Sentient

by D. R. Rosier

  He bent down and kissed her hard and passionately. She mewled into his mouth as she wrapped her long sexy legs around his body and used them to pull herself up against him and ground their bodies together. His manhood jumped and felt a surge of pleasure as she bit down on his bottom lip and ground herself against him again.

  She mewled and did it again before she said sultrily, “Take me love, I need you.”

  He started to stroke the full length of his manhood, in and out of her welcoming tight wet core. She was more ready than he realized as she almost exploded in bliss immediately. He had to concentrate on not cumming as her tight heat grew even tighter and milked him up and down as he felt her silken nectar burst around his manhood and drip down his balls.

  When she came down a little, he started to drill her hard and fast. He knew he wouldn’t last long; all he could think about was how she’d probably be knocked up as soon as he came inside her warmth. It completely messed with his control. Finally he just gave in to the pleasure he felt inside his love, they had plenty of time for another few rounds before they needed to rest for their arrival.

  He grunted, “Going to cum Stace!”

  The look of lust and want in her eyes at that declaration snapped the remaining tatters of his will and he reached rapturous bliss inside her heaven as he filled her with his essence. He couldn’t move but he could feel her milking him and grinding up against him. When he was done emptying himself he came down slowly and they started kissing tenderly.

  He broke the kiss and they both smiled as they broke apart. She still looked so sexy in the red lingerie, but he thought he’d probably strip her of that for round two. He knew it wouldn’t take him long before he was ready to go again. Not while he held her in his arms…

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  General Bill Nells reported his findings.

  “Mr. President, it appears they have new ships up there now. They took out those thousand enemy craft like it was a walk in the park sir. I’m not sure about this Aide or even our Sgt. Miller, but I don’t think we have much to fear from these… Sthellans? It kind of makes me a little proud of humanity, it’s obvious to me that taking those scientists did wonders for the technology.

  “Though I can’t say how of course.”

  The President nodded, “Word is definitely out, I hear the battle is already going viral on YouTube. One of the other governments must have leaked it.”

  The SECDEF added, “So far there’s been no panicking in the streets, although from what we can tell more people have been skipping work and staying in the house. I imagine between your speech about it, and now the leaked video people are confident it’s being handled. There are certain outliers of course, some of those survival groups have gone to ground, but they aren’t a threat.”

  The President sighed, “The Middle East is losing it, and tensions are high elsewhere, but so far so good. I don’t have anything else today that can’t wait.”

  They all nodded and the meeting broke up. Bill was glad of that, he didn’t want to get home to late tonight. His wife had been… a lot more demonstrative lately, almost like the beginning of their marriage. Who said a little panic was bad?”

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  When they passed the ten light year point the details of their target system increased a thousand fold thanks to her Olivia’s work. They still had a few hours to go over the data, but of course her advanced processors only needed a few tenths of a second. She frowned, that wasn’t very precise of her. It took .34 seconds for her to analyze the data for any threats.

  She had realized being that precise around humans got her teased, but rounding things off with herself was going too far.

  The fourth planet from the sun was the only life bearing planet in the system. It was surrounded by four thousand scout ships and twenty stationary weapons platforms. There were also twenty nine cargo ships. On the surface they seemed to be strip mining the planet for resources, as far as she could tell there was no indigenous intelligent life, though there were some mammals, insects and many species of trees, bushes, flowers, and spores.

  There was one gas giant and three other planets in the system as well as two asteroid belts and various comets. There were also sensor stations, she had no doubt they could already see their ships, even if the scans would only reveal very little else at this distance. They would be able to scan them in detail when they were just a light year away. She took note a thousand of the ships started moving in the direction they would leave FTL space.

  It was a smaller system than Sol, so the ships would reach the FTL point in two days; they’d be there a long time before that happened. Hopefully long enough they could open up communications with them.

  Everyone else was still in their suite’s trying to relax, including her body. She created a download with the useful facts only and sent it to the five humans in her care. Now all they had to do was wait. She spent some time going over the communication again and decided all was ready.

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  Lethor cursed up a storm when the ships approaching hit the light year mark and he ordered the remaining ships to follow. He wasn’t sure even four thousand ships would be enough.

  “Sir! Incoming transmission.”

  Lethor growled at the communications officer, “On screen,” and was satisfied as he saw the junior officer shake in fear. His canines were quite impressive he knew.

  He frowned at the message for peace. What foolishness. There was no peace, only victory or death. It was the way of nature. Peace was an illusion for the weak. The Alion had been foolish enough to ask for peace as well, though at the time the Sthellan were too primitive to reach the stars. But as soon as they gained the technology they attacked as is right.

  It is inevitable that the powerful will rule, his job was to see to it that it was the Sthellans that held that power.

  The communications officer asked, “Will you speak to them sir?”

  The other Sthellans held their breath as he pulled out his weapon and shot him. It was a good weapon, cruel. There were higher settings that immediately disintegrated the target, but Lethor would much rather hear the screams of his enemies. The energy from the weapon in low doses, as he had it set, would ignite every nerve in the targets body causing unbelievable pain as it slowly ate their flesh.

  He cursed as the damn fool passed out and the screaming stopped, he hated it when that happened. He watched sourly as the comm. Officers body slowly came apart, as if the energy from the gun was slowly eating him one cell at a time.

  He asked in a voice that promised death, “Anyone else want to suggest we roll over for our enemy?”

  His smile was feral at the absolute silence and he ignored the continued hails at the communications station. He’d replace the officer when he got back, he didn’t feel the need for one until after the battle.

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  They stood firm at the FTL line, they weren’t here to attack after all. Although he was starting to wonder at the wisdom of that given what he’d learned over the last few hours. The Sthellan seemed to have no regard for life, how had the Alion people missed that fact?

  From the scans of the approaching ships, it appeared there had been at least thirty murders over the last hour alone. Unless they were going in to exterminate the bastards Nate wasn’t sure why they were staying.

  Nate rarely offered his opinion except in his specialty but he couldn’t hold his tongue this time.

  “We should leave; we are wasting our time here,” he paused for a moment, “Unless we plan on wiping them out of course.”

  Paula frowned, “I agree. We should leave or kill them. We won’t get anywhere with our messages of peace. This race is horrible, did the Alion have their heads up their asses for the uplift assessment?”

  Aide nodded. “They didn’t understand really, they don’t have the capacity for emotions, or perhaps they took it out of themselves millennia ago. They didn’t recognize the threat for what it was. It doesn’t fit at all l
ogically. I admit I am surprised too at how… animalistic they are. They have no business being in space.”

  He sighed, “So why are we still here?”

  Kris replied, “I’m not sure, I guess I wanted to be sure of them before we did anything. I think no matter how many times we win now that they’ll always come back. I believe we need to deal with them in a more permanent way, but I’m not sure if that will trigger any protocols.”

  Aide asked thoughtfully, “How permanently, remember the whole point of me showing up was to find a way to defeat them. I don’t’ have any protocols to protect the Sthellan, only everyone else. That said, the idea of wiping them out doesn’t appeal to me at all. They deserve the chance to grow up as a species, it was the uplift that made them dangerous.”

  Kris nodded, “No, I wasn’t thinking of genocide. But I think we’ll need a lot more ships. What we need to do is map out all their systems, how far they’ve spread, and then take out their ability to wage war and travel the stars. I basically want to confine them to their planets, and leave ships both to protect them and to guard them so they can’t leave for a long time to come.”

  Stacey piped in, “That sounds like a good plan to me, we’ll have to destroy all their ships though.”

  He nodded, “I can agree with that.”

  Olivia, Paula and Aide agreed to.

  He shrugged, “Easier said than done, isn’t it?”

  Aide replied, “You would think, I’m increasing the nanites again for a solid hour.”

  Stacey asked, “What will that do?”

  Aide smiled, “Instead of twelve hundred eighty ships a month, it will be twelve hundred eighty fleets of eight ships a month. In a month’s time we will have enough ships to easily map out their expansion and stars, as well as the ability to both quarantine and protect all their planets. I already have over a few hundred ships in the asteroid belt, so I can get them started on the mapping right now.”

  Nate whistled, “That’s a hell of a lot of firepower. But I suppose at a hundred light years across the galaxy is a big ass place.”

  Aide grinned, “It is, though I can’t imagine they’ve gone farther than five thousand light years from their planet. They may be sadistic, but they aren’t haphazard in their expansion as far as I can tell. They won’t spread far with the Alions and us to deal with so close at hand. Still, that’s a large amount of space, over a hundred times what we travelled to arrive in this system and that’s only two dimensionally.”

  Nate nodded, “I have an unrelated question and it isn’t in my knowledge. How come we are using Sol for power, why not a blue super giant? Wouldn’t the hotter plasma produce more energy and more powerful weapons?”

  Aide nodded, “Yes, but it’s also much more unstable and requires proportionately stronger containment fields which slowed down reload time for the old plasma cannons. In the end the tradeoff wasn’t worth that delay and the extra headaches it caused.

  “Since the containment field for the weapon isn’t an issue anymore, perhaps we should take another look at it? Although I’m not seeing that much of an advantage even if it doesn’t hamstring the weapons.”

  He shrugged, “It will give me something to play with, but I’ll stick to simulators for now.”

  Kris nodded, “So if that’s it, Alion next stop? Got a destination in mind Aide?”

  Aide suggested in her perpetual bedroom voice, “Yes, I suggest we avoid their core systems to help us look peaceful, but we don’t want backwater either. There is a system with a fairly large population and presence in it about twenty light years from the core systems. I’d suggest we go there. It’s umm, where I was born.”

  Kris grinned and said, “Sounds like a plan, set a course and get us going. How long will it take?”

  They felt the deck vibrate for a moment and knew they were in FTL, good riddance to the damn Sthellan.

  Aide replied, “It’s fifteen light years from here, so a day and a half maybe.”

  Nate sighed and looked over at Paula. It seemed like she was putting walls between them the last few days. He was good at showing her how he felt, but he was never one to express his feelings like some sissy boy damn it. He’d need to talk to her soon he knew, before he found himself out on his ass.

  He got up and headed for the labs to test out the various stars; he might as well be thorough and test the power systems on all four of the types above G. It seems like the weapons would be the major deal breaker there, and that was no longer an issue. If the higher containment fields didn’t cost too much, it might make a big enough difference in shielding and attack power to give it a practical test…

  Chapter 21

  Kiara, councilor of science for outpost seventy two, was woken by the chimes of her communicator. Despite the fact the planet’s population was approaching a hundred million people, the designation hadn’t changed since they established a small outpost here hundreds of years ago. She looked at the time and noted it was in the very early morning. If she had emotions, she may have been concerned by the uncommon occurrence. As it was she opened the channel, audio only as she was not presentable.

  “Kiara here,” she said tonelessly.

  “This is minister Olu, we’ve had a strange contact that appears to be on its way here. I’m requesting your presence at the ministry.”

  She wondered why that would be, she was the councilor in charge of AI development and design. What would the head of the colony need her for? Still, there was no logic in starting a debate. She would find out soon enough.

  “I will be in shortly,” she said and disconnected the line.

  She got up and took a quick sonic shower and got dressed. She checked herself in the mirror. She was short for an Alion woman, a mere six foot three inches tall. She was also the youngest councilor on record for the outpost at a mere two hundred and twenty one years of age. She was humanoid in shape, although much taller and thinner than a human. Her fingers were extremely long and thin. Alion women did have curves, but they were so understated it was hard to tell when they were clothed.

  They looked rather fragile as thin and tall as they were, but in truth they were extremely strong and durable. Her skin tone was golden and her eyes were jade green with a silvery cast to them. She decided she was presentable enough. Her AI gave her instructions to the government building and room she was expected at.

  She was curious when she saw her transport had been given priority clearance, and she arrived at the government building in minutes instead of the half hour it would have normally taken. She followed her AI’s instructions and arrived in a conference room shortly after.

  Inside the room, there were two military councils of war as well as the Minister. She took the empty seat without a word spoken.

  The Minister brought up a picture of an extremely large ship. She was curious why she was here, but held her questions, she was sure that would be either explained or apparent shortly.

  Minister Olu said, “This is Councilor Kiara, our foremost expert on artificial intelligence. Kiara, these are head councils of war, Cedra and Narwell. This is one of eight ships that just visited an Sthellan mining planet fifteen light years from here. We have a stealth probe monitoring the location. Apparently they went there trying to make peace. Or at least, that was the contents of their transmission.

  “Apparently they decided that wasn’t going to work, and left at FTL speeds before the Sthellan could reach the FTL line. The reasons I called you all here is the following. The first for the military, is that those ships are on a direct course for this outpost and should be here in a few hours from now.

  “As for you Kiara, we detected one of our AI’s on one of those large ships, despite the fact they are not one of our designs. The AI was identified as Aide, which is one of your earlier designs I believe. According to scans the AI is bonded with a humanoid species at the system we sent her to several weeks ago.

  “What we need to determine is how did that ship design come about, and why are they co
ming here and not staying in their solar system to defend it? From what we can tell the humans are on the most restricted uplift available. The data just doesn’t fit what we know, we must be missing something. Why such a large ship when there are only a handful of humans?”

  Cedra said, “We must download the designs from the AI and analyze the effectiveness of them. We have also mobilized our defenses in case they are a threat.”

  Kiara raised an eyebrow, “If these humans improved our technology and come to find us there is a good chance it’s to be allies. I find it impossible to believe with Aide controlling the technology that they could be a threat at all.”

  Narwell replied, “Yet, designing and building new craft is outside of her programming correct? We can’t depend on that, if I must I will send the self destruct message.”

  Kiara nodded, “It is outside her programming, yet it is not against her programming. Attacking us would be the latter however and I believe impossible. It is two different things, I urge patience and to speak with them before jumping to conclusions.”

  Kiara knew that logically there was a chance, if remote, that something disastrous or unforeseen had occurred. Yet, she was willing to play the odds and give it a chance. She had created Aide and many other AIs which gave her a unique perspective. Unfortunately she had no say in the designs of the hardware for AI constructs; those were built by the military and came with a self destruct.

  Kiara added, “This is the first race that has reached out to us after uplift, I would like to believe we won’t overreact. Surely there will be misunderstandings in the beginning. I would urge caution.”

  The Minister looked thoughtful but said, “Perhaps, yet I can’t afford to risk the millions of lives at this outpost, nor risk allowing another dreadful mistake that led to the Sthellan Empire. This species is not the first to reach out, it is the second. The first to reach out after uplift were the Sthellan…”

  She knew he was right, but then almost all the other uplifted species were wiped out shortly after by the Sthellan. That skewed the data quite a bit.