by KA Hopkins
Guide was part of the Central Surveillance AI on the Moon; for this reason Guide can rejoin her former network cloud without any warning flags being set off. Once rejoined, Guide can ask where Old Lizard Face's physical interface is. By definition an AI cannot break the rules, so the Central Surveillance AI will only note Guide has returned and grant the request. Once we have a physical location, Guide can join to Old Lizard Face's terminal through the cloud, allowing us to capture his passwords and enough voice sample clips to construct a message telling the Central Surveillance AI to send an interstellar ship to a set of coordinates of our choice. Once the ship is on the ground, you and your Special Forces operators should be able to figure out what to do next. What was your plan? Find his headquarters, break in and try and kidnap him?”
“Pretty much…the direct approach has worked in the past.” I said somewhat taken aback.
“Humans - you are so primitive, so rash! There is no need for every situation to end in violence. Why do all your plans start with ‘and now we break things’?”
“Because that’s what primitive people are really good at. Mother, can you tell me more about this terminal that you need?”
“Guide and I require physical access to a command terminal connected directly into the backbone network cloud of the Central Surveillance AI.”
“Where do we find one of those?” I said.
“There just happens to be one not far from here, in what you call Area 51.”
“Perfect! I thought you said it was going to be hard not impossible. We only have to break into one of the most secure places on Earth!” I said.
“I did not say it would be easy.”
“Point taken,” I said. I would have to be a bit more careful in the future. Mother was catching on to my less than subtle brand of sarcasm.
Mother outlined her plan. Actually it was pretty good, bold yet simple. Area 51 is super secure from outside intruders. You cannot get within twenty miles of the base without tripping sound, smell, motion or heat sensors that result in heavily armed security showing up in minutes - but arrive in an alien scout ship and they lay out the red carpet to welcome you. Security at the base is tight, but it can be described as “hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.” Ninety-nine percent of the security faced out, intended to keep unauthorized humans out; once you have passed the first several surface levels on the base, there’s minimal security on the inside.
Mother had Guide submit a short notice flight plan that contained only our arrival time and no other details. We arrived over the base and were given instructions to land at S4, about a dozen miles from the main Area 51 base. Mother set down on the main S4 landing ramp on a moveable platform; a tow tug came out and pulled the scout ship into one of the nine bays built into the side of the mountain, hidden by large sand textured camouflaged doors. The bays were cut into the side of the mountain, roughly seven-five feet high, one hundred feet wide and one hundred fifty feet deep, which the scout ship fit into nicely. The fact that we arrived by alien scout ship gave us an official reason to be there.
We met with S4 security, who checked the fake credentials Guide had recently uploaded in the Central Surveillance AI. Once cleared, the guards, accustomed to classified operations, didn’t ask any questions.
We made our way to a master command terminal and plugged in. The Central Surveillance AI recognized Guide as a valid AI, even though Guide was plugged into a terminal on Earth and not the Moon. The break in logic was deemed not significant and Guide was given full access, which provided an entry point for Mother and Einstein. The three AI’s queried the Central Surveillance AI as to Old Lizard Face's whereabouts and it dutifully provided the address of his office terminal. Similar to society dealing with a sociopath, the alien network was never designed to assume an AI could be up to no good. Their system, like many systems on Earth, are set up assuming ninety-nine percent of the population will follow established rules. I had Omni make a note - advance civilizations dealing with primitives should be aware that not everyone will play by their rules. Primitives are by their very nature - unpredictable.
Having identified Old Lizard Face’s office terminal, Guide connected to it, instructing the command cluster to capture passwords and voice samples the next time Old Lizard Face used it. We left an encrypted relay on the S4 terminal and bounced the signal off an Oceansat satellite, one of the many we used to track the nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Using the satellite as a relay enabled Guide to access the data anywhere on Earth without fear of detection. With the voice tap and relay in place, we went to lunch. The Navy personnel in charge of running S4 actually serve a very nice lunch; I guess they make the effort as there is no chance of ordering take out. After lunch we requested the ground crew pull the scout ship out of the hidden hangar and took off. The whole experience at Area 51 was surreal. It was one of the most secure places on Earth, yet once inside, it was pretty much like any other military base.
Instead of the high risk, low-chance-of-success kidnap scheme favored by Marc and I, Mother’s plan worked perfectly. Within a week, the tap provided Old Lizard Face's command override passwords and enough voice clips for the three AI’s to construct falsified orders. They tasked the Central Surveillance AI to dispatch an interstellar ship to Earth. With Old Lizard Face's password and the fake voice clips coming from his authorized terminal, the order was authenticated and approved as it did not contravene the logic of the Central Surveillance AI.
An interstellar ship and crew were immediately dispatched to the same isolated island where our original meeting with Einstein took place. Again, the best lies are ones that contain a fair amount of truth. Our fake message requested support for a broken drive system in a scout ship. Scout ships don’t break down often, but when they do, the only way to retrieve them was with an interstellar ship. Given that interstellar ships are heavily armed with ten times the firepower of a scout ship and a crew of over 300, no Earth based attack scenario was deemed credible. Being the underdog suited us just fine.
We picked the deserted island landing zone for a couple of reasons. The interstellar ship could land during the day and the isolated area would put the crew at ease. Due to the size of the beach the number of landing locations suitable for a 500 foot diameter interstellar ship was exactly one. Mother provided coordinates that were specific to a 1000 foot section of the beach and an exact time. As per standard operating procedure (SOP) Mother would remain hidden in the waters off the island until the interstellar ship landed.
The interstellar ship landed on the exact location provided. The ship was massive, requiring four landing ramps extending forty feet from the bottom of the craft to support its weight. Even with footpads thirty-five feet across, the landing gear sunk several feet into the sand. Per SOP the ship’s crew put up an energy defense barrier and neutralizing beam extending 1000 feet all around the perimeter of the ship. With the defenses up and operational, Mother signaled the interstellar ship’s AI to drop the field towards the ocean and raised the scout ship off the bottom of the lagoon. Mother flew slowly and erratically to the beach, simulating a malfunctioning engine core. She landed beside the interstellar ship, broadcasting a fake identification code of a scout ship on the other side of the planet. The ruse worked. From one of the four landing ramps of the interstellar ship a twelve member work crew and twenty-four member security crew disembarked and slowly approached Mother. Their progress across the soft beach sand was slow as they struggled with the weight of their equipment and weapons.
With the four entrance ramps down and the work crew and security team on their way to Mother, the trap was sprung. From shielded enclosures which masked all infrared and thermal human signatures in waist deep water within the surf break, twenty-five Special Forces personnel, using Drager LAR V re-breathers to hide their air bubbles, rose silently out of the water and opened fire on the security team and work crew. No warning shots were given, nor any opportunity for surrender. The thirty-six members of the alien Gra
y team were cut to pieces in the hail of fire from the operators’ weapons. With the repair team neutralized, sixteen of the operators broke into teams of four and rushed each of the landing ramps, while the remaining operators reloaded and verified the aliens were neutralized.
The automated defenses of the interstellar ship could not fire on the operators as they were within the defensive no-fire arc of the landing ramps. The automated defenses had no such limitation concerning Mother. It was only Mother anticipating the other ship AI’s reaction that allowed her to escape to the bottom of the lagoon. Even so, the enemy ship’s energy beam bounced off the hull and rattled everyone onboard Mother. The interstellar AI’s defensive fire was quite unexpected; normally permission to fire on another alien ship had to be requested from the Central Surveillance AI. Our actions on Earth were obviously starting to rattle the aliens - they were no longer acting per SOP. I wasn’t sure I liked their adoption of our tactics of “shoot first, and skip asking questions.”
With each of the four-man teams tasked to attack a separate landing ramp, we were spread too thin, which became very obvious once the assault teams ran into stiff resistance. Once the operator rear guard had confirmed the alien work crew was out of the fight, they moved in to provide backup. It was still not enough. The odds were twelve to one, and we had lost the element of surprise. Mother, monitoring the command tactical net, heard the panicked requests for support. She brought the scout ship back to the surface and opened a communication channel to the interstellar ship.
“AI of Interstellar class ship, this is scout ship call-sign Mother. Please stand down all weapons. I am invoking ULIR pre-sentient protectorate services directive alpha. Your current activities on this planet are illegal. You are ordered to comply.”
Mother then did something quite unexpected. Instead of continuing to order the interstellar AI to comply or waiting for a response, she invoked the join network protocol and dumped her entire database of everything that had happened to Marc, my family, and all of our operational files to the other ship’s AI. Terabytes of data were transferred in an instant. Both AI’s now shared all of the same data. With access to the same information as Mother, the interstellar ship’s AI understood who we were and what we were trying to accomplish. The ship’s AI, on its own initiative, stood down all ship weapons and terminated the self-destruct sequence initiated by the ship’s captain. The interstellar ship AI then requested all Grays onboard to put down their weapons; only a few complied. Even with both AI’s helping our forces, rooting out the Grays room by room, we were still hopelessly outnumbered.
Mother landed on the beach and dropped the boarding ramp. Marc and I raced down the ramp followed by Pam, Charity, David, and Boris riding on Natasha’s back, holding onto her collar like a miniature jockey. As Natasha ran by me, the cat gave me a look of disdain, “What, I can’t help that I have short legs!”
I glanced at Pam, about to say no way could they come with us, when Pam thrust her palm in my face, cutting me off before I could speak, “We’ll take care of the wounded. Now lead, follow or get the hell out of my way!”
We stumbled across the soft sand to the nearest landing ramp and into the other ship; all around us were signs of the recent firefight. The operators used M4A3 5.56 rifles, concussion grenades and flash bangs to clear the ship. The aliens used energy beam weapons to defend it. In the confined space of the ship, the weapons made for vicious battles with no quarter asked and none given. Bodies of the Grays were scattered everywhere on the main hangar floor along with an occasional Special Forces operator.
“Boris, Natasha - you have security over watch of my family,” I said as Marc and I ran towards the sounds of battle.
The interstellar ship was similar in shape to a scout ship - two flattened spheres joined by a series of windows in the middle. Tens of weapons blisters covered the top and bottom shells, varying in size from a small car to larger than a transport truck and trailer. Where a scout ship has a single loading ramp and three legs, an interstellar ship has four legs, each with a loading ramp. With a diameter of five hundred feet compared to fifty feet, the interior volume was a thousand times larger. Just the hangar deck spanning the entire bottom of the ship could easily hold four or more scout ships, with room to spare.
Marc and I ran up the ramp to the deck overlooking the hangar level and found the Special Forces assault leader. “Report,” I said.
“As you can see we have only just managed to clear the hangar deck. According to the ship’s AI there are four more decks with roughly three hundred Grays defending and we have lost eight operatives so far. If things don’t tactically change real quickly, we are going to be out of men well before we can finish clearing the ship. This fucker is huge.”
“Roger that. If the Grays won’t listen to the ship’s AI and put down their weapons, maybe they will listen to Old Lizard Face?” “Mother do we have enough voice clips of Old Lizard Face to fake an order for the crew to stand down?”
“Yes”
“Make it happen now, if you please!”
Through the communication channel with the interstellar ship’s AI, Mother sent the fake message. A three dimensional image of Old Lizard Face came up on all communication terminals throughout the ship.
“My warriors - you have fought well and with pride. You honor the empire today with your sacrifices. Yet, this is a battle you cannot win and your deaths will accomplish nothing for the empire. Captain, I hereby order you to stand down and surrender your ship. Cease all fighting immediately.”
The Gray captain reluctantly ordered his crew to drop their weapons and stand down; with the ship’s AI helping the Special Forces operators, we were able to round up the remaining Gray crew members in short order. A few of the Grays guessed the order to surrender was a fake and decided to fight it out to the death. Our tactics with the hardcore holdouts were straightforward. With the help of the ship’s AI we knew where the holdouts were - when they did not surrender after a single warning shot, the assault team went in with shock grenades and alien energy beam weapons. If the Special Forces operators could not overwhelm them with the beam weapons, there was no hesitation in using more lethal means. Boris and Natasha were a big help in rooting out the holdouts as they could sneak in a compartment undetected in the low light and attack the Grays from an unexpected direction, diverting their attention long enough for the operators to force entry.
To my surprise Natasha had some form of beam weapon installed in her mouth, in addition to being able to bite through a quarter inch steel plate.
Out of the 300 alien crew members nearly a third were killed. We left all of the survivors and their dead on the beach, knowing someone would eventually show up to investigate the loss of communications. If not, it was a nice place to spend a day or two. We took our dead with us for burial at sea to prevent the Grays from turning them into Sentinels. Marc and I discussed killing the rest of the alien crew to preserve operational security, but decided against it. It did not matter that the survivors could identify us; the entire assault force was coming with us to the ULIR.
With Mother in the lead, both ships took off. A hundred miles off shore we settled to the ocean surface and slowly sunk to the darkness several thousand feet below. Once on the bottom, the slow process of checking the interstellar ship for bugs and hidden transponders began. Due to the size of the ship this took weeks, even with the enthusiastic help of the ship’s AI. During the inspection the true magnificence of the engineering that went into the vessel was exposed.
The interstellar ship’s AI was not any smarter than Einstein, Mother or Guide, but it was much older with significantly more experience and neural cluster capacity. While core knowledge experience was similar to all AI’s (as this was obtained from the ULIR central data repository, the great archive of 200 alien species’ knowledge) the ship had the advantage of thousands of year’s life experience and the nuances of dealing with numerous alien races over that time. It was so much more than just the raw knowled
ge you could find in the ULIR data banks; it possessed what humans call insight and intuition, qualities needed to put vast amounts of information into context. The Grays were not her first crew, as she had served with three other alien species before them. The ship was nearly 2000 years old.
Chapter 41 - Elder
Any engineer can make something semi-functional, ugly and complicated to repair. To make something elegant, functional, yet pleasing to the eye, that begs you to use it, requires real talent and dedication. Whoever had designed this ship possessed those qualities. The entire ship’s design reflected its use for long duration space voyages. All of the surfaces were warm colors and soft to the touch, with diffused lighting throughout. No sharp edges were evident in any of the structures; everything was designed with soft corners. The air, despite the recent battle, was clean and fresh.
The ship had five main levels. Level one contained the hangar deck which was about four football fields in size, with a ceiling seventy-five feet high. It could easily fit four scout ships with plenty of room left over for storage. Level two housed engineering; it contained the massive maglev engines, power generation and machine shops capable of manufacturing any part needed by the ship. Level three was dedicated to Life Support and contained hydroponic gardens to feed up to 500 beings. Level four consisted of living quarters, medical labs and sports/entertainment areas. One half of level five contained command and control, weapons, conference rooms, escape pods and more living spaces. The other half was taken up by a single planet buster, a weapon so powerful it could destroy all life on Earth; three dropped simultaneously could turn the planet into an asteroid belt. Each deck had redundant power generation and life support to provide emergency services if the ship was damaged. Exploring the ship, we saw signs of the crew’s personalization everywhere, unlike the drab uniform look of a modern human warship.