by D. Rus
Then my eyes caught something new in the already familiar environment. I grabbed a fairly large, glowing slug and ripped it out of the moss’s grip. There were five more fat slugs rolling up in the freezing water.
I wondered if they were edible and hopefully protein rich. Showing the slug to the group, I announced, “Caught some fish!” Then, before I could change my mind, I quickly shoved the slug in my mouth and bit into it.
Pop! Its tough skin split, and a dense, lumpy substance filled my mouth. My brain lagged for a second as it analyzed the information coming from my taste buds and tried to determine whether I should continue eating or spit the slug out.
The question resolved itself when a message popped up: “Received 7.2 grams of protein, 0.4 grams of fat, and 0.7 grams of silicon. Harmful substances filtered out. Life-support system load: 8%. Item recognized as relatively edible. Satiation: 19 minutes. HP: +2.”
“Make an effort to increase your rations and to obtain less carcinogenic foods. Don’t eat too much xenofauna. This may entail unknown long-term effects.”
I nodded with satisfaction, trying to hold down my food. The taste wasn’t great, like a limp worm soaked in vinegar.
I reached for the next glowing slug. The group raised a joyful clamor and rushed into the warm shower, fishing out the slugs tumbling into the hall from the deck above us. In a few seconds, the cries of joy turned into curses and the sounds of vomiting. Not everyone found the slugs to their taste.
Chapter Eight
Heavy Spacecraft Carrier Marat. Alternate Control Center (system efficiency: 3.6%, habitability index: 42%). Seventh company psi snipers’ capture flag mounted.
Sergeant Livia Cruise had won the duel and assumed the commander’s post. She was furiously polishing the contact block of her pulse gun with a relatively clean cloth.
Everything had gone wrong. Livia wondered what idiot had come up with the idea to place over 50 males under the wing of their seventh company. She would spend a third of the ammo in her magazine to draw the company’s monogram on that idiot’s forehead by shooting holes in him.
During the leveling-up stage, a psi sniper is as defenseless as the partner of a mod-dog from group K-9; wearing her heart on her sleeve, the sensitivity of all her organs artificially increased by 300 percent, and completely lacking any and all abilities to block or filter out emotions. Her implant easily arrests her hormonal surges, but the warrior is still responsible for her own mental state.
This was pure sabotage; three years of training wasted in a 24-hour period. After something like this, you can’t think about trance, about the “delicate adjustment to the universe,” or about shooting at the “point of expected enemy appearance.”
The seventh company had already lost three quarters of its combat potential and the ability to force their way to the upper decks. Moreover, they controlled less territory now, sliding down in rank at an accelerating rate. Points were deducted from their RCs. They could expect to be given bolted-type rifles like first-year students and sent to the colonial infantry.
Even “merging” no longer helped. Combining their potentials, the girls failed to merge together like they usually could in order to receive appreciable boost bonuses for their stats. It was the other way around; the only thing their minds could feel was the males that had imprinted themselves on their souls. The psi snipers felt the boys’ pain, frequent deaths, or even worse – the passion aroused by mating with prostitutes.
The girls grew furious. They couldn’t concentrate, and their shooting accuracy diminished to the point that they became as efficient as 3rd generation cyber turrets, firing chaotically in all directions, hitting random targets. This was pardonable for the six-barreled CT-3s with their endless munitions supply, but absolutely unacceptable for psi snipers, for whom the peak of style was to start a mission with a pulse gun on a single battery.
As Livia unwittingly slipped into a meditative trance, she suddenly jerked. Her aura, wide open like a sail, once again picked up the death emanations of a familiar male. She mentally cursed at Corporal Lucky.
Group 13 was depressed. For a reason.
Last night, we had lost two people: a female mechanic from the logistics unit who had been having frequent bouts of hysteria, and a pilot with permanently sad eyes. Both had gone to bed in capsules with welcomingly blinking green lights, and in the morning, we found that the capsules’ power had been cut off. They were now steel coffins with decomposing bodies inside.
Now, the group developed a phobia. We were scared to sleep in the comfy capsules. We knew that the capsules weren’t to blame, that the two had died due to negative balances on their record cards, as the higher-ups purged the emotionally broken from our ranks. The morale bars of the two had long ago fallen into the black sector. Maybe the permanently banned servicemen had a problem with their brain devices, or perhaps their bodies rejected the implant, rendering it unable to perform its duty and control stress levels. Or maybe their virtual world phobia went beyond the limit. We all suffered from that phobia to varying degrees.
The entire group started beating up Alex with great satisfaction to avenge themselves and to relieve tension. Alex was a former gamer with an odd sense of humor; he would try to frighten us with stories of system glitches, avatars getting permanently stuck, and other hellish aspects of the first MMOGs.
The group slept only on the moss now. The overall mood grew considerably worse. We had just begun getting accustomed to this world, thinking the damp rooms of Marat to be our home. But now, we once again felt the presence of some god who with a single snap of his fingers could rip you out of your comfy everyday life and cast you into the unknown, or into the bioreactor.
Our fear of capsules contributed to our second problem. The group peeled off too much moss to make beds, and punitive measures were taken too late. Our moss food supplies dwindled as did the oxygen concentration. Carbon dioxide levels kept growing. The habitability index steadily decreased along with the duration of our active periods. Thirty to forty hours without medicinal herbs or protein could turn you into a quickly rotting corpse to be dragged into the far corner.
Third, the warm shower and slug cheat wasn’t permanent. They indulged us for only a day. Some of us had even managed to overcome our aversion to the silicon doughnuts, but the all-seeing admins started slowly increasing the waterfall’s temperature.
It was already steaming, steadily turning the small noob location into a sauna. The water wasn’t boiling quite yet, but within 48 hours or so, we would have a critical problem on our hands.
Our fourth problem was that the unknown enemy trying to break in through the gateway turned out to be more persistent than we had hoped. The ductile armor on the doors was now covered in ugly bumps. The Kevlar composite cords gave way, bursting one by one like rotten nanocables. We would have to fight the enemy sooner or later, whether we wanted to or not.
I sat on a relatively dry island of useless junk, my legs tucked up beneath me. My feet were swollen due to constantly being in hot water.
I stared pensively into the darkness of the new hall. We had managed to knock out the steel bulkhead gate by pounding on the welding.
At first, we received bonuses. My messages read: “Potential accessible habitat area increased: +3 RC points. (To set up group property marker, remain in the room for ten minutes in non-combat mode.)
“Current inhabited area is receiving 12,000 cubic feet of fresh air. Habitability index temporarily increased by 0.14. Corresponding bonus boost applied to base characteristics.”
“Group’s average progress rate: 0.67 above normal. Double your efforts to migrate to key directions.”
I cursed, having read the messages. Those bastards threw us in here, making us struggle like blind kittens in a lake, and still they dare wave a timer at us and accuse us of being disorganized?
A worn-down sanitary cordon droid stood in the new hall’s doorway, the serial number on its side half-erased. It kept repeating, “… risk of cont
agion by nanoterminator. Enter only in spacesuits with defense class 5 and up. Do not approach! Permission received to utilize passive and non-lethal deterrents. Attention! Risk of contagion by…”
“Shut up!” Muromets growled at the droid.
I looked at the Corporal. My interface highlighted him with the pink aura of a team’s killer, as it did me.
We broke the droid’s force field within ten hours; its ancient reactor had been in need of cell replacement for a while, and the reserve accumulators weren’t eternal either. The boys even entertained themselves by jumping on the force field and getting softly thrown back.
Soon, the force field started to blink, then finally shut off. The group cheerfully raced inside to get to the loot obscured by the darkness of the room. However, the droid still had some fight in it left. Pushing out the socket of its broadband paralyzer, it made the entire crowd fall down on the deck within seconds. For some, this turned out to be lethal as they fell face down into the warm water and drowned.
As far as I could tell, this daunted the droid and even made it mutter something like “Oops.” But it didn’t become any more humane and kept firing at the lone warriors that Muromets sent, knocking them out.
We would drag our paralyzed aside, giving them time to recover and also timing their paralysis: 20, 15, 9, 3 minutes… At last, the droid weakened. One soldier rose on his own, gnashed his teeth when the droid shot him a second time, stepped forward, and dealt the droid a hearty blow on its bottom left vision sensor.
It was pointless. The soldier merely broke his fist. But getting the personal bonus “Persistence will be rewarded” felt relieving and pleasant.
Despite Muromets’s order telling them to freeze, they rushed into the room again. It was dry with relatively fresh air and a few bodies almost reduced to dust along the walls. The rich gear on them enticed our group.
But the group didn’t get far. The mechanics were the first to collapse; the combat nanites in the room almost instantly took control of their semi-military implants.
The heavy infantrymen, on the contrary, had time to realize what was going on. The firewalls of their systems held up long enough to inform them of the attack, assess the threat level, and come to a sad conclusion. The implants then burned the weapon control circuitry and erased the databases.
Reeling, our group ran back, saving themselves from this plague. The droid squealed, trying to block their way and spreading its broken arms wide apart: “Sterile zone in danger of being infiltrated by nanoterminator carriers! Take preventative measures. Highest-grade threat. Mobilizing all reserves. Permissions confirmed by order of the Council. Digital signature forwarded to all devices via emergency channel. Confirmed reception for 409 devices.”
The fleeting alarm quest window confirmed the droid’s warning. It made the group act on their feet as did the unwillingness to allow the hall to be turned into a cemetery of infected corpses.
“Stop! Freeze! Do not spread the infection!” I ordered.
But all in vain. Common sense had left these boys. Their eyes filled with the terror of creatures being eaten from inside. It must have been really frightening.
Muromets, Lina, and I along with three of the more disciplined soldiers were now pitted against twenty berserk heavy infantrymen. We clashed in the doorway of the new room. We barely held back the first wave of panicked warriors, chopping them up on the narrow entryway platform.
The droid did everything it could to help. It knocked the panicking soldiers off their feet, mercilessly crushing and mangling their fragile bodies.
I tried not to look the boys in the eyes, fearing that I would see confusion and pain in them. Instead, I dealt as many blows as I could.
The implant painted the space before me with strokes indicating the most efficient punches along with the soldiers’ weakest points. It told me how to hammer the bridge of someone’s nose into their brain, to break a larynx with spiked fingers, and to ram my foot into the base of the skull of a fallen soldier.
This creation of the unknown engineers of the RE boasted an astounding computing velocity. Not only did it guide my actions, but it also monitored my surroundings down to the trajectories of falling bodies, making recommendations on how to adjust these vectors; a light push in the back to send a clumsy heavy infantryman falling face down on a shard of jagged steel; a kick in the leg to send another one to the floor to be crushed by the droid's all-purpose running gear.
Crunch! Hot blood jetted forth. The invisible admin umpire gave me a bonus point for a “skillful tactical group interaction.”
The quest timer counted down the seconds we had left until the danger level would increase and we would fail the mission. The nanoworm needed time to master the resources of its host and accumulate the critical assault mass in order to spread to a new victim.
We managed to neutralize the threat in time, mangling our comrades’ faces and receiving questionable points for “winning unfair fights.” The battle concluded with Lina dealing a headshot with a steel pipe.
Wiping brains off my face, I watched as the quarantine droid hurriedly dragged the last body into the depths of the new room.
I heard a reward alert jingle as I surveyed my small army. It was quite a sight. The remaining soldiers of group 13 were nervously squeezing primitive tools in their hands, ready to fight for their lives.
No wonder; they had just seen their raging leaders waste the rest of the unit. They were sure that they would be next.
I wearily sat down on a pile of junk and lowered my shaking, bleeding hands into the water. My implant slowly eliminated adrenaline from my bloodstream, trying not to overstress the filters. It was in no hurry to lower the threat level of the environment.
“At ease, everyone,” I said. “You should’ve fought with your leaders when they stood in that doorway like Spartans, keeping the infected fools out of your cozy shithole. Shame on all of you! Split your demerit points for lack of initiative amongst yourselves as you see fit.”
This was the lash of the commander’s interface. I could punish or reward them. Minimally, of course, with super-mellow methods, but it was enough to reinforce my status.
Muromets growled: “What’re you waiting for? To your service stations, about face, forward march! And keep it down; we need to think, right, Commander?”
He meant me as if saying, Adjust to the situation since you’re so smart. Look how nervous the boys are. They could overthrow you. What’s one company commander? Who will notice?
I grinned in response. Don’t get brave, deputy, Akela hasn’t missed yet.
The group, looking around, attended to the top-priority projects: sawing the hinges of maintenance hatches, picking gratings with wires, building levers for cracking yet another micro-cabin, watering the moss we were cultivating, and carrying out other necessary household duties.
I spoke with the droid. It trusted us a little more now, but could offer us no help, being nothing more than a talking fence with a nuclear reactor.
I asked it how to destroy the lethal nanites. The droid listed 47 methods, out of which only exposure to outrageously high temperatures was feasible. We could make the room a vacuum or burn it with plasma. The droid was willing to use its own reactor. However, the quarantined room would become inaccessible for nine years after the nuclear fission began.
I wasn’t a fan of that option. I like long-term planning, but not when it involves being locked up in a jail cell.
My next question was regarding the purpose of the room. The droid’s reply was obscure: “It’s the seventh radial evacuation hallway of deck 93. It is currently sealed off with counter-boarding bulkhead gates.” The droid went on to state its cubic capacity, system status, and adjoining rooms.
I couldn’t understand the terminology the droid used, and sighed, sad that I had failed to display a leader’s genius. We would have to put our faith in the invincibility of Russian military equipment.
Muromets gave me an ironic look. I rose and slowly
approached the dark doorway.
The droid cackled in alarm once again, “Danger!”
“Shut up!” Muromets and I barked in unison. I added reassuringly, “Senior officer inspection in order to determine threat level.”
This did not save me from getting shot with a paralyzer in my solar plexus. The droid’s accumulator had had time to recharge, and the short-barreled weapon jerkily followed my every move.
I took a step. Then another. The frame of my interface turned a warning red. The implant surveyed the situation and found it bad.
The analyzing module Cassandra droned on persistently, “Implicit signs of nanoterminator deployment. Incoming signal on emergency channel. Distinctive signature: medical servobot number… Allotting closed cluster for data exchange… You are banned from visiting the infected hall. Overriding; the servobot has no legal status in Fifth Rome Space Forces. Ban reduced to recommendation. Acquiring access rights to droid's remote sensing channels… Indirect confirmation of nanoterminator colony contamination: Assault-hive – two active cysts, Nomad – one cyst, Varangian – six cysts… Shutting down remote sensing… Breaking off communication channel… Formatting dedicated cluster…”
I froze, letting it all sink in. Muromets and the servobot were silent too, awaiting further developments. By now, we were able to tell an ordinary stupor from a pause taken to work with the implant’s interface. We had had our fill of pulling silly pranks on each other’s tuned-out bodies and now considered them not funny. They could earn you a beating. By the whole group. We had to relieve the tension somehow. So, it was best to stay in line.
I strained my brain; direct communication with a pseudo-intelligence wasn’t my strong suit. I made a direct-response inquiry: “Can my Alpha-prime withstand the aforementioned nanites?”
I received a dense reply: “In the event of a coordinated attack, the implant’s firewall guarantees 72 or more seconds of full-fledged defense given a three percent loss of the defenders’ active mass. After that, expect a snowballing increase of the probability of losing control over the modules.”