They were the first to go.
Her body disappeared underneath her, all sensation gone, all touch, all sight, all smell. And it was replaced. Quickly and with no warning. She was no longer sitting in a chair, the fabric of her clothes granting her warmth, the feeling of her breaths lifting her chest. She was cold, and hard, and… metal.
She screamed, but no voice came. Light blinded her… not with brightness or the sharp glare of sun, but with eyes everywhere… she saw in front of her and in back of her and left of her and right of her and up and down and—noises filled her head, some yelling, some soothing, some indecipherable. Wind pressed against her while sand was underneath her… not feet… something much more terrible than that. She struggled to move and couldn’t… she was trapped. She yelled again, louder, but with no sound.
Close your eyes.
The voice pierced her skull like a dagger into her mind. Get out Get OUT She tried to yell, to scream at the thing that was everywhere. No voice came.
Close your eyes. Breathe.
Sensations crawled over metal and skin and... It was like the tingling she got when she slept on her arm wrong and the blood rushed back in. But with numbers. So many numbers.
Close your eyes. Breathe. Cressida—close your eyes.
She tried to scream back. Tried to yell that she had no eyes. She had no hands to cover her face. The world had exploded and there was everything. Ambient temperature 39.2 degrees, wind speed 18.3 from 43 degrees of local center, solar radiation at 1,358, humidity of 31%, ambient pressure...
Cressida, listen to me. Close. Your. Eyes.
She suddenly saw herself, inside of herself. Shaking, trembling, trying to escape… sweat on her body, 0.9 g/l of salt on average, temperature 37.3 degrees, pulse rate of… and then it snapped.
She closed her eyes. She still felt large and inside and hot and cold… but no longer could see… the view of dozens of eyes shut out from her brain.
Breathe slowly...
She did… and slowly the voice became quieter, more focused. She started to be able to black out the random information and focus on what she needed. Baz was here… Baz was in her… She was in Baz… She WAS Baz… and not, at the same time… Baz was talking to her, trying to calm her. It was big… and metal… and wise… and...
You have got to be the dumbest human I have ever met.
And kind of an asshole.
What… what did you do to me?
This is a neural link, kid. Now buckle up.
Restraints embracing her, Baz’s every thought and observation swimming in her head, her weight was pushed against the cushions as the thrusters kicked in abruptly. Terrifyingly.
Six
* * *
Log #0373859.20
Letting the human link up with me reminded me of one of the stories that Losf shared of his previous life. He was at a busy bar with one of his friends for what he called a 'double date.’ His friend’s mating target was a bright vibrant person that was naturally genetically attractive. Their friend, Losf's date, was not any of those things. Losf and them did not get along. At some point in the night the pair retreated to the lav to refresh and Losf's friend turned and told him that he needed to take one for the team (a human colloquialism meaning unpleasant social sacrifice). Losf insensibly agreed.
The night progressed as human nights in bars often do. At the end, the two pairs retreated to a shared hotel room. As Losf's friend started to disrobe with the preferred mating target, a short exchange made it clear to Losf that he too would need to mate with his designated partner for his friend to proceed. Luckily the alcohol made such a task marginally easier. He said it was like dropping a favored hand comm into a pile of fresh mammal excrement. You know you wanted it back and that it would (probably) wash off just as good as new. But you would always remember where it had been.
I finally understand what he meant.
* * *
The sudden surge of momentum, of kinetic energy, took her breath away. 308 kilonewtons. Thanks, Baz. That information is so helpful, Cress snarked. Such a show-off, flaunting its calculations and sensors and data in her face. As if she could actually do something with all that. But then, she was experiencing more than she’d ever known was possible, so she couldn’t really stay annoyed.
Flying was new. Of course, there was no lack of shuttles and ships that traversed their system, but those were reserved for the rich. For the middle class, even. A miner would never expect her soil-stained sandsuit to park itself in such a rig. But here she was, in the most high-tech piece of machinery she’d ever imagined.
And traveling at speeds she’d never had to conceive of. The ground raced below them, the lazy undulations of dunes ripping by with a blurring intensity. Ohsandsohsandsohsandsohsands… Language, kid. Oh, like you’ve never heard or said it before. And I’m a civilian, godsblightit, I can say whatever the flaming sands I want! And I say we are going too riving fast! Underneath the terror, deep underneath, was exhilaration.
Machines, in Cressida’s life, were low, slow affairs, made to burrow into the ground or placidly haul ore from city to city. Their sole purpose was efficient productivity. But this… well, a Firebringer was made for a different purpose altogether. She could imagine flying through the air, pursing some miscreant, some shirker of the law. Outmaneuvering them with ease, two quick missiles neutralize the rogue ship’s weapons, and a third hits them in their primary thrust drive, sending shrapnel screaming into their fusion reactor. The lawbreaker powers down, slowly sinking to the earth in defeat. It was so vivid, Cress could see it playing across her eyes.
That was our first mission together, out of the base. Though I used my electrolaser cannons. Nostalgia tinged Baz’s voice, and an image of a young pilot, dirty blonde hair and a lopsided grin, flashed through her mind. Losf.
Apparently Baz didn’t want to dwell on the past, so it decided the best way to distract Cressida would be to truly give her an experience to remember. A sudden acceleration threw her body against the harnesses briefly until the chair rotated to help the bony structure locked inside survive the strain of acceleration. She didn’t feel it so much as see it through the interior cameras and sensors as Baz executed an obscenely unnecessary corkscrew maneuver, looping repeatedly up and away to the left.
It can be necessary—very good for shaking targeted missiles.
Oh, great… and how many of those can I expect today, in the middle of a planet that hasn’t seen hostile forces in over 20 sols?
Hate to break it to you, kid, but today, we are the hostile forces.
Oh, blight. The weight of what she was doing suddenly crashed down. Not only had she stolen government property with the industrial electrant and desecrated a grave, but she was actively abetting an enemy of Bara’s ruling body. She’d only ever thought of Baz as a stranded refugee (when she wasn’t thinking of it as a potentially lucrative pile of scrap tech), and the implications hadn’t set in. What would happen if she got caught?
We won’t get caught. There’s nothing within range with the requisite technology to ID me, much less present a challenge in a fight.
Ok, Captain Smartypants—but what about any people on the ground who see us?
...They’ll think I’m a big bird.
Cress wanted to worry, wanted to plead caution, but, against her better judgment, she set it aside. The sheer power, the freedom, the utter certitude that nothing could stop them, nothing could hold them down, was empowering. And Baz was right—it wouldn’t have been the same to merely be a passenger. With the neural link, she could hear, see, and feel everything the sensors picked up. The hull slicing through the air was her skin—and she could feel where the tear in the hull caught the wind, disturbing their otherwise smooth flight. More than just feel it, the constant stream of data bombarded her brain. Approximate localized drag coefficient increase of 0.015, internal pressure integrity zero, internal temperature integrity 10%, localized internal structural integrity 68%. Damage stable, SRAS system off, r
eservoir full, repair rate 0.
Can we fix it?
Of course. Most important was the fluid and the neural link. I can fly in atmo just fine as it stands, though I’ll need a few armor plates replaced before I can withstand entering open space. And by I, I mean mostly you. A problem for another day, then. Now, there was just the sky.
***
They stayed aloft throughout the evening, until Cressida’s yawns were cracking her jaw. Baz didn’t need light to navigate, and with the link, Cress didn’t need it to see. Though, as she reminded the ship, humans did have a need for sleep.
But it had been a marvelous ride. Sharing a link, Cress could anticipate everything Baz would do, once she knew what to feel for, what to focus on, and she could deliver suggestions to the AI at the speed of thought. She didn’t kid herself that they were anything more than suggestions—why would a seasoned war veteran listen for a second to a backdesert serf? But still, it was exhilarating to think of a hard bank to the right, followed by flipping upside-down into a cascading dive pulling up yards from the dunes, and to have it enacted instantaneously.
On the ground once again, Cress disconnected from the chair, reducing the level of their neural link. It was disorienting, once again being confined to her body. She felt weak, inconsequential.
“Don’t worry, that feeling will pass.”
“Wait—I thought you couldn’t read my mind when we weren’t flying! I can’t hear yours!”
Baz chuckled. “I can’t hear you—but I can read your facial expressions. And I’ve seen it before. You feel our power, our abilities, and your small human existence seems like a speck of sand on this dune in comparison.”
“Thanks for putting it so succinctly.” Though Cress couldn’t blame Baz. An AI’s existence felt so much… more… than hers. In everything.
“We have our own limits, you know. No, I’m still not reading your mind, calm down. But even though we’re superior in longevity, computational power, running multiple processes, calculating infinite potential outcomes, flying, storing memory—”
“—Seriously!?”
“Fine. Back to my point: we’re not perfect. We’re not superior, just different. I’ll never be able to ‘think outside the box,’ as well as a human, or develop logic-defying decision trees. And we both work best when we’re paired together—our varying strengths cancelling out each other’s weaknesses.”
Cress snorted dubiously. “I sincerely doubt that I exhibited any ‘strengths’ in our little joy ride today.”
“No, you’re correct—but you’re not a trained pilot.” She didn’t think it was meant to cut, but it did. Was she really that useless? Couldn’t find a new dig site for her village, couldn’t get a few barrels of electrant without setting off every alarm in town, and definitely couldn’t contribute to whatever business Firebringers and Peacekeepers usually got up to.
“Listen, Baz. I’m glad you’re back up and running and operational, but I need to get back to my own issues. My village is behind on their ore shipments, going hungry, and about to be in deep sands with our managing town. I was supposed to be finding a new ore deposit when I found you—I’m now a week behind, and a week closer to either starving or being forced into indentured servitude until we can pay off our debts. I don’t really need to be sitting around being told how great it is to dig my toes in the sand and fall in love.”
Cress stood up clumsily, lurching towards the hatch.
“I said I would help your village.” Cress stopped, her hand hovering over the door plate. “And I will, when I’m fully functional. I just need to get my hands… well, your hands, on a specially machined hull section. And maybe one or two other minor pieces of kit. That’s it.”
Oh, and that’s going to be a walk in the riving park.
Seven
* * *
Log #0373860.35
"We're not superior, just different."
Technically true. Not, of course, for her. At least she realizes it. Almost makes her tolerable. Almost.
One more piece to go.
* * *
Baz told her this one would be easy. No retracing her steps to Deadsand, no infiltration of a military location this time… today, just a neighboring town’s machine shop. Slip in with Yig, let it join with the fabrication computer, and the servbot could upload plans for printing a custom-formed section of composite plastic metallic matrix Firebringer hull. Lower security this time, too, and since Drytown was a rival with Deadsand, the chance of them sharing criminal records was slight.
But could Cress trust Baz? Her first thieving foray didn’t quite go off smoothly, and though this one relied on some easily manipulated technology, she’d have to hang around the town longer than last time. More chance to get noticed. But was it worth it, if Baz would help Peripheri in return?
How would the ship help it? Baz was a bit vague on the details, but short of selling off its technology, sweeping for a new dig site, or the villagers turning the AI in for a reward, Cress really didn’t see any money-making potential. She’d tried pestering Baz, but the AI had scoffed at her when she brought it up.
“Look. Forgive my bluntness, but your understanding of the infinite possibilities that surround you is about as nuanced as this planet’s natural agriculture. I know what I’m doing, and I know it’ll work. Explaining it all to you would not only be tedious and involved, but it would also prove a distraction that you don’t need before going into Drytown. Basic tactics—accomplish the mission in front of you before factoring in future plans that have no bearing on your current actions.”
At least she’d had the neural link only partly enabled, so she didn’t have to feel its scorn as well as hear it. No one at home had ever thought her dumb. Well, at least not that they’d say to her face.
***
It all felt nauseatingly familiar, Cressida noted, as she and Yig crossed the sands in the MTEV towards yet another hostile location. At least this time she wasn’t sweating bullets. Her hands were steady on the wheel, shoulders relaxed. Not quite an old hat at subterfuge, but the terror and uncertainty had dulled, and it just didn’t seem as risky. Plus, she had the neural link with Baz this time, allowing the AI to tag along for most of the ride. It all combined to create a fairly relaxed atmosphere. Which, had Cress been thinking, should have been a clear indication that everything was about to go sideways.
They’d timed the run to happen around dinnertime. Most of the factory workers would be home, their shifts ended—but the plants never really stopped, so it wouldn’t be unusual to have a village technician in to machine parts for their walkers. That’s what she told the man at the desk, and her reprogrammed credentials corroborated the fact. She was from one of the villages that funneled their ore into Drytown—but a distant one, Bara Skar 1-2-6, whose mechanics wouldn’t come into the town often, so the town workers wouldn’t be expected to remember them. She needed an external structural web for a walker to be crafted, so they could get back to mining—the relentless wheel of supply and demand never stopped.
The man finished checking her in, and amiably ushered her and the unfamiliar bot back to the Level 2 Replication Printer. The green robot walking around on six articulated tentacles didn’t look like any servbot they had in Drytown, but that wasn’t surprising. It had a more classic look to it, and those outer villages would scrape together whatever technology they could find, and keep it working long after the town and city bots were upgraded. But it did look familiar—he stared intently for a second, willing the memory to surface. Shaking his head, he walked out with a wave.
Yig scuttled over to the computer’s port as the man closed the door, linking with the technology to transmit the blueprints. 10 seconds later, the machine in the adjacent room, walled off by thick protective glass, began to dance and move, printing composite plastic metal matrix into a very deliberate shape. The glowing screen showed the 3D blueprint, the progress, and the estimated time of completion. 18 minutes, Baz, Cress shared. So, do I just sit here
now?
No—you’re from some podunk village, remember? You’d want to use the time to take in the sights. Play your part—it shouldn’t be much of a stretch. Always with the attitude. Cressida huffed out of the chair, spinning abruptly to exit out of the door they’d just entered. “Yig, stay here—keep an eye on the progress, and let me know if anything happens.”
“Yellow 129.01—confirm orders?”
The neural implant allowed Yig to stay connected with the ship, so long as it was within range of the pilot. Meaning Cressida was even less necessary than before. Affirmative, Yig. Maintain your position; alert upon any irregularities.
Cress didn’t even look back as she let the door swing behind her. Her boots slapped aggressively on the concrete floor, echoing through the empty hallways. Stay in character, Cressida. She paused before entering the main office, fuming, trying to wipe the aggravation from her face, and replace it with relaxed excitement. She breathed deep: she was a miner and mechanic, tired from a long day of driving, but excited for the hour-long reprieve, ready to wander through the large town and enjoy the sights.
She gave the man at the desk a lazy nod as she shambled through his office, meeting his gaze fleetingly. He stared back, eyes wide and eager, and opened his mouth to say something. Cressida rushed the last few steps to the door and burst onto the streets. She was not in the mood for flirting right now.
Apparently, neither was the man. She hadn’t gone ten steps before he burst out of the door. “Stop! Halt! You’re under arrest! Don’t move!”
Cressida bolted. With a curse, the man ducked his head back into the office, calling to his coworkers, before taking off after her. But her lead had grown. Hard work in harsh conditions was a tough teacher, but those who came out, came out stronger. Her soft townie pursuer didn’t stand a chance.
Metal in the Sand: Book 1 Page 5