by Tom Germann
The Representative picked up a small piece of slag and turned it over in his hands. “Yet they say we did this. It is convenient that they are not able to actually show us any data on that, yet their young one can act out an attack similar to what happened to us.”
“Lord, while this young dancer was showing us what happened, the other one over there that appears to be destroying our briefing board has been trying to connect his technology to it. We know how difficult it is to have the different races’ technology work together. Our computers cannot even understand each other’s languages. Our estimates are that in fifty years of dedicated research we may have a way around that. For now, though, I think they are telling the truth. At least as far as they can. My question would be, if they did not carry out this attack, who did? Why would someone or some alien race wish a war between the two of us? Or if not a war, the increased conflict and lack of trust between races that already do not understand each other?”
The Representative turned toward Kaza. “Yet I stand here charged by the emperor with finding out what happened and if they, the Hoomans, were responsible. I do not have enough factual data to convince myself, let alone the emperor, that the Hoomans are not responsible.”
“Lord, may I ask you a question that is not my place to ask? I do not wish to offend, but it troubles me.”
The Representative made a small gesture to Kaza to continue.
“Lord, I thought that this mission was to be an ambush. I thought that we would kill several of the Hooman fighters and get the information from the rest. Is what we have done? What the emperor called for?”
The Representative did not talk for a second and appeared to be staring into the depths of space. His specially polarized helmet allowed him to be seen but took away much of the important colour, thus decreasing the ability to read his facial features.
This sun gave off a hurtful glare that the Kah-Choo loathed. It was one of the reasons they had never put an outpost or base in this system.
Kaza could see the Representative nod as if he was having a discussion with himself and had made a decision.
“The emperor trusts my decisions, Kaza. His orders to me were to find the truth and then to avenge the empire’s honour by causing twice as much damage to the enemy. He did not tell me specifically what to do, when to do it, or how. I will be honest with you, old friend. After we took this outpost and scanned the Hoomans, seeing that there were almost as many females with the males, I understood that. When the technician told me that they had almost mature cubs here, I questioned who would put their young in harm’s way. They must have known that we would retaliate for the death and destruction caused. Yet they brought their young. I could only see this being the case if they had sent out their disgraced ones to run the outposts along the border. Yet who would send their incompetent and foolish to die in outposts that cost so much? If the Hoomans did this intentionally, then I shudder in dread at the thought of what they would do to win.”
“Lord, the Hoomans only deploy small units of warriors in their armour. That armour is more sophisticated and reacts faster than ours. Our strength is that we deploy more and with more heavy weapons mounted. These warriors represent an investment of money and honour. While the analysis indicates that they are not the best warriors that we have ever seen, something does not add up here.”
The Representative nodded. “That is how I am thinking, Kaza. Any starship is worth too much to just send in. Yet we have a starship sitting in orbit pinned in by our ships now. I think more and more that there is a third party at work here. Perhaps there is an unknown player, one that wishes to stop us trying to communicate together. To keep us split apart and unable to work together.”
The Hooman fighter working on the board suddenly jumped up and waved his arms over his head. From where they were standing, it appeared to the Kah-Choo that there were icons moving on the board.
The Representative turned to Kaza. “It appears that the Hoomans have been able to at least partially make their technology work with ours. If only they weren’t so furless and ugly, perhaps we could work together more easily. Well, let’s go see what they wish to show us. I think we already know what we’ll see.”
A Computerized Briefing
“All right!” Four had leapt up and was pumping his arms in the air excitedly. “I did it, Two! We have at least a partial data transfer. They can read and see the data on the attack now!”
Two didn’t move but her voice was frantic. “Stop dancing around, Four! We have dozens of enemy soldiers all around us and two of their leaders here! All we need is for them to think that you’re doing the feasting dance and they’ll have issues with us!”
Four stopped and then looked around, dropping his arms back down to his side. “Sorry, Two. It’s just that what I just did should have taken hours and not worked at all! Maybe our tech is more compatible than we originally thought.”
Two shrugged. “I don’t care, as long as they can see our data and confirm it’s real. Anything that stops them from destroying us is a wonderful thing.” She paused. “Here they come. I hope your work is as good as always, Four.”
The two Kah-Choo came over to the board and watched as Four hovered over the jury-rigged device he had created on the side.
“Eight, come over here toward the board. You’ve got the file in your system and this thing will accept wireless, but only from a short distance, and I want you to drop the resolution on the data. Your data stream has to be small and the buffering is going to be a nightmare. If you go too fast, you’ll burn the system out. So, slow.” He drew out the last word.
I looked at Four. I had sort of figured that out, but the specifics were good. I walked much closer to the board until Four held a hand up to let me know I was close enough. I set my data transfer to as slow as possible, and then only started transmitting small bursts of data.
After a few seconds the board seemed to reset and then images appeared. They weren’t the same as in our system. The system was using its own icons for the data we were feeding it. The images started shifting. It wasn’t showing as a smoothly flowing data feed like in our debriefs. It was slow and jerky and not that good. But the Kah-Choo could see what had happened.
Four stood next to the board, keeping an eye on his contraption, and had me stop several times when he thought it was going to melt down.
When the ship finally moved out of the system after destroying the outpost, I kept the feed open. I had taken some pics when we were at the site looking it over. Those came up next and seemed to interest the Kah-Choo more than anything else. Then, when those few were done, the little bit of data from the sensors that had been in-system came up, along with a comparison of the little data that we had of Kah-Choo ships.
I was focused on keeping the data flow slow and even so as not to damage what Four had done, so I couldn’t talk. But I could hear the conversation going on between Two and Four.
“Four, you did an amazing thing there with the translation box you put on the side of that board. You appear to have dealt with a bunch of issues as well. But my question is, are they seeing this correctly?”
“What do you mean, Two?”
“Are they seeing a ship moving into a system and doing damage, or are they watching a kids’ entertainment show? That comparison that Eight sent along with the pics is great. Unless the comparison data is the effectiveness of sunlight in growing mushrooms. Do you know what I’m asking here?”
Four was hunched over the electronic mess that he had attached to the side of the board’s control box. He never looked up, but he didn’t need to. “I know that they are getting the data. I know that it appears to be showing correctly. There are a few reference points that seem to work, but there are a lot more that are not coming together at all. I think that they maybe understand we are trying to tell them we didn’t do it and we’re asking if they did that to us. All I can really say
is, they’re Aliens! Communication is almost impossible at this point. Maybe one day. But some things should be sort of consistent if they are only able to make jumps in logic.”
The Kah-Choo were just standing there watching, and then they turned to each other and ignored us for a time.
The Kah-Choo Decision
“Lord, I know you are the eyes and ears of the emperor and what you command is his command. Yet I am hesitant with what you suggest.”
The Representative waved his paw dismissively. “I speak as the emperor in this and I have made a decision.”
With a click, the Representative had included Shiv in the communication channel, stopping all private discussion between Kaza and himself. “Shiv, I want you to keep all the warriors on standby and send two light raiders out here with the package. They will take the board back as well so we can study what the Hoomans have done to it. They are NOT to damage the board. We will then pull back to the landing zone and extract back to the ships. Will the Hooman domes last after we leave? Nothing has been damaged, and is our equipment ready to leave as well?”
Shiv’s voice came back immediately. “Honoured Lord, I have two trusted warriors coming now. The Hooman domes are in good shape even though the machinery for mining and some of their rovers have not been repaired after our assault. But they will be fine. As for our quarters, as you ordered earlier, everything has been removed that should have been. We simply have left three domes with our atmosphere and nothing else. We are not quite as the wind that blows through the forest, but we are leaving almost no imprint on the Hooman world.”
He was careful, as he had been throughout their mission on this world. But Shiv’s voice had a note of distaste when he said the word ‘Hooman.’
The Representative nodded. “Excellent, Shiv. The warriors must maintain overwatch, but we will not initiate hostilities. We are leaving in peace.”
He turned as the two warriors came up, wearing armour. They had left their personal weapons behind but were still wearing their body harnesses. The lead warrior came up to just before the Representative and went to a knee. Bowing forward, he held both arms up with a case in his hands.
The Representative took the case and turned away toward the watching Hoomans. As soon as he had taken the case, the warrior stood up and then both walked to the board, which they carefully picked up and took back toward the domes and their waiting shuttles.
The Representative walked halfway to Two and then stopped. He held out the case. The leader walked forward and stopped just short of him, hesitated, and then bowed a bit deeper than the warriors had. Carefully reaching out, the Hooman leader took the case, stepped back, and bowed again before backing further away.
Kaza’s snort was loud. “At least the Hooman attempts to show respect. Even though the attempt was so poor that if this were another warrior, I would immediately kill him for the lack of effort shown toward the emperor.”
The Representative simply turned and started walking toward the waiting shuttles. “Come along, Kaza; we must get out of the way of Shiv and his warriors. The Hooman have made several attempts today and have shown that they can think. Perhaps if they can understand what we have left them and we can eventually understand what they gave us, perhaps we will be able to educate them one day.”
Kaza started following as the distant warriors began collapsing their positions back toward the outpost.
The Kah-Choo Depart
Eight, Two, and Four watched the Kah-Choo delegates leave. No further attempts to communicate had occurred, and as they watched, the sensor feeds showed the soldiers surrounding them pulling back toward the dome and the landing field.
The section stood there passively until the first shuttle took off.
Brent spoke first and his voice was shaky. “I don’t get it. Why did they leave like that? They came in, shot the place up, did a lot of damage, and then fixed some of it. Now after you arrive, you guys both share info on star systems, they give you a box, and then they all just pack up and leave? Should I have everyone suit up and head for the caves we have?”
Two spoke quietly. “Brent, I think they are done here. They got what they wanted and I think we learned a bit too. I don’t think you need to run for the shelters. Do you see their soldiers on the dome? They’re removing the explosives. I bet any explosives inside have just deactivated. Check with your people. While you do that, we’re just going to stand here and watch them leave so they don’t feel threatened. Except for Four, who is going to go and pull out the spare bolts for our lander.”
Four started walking toward the lander and he was joined by Seven. They would pull out replacement bolts and then we could reseal the inside.
We could all hear Brent talking on the comm, but it was a one-sided communication.
“What do you mean, you checked all of them? They’re all fake? You mean all those explosive charges inside weren’t real? Why would they do that?”
Two never stopped watching as the first shuttle launched into space. The sensor data showed the troops smoothly flowing into their ships, which started taking off one after the other.
The Kah-Choo were all gone.
As the last shuttle lifted off Two turned and started walking to her position. She picked up her rifle and started walking in a direct line toward the domes. She called back to Brent. “Come on, Brent, you can open up the domes for us. I don’t think they ever really wanted to hurt anyone. I think they wanted to know who attacked them. I would feel real sorry toward whoever did that, but we’ve seen how that group operates. I have no sympathy for the scum that attacked them—or us.”
She kept walking. Brent started following after a second.
It was over. Now we had to do a full evaluation of the outpost, all the structures, the personnel and equipment that was planet-side. And all to make sure that the Kah-Choo hadn’t left any surprises, as well as ensure that there was no risk to the people here from damage that had occurred earlier when the site was first taken.
Post Mission
Everything was messed up. The raiders hadn’t been raiders; they were simply testing our defences. But that didn’t make sense. Every time there was a meeting we ended up working different scenarios out. Any of those could have worked, or none of them. Even the AIs weren’t that much help.
In fact, they were no help whatsoever. They were able to give percentages to the odds of any of our options being correct. They were all pretty balanced out, and also included one more that we had not asked for in consideration: the ‘other’ option. Something other than what we had discussed. They all had equal odds, except for ‘other.’
Jane was the lead AI for this evaluation. She would use additional processing power as she needed it, but she was the face that we dealt with all the time in our discussions. She would use our implants to appear to us in the conferences. That way, she could be the avatar that we were each used to seeing.
It was strange watching a hot, maybe-twenty-year-old in the latest workout clothing working through the numbers with us. It was even weirder when she would look at me, throw me a wink, and flick her hair back once in a while.
The first time we sat in the briefing room and were running over what had happened, there were nine options. Each option had a 9 percent chance of being correct. All any of us had really seen was that each number was the same.
It was One, that asshole who still didn’t like what I represented but at least had eased off on trying to constantly trip me up, who noticed the numbers didn’t add up. We had just finished going over the ninth option when he spoke up.
“Jane, I counted the numbers and you only have 81 percent probability total on the screens. Are we missing something?”
Jane was standing at the bottom of the conference room table. Her colouring looked more washed-out than normal because she had just finished compiling what we knew, along with ‘strong’ suppositio
ns—or guessing.
She came back into focus and smiled. “I’m glad someone noticed this, One. I’m amazed at how poorly the entire section has been tracking recently. Ever since new Eight arrived,” she winked and blew a kiss at me. I seriously was wondering what everyone else was seeing and still didn’t know how to ask, “and the not-so-good results from the sim training, well, I was concerned that you had lost your edge. Now that it only took two days for someone to notice the numbers are off, I have come to a conclusion.”
She paused and smiled.
Two broke the silence. “Okay, Jane. Tell us or I reset your factory resets to boring monotone.”
Jane laughed. “Oh, Two! Come on now, threats? I’m the only thing that alleviates your boring days out here! Plus, if you did reset me, you would have to reprogram me again to get that twisted sense of humour that throws all sorts of evil angles at you in practice missions.”
Two leaned back and spoke very carefully. “Jane. The answer. Now.”
Jane sighed. “All right. You have all been quite happy coming up with numerous different options on what was going on with the Kah-Choo and how their responses were driven by different factors. Yet you all missed the one important factor that we have as a solid fact.” She threw her hands up dramatically. “They’re aliens! Anything that we attribute their actions to may in fact be completely wrong. They may have moved in on the outpost, taken it, and then left not because they were,” she waved her hand and the list over the table highlighted Option 6, “testing the human defences in preparation for taking extra solar properties.” She sighed again. “Maybe they were invading the outpost because their emperor thought that the rocks from that moon had aphrodisiac properties. Or maybe because they are rumoured to be the best type of birth control in the known universe. It is possible that they were looking to find out if humans had attacked their outpost, but then when you appeared to communicate with them that it wasn’t us and, in fact, we thought that they had attacked us previously, what do they do? They keep you under their guns, point out repairs that they’ve done, and then leave, taking half of the ore production from the site. When I say that doesn’t seem like a measured response, do you see what I am saying? Oh, and don’t forget that they left you a data package that contains a record of the attack on their site. It also includes a rather large data set that could be the basis for at least beginning to understand their programming. This is all over the place.”