by Tom Germann
Steven paused. I could see where this was going. “So A led to G, which ran over to X. The plan fell apart almost immediately because the intelligence that had been passed down was incorrect. Passive sensors failed to identify the changes so the mission change was not enough to send you into what was really waiting. The section would not deploy against that sort of setup. It is against the unspoken rules, or perhaps, it would be better to call it the ‘etiquette’ of modern skirmishing combat in deep space.”
I shrugged. “Okay, I get it. The mission parameters were different and we went in fat and happy, thinking we had an easy go. Then we got our asses handed to us by an army.”
Steven paused again and watched me. “You don’t have enough information here, Eight. The section was judged as being both cocky and devastated by the loss of the previous Eight on what should have been a routine mission. They thought they would accomplish the goals and, if necessary, they could just carry the new member of the section getting it done. The reality that you all went into was a rapidly expanding research base that had been growing as terraforming was about to start. The military forces on-planet were only increased by 80 percent. That increase was the heavy armour and a large cadre to supplement the existing forces.”
“A cadre? A cadre for what?”
“With growth, the base had a huge influx of new workers. The Kah-Choo Empire believes in military service. Elite warriors are specialists, just like the Marines are. The difference is that every member of the Kah-Choo must be willing to lay their life down for the empire and emperor as necessary. They had been undergoing training for several weeks before the operation started.”
I went white. “How many were drafted into their army?”
“Thirty percent of the population received training and knew where weapon caches and armouries were. That would put the total number of drafted fighters in at approximately a thousand for the target. With a full company of heavy armour and the normal regular deep space forces that the Kah-Choo deploy.”
We had gone up against a huge force. We should have been wiped out in seconds by that much firepower. I had a better understanding now and didn’t feel as bad that I had been abandoned at the end.
“Unfortunately, Eight, the mission did not meet all the criteria that had been hoped for.”
I focused in on Steven again. “What do you mean?”
“Eight, you need to understand. When deploying and facing the odds that you were against, the section should immediately have pulled out with no argument. There is no assaulting something that large. While a site with that much defensive capability would take longer to react, it would react massively. The reaction would have destroyed the section. You see, the section stood and fought longer than it should have. The restructuring after the loss of Two should not have taken that long. You were never called back from your deploying forward. Within seconds, everyone should have fallen back. Only after the section took more casualties did they fall back. That they had an attitude that they could overcome this is obvious in reviewing what happened.”
“Is it bad to be confident?”
Steven sighed. “In this case? Yes, Eight. After that operation, the section has several casualties and has lost a drop ship. The section would be out of action for months until replacements could be shipped forward from Earth. Then the section would have to work up again. That could be a year or more of rebuilding at a time when the Marines are stretched thin. This vessel has a large sector of space to cover, visiting and protecting a small number of facilities. Any enemy realizing this could attack now and cripple humanity’s efforts out here.”
“Yeah, but we won. I blew up the target. Even though we lost so many people and lots of equipment, the objective was completed, right? We won.”
“No, Eight. In fact, the operation was a complete failure. The target was destroyed, but based on the very little understanding that we have of aliens, we went over the line in the mission. By invading such a large facility and killing so many of the enemy, humanity effectively declared war on the Kah-Choo. The damage cost would have been evaluated in mega-numbers. So we destroyed a value of a trillion or more dollars. The Kah-Choo are a touchy race and honourable in their own way. And they are the only alien race that we know of that may be able to successfully wage warfare across space.”
I couldn’t say anything. We would have been the cause of an outbreak of war. Intergalactic war, or whatever it was called. I pictured asteroids with engines on them flying into Earth at high speed, and the resulting damage.
“Are you sure about that, Steven?”
“No, of course not, Eight. Aliens are, well, too ‘alien’ for us to really understand. I can say that if a race hit our colony world and did the sort of damage and caused that sort of death toll, possibly even causing every human there to die, well, Earth would not tolerate that. A strike would be organized against whoever caused that. From what we can surmise, other aliens would join with us. The exact number of deaths and amount of damage that would have to be caused? Unknown. That is the reason that these raids are small surgical strikes. Destruction is not what is aimed at.” Steven paused and considered me with narrowed eyes. “Yet that’s exactly what happened during this training.”
I felt my ears heating up.
Then Steven smiled again. “However, that was training. not real-world. The section would never stay past a certain point if there were casualties or if it looked like the operation was a fail. They would pull out unless orders were counter to that. So while the mission was a failure in a way, at the same time the lesson is still learned. More importantly, as you go on more trainings and missions with the section, they will start to accept you for you. Every time they look at you, they remember the last Eight. They feel guilt that he died. They should have been able to do something different or better. The reality is that they couldn’t. That is what combat tends to be like sometimes, unfortunately. Otherwise, we would not need violence to ‘fix’ things.”
I shrugged. I didn’t get it all yet. Maybe ‘cause I was dumb, or just young. Maybe I’d get it later. Or not. Either way, I had to fit in and survive. That led me to my last questions.
“Steven, if you can answer two more questions?”
Steven looked at his wrist where there was a watch. It was creepy. The AI didn’t need a watch to tell time. He was tied into the ship’s systems and never lost track of anything. I guessed that the gesture was to make him more human. But it just highlighted to me that he was an AI.
“Two told me that the section was insane. Well, that it’s the reason everyone is friendly to each other. Can you give me a bit more to go on than that? Are they really insane?”
He shook his head. “Eight, I do have full access to your training files. You already know why if you think about it. Are they really insane? Well, yes, just like any soldier is. They are willing to do harm to another to prevent harm being done to their own. Back on Earth, they wouldn’t be allowed to engage or kill the enemy unless under specific situations. Out here they are constantly ready to fight the enemy if they have to. So they break the rules all the time, as they need to. Do you see how that could make any soldier seem insane?”
That was too complex for me. I knew why Two had said they were insane out here and different. But the rest? It was too much to think about now.
“Eight, you said you had two questions?”
“Uh, yes I do, Steven. You know Jane, who runs the combat sims for the section?”
“Absolutely. We communicate to make sure all the correct elements are in a mission. It wouldn’t do to have a blind spot that no one is ready for in future. Why do you ask?”
“Can you tell me without telling Jane I asked, how does she pick her avatars when dealing with the section?”
Steven frowned. “A different question than what I expected. Well, Jane picks an avatar after evaluating the individual so that she appears as what
that specific person needs. Why? Let me just review. . . .”
Steven’s frown left and his eyebrows went up to his hairline.
“Um, well. . . .”
“Well, Eight, I can see why that would be an interesting question for you to bring up. I’m pulling up the rest of the avatar data . . . got it. Hmm I see.”
I knew I was beet red but I wasn’t going to lose control. “So can you tell me why Jane looks like . . . ummm, a hot babe?”
I flinched when I said it. Damn it! So much for my focus and trying to be professional. I would have bet the AIs talked amongst themselves. I bet they were talking to all the other AIs out there too. Probably putting data in those data packets that they shared on courier ships. Crap, crap, crap!
“Hello, Eight?”
I ignored the voice yelling at me in the back of my head. “Yes, Steven?”
“I would have to evaluate for real detail, but Jane picked an avatar that you need. Something that you can relate to. She does know what she is doing, and I can say this: She is always accurate.”
“But why?”
Steven checked his watch again. “I’ll make this fast right now. I want you to get a nap before you head off to your next duty. The mind needs to reset after too much data or it starts to shut down while processing. A quick evaluation is that you are quite shy when it comes to dealing with the females of the species. You are also quite protective. I believe that Jane is at least partially trying to get you out of your shell when it comes to being around women and not just soldiers. The other part is that trust is earned. By presenting a smiling, friendly female face, she knows that you will talk to her. If she were to appear as male, you would lock your emotions away. That is a fast analysis. Do you have any more questions, Eight?”
“No, Steven, I’m okay . . . I think.”
Steven smiled again. “Yes you are, Eight.”
Then he was gone. The screen flicked off and the lights dimmed down a bit more.
The couch shifted under me back to a flat bed, and I closed my eyes after checking that I would get a signal before my next task.
I tried to drift off but my mind wouldn’t stop running in circles.
It wasn’t that long until the signal went off and I got up and headed to go work out.
Stealth Entry
The transit time to the system was only days, not long weeks thankfully, and we would have the ability to fuel up there, which was a good thing in my mind. This outpost is at one of the edges of explored human space. Then again, almost every star system is at the edge of human space.
Then we came into a system that had no colonies or real bases but was a testing ground for all sorts of systems and things. It was on the outside of the route we normally took.
The Corporation thought that this was a safe hideaway to test what could be too dangerous—somewhere no one would ever come.
There were dozens of small projects on the go here, running under automation and low level AIs. They were all top-secret projects. But everything in deep space is classified as top secret or higher.
They were all running quiet and would not communicate or broadcast unless they received specific signals. Lot of little projects were doing their own thing, watching and learning how the star worked, digging up small quantities of ore on a battered moon, and running deep-space evaluation equations close to the star itself on the far side away from everything.
I had no clue what deep-space evaluation equations were.
The only thing I could get out of our system was a reference to star drives. I didn’t write it down or anything, but it hit me that if the math was being processed by an AI or some sort of think tank, then bad things could happen. So keeping the experiment far away would be a good thing.
Our ship had dropped out of star drive farther out than normal. We were just skirting the system when we dropped back into normal space. The flight into the system took a few days, and shortly after we came out of star drive the crew had started running around more than normal. We went to standby after a few hours as notification came in that several of the projects set up in the system were not reporting in. For something to break down would be understandable and almost expected. Especially in a system where there were so many ways for unsupervised gear to be damaged. For several systems to break down all at once was not a coincidence, though, unless some sort of major natural event had occurred, destroying multiple hardened projects across the space of the star system.
My first thought was that the star drive research had gone bad, but Two and Six had dismissed that as unlikely because all the work being done was theoretical and it was just number-crunching by the AI. If that was really true, though, why was the AI set up on a small station orbiting the sun on the far side of everything else?
I had a chance to look at the schematics for the station. It was big enough for a few people to board and move around in what was basically a big room. There was no communications ability and the AI that was running the processing was completely cut off from the real world with no way to interact. The only way to communicate with the AI on board was to manually plug in a console via cable to the AI “box.” What I was looking at was a small metal room where the AI sat in a box and ran the algorithms. I didn’t fully believe anyone when they told me that there was no risk. I just couldn’t figure out what the AI could do from there. I was pretty sure that someone else had figured something out, though, which was why all the security existed.
After a few hours of heading in-system under power the section was called to the briefing room by Two. We sat down and waited for her to begin. She pulled up a map of the system and projected it over the table in a three-dimensional holograph. The sun was in the centre, with the planets and asteroid field slowly pushing outward. We were represented as a small ship icon with our projected path inwards. There were dozens of small icons representing different types of satellites orbiting the sun. Each satellite was artificial and dropped off here by the Corporation to conduct some sort of research. There were also two small outposts, both of which were fully automated.
The first outpost was on a planet and was carrying out an analysis of everything, the planet, space around it as well as the rest of the astral bodies. The more the thinkers know about how everything works, the more they realize they don’t know or understand yet. The station was big enough to house up to ten people if necessary, likely scientists that would be there for the short term if anything was found and needed to be verified. There were even some basic supplies laid in. Normally the outpost was empty unless being inspected, or if something came up that required human eyes and brains to work on it.
The other outpost was much closer to the star and was an experimental station that ran automated mining equipment.
We received a lot of detailed information in some of these briefs. Yet sometimes there were big areas where no information was included or it seemed off. Over the years of receiving those briefs, and even being responsible for giving some of them, I discovered a bit of information and filled in the rest with guesswork and supposition. The Glentol Corporation trusted us. We were a small group in a starship traveling across the stars with enough equipment to start and fight a small war.
Yet this information could either be very sensitive or classified. No matter how loyal we are, there is always the chance of being captured by the enemy. We are trained to survive no matter what, as Corporate Marines are rare and difficult to create. To commit suicide is almost unthinkable for us.
There was always a possibility that an alien race could capture one of us and set up a habitat to keep us alive. Then they could torture the information out of the prisoner. I could see how it could be done, but the holes in the logic were huge and hinged on the belief that the enemy would have the resources, the time, and the understanding of humans to do it successfully. If we couldn’t really communicate with each other now, to believe th
at an alien race could just figure it all out is a stretch. Maybe one day.
So the Corporation kept the information they received secret from everyone except whatever team was working on it. Sometimes entire teams were kept in the dark on other applications that were being explored from offshoot developments in their projects.
Looking at the briefing on the automated mining equipment, it was clear there was something else going on. The automated station was large enough to house a crew of thirty technicians, engineers, and scientists. Yet the robotic workers were nothing that special. They were squat machines that were built on small tank chassis. They didn’t look sleek or sophisticated. They were ugly masses of metal that could drill through almost anything. They weren’t fast or really high tech.
I also couldn’t figure out why they were mining there on that moon. They were close to the sun and there were not that many minerals in that location. Of course, some of those minerals were very rare and unique to this system. Automated robotic mining equipment could be dropped in-location and slowly mine away for a year or longer until enough minerals were dug up, processed, and prepared to be picked up by a vessel like ours.
In the long term, with no people there and automation with low maintenance requirements, this would make the project workable, but the Corporation was still spending more than it was making back.
That wasn’t my problem. My problem was following orders and keeping everything safe for the Corporation.
I remembered what Two had said about how I would eventually start to fit in, even though I was trained not to.
So I focussed on our briefing instead of worrying about what I couldn’t affect.