Unwilling From Earth

by Andrew Maclure

  “Could you eliminate that risk by going through a firewalled intermediary AI?”

  “Yes, I can make that work.”

  “OK, set it up so when we are in range you can go ahead with it.”

  “We are in range, as you put it.”

  “What! How close is it!”

  “It’s in the centre of the galactic hub, close to the influence of the supermassive black hole you may know as Sagittarius A*. It’s quite a long way from here.”

  “So how can we be in range?”

  “Because the People have an automated monitoring station nearby with subspace communications. You have access to that, just as you have access to every subspace node in the universe via the Universal web, even though you are not fully integrated into it yet.”

  “Oh, OK. I didn’t know that. In that case, set it up. I’d like as much information about their planetary and orbital defences as possible. I need to know the deployment of all of their troops with their armaments and capabilities. A detailed map of their headquarters with all exits clearly shown. I need you to confirm that you can unlock and also prevent the opening of any door that has any kind of secure access.”

  “Of course Mark. I will alert you when that information is available.”

  “Send a copy to Sally please. Is there anything I have forgotten?”

  “I should be able to provide you with the functions of all the rooms.”

  “Thanks Kate, that should be useful. Oh, can you pinpoint the location of Tk'ng Dach Rrn?”

  “Not precisely. He must have a device to mask his location, They are quite common. But I can track him within a radius of about two hundred metres. The closer you are, the more accurate I can be.”

  “Can he track me?”

  “No, I am based on such comparatively advanced technology that I can select who detects me.” Mark’s AI answered.

  “That’s interesting, so could you give out a tracking signal that seems to come from an AI that’s not one of the People’s?”

  “Of course. Perhaps I am constructed to be better at subterfuge than I realised.”

  “Good. I don’t know much about subterfuge either. Can you familiarise yourself with a book from the Earth archive called The Art of War by a Japanese guy called something Sun, or is it Sun something? I can’t remember.”

  “I have it, by Sun Tzu. He was Chinese. It’s very interesting. So you are planning to pretend to be weak when you are taken prisoner, when you are strong, so your enemy may grow arrogant. Very clever.”

  “Is that what it says? Good book isn’t it. There’s another one. By Machiavelli, called The Prince.”

  “I have that too. Is that really how your politicians are advised?”

  “Not nowadays, but it could be useful.”

  “Have you read these books?”

  “Yes, everyone has, but I can’t remember anything in them. It would be helpful if you knew them though, you could take them into consideration when advising me.”

  “Very well. Anything else?”

  “I need to see Sally.”

  Mark checked Sally’s status, which was set to available and blinked to her.

  Sally was alone in her quarters, eating. “Did you drop by to have lunch with me?” She asked.

  “Er, yes, of course.” Mark answered.

  “You liar. Get yourself something to eat and get me a coffee too please.”

  “What are you eating?” Mark asked. “It looks good and apparently I can eat anything you can.”

  “It’s compressed and fermented vegetables cut into blocks and cooked in a fruit sauce. The green vegetables were native to my planet and I don’t know where the blue tubers came from but they are filling and taste good. It’s high in proteins and vitamins, has plenty of fibre and complex carbohydrates but most importantly, I really like it. I’ll order it for you.”

  Mark walked over to the synthesiser and collected Sally’s coffee and his meal and sat with Sally at the table.

  “Do you always eat by yourself?” He asked her.

  “Yes, unless it’s during a meeting or if I’m in action with the team.”

  “Doesn’t it get lonely?”

  “Yes, that’s why I was pleased to see you. As long as you don’t want to talk about the invasion. I need a break from it.”

  “Ah. Well, there is something.”

  Sally sighed and her shoulders dropped. “I thought there might be. What is it?”

  “I’ve asked my AI to send you copies of all the intelligence it’s pulling off the AI’s on Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s headquarters planet.”

  Sally nearly choked, took a big sip of coffee and said “What! How did you get it to do that?”

  “I’m starting to get the hang of this Friend of the People thing.”

  “You’re starting to get scary.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But you have nothing to fear from me.” Mark said with a smile.

  “Why are you saying that with a big smirk on your face?” Demanded Sally.

  “You said the same thing to me not long after you broke my nose and since then you’ve punched me, loosened a tooth and split my lip.”

  Sally smiled. “It’s only because I care about you.”

  “Can you find another way to show it? Flowers would be nice.” Mark said.

  “When this is all over, we can spend time together. Do you have any plans Mark?”

  “I haven’t thought much further than making sure Tk'ng Dach Rrn is dead. I know this is what you do, but I’m not a soldier, I just want this all to end.”

  “You haven’t thought about us afterwards?” Sally took another mouthful of her meal.

  “My life is so much different now. I’d like to go home, back to Earth for a bit. After that, I’d like to explore the galaxy. And I’d like you to be with me. First though, we’ve got unfinished business here. You’re always busy, and I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “My army is growing rapidly. When this is over, it will take me some time to organise it and get a new command structure in place to keep it going while I am away. Will you come back for me?”

  “If I haven’t come back by the time you are ready, I’ll still be on Earth. I’ll make sure you can find me.” Mark smiled.

  As soon as they had finished eating, Sally said “Sorry, I must go, I’ve got a meeting with the Lieutenant Colonels to discuss promotions. We’re going to need a lot more officers with all of these new recruits. I’ll let you know next time I’m free and not sleeping. Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

  “Not that I can think of. I need to see Simon for assault course training. I’ll leave you to carry on.” Mark stood and blinked out.

  Sins Of The Past

  For Mark the next few days were a constant round of jogging, close combat training and Simon putting him through his paces on the assault course.

  Mike was enjoying the break. Apart from the occasional meeting with Sally and Alan to make sure they had enough army jumpsuits, boots, helmets, body armour, rations, weapons and ammunition, she had little to do. Mark didn’t get to speak to her much as most of the time he was with her he was out of breath or concentrating hard on defending himself and keeping on his feet.

  Simon, on the other hand, felt compelled to constantly complain to Mark about the army bureaucracy and all the forms and checks that had to be done for each new recruit - and there were a lot of them.

  In addition to the eighteen hundred surviving and remaining volunteer Sinth troops who decided they wanted to be permanent members of Sally’s army, another thirteen hundred decided they would rather be in Sally’s army than the Sinth. That included almost two hundred officers who had resigned their commissions to join as ordinary enlisted soldiers. All of them had to be interviewed, pass psychological and physical testing and attend re-orienteering training. Sally had ordered that all other volunteers should be considered and go through the testing and training process. All of this had to be documented and although Simon didn’t get directly involved i
n the documentation, he had overall responsibility for ensuring that it was all done. Responsibility did not sit lightly on Simon’s shoulders and his only real release was his assault course training with Mark.

  Mark had never enjoyed physical exercise. His short and infrequent evening runs in the outskirts of the City were tiring and unpleasant, but they allowed him to believe he was doing something to stay fit and healthy. But now, he felt a need to get fit and to be able to defend himself if needed. He had the phase shift protection of course, but he wanted to justify to himself that except in extremis, he wouldn’t need it. He had let himself be bullied and pushed around back on Earth because he had no idea how to defend himself. His only method of self-defence had been to run away and hide or, if that option wasn’t available, try to placate his persecutors and minimise the pain that would follow. But no more. Mark was determined that in future, if anyone threatened him, he would make them regret it so much they would hesitate to threaten anyone else again.

  After eight days Mark was feeling no fitter but much more confident in his abilities to defend himself in close quarters and unarmed combat and Simon had worked him so hard on the assault course that Mark was ready for anything. Except, maybe, his encounter with Tk'ng Dach Rrn. He couldn’t see what could go wrong with his plan, it was so simple. But he kept remembering the saying that no plan survived contact with the enemy. Orange had mentioned it to him, but he was sure he had heard it on Earth too. If it was so universally acknowledged, it must be true, mustn’t it? And if it was, what was his Plan B? There wasn’t one. If his plan didn’t work, he was dead. That was bad enough, but he was likely to be tortured first. He didn’t want to even think about that. The constant exercise and work took his mind off of it, but his doubts just wouldn’t go away.

  While by himself in the team quarters, eating before going to sleep, Mark got a message from Alan to meet him in the command centre. He blinked there as soon as he finished his meal.

  “I need to talk to you about your mission Mark, but first, I need to tell you about some of our history.”

  Mark groaned inwardly. He associated history with dead kings and queens, despotic dictators and obscure acts of parliament, like the corn laws. “Er, thanks. I’m sure it will be interesting.” He said to Alan.

  “I want to talk to you about the only war the People have ever fought. It was the Great AI War. Do you know of this?”

  “I’ve heard of it, but only as a legend. So tell me about it.”

  “This happened long ago. In your frame of reference, almost ten billion years ago, long before I was born. It didn’t start in this galaxy but if it had gone on unchecked, it would have overwhelmed the whole of the known universe. It started off as a small civil war between the home world of a fairly young emergent civilisation, and a colony of theirs in a different solar system which wanted independence. One side came up with the idea to use autonomous AI controlled fighting systems to do their fighting on their behalf. The other side quickly copied the idea. This prompted a rapid development of increasingly intelligent and more aggressive artificial intelligences. Inevitably, both sides endowed their AI’s with evolutionary algorithms, so the machines quickly became smarter than their masters and became more and more aggressive. There was an inevitable progression to the point where these AI’s saw everything other than themselves as an enemy. When the winning side of the civil war tried to stand their AI war machines down, the machines turned on their masters and destroyed them. Having no more enemies in those star systems, the AI’s moved on to the next and the next and the next after that. Every time they came across any kind of life they destroyed it. If there was a civilisation there, the AI’s cannibalised their resources and learnt from their technology, becoming greater in number and capability.”

  “Weren’t there any armies like Sally’s or the Sinth that could have taken them on?” Mark asked.

  “Yes, but these fighting AI machines were so powerful that they quickly overcame every army and every planetary defence they came across.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Eventually they wiped out every life form in the galaxy. The People thought that would be the end of it, and that with nothing else to fight they would just quietly decay away.”

  “Just a minute, why didn’t they attack the People? You are life forms.”

  “The People simply withdrew when they came near and eventually we left the galaxy. This was a long time ago when we wouldn’t intervene in any way under any circumstances. To continue, when the AI fighting machines could find no more life in the galaxy, they split into two separate armies and set off for the two nearest galaxies. The People didn’t know how to react to that. We are a peaceful species committed to non-intervention, so we stood back and observed. The AI’s had no means of travel that were capable of intergalactic travel, so we believed they wouldn’t survive the time it would take to reach their target galaxies. Intergalactic distances are too far for wormholes to traverse so travel between them is limited to some fraction of the speed of light, depending on the propulsion technology you are using.”

  “Unless you have the instantaneous travel technology which the People use, of course.” Mark interjected.

  “That is correct. No one in the history of the universe has developed that form of travel and we believe nobody ever will.”

  “But you have developed it, so what’s stopping anyone else from doing the same?”

  “That is complicated and you are not yet ready for that Mark. But to continue, the nearest galaxy targeted was over three million light years from the galaxy that the AI fighting machines originated from and we knew the best speed that the machines could reach was no more than twenty percent of the speed of light, which is a small percentage by today’s standards, but things were different then. We did not believe they could survive fifteen million years in the intergalactic void. Intergalactic space is not like interstellar space. The intergalactic time space continuum is not uniform. It contains regions of space-time that are compressed and attenuated by ripples, waves and vortices and has great shear points in it that rip matter into its component quantum particles. It is not a safe place to travel.”

  “If intergalactic space is that turbulent, why haven’t our astronomers noticed it? They have been looking into deep space for decades.” Mark asked.

  “They have seen their effects.” Answered Alan. “They dismiss them as observational anomalies or call them gravitational lensing.”

  “So these are gravitational waves in space?”

  “Gravitational waves pass through matter with virtually no effect. If you think of gravitational waves as ripples on a pond when a pebble is dropped in, think of these as massive tsunami waves, ripping apart and crushing everything they meet.”

  “Oh. I can see why you wouldn’t want to travel through them.”

  Alan continued. “Enough of the first fleet of the AI fighting machines survived the journey to their target galaxy. Once there, they stopped at the first solar system they came to, cannibalised some of their number to set up factories to refine and process the plentiful metals and other raw materials found in any star system. They built a new army of intelligent fighting machines and tore into the galaxy, seeking and destroying all life. Their factories continued to build new armies and sent them out to seek new galaxies to invade.”

  “Wow. Are there still any out there, travelling between the galaxies?” Mark asked.

  “We do not believe so. At first, we did not know what to do, but we realised that if we continued to stand by and observe, these machines would proliferate and eventually spread throughout the universe. We had little in the way of weaponry, but we already had the phase shift protection scaled up in size to protect our craft in hostile environments. We quickly devised some crude but effective weapons and started to track and destroy the growing AI army. They were quick to learn though, and after every encounter strengthened themselves against our attacks, so we were caught in a rapidly escalating arms race.
One thing we always had in our favour was our phase shift protection. With that to protect us we were able to intercept the second AI army and destroy it before it reached its target galaxy. We also destroyed their manufacturing base and tracked and destroyed all the new armies they had sent to seek new galaxies to invade.”

  “So it all ended well.”

  “That was not the end. The AI army had by now split into many parts and continued to add to its numbers, with every new generation smarter and more powerful than the last. After many encounters they finally overcame our phase shift protection. A lot of the People died during our next encounter with the machines.”

  “Shit! What did you do about that?”

  “We had no choice but to withdraw while we developed even more powerful weapons. We don’t know how they overcame the phase shift protection, whether they had weapons that somehow penetrated it or if they managed to suppress it somehow. We already had the technology for a completely different kind of protection, or armour, but its use comes at a cost, which is why we had not used it before and why we have not used it since. When used, it leaves behind what you might call a storm in space-time, so powerful that it appears to cause ruptures in the interface between the universe and whatever is outside of it. We used that armour to protect ourselves when we returned with a new generation of weapons, and we destroyed the AI armies.”

  “So, you won, and as I said before, it all ended well.”

  “We do not describe this as a victory. The legacy of our use of the armour is still active in the galaxy, ten billion years later. We believe it will always remain there until the end of the universe. The presence of this storm is inimical to life. It causes intense ripples in the space-time continuum that disrupts any matter that they pass through. These are not just gravity waves which only affect the spatial component of the space-time continuum, these are much more fundamental and destructive than those. The AI fighting machines had destroyed about five percent of the civilisations in the galaxy by the time we overcame them. The effects of the storm sterilised the rest of the galaxy, killing every living thing within it. There were no survivors. Not even single cells or traces of DNA. Millions of civilisations were destroyed by us, leaving no trace they ever existed. It is now a galaxy of dust and quantum particles. Even the black hole at its centre was ripped apart, unleashing a massive radiation burst that destroyed thousands of civilisations in nearby galaxies.”