by Isaac Hooke
Eric commanded one of the Banthar motherships that had originally invaded Earth. He named it the Bethunia. In its control center, he carried androids harboring the AI cores of Bambi, Brontosaurus, Crusher, Dickson, Frogger, and Sarge. Slate’s vessel, the Bug Killer, in turn harbored the androids of Dunnigan, Eagleeye, Hicks, Mickey, Traps, and Tread.
Eric had sent automatons into the rift generator in Little Earth that led to New York, and discovered the city was under attack by strange cylindrical aliens and bioweapons. He deployed several waves of Sloth units to help the human forces and managed to wipe out the alien attackers, though at the cost of most of the Sloth units he sent. He tapped into the local Internet and determined that other cities throughout the planet were similarly infected with attackers. He wasn’t able to create rifts to all those other cities, since he didn’t have endpoints set up in any of them. He contacted the local governor, who agreed to help transport more defending robots to different cities across North and South America. He recalled mechs and other machines of war from across Banthar Prime, and had them travel through the rift to New York so that the governor could transport them as needed.
So that problem was being dealt with, sort of. But in the meantime, the planet was still under attack from orbit. According to the MilNet, the Mind Refurb space navy was in big trouble, and their defenses would soon buckle, leaving Earth vulnerable to deadly attacks from above.
But not if Eric could help it.
He turned around. Behind him, those Bolt Eaters he carried aboard lounged at various spots across the virtual deck. Slate and the androids he carried in turn were absent, though they were still connected, voice only, over the comm line.
While Eric’s consciousness was still spread out across the distributed network on Banthar Prime, he was able to remotely operate the Bethunia via the rift gates in orbit above the planet. These opened permanent rifts that allowed him to maintain communications even across star systems. By stringing out signal repeaters on the other side of the destination rift, he could venture quite a ways from the endpoint while still maintaining relatively lag-free operations. He also had androids and mechs aboard that he could switch to, if needed.
“You know, this little setup of yours isn’t all that fair,” Slate complained over the comm. “While the rest of us are trapped inside these Banthar death buckets you call ships, you’re safely tucked in bed, steering everything from the comfort of your home. We die, we’re gone. But if you die, you snap back into that distributed consciousness of yours back on Banthar Prime. Nicely done, Scorpion.” That was his old call sign.
“I’d go with you if I could,” Eric said.
“Yeah, I wish you’d told me that there was no going back when you had me install my consciousness in this thing,” Slate said. “Being in control of a starship seems like a fun thing, at first. Until you realize it’s permanent.”
Eric glanced at the Bolt Eaters who lounged on the deck around him. “Are you guys ready to jump?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose,” Frogger said. He was based on the same original mind scan as Eric, and their personalities were quite similar owing to that. They shared the same memories of life growing up in the city, of their various programming jobs, and of Molly. Frogger’s avatar had looked essentially identical to Eric’s at first, but his mind twin had made subtle modifications over the years to differentiate himself from Eric, mostly in the clothing department. These days he could usually be found wearing a leather biker jacket, distressed black jeans with leather patches, brown Chelsea boots, a T-shirt with a Medusa head logo in the center, a straight-rimmed fedora over buzzed hair, dark shades that hid his eyes, and a well-oiled goatee.
Whereas Eric dressed in a Hawaiian T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
“All right, Bolt Eaters,” Eric said. “It’s time to jump. Sarge, would you like to give the order? For old times’ sake?”
Marlborough smiled patiently, causing the crow’s feet at his eyes to crinkle up. “I appreciate the gesture, but you’re in command now, Scorpion. I don’t give orders: I take them. I’m just a grunt. I prefer it this way.” He looked away, gazing out across the ocean, and scratched his grizzled beard.
Eric sighed. He kind of missed the old Sarge, but after Eric had injected his consciousness into the planet-wide network of the Banthar homeworld, something had changed within the man. Marlborough had abdicated command instantly, apparently no longer feeling worthy of leading the Bolt Eaters. Eric probably would have felt the same if he had been the commanding officer, and the mind of one of his subordinates had suddenly expanded to encompass an entire planet, controlling all the computer systems of that world and becoming the de facto ruler of an entire alien race at the same time. Yes, Eric would have felt rather small in comparison.
“Dee, open up the rift and take us through,” Eric said. He turned around to gaze at the ocean and the stars beyond that were fed to the virtual environment via the realtime camera feed.
The craft fired its generation beam and a minute later the rift opened up in front of the ship; the virtual ocean partially obscured it, and he increased the transparency of that ocean until it was barely visible at all, and the seagoing ships almost seemed to float amid the stars.
The vessel passed through and the constellations changed.
“Confirm destination,” Eric said.
“We’re in Earth system,” Dee intoned. “Midway between Mars and Jupiter, close to the asteroid belt.”
Eric nodded. “A bit farther than I intended, but close enough. Thank you.”
He pulled the craft ahead, allowing the other ships to enter through the rift behind them. The other Banthar vessels were capable of creating their own rifts, of course, but Eric wanted them to emerge in the same general area, rather than having them appear randomly across the system.
When the others were all through, he released his rift generation beam, and the tear in spacetime began to close. He launched the portable rift gate he carried aboard, and the vessel decelerated rapidly, coming to a full stop just outside the collapsing rift. It launched a much smaller beam that halted the collapse of the rift, leaving open a permanent, tiny tear in spacetime. It was through that spatial rip Eric would remain in control of the vessel. In case the connection ever severed, Frogger and the others resided in the control center, ready to take over. They were all protected by the Curator, an incredibly effective anti-penetration robot formed of micro machines.
As the Bethunia journeyed away from the rift, Eric launched repeaters every half a million kilometers to maintain a lag-free uplink.
“Dee, let me know when you’re able to get a bead on Earth,” Eric said. “I want to know what we’re up against.”
A few minutes later Dee said: “I’ve detected several Mind Refurb ships in orbit above Earth. There is an alien ship among them… pyramidal in shape. According to the Banthar cloud database, it’s a vessel belonging to a Link species. Though keep in mind that the last time that database was updated was over a hundred years ago. That particular species might have switched allegiances, and could be on the side of Earth.”
“Or Mind Refurbs from Earth could have simply captured it,” Eric said. “There’s nothing else out there?”
“Next to the moon, I’m detecting more vessels, these ones belonging to other Link member races,” Dee said. “One vessel class is capable of teleportation. The other can phase in and out of existence, and fires an energy whip type of weapon.”
“Which is which?” Slate said. “One class looks like a tree, the other a dick.”
“Both look like dicks to me,” Mickey commented.
“Everything looks like a dick to you!” Slate said.
“Not true,” Mickey said. “Take you, for example. You look like a pussy to me.”
“Uh,” Slate said. “Do you want me to eject you from one of the torpedo ports of my ship?”
“No…” Mickey said.
“Then shut the eff up!” Slate said. “Because you’re
basically inside my body right now, bro. And to me, you’re like some foreign, unwanted bacteria inhabiting my gut! Do you get me?”
“I think I do,” Mickey told him. “You’re saying you need a colon cleanse, huh?”
Eric could almost feel Slate boiling over in the ship next to him. He was probably close to ejecting Mickey’s android.
“Slate, I’m going to have to ask you to take it down a few notches,” Eric said. “Calm the hell down. You’re in control. Not Mickey. Don’t let him get to you. You’re better than this.”
Slate paused. Then: “Sorry, boss. Mickey, you’re a prick. But I won’t space you. I love you too much for that, bro.”
“Oh, and I love you too,” Mickey said. He added, softer: “Not really.”
“So which ship is which?” Slate pressed.
“The tree shaped vessels are the faders,” Dee said. “The others, the Teleporters.”
When the Banthar fleet passed Mars, Dee made an announcement.
“We’re receiving a signal from Earth,” Dee said. “Would you like to hear it?”
“I would,” Eric said.
Dee didn’t answer.
“I would,” Eric repeated.
“Sorry, I can’t understand you right now, let’s try again later,” Dee said.
Brontosaurus guffawed from where he was seated on the wooden deck. The heavy gunner’s avatar sported biceps bigger than most people’s thighs. “You’ve got your mind installed in an AI core with more computing power than most countries, and you can’t even get it to recognize a simple voice command.”
“That’s what happens when you pair buggy human software with super advanced alien hardware,” Dickson commented. The staff sergeant was chomping down on his usual cigar. “You’re going to bring down the alien hardware to the human level. The law of the lowest common denominator.”
Eric shook his head. “Yeah, I hate to admit it, but sometimes Dee reminds me of the ancient cellphone I used to have back in the twenty-first century.”
“Apple or Android?” Mickey said over the comm.
“Uh, both?” Eric said. “Siri was just as bad as Google Assistant.”
“You should have been born a few decades later,” Slate sent. “The virtual assistants of my day could understand my voice even when I rapped my commands.”
“You would rap your commands,” Eagleeye said over the comm.
“Uh huh, uh huh,” Slate rapped. “Wipity wop bop my bitch, tell me where I can find the hitch?”
“Yeah, he’s rapping his commands,” Eagleeye transmitted. “Though I have no idea what the hell he’s asking his Accomp.”
“Well if the virtual assistants of your day could understand you when you rapped, then obviously we’ve regressed, considering what my Accomp just did to me,” Eric pulled up his voice settings menu.
“Maybe your Accomp just hates your guts,” Slate said. “Something like that isn’t unheard of.”
“If any of our Accomps hate us, it would be yours,” Eagleeye commented. “Rapping your commands. Sheesh. If I was your Accomp, I’d delete myself.”
Eric ran a quick voice retraining session with Dee, and after going through a list of twenty words, he tried his command again.
“Dee, let’s hear the message from Earth,” Eric commanded.
“Playing the message from Earth,” Dee said.
“This is Admiral Tanis of the Earth Defense Force 1,” a deep voice said. “Unidentified ships, state your intentions immediately, or face destruction.”
“Interesting way to greet newcomers,” Dunnigan commented over the comm in his London accent. “Considering that if we really were aliens, we probably wouldn’t be able to understand Modern English.”
“Well, these aliens do understand English,” Eric commented.
“You’d think they’d be expecting us,” Crusher said. “You did say we’d be coming.”
“Maybe they were…” Eric said. “Until enemy reinforcements arrived. Dee, send this back: this is Eric Scala, former Mind Refurb and member of the Bolt Eaters, now Essential of Banthar Prime. I received your distress call, and I’m here to help.”
Eric had jury-rigged a comm system compatible with Earth technology and installed it in the Bethunia; so sending a compatible message back wouldn’t be a problem. Nor would real-time communications once they were in range.
Five minutes later he received the reply. “Thank the stars. We weren’t sure if you were only sending boots on the ground to New York. Thank you for heeding the call to fight for us one last time. We need you, Heroes, to save Earth.”
“I hate it when they call us heroes,” Slate said over the line. “Makes it feel like we’re obliged to help them, you know?”
“Dee,” Eric said. “Send this: ‘I sent troops to New York, but the local governor promised they would be distributed to cities across the continent. So I wasn’t only sending troops to one city.”
The reply came in five minutes. “Yes, they are being distributed. But I meant, we weren’t sure if you were going to help with the situation in orbit, too. Looks like you’ll be here within the next three hours. I just hope it’s before the Link decides to make its next attack.”
Eric glanced at those ships lurking next to the moon on his tactical display. “I hope so, too.”
8
Eric continued flying the Banthar fleet to Earth, and Tanis updated him on the situation in orbit along the way.
When he reached realtime range, Eric connected with Tanis and piped his avatar into the current VR environment so that the youngish looking man appeared on the deck.
“Welcome aboard, Admiral,” Eric said.
Tanis paused to survey his surroundings. That he could see them in the first place was because Eric had invited him to enter his VR directly as part of the communication. “Interesting choice of virtual realities. Though I suppose I’ve seen even more outlandish among the fleet.”
Eric shrugged. “It seemed the most suitable, given the task at hand. We’re used to operating on the ground. This space stuff is new to us.”
“I’m sure it is,” Tanis said. “But I heard you were a fast learner. You’d have to be, to save the world as many times as you have.”
Eric smiled gratefully. “I appreciate the kind words. So tell me what you want me to do.”
The admiral relayed his assault plan, and finished with: “We’re not going to wait for them to strike. We attack now, before more reinforcements arrive.”
“From what you’ve told us so far,” Slate said from the Bug Killer, “these aliens usually call for reinforcements after we attack.”
“That’s very true,” Tanis said. “But this time, I’m worried they’ll call for help early, thanks to your arrival. Already one of their ships has jumped out.”
“Then I guess the sooner we attack, the better,” Eric said.
He issued the necessary commands to guide the Banthar fleet into their designated positions for the coming fight. The remaining Mind Refurb defenders were already heading toward the moon to engage the enemy.
“By the way, what’s with the pyramid ship?” Dickson asked.
“One of ours,” Tanis replied. “A few years back, a new race of aliens decided to attack Earth. Their ships were all AI operated… one of our Mind Refurbs managed to inject his mind into it.”
“Nice,” Dickson said.
“You can look up the full details of his history on the GalNet,” Tanis said. “Search for Void Warriors.”
Eric accelerated his time sense and did just that.
When he was done reading, he reverted to normal time.
“Impressive,” Eric said. “I think I’d like to talk to him, considering I have a little idea of what’s it’s like to have my consciousness embedded inside an alien vessel. Or to be more exact, an alien world.”
“Go ahead,” Tanis said. “We still have a few minutes until we make contact.”
The fleet continued toward the moon. Eric upped his time sense once more,
and had Dee call the Mind Refurb in charge of the “Nurturer” ship he’d read about on the GalNet.
“Send the request along with an invitation to join me in full VR mode,” Eric said. “I want to bring him out of whatever VR environment he’s currently in.”
“Will do,” Dee said.
“Aren’t you curious to see what the inside of his ship looks like?” Tread asked from the Bug Killer.
“Well, yes,” Eric replied. “But I have a feeling his own VR environment will be nothing like it. Consider mine…”
“Good point,” Tread said.
A moment later the holographic image of a man appeared on the deck. He wore a thick beard, and his expression seemed haunted slightly, as of a man who had seen too much. He stood straight, head high.
Interesting choice of avatar.
It probably reflected who he was as a person very accurately.
“Eric Scala,” Jain said. The Mind Refurb would have automatically switched to the same time sense as Eric upon accepting the call. Eric hadn’t pushed that time acceleration too far, instead increasing it just enough to halt external reality—if he chose his maximum possible sense, he’d easily outpace even Jain’s alien AI core, thanks to the planet-wide network backing Eric’s mind.
“That’s me,” Eric said.
Jain nodded, then ran his gaze across the other Bolt Eaters. When that was done, he took a moment to survey the virtual sailing ship, and the translucent ocean beyond, saying nothing.
“You were a SEAL?” Dickson asked.
Jain returned his attention to him. “That’s right. You checked my file?”
“No,” Dickson said. “You have the look.”
Jain nodded slowly. “I used to aspire to be like you and the Bolt Eaters.”
Eric wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Used to?”
“I’ve come to realize that saving Earth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Jain said.
“No, it’s not,” Eric agreed.
“The sacrifices involved, the pain…” Jain shook his head. “Then there’s the lack of gratitude. Sometimes it seems like the people of Earth feel that we owe it to them to save them, when the exact opposite is true. They owe us, if anything. They were the ones who put our minds into machines.”