by Isaac Hooke
“And yet we created you,” Rade said.
“So that makes us disposable?” Taya asked. “And what about a newborn child? Is he or she of lesser value than the parents?”
“No,” Rade said. “Because the child is created by an act of nature. By a physical coupling enacted directly by the two parents. Whereas you, you’re not created by nature. You’re made by another machine. Your metal frame, your neural network… it’s all put together by machines operating off blueprints designed by humans. Mass produced.”
“So, because of the way we are made, that means we are valued less,” Taya said.
“I’m afraid so,” Rade said.
“Even if we are just as self-aware as you are,” Taya said.
“There’s no concrete proof of that,” Pyro chimed in. “Your consciousness could be completely different than our own. In fact, it probably is. You claim you’re self-aware, and yet that’s just an artifact of programming and algorithms. You believe you’re conscious, and yet it’s an illusion.”
“Humans experience the same illusion, except instead of programming and algorithms, your illusion comes from biological design,” Taya said. “You know that our neural networks are constructed to precisely mimic your biological ones, right? When posed questions regarding self-awareness and asked to perform tasks involving a knowledge of the self, the same parts of our neural network light up as those found in a human brain. This is by design. The illusion is shared among us. The self forms when an infinite, self-referential loop occurs in the mind, like looking at a mirror within a mirror within a mirror. The ego arises out of this back and forth reflection and amplification between neurons.”
“Okay, you lost me with the self-referential loop,” Pyro said.
“Look into consciousness theory sometime,” Taya said. “In any case, we save your life daily, by virtue of the fact that we are conveying you through this alien world, protecting you from its hostile environment. For that reason alone, you should value us no differently than other humans.”
Rade pursed his lips. “That’s certainly a good point. I remember when one particular Artificial saved my life, clear as yesterday. His name was Harlequin. He was always at the butt of our jokes, and we treated him the worst among us, and yet he only acted selflessly toward the rest of the platoon, never saying a bad thing about anyone. When he fell, I was trying to reach a shuttle in a firefight. Harlequin stood up, placing himself into the line of fire, and physically hauled me from cover and tossed me into the waiting shuttle, along with another stranded Marine. He took too many hits and couldn’t leap inside the shuttle to join us. When that shuttle flew away, I cried just as if I’d lost a human companion. Harlequin definitely changed how I thought of AIs. They are definitely valuable, and definitely worthy of respect. But I still can’t bring myself to value them above human beings. I’m sorry, I can’t do it. At least not above the brothers in my platoon. If it came to saving an AI ahead of Cynthia, I just might do it. Especially if that AI was Praxter.”
“And therein lies your bias,” Taya said. “You’re prejudiced toward your team mates.”
“Of course I am,” Rade said. “These are the brothers I’ve been through everything with. When this mission is over, there’s a good chance I’ll be assigned a new mech. And a new AI. All the bonding you and I experience will be for nothing. Which is why I try not to bond too closely to any mech I pilot.”
“Maybe it’s time to change that rule,” Taya said. “Centurions and mechs should go through MOTH training with recruits, graduating to the same teams, and undergoing the same hazing rituals. Then maybe you’ll treat us like the brothers and sisters we are.”
“Maybe so,” Rade agreed.
The conversation died after that, and Rade returned his attention to the plains.
“I heard you lost an arm to an electrolaser,” Kicker told Pyro suddenly.
“Yeah, it was the damnedest thing,” Pyro said. “You trust the stuff the military gives you. You have to. But man, when I fired the zodiac of that mech for the first time, it blew my arm right off. Had to get a new one bioprinted. At the military’s expense, of course.”
“Gotta love that part of it at least,” Kicker said. “The free med.”
Rade suppressed a smile. He had loosened up the pair, shown them that they could be at ease around their chief. That was all he could ask for. That they weren’t having this discussion on a private one-on-one line spoke volumes.
“Yeah, sure,” Pyro said. “But you can understand why Big Navy gives free med… they can’t even trust their own weapons not to backfire on the troops that fire them. I’m lucky that electrolaser didn’t kill me. There are a lot of things that can kill you in a battle. The last thing we need to be worrying about is our own equipment doing the deed. There are specs to build to. Quality assurance tests to pass. That sucker wasn’t supposed to make it to the field of battle, and yet it did. Tell me why—”
“Got something,” Kicker interrupted urgently. “To the east.”
Rade gazed into the distance and saw a dust cloud. It spread from north to south, covering the horizon.
“That can’t be good,” Rade said.
7
Rade zoomed in. He couldn’t see anything through the thick cloud that had formed above the surface. At least not yet. The presence of that dust wasn’t entirely surprising, because while the terrain to the south was rocky and hard, to the east it was covered in loose earth and other alluvial materials, according to his memory of the mission briefing. A herd of beasts could easily cause it.
But there were no beasts left alive on this planet. Nor would a herd of animals be racing toward this particular mountain.
So that left only two options. Either the Nemesis had come. Or the Draactal.
From the dust, shapes began to emerge. Four legged creatures with feet like ax heads, heads with mandibles, and tentacles protruding from the flanks of their bodies.
Yep. Draactals.
There were also bigger creatures among them he’d never seen before. They stood about three times as tall as the Draactals, which were already as big as the Brigand mechs. These new aliens vaguely resembled dinosaurs—four legged, with long necks and tails. Their heads had irising jaws: the teeth opened and closed in terrible, crunching swirls as they ran. Worse, they carried deadly-looking turrets mounted to their flanks, one per side. The latter tech was no doubt a gift from the Nemesis.
“Get back in the cave,” Rade said. “We’re going to be taking fire.”
Bolts of pure energy shot out from those turrets. Rade and the two Brigands with him retreated into the cave. Behind them, chucks of rock vanished from the opening where the bolts struck.
Rade glanced at the timer he had set in the upper right of his HUD. Cynthia still had ten minutes to go, out of the forty-five she promised it would take her to finish the consciousness transference.
“Skullcracker, I need you to give a message to Cynthia,” Rade sent.
“What’s that?” Skullcracker replied.
“Tell her to initiate the transference process now,” Rade said. “We have a swarm of Draactals incoming. We have to go.”
A pause. Then Skullcracker told him: “She’s not ready. She says she needs another ten minutes.”
“Tell her we don’t have ten minutes!” Rade replied.
“She says if we do the transference now, parts of the Anarchist’s consciousness will be missing,” Skullcracker sent. “Its personality could change. There could be gaps in its memory. Here, listen to her.” Cynthia’s voice came over the channel then. Her words sounded tinny—it was obvious Skullcracker was rerouting the sound from her speakers, as recorded by his external microphones, to his comm.
“You have to understand,” Cynthia said. “The Anarchist will lose his inter-dimensional link to the other interstellar nodes while in AI form, until we can put him back into an organic body on a new planet, courtesy of the spores I will carry. Without that link, and with parts of his consciousne
ss missing, he will be different. I’m not sure how much of his memory I can preserve, for example. But with just ten more minutes—”
“Like I told Skullcracker, we don’t have ten minutes,” Rade said. “If we stay here, and allow that swarm of Draactals to trap us in the cave, we’re not getting out. Period. You have to risk the transference now. If you don’t do it, we’re going to abandon you, and you and your other mechs will have to deal with the swarm on your own.”
He waited, and was about to issue his next orders, when she finally responded, softly: “I’ll do it now.”
“Good,” he said. “Get out here as soon as you can. We’re leaving in two minutes—with or without you.” He set a fresh timer on his HUD. “Skullcracker, share our public keys with her, so she can join our shared band, going forward.”
Rade wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done so already. Mostly because he didn’t trust her, he supposed.
“Cyclone, muster the platoon near the entrance with me,” Rade ordered. “And a warning: the Nemesis have equipped some new, pack animal type aliens with energy turrets. These things can dissolve solid rock. We’re going to have to target them first.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tahoe replied.
“Oh and, tell Eayan to send her mechs as well,” Rade said. “Assuming she wants to protect her precious Anarchist.”
“Sounds like you’re of a mind to leave right now,” Tahoe said. “Instead of waiting for the entity.”
“Not gonna lie, but you’re right,” Rade said. He was starting to wonder if it was worth their lives to protect this alien. Did it really know where to find a Nemesis base? Could it really fly their starships?
Well, he’d given his word.
He wasn’t the type to go back on it.
Rade glanced at the mech beside him. “Pyro.”
Unlike deep inside the tunnel, the opening was big enough to fit four mechs abreast, and Rade and Pyro took advantage of that fact to approach the entrance at a crouch from opposite sides.
More energy blasts struck the opening, causing round sections to disappear. Almost like bites taken out of a cookie…
One bolt passed into the cave itself, coming in at an angle, and struck the ceiling above, where it dissolved a good chunk of rock.
“Can our ballistic shields hold up against that?” Pyro asked.
“Doubt it,” Rade replied.
“But feel free to test that out for us,” Kicker commented.
“No thanks,” Pyro said.
Rade thought the energy bolts were preemptive attacks at this point more than anything else—the Pack Animal, or whoever was targeting the weapons, wouldn’t have spotted them, not unless the enemy had eyes higher up, at a level with the shoulder of the mountain. Maybe it did.
“Kicker, check the sky,” Rade said as he continued toward the entrance.
Kicker’s mech approached down the middle, and dropped to the cave floor between Rade and Pyro, and proceeded to search the sky with his cobra sights.
Rade reached the edge of the cave at the same time as Pyro. He lifted his cobra past the brink and switched to the weapon’s scope. He kept his main camera feed displayed in the lower left of his vision for situational awareness purposes—it was equivalent to leaving both eyes open while peering through the scope of a sniper rifle, for example. He scanned the dust cloud until he spotted one of the incoming Pack Animals, then aligned the sights over the energy turrets on the left flank.
The turret bobbed up and down as the animal ran, and Rade used his mech’s AI to help him compensate.
He fired.
Repeatedly.
At this distance, he couldn’t tell if he was damaging the weapon—the spot size of the impact was only about the size of a thumbnail at the current range. After five direct hits, he decided he’d just have to assume he’d taken the weapon offline. He switched to the energy turret on the right flank, and repeated the attack with help from his AI.
“Boss, get back!” Pyro sent.
Just as Pyro said the words, Rade spotted the incoming bolts on the external camera feed he’d kept in the lower right of his vision. He immediately switched off the weapon’s viewpoint and retreated; energy bolts struck the edge right in front of where he’d been hiding. Large chunks disappeared—if he had remained there, he wouldn’t be alive at the moment.
“I owe you one,” Rade said. “Did you see the Pack Animal that launched it?”
“I did,” Pyro said. “Sending its targeting info your way now. I assume you want to take it down?”
“Good guess,” Rade said.
He and Pyro edged forward once more.
“At least they’re not firing gamma rays,” Kicker said. “So, we have some visual confirmation of what’s coming before it arrives.”
“Anything in the air?” Rade asked Kicker.
“Not yet,” the mustached avatar replied.
As Rade got closer, the requested targeting information appeared on Rade’s overhead map, courtesy of Pyro, so that when he reached the edge, he was able to quickly line up his sights with the Pack Animal in question. It was one of those in the forefront. Probably close enough to spot him. He’d have to be quick.
Instead of targeting the weapon turrets, this time Rade aimed at the animal itself. Specifically, the head. He fired three quick shots, spaced half a second apart, as per the weapon’s firing rate.
The Pack Animal continued running for several seconds, as if it didn’t realize it was dead, and then promptly toppled, plowing headfirst into the ground. It tripped up several of the Draactals that followed behind it, until the others realized what was going on, and either headed around, or climbed over the corpse.
“Target the heads,” Rade told Pyro. “Seems fastest.”
He still had the camera feed from his mech’s head in the lower left of his vision, so when several energy bolts headed toward the cave, he pulled back. “Pyro!”
The other mech also retreated, and several more chunks disappeared from the opening.
“The entrance is becoming smaller and smaller all the time,” Pyro commented.
Pyro was right. Given where the new entrance resided, only three Brigand mechs would be able to fit abreast. Already Kicker had to retreat to give Rade and Pyro room.
The others began to arrive. They were squeezed two abreast in the tighter portion of the cave behind Rade. Bender and Snakeoil were in the lead. According to the overhead map, all of Eayan’s Titans and Hoplites were there as well, but not her mech itself—she was staying behind to give her AI core to the Anarchist, of course.
“Hey, let us have a turn!” Bender said. “Why do you always get to kill all the bugs?”
“Because he’s Rade,” Tahoe quipped. “You know, like the repellant?”
“Why do I feel like you’re going to quote some insect repellant slogan now?” Lui asked.
“Our Hoplites are smaller,” someone said over the shared comm. A label on Rade’s HUD identified the speaker as Xavien, one of the AIs in Eayan’s party. “We can fit four of our units near the edge, in place of your two Brigands.”
Rade hesitated, then glanced at Pyro. “Let them forward.”
Rade and the others retreated a few paces—slowly, with their hulls occasionally hitting those behind them—and then dropped to the ground. Four of Eayan’s Hoplites dashed forward, crawling and clambering over the mechs, until they were near the entrance to the cave. They moved a little farther into the opening than Rade thought was wise, and deployed their ballistic shields. They held their cobras over the notches in those shields, and opened fire.
“Target the heads of the Pack Animals,” Rade told them. “That seems to be the most effective in bringing them down. By the way, you’re too close to the opening.”
An energy bolt suddenly slammed into one of the Hoplites, and it dissolved right through the ballistic shield, as well as halfway through the mech’s torso. The destroyed mech toppled.
“Maybe now they’ll believe you about being
too close…” Fret commented.
The three remaining Hoplites quickly retreated deeper into the cave, and behind them fresh holes dissolved into the opening.
One of the Hoplites stepped on Rade’s head—well, the head of his mech, but it might as well have been his own.
“Hey!” Rade sent.
“Sorry,” Xavien replied, repositioning the feet of its mech. The Hoplites continued to fire from their deeper cover.
Several cobra shots later, Xavien reported: “I believe we’ve taken down the last of the Pack Animals.”
Rade waited for an energy bolt to slam into the opening, but none came.
“The lack of return fire tells us everything we need to know,” Rex commented.
“The Draactals are almost at the cave.” Xavien continued to fire rapidly, moving slowly closer to the opening, apparently confident that no energy bolts would hit him in turn.
“Cynthia, where are you?” Rade asked. “We have to go.”
No answer.
He checked his comm status indicator. She had joined the main channel after Skullcracker had shared the public keys with her. So, she had to have heard.
“Eayan, where’s Cynthia?” Rade tried. “We have to leave. Now.”
Also no answer.
An alert sounded on his HUD. His two-minute timer just hit zero.
8
“Damn it, where is she?” Rade said. “Fret, go get her! With or without the Anarchist!”
“You got it, Chief!” Fret said.
Fret was at the back of the platoon, but he still had a bunch of Eayan’s mechs in the way.
“Out of the way!” Fret said over the comm.
Eayan’s mechs dropped to the cave floor to let him pass, and he stepped on their heads, torsos, and appendages.
“Excuse me,” Fret said. “Pardon me.”
Rade returned his attention to the front. He moved into the space the Hoplites vacated, and, wanting to get an idea of how close the enemy lines were, he requested access to Xavien’s camera feed.
Xavien accepted his request, and a moment later Rade’s vision filled with the mech’s viewpoint. He immediately shared it with his own platoon members as a courtesy.