, disgust, thoughtfulness – as that idea percolated through their minds. Conversation began, turning to chatter and argument.

  “I don’t believe that,” Vango said, raising his voice to cut through the noise. “Remember, the Meme can blend with prisoners. They can take over their bodies and suck all the knowledge out of them. Their biological and genetic sciences are far superior to ours. That’s why we use reverse-engineered Meme-tech in our coldsleep cocoons and other devices. So, there’s absolutely no need to study us in VR. They already know all there is to know about the human race, and if the Meme had captured us, they’d already have blended with us against our wills.”

  “How do we know they haven’t?” Lock said, looking around.

  “I guess we don’t,” Vango replied. “Stuck in VR like this, we don’t know a damn thing except what the controllers want to tell us. So I guess the question is, do we play along with what might be some unfair and extralegal crap on the assumption it’s all necessary, or do we assume this is all bullshit and resist as best we can?”

  “Is this a democracy?” said Lock, giving him a hard look.

  Vango nodded to her in thanks for reminding those here of their military discipline. He realized she was probably the oldest, longest-serving among them. If she hadn’t been happy to remain a chief warrant officer, she’d no doubt outrank everyone here.

  “Yeah, what do you say, Markis?” Canyon said. “You’re in charge.”

  “Everyone agree to that?” Vango asked. “Some of you might have dates of rank earlier than mine, so if you want the job, say so now. Otherwise, I’m it and you’ll follow my orders from now on.”

  He looked around, searching for disagreement and finding none. “Then we’re going to play their game for now. We haven’t been abused, and this thing feels to me like some kind of extended psychological test combined with training. It might be meant to keep us occupied or it might genuinely be teaching us how to fly a new vehicle. And that’s what we do, people. We fly. So follow me, and let’s fly.”

  At the same end of the hall as yesterday, he opened the door to the simulator room and waved everyone in. Twenty-four modules awaited them in the room, and the chamber seemed larger, confirming Vango’s suspicion that it didn’t matter that they’d split up the first time. All roads led to these simulators.

  Vango’s next surprise came when the simulator activated an IFF-Blue Force module that kept track of friendlies. Even before he launched from the asteroid he found himself on, he saw twenty-three other contacts designated friendly, each with appropriate personal call sign.

  Experimentally, he spoke. “This is Vango. Anyone read?”

  Chaos immediately broke out in the audio link.

  “Pipe down, people,” he said. “Looks like they gave us a common net, so use standard protocols and keep the chatter to a minimum.”

  “Token here. What are we supposed to do?”

  As if in response, a short mission brief appeared in Vango’s HUD window. It directed him to lead his formation along certain routes, avoid threats, and to come within fifty meters of the designated targets. Those targets turned out to be Meme Destroyers, the enemy’s largest ship class, living spheres two to three thousand meters in diameter and massing billions of tons.

  Fifty meters might as well be ramming.

  “Do you all have the mission brief?” Vango asked.

  Terse affirmatives told him they saw it. “What’s the point?” asked Stevie. “Get close to Destroyers?”

  “Obviously there’s a program of increasingly difficult missions, like a tutorial. Since this is the first one where we can see and talk to each other in the VR field, let’s cooperate and graduate to the next one and I’m sure we’ll see. That’s the point.”

  No one grumbled further, which heartened Vango. This might all be a game, but it felt like mission prep, like one of those group dynamics exercises where the participants had to figure out how to achieve objectives within extremely narrow rules of engagement.

  As he’d taken the reins of leadership, he’d do the best he could. He wondered briefly if this whole thing was a leadership test for him alone, using simulacra of people he’d known. If so, he resolved to pass with flying colors.

  “All right, everyone report go for launch.” When they’d done so, Vango gave a three-count and kicked his ship up off the asteroid. He swiveled his point of view backward and saw an ejection tube flush with the surface. All around him rose other craft that looked like unadorned missiles.

  Zooming his viewpoint in close, something that came naturally when fighting in VR space, he saw his comrades’ ships still appeared as blank cylinders, tapered at the nose and blunt at the tail. No weapons, sensors or other fittings could be seen. A suggestion of fusion exhaust showed near their sterns, but when they adjusted course, no jets of any kind spurted. It was as if the sim controllers were deliberately suppressing any clue as to the real nature of these attack craft.

  On the fly, Vango assigned each of his pilots roles and positions within a hierarchy, based on his memories of the people involved, dividing the twenty-four into six four-ships. He took Stevie, Token and Lock with him.

  He told each flight to make its own way toward the objectives. They didn’t get far. By halfway in, everyone had been destroyed. As the pilots died, they respawned back in the launch tubes, but were not allowed to begin again until everyone else had returned and Vango gave the word.

  “How are we supposed to get there with no weapons to defend ourselves?” Stevie complained. “This is bullshit!”

  “We have to figure out a way to at least get one ship into the objective zone,” said Token. “We’ll need to assign interceptors and decoys to sacrifice their ships. We have our suicide bombs.”

  “That’s bullshit too,” Stevie said. “That’s not the way we’d really fight. Highly trained pilots don’t throw themselves away.”

  Vango said, “They do if it’s important enough. Besides, this is a low-grade sim. If they wanted us to treat it as real, they’d make it realistic in all aspects. Instead, this is like a kid’s game where the goal is simply to beat the level and advance to the next. So we go with Token’s idea. This next iteration, our objective is for one of us to complete the mission. After that, we can work on getting more of us there.”

  It took nine attempts, but with a series of wild maneuvers, eventually Vango made it through to break the fifty-meter range. Everyone else got knocked out, but they all still cheered. He felt as if he’d used them up as they decoyed and intercepted threats for him, but knowing it was a game, he was able to think like a football team captain rather than a flight lead. His only objective was to get the ball to the goal, and the ball was himself.

  Vango said, “Great job, team. Now you see it can be beaten. This time let’s get more people across the line.”

  His confidence quickly faded, however, as the next mission ramped up its difficulty. He abandoned all thought of multiple wins and settled for trying to get himself there again. This time it took five attempts, and he ended up ramming the Destroyer and killing his ship.

  But he won, according to the simulator.


  “This really is a game,” Vango said to his people. “I didn’t notice at first, but now I realize the success parameters didn’t say anyone had to survive. We only have to cross the fifty-meter line, and that’s a whole lot easier if we ram them at the end, no matter what the speed.”

  “Then I bet we can get several through,” Token replied. The others agreed, and as it became clear there was no penalty for dying in the process, they waxed enthusiastic, proposing new and unconventional tactics to “win the game.”

  They won the game. In fact, three rammed the objective. Crossing the fifty-meter line seemed incidental.

  “We’re getting good at this,” Stevie cried.

  But hazards increased once more.

  “They aren’t letting us taste the fruits of our victory,” Vango announced, “but we’re improving by leaps and bounds. At some point there will be a new kind of challenge, not merely a harder one. Keep at it.”

  The day ended before the objective changed, though the difficulty increased four more levels. Every time Vango thought they had it licked and they got most of the ships across the goal line, it became tougher.

  In what turned out to be the day’s final run, Vango’s consciousness faded as he alone crossed the fifty-meter mark.

  Chapter 4

  This morning, Vango felt something had changed. As he opened his eyes, he noticed the ceiling seemed grainy, with much greater detail than before. He followed the join where it met the wall and noticed a smudge, and then a cobweb.

  Rolling abruptly out of bed, he stared at the imperfection as if it were the world’s most wonderful sight. Tearing his eyes away, he examined the room and found many such details, though the basic layout remained the same, with the addition of a door.

  Opening it, he found a bathroom, with toilet, shower, soap and other supplies. He suddenly he realized he had to pee. The relief was nearly overwhelming, both psychological and physical. Had he finally been released from the virtuality?