Gunship

by J. J. Snow

  Zain remained motionless, watching Seth. This was the first time anyone had tried programming a Gaiden to loyalty based on defense of family. The usual training worked fine for older children, but considering the lack of time and Seth’s age, the use of loyalty to family seemed a more appropriate and effective choice to get the kid dedicated. The others had balked at the idea, quoting experimental papers and research that had indicated tying loyalty to emotional attachments such as loved ones could dangerously imbalance the subjects, make them prone to risk taking, make them unpredictable and unable to control their responses. Such ties, they had cautioned him, could create very dangerous personalities or could result in uncontrollable subjects. He reminded himself the key word was could. No one had ever done it before, so it was equally possible that the Gaiden would have no issues at all. And he needed the kid in order to get the team back. If he got killed, well, that was just the cost of saving the galaxy.

  Seth shook his head and then refocused on the room and finally on Zain. His gaze became determined. He had to protect his family. Welch would not kill them, and if he was the only one who could stop him, then he would do whatever he had to. He thought of Duv. Then he thought about his mother and brother. If he had been stronger back then, he could have saved them too. But he could still save his father and the rest of the crew. He wouldn’t lose anyone else. He couldn’t. Just the memory of the pain of losing his family to the slavers was enough to galvanize him.

  “Sir, let’s begin. Time is short.”

  The Commander nodded as the medical staff entered and began preparing Seth for the last data transfers. He lay back on the sofa, calmly waiting for it to begin. The staff finished in a flurry of activity and departed. He was alone again with the Commander.

  “Even with your training, this will be difficult. No one on the crew can know what you are. Even the Gaiden, although she will know more than the others do. If you are to protect them, they must believe you are gone. And that may require doing things, hard things, in order to get to where you need to be to complete your mission. Know this: for every life you take, you are saving thousands of others. There can be no turning back from this point.”

  Seth thought about what that meant. He didn’t want to leave his military family or the ship. At the same time, another part of his mind flared up, reminding him what would happen if he didn’t. He could save them all this way, even if it came at the cost of his own life. And that would be much easier to accept than staying a defenseless kid who could only run away and hide when the monsters came. He took a breath and nodded to Zain.

  “I’m ready.”

  Zain clapped him on the shoulder and then left the room. It wasn’t until the upload began that he exhaled in relief. If the kid hadn’t decided to go along, the project would’ve had to have been stopped. The last uploads couldn’t be forced, which is why he had made certain to pepper the initial programs with sympathetic responses tied to the kid’s love for his crew and especially for his father. They were already out of time. Zain had no choice. Welch had to be stopped in order to restore the balance. He had known he’d have to make some tough calls in this job. Sometimes saving the galaxy could be a real bitch.

  —————

  “You can’t keep striking him in the head. It will damage his brain. Here, use this.”

  Ty felt cold metal under him and then a sudden searing pain as a needle pricked the vein in his arm. His mouth was dry, making him want to gag on his own tongue. He couldn’t remember where he was or how he had gotten there, but he was pretty certain wherever there was, it was not someplace he wanted to be. His head felt like it had been steamrolled, and his ears were ringing continuously now. If he moved even a little, waves of nausea flowed over him.

  “Ach! You fractured the skull—look, you can see it here and here. And he is dehydrated. That will cost us. Mr. Ray wanted him in good condition. Now he will have to be healed first. That will come out of your cut,” the strange voice continued.

  Ty tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. He wondered at this briefly, then decided he really didn’t care. He knew where they were headed now and he would do his damndest to resist, even if it meant working hard at dying before they arrived.

  “You see? The bastard will die just to spite us, thanks to you. And then we will take his place for the mistake. Here, hook up him up to the fluids, that will help, and the sedative will keep him knocked out until we arrive. Much better than bashing him all the time! Ugh! Why must I always work with idiots?” the voice lamented.

  Ty laughed at the voice in his head. How could it know his intentions? The filtered gray light from around the tape on his eyes started to fade as the sedative took hold, pushing him back under the surface as he watched the dark water surround him once again. His last thought was of the Captain. He felt bad for letting her down, but at least she would know that he won in the end, by dying first. Or maybe he was already dead and the voices were from the enemies he had taken with him. If you were already dead, then death didn’t matter. Crazy Ray couldn’t touch him and he would just laugh at the sadistic brute, defying him, thwarting his attempts to cause pain. And then he would kill them all. He was death. His bizarre rationalizations finally ceased as it all went black once more.

  —————

  Parvan was a small planet, fifth in the main solar system of the Vhax Sector of the galaxy. The colonists there had settled in fairly well and, unlike the settlers on some of the other planets, had not had any severe alien infestations to deal with. An occasional alien would pop up from time to time, but these were mostly harmless and if necessary could be easily dispatched with a blaster. The community was warned and the volunteer patrols would go to look for it, but that was the extent of any military activity.

  So when a series of strange-looking ships began to appear in the sky, the Parvanians weren’t too concerned. In fact, by the time they noticed they had visitors, it was already too late.

  “Commander, we are in range of the planet defense systems. Should I proceed with neutralization?” The ISU Lieutenant waited for his orders.

  “Proceed, Lieutenant. The AOC has determined that this planet is a direct threat to the galactic reunification under Commander-in-Chief Welch and must be dealt with severely to set an example.” The commander flipped through some paperwork on a clipboard, signed, and handed it back to the nearby messenger, then continued. “Target all defenses and prosecute with extreme prejudice. No survivors, and that’s direct from the top.”

  “Roger that, sir. Commencing firing sequence now, all ships stand by for target tasking.” The lieutenant hit a few buttons and divided up the target list for the planet. It seemed strange to him that the ISUs would be called in to take out such an easy target, almost as if something weren’t quite right. He shook his head as the implant triggered a strong defensive response to counter his initial thoughts. The new AOC commander had been threatened, and that was why they were here now. How dare these people interfere with government plans? They would be dealt with, the ISUs would see to that. He slid the target sets onto his holo-display and fired them out to the rest of the fleet.

  “Sir, I have acknowledgement from the fleet. We are ready to proceed on your command.”

  The commander looked at his watch and then entered a code and some text into his handheld. He waited until a response was returned. He read the text, grimaced, and gave the signal. The fleet opened up and began to engage the planetary targets as directed.

  On the surface, it appeared as if the entire sky had become engulfed in flames as missiles streaked towards the surface. People screamed, ran, tried to hide, or stood in shock as entire towns disappeared. The volunteer defense force was eradicated in minutes. Half an hour later, Parvan was a smoking hole. Any survivors would recount a blitz attack by strange, alien-looking ships, and no one would be the wiser.

  The commander sent several recon birds over the planet to capture the battle damage and then beamed it back to
the AOC headquarters. Welch watched the feed, enthralled by the success of the first “alien” attack by his new military wing.

  “Catch me now, Zain…if you can!” He smirked and pulled up his comms link. Dobbin appeared at the far end.

  “My update, please?” Welch leaned back and waited.

  “Mr. Welch…I mean Commander-in-Chief Welch…we have implanted ninety-five percent of the remaining ISU personnel, all of the core AOC council members, and many of the key ministry officials. You have eighty thousand ISU troopers and one hundred twelve thousand regular military implanted and now operating on your behalf. We have used up the last of the implants, but at this time we don’t have a requirement for more. The attack on Parvan was a great success. Per your request, the ISUs used the holo-generators to disguise their gunships so the survivors are reporting this as an alien attack. Only around fifteen percent of the population survived.”

  “Dobbin, that is the most horrendous news. That means that almost two point eight million humans perished in this alien attack! The AOC must respond!” Welch put on his best war face for the statement, then burst into laughter. Dobbin remained somber as usual and waited patiently to speak again.

  “Sir, I thought you might want to know the Vhax Ambassador sent a message that he strongly condemns this as a ruse by the AOC in order to begin a new war on the non-human occupants of this galaxy and has advised me to inform you that you are on dangerous ground. He is threatening to pull out of the treaty.”

  Welch rubbed his hands gleefully. Just like a game of dominos, how easily he placed them and then with a single flick of a finger set them to falling and landing where he wanted. He straightened his face and tuned back to the screen.

  “Have the AOC Minister of Information respond as follows. He should send the Ambassador my regards and inform him that we are also extremely concerned by this attack. Let him know that we believe that a rogue element of the ISUs led by one Commander Alex Zain is responsible for these attacks and is trying to make them appear to be perpetrated by the Vhax Space Fleet by mimicking Vhax raiders. We would be extremely grateful for his people’s assistance in hunting these culprits down and bringing them to justice. I suggest we establish a joint task force for this purpose and begin at once, providing the Ambassador agrees.”

  Dobbin nodded as Welch ran over the plan in his mind. How appropriate that the rebellion be led by the very man who had fought and forced the Vhax to sign the treaty to begin with. Zain had been asked not to attend the post-war negotiations, for fear of inciting their leaders to further violence. His massacre of one of their main cities, a key hub for the alien’s war machine, would live in infamy in the annals of history. His strike and the devastation it wrought was seen as equivalent to the dropping of the first atomic bomb.

  So instead, the infamous character faded into the background to continue carrying out the requirements of his beloved government, ever loyal to a fault. How very unfortunate for the Commander. Zain would have made a nice addition to the new government, except he was too loyal. Welch knew he could never hope to turn the man. It was easier just to vilify him. All soldiers made split-second decisions to turn the tide of battle, the best they could based on the intelligence they had received and the direction of their government. But that didn’t matter, because civilization, once free from the threats that plagued it, was always quick to point out the warrior’s flaws and to judge his actions. Welch knew without a doubt that his story would be believed by Zain’s enemies. History would work in his favor to convince the human population. The man would become the most hated, hunted villain in the galaxy overnight. The news media would be provided with graphic footage of the Parvan attacks, appropriately spliced with incriminating evidence on how Zain’s xenophobia had caused him to lash out, hoping to re-incite the war he felt he never finished. Welch turned back to Dobbin.

  “That will be all for now. I will be in touch.” Welch flipped to a second channel, where one of the Tethers waited. “Well?”

  “We lost them. The Dark Angel jumped several times after departing the area. The pilot must have engaged the stealth technology, because after the third jump, they were gone.” The Tether stopped speaking and waited.

  Welch had expected that Campbell would have pursued her man in an attempt to retrieve him. He had also expected his implants would’ve deployed the EMP and disabled her ship, making them easy prey for the remaining Tethers. But his men had been out of contact for over sixteen hours now, well past the preplanned comms check. Once the Tether with Joby Ty on board had jumped away, she should have followed and then been pulled into the trap he had set. But that hadn’t happened. So what had changed? Had he misread her emotions? Perhaps he had been wrong about her relationship with her crew? No, he had studied her, read everything he could about her. Welch knew people; it was what made him so good at what he did. He could read them, their fears, their desires, their motivations, and then he used that information against them.

  Something else had acted to intervene. But what? What would push Reilly Campbell to abandon a crewmate to what she had to know was certain death at the hands of a sadistic bastard like Alton? It didn’t make sense. It frustrated him, this lack of information. He couldn’t suffer any blind spots with regard to this woman. To do so would be to risk everything he had set in motion so far. It made him nervous, and that made him angry.

  Welch turned back to the bounty hunter. “That’s all you have for me, then? Nothing but bad news? We lost them…that is not an acceptable answer. They should have come after your first Tether. Why didn’t they?”

  The man remained silent. Welch paced and fumed some more, then stopped.

  “Go back to Roen. I want you to find out anything that might tell us where she went. I want this woman and as many of her crew as possible. And I want them yesterday!” His voice rose to a scream at the end as he smashed his fist down on the table, causing a spiderweb pattern to develop across the glass. The bounty hunter nodded his acknowledgement and clicked off the screen. He had his orders, no need to prolong the verbal ass-chewing from his employer. The man was a bit overdramatic for his tastes anyway. He was just looking to collect a paycheck, and nowhere did it say he was required to indulge the rants of a psychopath in order to do that. He turned his ship and headed back to the planet. If there were answers on the surface, he would find them.

  —————

  The doctors briefed Duv and Reilly on Seth’s condition. He had been fed several complex training programs targeting the cerebral and amygdaloid areas of the brain. The code had been directly implanted into his long-term memory, but a blocker had prevented him from recalling the training in his short-term memory. The amygdala played a key role as well. It controlled his emotions. The code had tied the training directly to emotional responses that were fear or survival induced. The reaction to the five men in the street had been a defensive reaction tied to Seth’s emotional response to the threat against his person. The code had also pushed him to protect the edu-system, which explained his reaction to Reilly when she had unknowingly picked it up in the box in his room. He had passed out afterwards because of the conflicting codes ordering him to protect the device but also to protect what was important to him, which emotionally included the crew.

  “So can you fix it? Can you get it out of his head?” Duv asked.

  He looked up briefly from the posture he had adopted while the doctors spoke, arms crossed, head down, listening as best he could while the anger and fear beat at him. Reilly stood impassively against the wall, wearing her best poker face. She disliked any “lab rat” who felt they had the right and ability to poke around a human brain. Reilly knew Zain’s people were trying to help, but she still had a hard time trusting the intent behind their chosen vocation. It was too much like playing God, and you could never be sure once they got in there if indeed they were there to free you or enslave you. She would prefer death to mental manipulation or implantation. As a precaution, she had voluntar
ily taken part in a counter implant program. A small device inside her metal and leather wristbands periodically sent an electric impulse through her body designed to short out any implants. The pain of the charge was minor compared to her fear of mental enslavement, and it reassured her she was free of any outside manipulation. None of the crew knew she had done this. She had learned in survival school not to discuss your fears. People talk, and talk leads to exploitation, which can be a fast road to death of one sort or another. She didn’t know if anyone had ever tried to implant her or not, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Yes, we believe we can. Thanks to the code your electronics specialist broke, we have considerable insight into how to reverse the programming. It will take us several days, though, to remove it completely, as we don’t want to stress the brain any more than it already has been. The amount of data your son has taken in over such a short period of time is—well, frankly it’s incredible. Any normal person would have been suffering multiple grand mal seizures and probable permanent brain damage at this point. He is a very lucky kid.”

  “When can you start?” Duv wrung the doctor’s hand fervently, obviously relieved, while Reilly continued to hang in the background. They had given him hope, and it was like a lifeline. Reilly’s pessimism was kicking in again. Hope could sometimes be a hand grenade, too.

  “We’d like to begin right away, with your approval of course. If we can remove some of the programming, it will relieve a lot of the stress Seth has been under. We’ll need to also place some additional blocker programs to prevent the code from replicating and re-emerging at a later point, but we’ve had a lot of success with this model in the past. I’d say about a ninety-three percent full recovery rate. Seth is young enough that his brain should bounce back well from the treatment, in fact better than most of our patients, many of whom are quite a bit older, so with that in mind, a conservative recovery estimate for him would be around ninety-seven percent.” The white coat smiled with very nice white teeth as Duv began to visibly relax at the good news.