by Jason Bourn
Dorial silently chided himself as well. He should have seen it coming. The steps that the Periphery worlds had been taking to protect their children had become increasingly sophisticated. True, they had still been able to get some children, but it had become much harder, even without them having any real defensive capabilities.
After the barriers had failed and simply hiding the children had failed, the inhabitants had started using more guerrilla-type warfare. Nothing that Markus couldn’t take care of, but it showed that the Periphery worlds were creative and adaptable.
So, Dorial should have seen this ambush in space coming. The Periphery offensive mentality, it seemed, only extended to the independent worlds. Once they had reached their first group of consolidated planets, which they called kingdoms, things seemed to have changed quite a bit. They were much more aggressive out in space and they had weapons on their spacecraft, even if the spacecraft themselves were not designed for war.
Rheana interrupted his thoughts, “There are multiple other ships that appear to have no weapons. Should we destroy them?”
Grecian responded quickly, “I can do it if you want, it won’t be hard to do at all.”
Dorial quickly replied, “No, they are not threatening at all. They are more in a defensive posture. Since they have no weapons, there is nothing to be gained by their destruction. Remember, our mission is to save our civilization, not kill people. Don’t forget that.”
Markus added sarcastically, “I’m sure if we tell them that, they’ll be happy to give up their children.”
The others had a hard time ignoring his cynicism, but luckily, they all took the high road.
“Edgar,” Dorial queried, “do you have anything to add?”
Edgar responded, “No, I’m here mostly as an observer. If I strongly object to something, I’ll let you know.”
“OK,” said Dorial. “Markus if you are ready then go on down to the surface. I don’t believe that the unarmed ships will attempt to stop you. But make sure that you are on full alert at all times – we should expect them to be much more aggressive the closer we get to Torval 2.”
Markus responded affirmatively and headed down to the surface. He was fairly sure that events would play out similarly to how they had played out on the Periphery worlds, but he felt he needed to be cautious in case the ambush in space was a harbinger of things to come on the surface.
As he disembarked, he noted that three local ships landed shortly after his shuttle. His alert level went up correspondingly. As he disembarked, he monitored any movements from the ships, but there was none. There was a single large city with several schools, but when he checked them, they were abandoned. He finally found an emergency shelter, which had been sealed shut. Chuckling, he thought how easy it was that they would follow the same procedure that had been used at the Periphery worlds.
Markus grabbed hold of the huge doors and pulled them both off their anchors. He looked inside and saw there was a large vestibule that was deserted. Much further back he could detect another set of large doors with what looked like the heat signatures of many people behind the doors.
Before he entered the vestibule, he performed an extensive sensor sweep. Seeing nothing amiss, Markus slowly entered. Suddenly, several of his sensors detected the chemical signature of several types of powerful explosives. Markus quickly started backing out and threw up additional shielding when the entire room erupted as a giant explosion sent him flying through the air. His adaptive balance controls automatically righted his body, so he was able to land on his feet, avoiding any serious injuries.
There was no question that the war had become much more serious – this planet had definitely upped its game.
CHAPTER 9 – GROUND GAME
As the dust settled, Markus looked around and monitored his sensors for damage. All systems appeared normal, though he was still somewhat disturbed that they had come so close to actually hurting him. His ears were ringing – evidently his aural processors hadn’t fully dampened all the sound and shock waves quickly enough.
He realized that Dorial was asking for his status. For the second time. Maybe he had been somewhat shaken up after all. Markus quickly responded, “I am fine. They did get close that time – and they packed a big punch. It wasn’t nuclear, but it was as powerful as a small nuke. We are definitely going to have to be more careful in the future.”
Dorial said, “I want you to come back now. Don’t worry about any children at this point. We need to change our tactics or eventually we won’t be so lucky and they will kill one or more of us.”
Markus wanted to argue, but he had to admit that he was shaken a bit, both mentally and physically. He walked quickly back to the shuttle and took off, shortly joining the others in orbit.
When Markus indicated he was ready, Dorial spoke. “As I said earlier, if we keep going the way we have been, it is just a matter of time before they are successful in hurting or killing one of us. I’m opening this discussion up to anyone who might have a better idea moving forward.”
When no one spoke for several moments, Rheana finally said, “I agree that we cannot continue as we have been. It appears that the kingdom worlds are much more aggressive than the Periphery. It is just a matter of time before there is a casualty. No matter what we do, if we put ourselves in harm’s way, we are making targets of ourselves. We cannot afford to show that we are vulnerable. That will just get them to try harder – and there are just too few of us to allow anyone to get hurt. Furthermore, I believe that we can expect more resistance the closer we get to Torval 2. Therefore, I recommend that from here on out we use automation for direct planetary contact. I believe that with Earth’s technology, we should be able to get what we need.”
Dorial nodded his head and turned to Edgar’s image: “Edgar, can you help us?”
Edgar, who have been listening in, but not saying anything, finally said, “As you know, automation is Earth’s strong suit. Yes, I believe that I can provide autonomous vehicles and automatons that can perform the necessary functionality. You will just need to provide guidance to the onboard artificial intelligences.”
Grecian immediately responded, “That sounds like fun. When can we deploy them? How many can we get?”
Edgar thought about the logistics and said, “I can have four vehicles and automatons ready by this time tomorrow. The AIs will have the basics, so they can perform normal search and rescue functionality along basic parameters, like searching for children of the correct age. However, they will need help under challenging conditions, since we can’t use simulations to train the AI under all the possible situations they might find. I can provide four sets – I recommend each of you control one set, so they can all be deployed simultaneously. This should provide the best chance of meeting your objective while simultaneously reducing the chance of damage.”
Rheana had a concerned look on her face saying, “We have to ensure that the children do not get too frightened. Inducing psychosis into the children would be self-defeating. Can we do something to calm them down? In fact, if we can make it fun and exciting for them, that would be the best, from a psychological standpoint.”
Dorial responded, “Yes, anything that we can do to improve the chances of the children making a successful transition to our society would be helpful. The first children that we collected were simply pulled from their parents, carried to the ship and placed into suspended animation. That must be very traumatic to them. To accomplish our long-term goals, we need to think about a more graceful transition.”
Markus sarcastically said, “Maybe we could play them a lullaby.”
Rheana ignored Markus’ sarcastic tone and said, “Actually, Markus, I think you might be on to something. How about if we utilize all their senses to make their experience as good as possible. We can play soothing music, give them food and sweets to eat that both taste and smell good, put them in seats that vibrate at the best frequency for young children and give them visually pleasing games with rewards
for doing well. If we do this from the point of capture right through when they go into suspended animation, then, psychologically speaking, they will be the most well-adjusted that we can make them. If we continue with positive reinforcements when they return to Ramos, this will enable them to have the best chance at successfully integrating into our society. We should use the same positive reinforcements to integrate them with their new body augmentation.”
Dorial nodded, “Edgar, let us know what you need from us to make this happen. I suspect that you can do a lot of this customization yourself.”
Edgar agreed, “Our technology allows me to run many simulations to get the customization just right. I will let you know what I need, if anything. I should still be able to get this completed by this time tomorrow, unless there are any more requests?”
No one else spoke up, so they adjourned the meeting.
The next day, as promised, the equipment arrived from Edgar’s ship to each of the four ships. The meeting started shortly thereafter.
Edgar’s image appeared last, but he started the meeting right away. “What you each have is an autonomous vehicle and an automaton. Each have autonomous capabilities, but the vehicles have much more real-time and simulated hours under their belts versus the automatons. The autonomous vehicles should be able to take you anywhere you need to go, via air or land. They have been real-world-tested in all manner of conditions, so that should not be an issue on any of these worlds. The only thing that you may want to do is to integrate and tune your body augmentation to better control the vehicles. I suspect within the hour you will be able to better control your vehicles than I ever could.”
Dorial stared at the vehicle. It was sleek and shiny – big enough to transport two humans he supposed – or in their case one automaton and one child. He wasn’t really interested in the propulsion or control mechanisms, he was more interested in what its AI could do and how he could control the vehicle.
Dorial started integrating his neural processors with his vehicle’s processors. He found that indeed he could control the vehicle almost as well as he could his own body’s augmentation. He said approvingly, “Well done Edgar. You are light-years ahead of us with this technology, but I agree that our body systems do give us an inherent advantage in our ability to seamlessly control these vehicles.”
Grecian couldn’t hold back his excitement. “Now I finally get to be involved in the battles. Markus got all the fun, now it’s going to be my turn as well.” Dorial shook his head, but refrained from saying anything.
Edgar continued, “The automatons don’t have nearly the proverbial mileage that the vehicles have – their design is much more recent. They are multi-purpose, in that they can learn any number of tasks, but their flexibility means that they need much more control. With the autonomous vehicles, you just need to tell them where to go and they figure out how to get there by themselves. However, the automatons typically have much more flexible roles. With so many possible roles, we can’t possibly plan what they all are ahead of time and get them really good at each role. We’ve run millions of simulations on collecting children, based upon what we’ve seen on this world and the Periphery worlds, but that may not help as I expect that each world will change and improve their response to us. That is where you come in, providing the intelligent control that the AI hasn’t learned yet.
“Please look inside the vehicles, and you will see the automatons.” As Edgar said this, the doors in the vehicles all opened and an automaton stepped out from each car. While the automaton was supposed to be able to replace a human out in the field, it looked nothing like a human in appearance.
Edgar went on, “On Earth, we have all kinds of automatons, each tailored for their individual roles. Your automatons were put together based on your needs. They were optimized for speed, strength, and ability to withstand blasts and projectile hits. They also need to be able to provide short, comfortable transportation for a child, until it can get the child into the vehicle.”
Dorial tried to put together in his mind what the automaton looked like. It had four legs, and was built roughly like a small horse. This was where the speed and strength came from. In fact, the rear legs looked very close to a horse’s hoof, just metallic in nature. The front legs had almost human hands on them – these were obviously provided for the manual dexterity that was going to be needed in their reconnoiter and child-collection roles. The “horse” as Dorial came to think of it, could obviously stand on four “legs” or two, providing superior flexibility. The body opened up to provide a comfortable reclining position for the child to ride in, with a full culinary and electronic suite inside to provide the pleasing environment that Rheana desired.
Dorial said, “I thought that the automaton would either look like a human with two legs, or would be short and squat with tracks to move around with. That looks a lot like a horse”
Edgar chuckled, “As I said, each automaton is tailored for the requirements of the job. We have two legged versions and those with tracks, as you postulated, but those wouldn’t meet your requirements. You needed speed and strength, and you get both with a horse-like entity. Also, the rounded torso of the “horse”, as you phrase it, provides good blast protection. And having four legs provides a good speed versus survivability trade-off, since if any two legs get incapacitated, it can still make good speed. In fact, it can still get by on one leg, pogo stick like, though its speed goes down and it makes for a bit of a rough ride.
“Also, each of these ‘horses’ have a full array of sensors, as well as plenty of offensive fire-power. You should have no problem obtaining full situational awareness. In addition, if needed, you should be victorious in any shoot-out. I hope this meets your needs.”
Dorial and the others started interfacing their neural networks with the automatons and were instantly pleased. They were soon able to control them with much finer control than a mere human could. And this control was only going to get better.
Seeing this, Edgar could only shake his head. Even though Earth’s technology had produced them, he saw instantly that the Ramos’ humans could be a threat that would be hard to combat, if it ever came to hostilities one day.
“Are you ready?” asked Dorial. They were finally ready to begin their second assault on the first world of Kadar Rahib’s “Kingdom.” The Kingdom’s world had put up much more resistance than any of the Periphery worlds, but now Dorial felt much more prepared for battle. He looked up at the images of Grecian, Rheana and Markus and saw in their expressions that they were ready too. Edgar, of course, was only there as a witness, but the other three and Dorial were confident of victory with their automatons.
It was nice that they no longer had to fly a shuttle down to the surface. The autonomous vehicles took over that role, being able to go from outer space, down to the surface and then go anywhere on the planet’s surface. Each Ramos human felt this was much better, especially Grecian.
“Woo-hoo! This is great,” he said. “I just had my autonomous vehicle leave my ship and it is heading down to the surface. It should be down to the same location that gave Markus so much trouble within ten minutes. Then we’ll see how much they will be able to fight us. This technology is great – so much control, and it fits in so well with my systems. Can you guys feel it?”
Each of them nodded in turn. Dorial was thinking that Grecian was a bit too enthusiastic, but he held his tongue. “OK,” he said, we should all be there soon. Grecian, make sure you wait for us, as we discussed. Let’s see what they think about getting four of us instead of one. And remember, we need to make sure that we don’t do anything rash,” with that he looked at Grecian.
Grecian looked innocently back, then said, “OK, I’ll play nice.”
As the vehicles descended to the surface, it was clear that the local inhabitants did not know what to expect. They had started coming out of the shelter in small numbers, after their first attack had successfully chased off the foreigners. As the autonomous vehicles settled slow
ly out of the sky, the locals went back into the shelter with haste.
All four vehicles landed and the automatons unfolded themselves from the vehicles. Following instructions from the Ramos humans, all four automatons walked to the shelter. After checking for any other booby-traps, and finding none, they slowly walked in. With sensors at full sensitivity, they walked through the debris-covered vestibule and up to the second set of doors. Grecian’s automaton quickly stepped up to the doors, grabbed them and tore them off their mounts. Huddled inside could be seen many adults, with frail older adults behind them and further back, all the children.
All four “horses” walked past the adults, ignoring the screams and curses. When they came to the children, they found three of the desired age. Rheana’s automaton provided a physical barrier from the other inhabitants, while Dorial’s, Markus’ and Grecian’s automatons gently picked them up and cradled them in their “hands”. They rocked and sang to them to put them at their ease. Then they were gently placed inside the bodies of the “horses”. As the automatons closed up, each child was offered candy and video games. After several minutes, the children appeared at ease.
Smiling, the four controlling the “horses” had them to walk out at a medium gait, with Rheana’s “horse” blocking any interference that the local inhabitants attempted. They had not expected any extreme measures to be used once they had acquired the children, and there was none, but they were extremely careful none-the-less. Soon they came to the autonomous vehicles, folded their bodies up and entered the vehicles, without disturbing their delicate cargo, and headed up to the ships.
When the vehicles arrived at their ships, Dorial smiled to the group at their success. “Now that is the right way to run an excursion. We need to be careful and thorough to make sure we stay vigilant, but with these automatons we should be able to accomplish our objectives without putting ourselves at risk. Edgar, you did a stellar job. Your tech is quite good. Thank you.”