Theogony 1: Janissaries

by Chris Kennedy

  Steropes smiled. “All you really need to do is think it, but many people find it helpful to say it out loud while they’re learning to think it the right way.”

  “Solomon, call Arges,” Calvin said and thought. A black window appeared in the lower right corner of his vision, with the label ‘accessing’ inscribed on it. After a couple of seconds, Arges’ image appeared in the box.

  “Arges, here,” he commed. “Welcome to the net.”

  “Just trying the implants out for the first time,” Calvin said/thought.

  “Remind him that you need military access,” instructed Steropes.

  “Arges, Steropes said to remind you that I need military access,” Calvin sent.

  “Stand by.” There was a pause and then, “You have it. You have Commanding Officer-level access, so you can further authorize your units.” At the same time, the label for ‘Military’ came on. “Anything else?”

  “That’s it, thanks,” replied Calvin. “Out.”

  “Have a good day,” said Arges, and then there was what felt like a ‘click’ as the connection closed.

  Calvin looked back at Steropes. “So now that I have implants, what can I do with them?”

  “You are able to interact with the Vella Gulf in a number of ways,” Steropes replied. “You can access the training and education programs by going to ‘Education.’ Need to learn a new language? That’s how to do it. You can also search for information using the search function, which gives you access to most of the information in the Vella Gulf’s memory banks.”

  “Let me guess,” said Calvin. “Some things won’t be available because we don’t have a unified planetary government.”

  “Correct,” answered Steropes. “Eventually, you will also be able to use the ship’s transporter system once you get scanned. You’ll just call up the AI, and it can beam you most places you’ll want to go. That is probably one of the first things that you will want to develop rules for, so that your troops don’t abuse it. It’s not ‘free’ as it uses a significant amount of power to transport, which means that we’ll need to refine more fuel sooner. Additionally, the more often that people transport to the planet, the more chance there is that someone will see them. Someone appearing out of nowhere would be very hard to explain.”

  Hooray, thought Calvin. More paperwork and procedures to put together. Although…this one would be good for the two XOs to coordinate. He smiled, thinking about the military axiom, ‘A job delegated is a job completed.’

  Seeing Calvin lost in thought, Steropes said, “Well, I have to go get Night. He’s next. Bullseye should be just about finished in the other room.”

  “Umm…OK,” Calvin said as he left. Calvin decided to have some fun. “Solomon, Calvin.”

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Commander Hobbs. How may I be of assistance?”

  “Well, you could start by calling me Calvin, if that is permitted.” Calvin replied.

  “Certainly, Calvin. What is the nature of the assistance you require?”

  “Can you send me a map of the ship that I can superimpose on my heads-up display?” Calvin asked. Within a second, the map appeared in his in-head display. “Awesome! Could you please mark my quarters and the bridge?” Two points of light appeared on the map. “Thanks, Solomon.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Calvin decided that he’d like to see the bridge of the ship. Maybe it had windows, and he could see the lunar landscape, if indeed that was where the ship was. Now that he had a moving map that showed his destination, negotiating the passageways and stairs was fairly easy, and he made it to the bridge without any wrong turns.

  Calvin had a thought. “Solomon, call Bullseye.”

  “Umm…uh…hello?” Calvin chuckled. Obviously, Bullseye hadn’t had any more initial success with the implants than he had.

  “Hi Bullseye,” Calvin commed. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling GREAT,” Bullseye replied. “I think I’ve got more muscles than Night does now.”

  “I know exactly what you’re talking about,” said Calvin. “All the benefits of three years in the gym, without any of the pain. Unfortunately, I’ll bet we now actually have to go to the gym in order to keep it.”

  “Probably,” agreed Bullseye. Calvin noticed that Bullseye was the first one to figure out how to sigh over an implant. The ground troops may love spending hours upon hours at the gym. Not so much for the aviators.

  “Hey,” Calvin said, “the reason I was comming is that I was heading to the bridge. Want to come up and see if there’s a window on this ship?”

  “Sure,” replied Bullseye. “How the hell do I find you?”

  “Solomon, Calvin, please send Bullseye a map and directions for how to get to where I am.”

  “Done,” replied Solomon. The map appeared on his heads-up display.

  “That is just TOO DAMN COOL!” exclaimed Bullseye. “I am really going to like some of this new technology.”

  With the help of the map, Bullseye quickly joined him at the entrance to the bridge.

  The double door didn’t open at their approach. “Solomon, Calvin. Is Commanding Officer-level access good enough to get onto the bridge?”

  “Yes it is,” answered Solomon, “as is Executive Officer-level access. For some reason, your clearances weren’t associated with the bridge. I have corrected the problem.” The doors opened, sliding to both sides.

  The two officers walked in to find a round room about 30 feet in diameter. At the front of the room was a set of eight screens, in two rows of four, which covered the front wall. About ten feet from the screens was a dual console for the helmsman and engineer. Centered an additional ten feet behind that console was the captain’s chair, with the executive officer’s chair and the squadron commander’s chair on either side of it. An additional chair was next to each these, making a row of five. As befit his rank and station, the captain’s chair was the largest. Calvin didn’t know how he recognized what each station was, but as he looked around the room, information about them came into his mind. He finally realized it was coming from the implants.

  Additional consoles ran down the sides and across the back of the room. “Science.” “Operations.” “Security.” “Communications.” He also instinctively knew that the operator at the Operations station controlled the offensive weapons, while the Security station operator controlled the ship’s defensive systems, weapons and shields. There was also one more station that he knew had something to do with policy, but it didn’t seem to translate completely into his mind from what the Eldive had originally intended for it. It was confusing.

  As the officers walked onto the bridge, they saw Arges sitting in the captain’s chair watching the screens in the front of the room. Looking over to see who had entered the bridge, Arges jumped and pushed a button on the command chair. All of the screens died simultaneously. In the glimpse that Calvin got before the screens went out, he saw that four of them were operational. The President of the United States was on one of them, talking to a meeting of his cabinet in the DUCC. He recognized the Russian president on a second screen. The third screen showed a heavy set man with features that appeared Chinese. He missed who was on the fourth.

  “Yes?” asked Arges, sounding surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you here. Can I help you?”

  “Wasn’t that the president on one of the screens?” asked Calvin. “Having been there a couple of times myself, I wasn’t aware that cameras were allowed in the DUCC.”

  “Umm, well, yes, it was the president,” answered Arges, “and generally, no, cameras are not allowed.”

  “And yet, there was one,” chimed in Bullseye. “I saw him too,” he continued, looking at Calvin.

  “Well, as the saying goes, keep your enemies close and your friends closer,” replied Arges.

  “That is not how the saying goes,” said Calvin. “I’d really like to know what you were doing.” Hearing Arges start to bluster something about ‘need to know,’ Calvin put up h
is hand to stop him. “Arges, I’ve had enough of being kept in the dark while we did your bidding. We’re about to leave on a mission that we know almost nothing about. We don’t have much training on the systems that we’re supposed to be using, and we have absolutely no idea where we’re going or what we’re supposed to do.”

  Hearing another ‘need to know’ coming, Calvin put up his other hand. “Just stop with the whole, ‘need to know’ bullshit. We’ve taken a lot of things on faith from you, but it’s time for you to put your cards on the table. If we’re going to risk our lives for you, you need to tell us just what the hell is going on.”

  “He’s right,” said Steropes, who had entered silently behind him. “If they are to prepare adequately for this mission, they need to know more than what we have told them. We can’t expect to have their loyalty when we have not been totally honest with them.”

  “Damn right!” exclaimed Calvin. “And stop shaking your head, Arges; Steropes is absolutely right!”

  Arges stopped shaking his head. “There are still many reasons why we can’t tell you everything,” he said. “For one, you still do not have a unified world government. It goes against everything that we stand for.”

  “I think if I hear the words, ‘unified world government’ used one more time as a reason to keep me from having something that is mission critical, I’m going to have to kill someone,” said Night as he walked in behind Steropes. “I have been busting my ass to train the people that are most likely to get killed in this mission, and I am sick and tired of being intentionally kept in the dark. How about if I promise not to take over the world? Would that be good enough?”

  Calvin looked at Night and flinched. Already in tremendous physical shape before, Night was now HUGE, with muscles on top of muscles. In spite of that, he moved with all of the grace of a cat. Angry, he now looked like death personified. Calvin was just glad that Night was on his side. As he came around Steropes and moved closer to Arges, Calvin could see that Arges was very physically intimidated by Night. As he should be.

  “We need to do the right thing and tell them everything,” reiterated Steropes, hoping to avoid any further confrontation.

  “Agreed,” said Brontes, walking into the room. “It is past time that we stopped keeping information from them. We need them to be prepared for this mission if they are to be successful.”

  Seeing that everyone was strongly against him, Arges seemed to wilt a little. “I do not think that it is wise to give them all of our collected knowledge,” he said at last, “but I will agree to release all of the information that they need for the mission.” He paused. “What do you want to know?”

  “How about telling me about the replicators?” asked Calvin.

  Deep Underground Command Center, Washington, DC, November 15, 2018

  “Sorry for interrupting, but I’ve got some good news and bad news,” said Calvin.

  The president and assembled staff looked up in surprise as Calvin walked into the DUCC’s conference room uninvited.

  “That’s OK,” said the president, “we were just about finished anyway. I take it that it must be important if you feel that you can just walk into a presidential-level meeting.” Although the president’s words were welcoming, his tone indicated that he thought the interruption was inappropriate, and that Calvin should not do it again in the future.

  The president looked at Calvin with a funny look on his face. “There’s something different about you. Have you lost a lot of weight?”

  “I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight,” said Calvin, “but what I’ve got has certainly been shifted around some. I just had the operation to put my implants in and, as it turns out, the medibot that does the implant procedure has the ability to do a lot more medically than just put in implants. I got the whole Warrior Package in addition to the implants, which as near as I can tell makes me stronger, gives me more endurance and a variety of other things that are supposed to make me better in combat. They can even turn you into a cyborg if you’re willing to give up all of your body parts.”

  The president raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “No sir,” replied Calvin. “I didn’t have it done, nor did I authorize any of the men to have it done. I think that it would be a big problem with Arges if we started turning out super-warriors before we have an integrated planetary government. For the record, that was how Achilles achieved his invulnerability, but that’s a story for a different time.” He looked around and saw an empty chair. “Mind if I sit down, Mr. President? I’m still getting used to this new body.”

  “Go ahead,” said the president, waving him to an empty chair at the conference table. As Calvin took the indicated seat, the president asked, “So, what is so big that you needed to break into our confidential meeting?”

  “Well, the first thing that I need to tell you is that your meeting isn’t as confidential as you think it is,” said Calvin. “Apparently Arges bugged the room at some point when he was here, or he can access your computer network. He is able to watch anything that is done or said in this room. I walked in on him watching yesterday’s meeting.”

  “WHAT?!!” asked the president. “This facility is supposed to be impenetrable to surveillance! I will have to talk to our security section. I don’t want him to hear everything that goes on here!” He looked around the room with a guilty look on his face. “Besides, I don’t think we’ve always been very charitable with all of our comments about our ‘friends.”

  “I don’t think he takes any of the comments personally,” said Calvin. “When you look in on things unannounced, sometimes you get to hear the unvarnished truth. Regardless, their information technology is well beyond ours. I don’t think we have the capability to create an environment that would be impervious to their spying. Just a second.”

  “Solomon, Calvin,” he commed.

  “Yes, Calvin, what can I do to assist you?” the artificial intelligence answered.

  “Is there any computer network on Earth that you aren’t able to break into if you wanted?” Calvin asked.

  “No, there is not,” Solomon answered. “The most difficult code that Terrans currently have takes me less than 0.3 seconds to break. That doesn’t mean that I listen in on everything. I am programmed to respect intelligent beings’ privacy, unless asked to do otherwise.”

  “Thanks, Calvin out.” He looked at the president. “As I suspected, the AI onboard the Vella Gulf is able to enter any of our networks that it wants to. It says it doesn’t do it unless asked, but I don’t think you can keep the Psiclopes out of anything that they want to be into.” He paused. “If it makes you feel any better, when I walked in on Arges, he was also watching a meeting of the Russian president and a meeting of the Chinese premier at the same time on other screens.”

  “No, that doesn’t make me feel any better, but it does let us know that we’re at least on a level playing field with all of the other nations on Earth,” replied the president. “Was there anything else that you had for us?”

  “Yes sir,” replied Calvin, “I do. I’ve got quite a bit, actually. We had a very fruitful meeting with the Psiclopes. Now that the leadership of my platoon and squadron have implants, it’s a lot harder for them to keep things from us. They could probably still have the ship’s artificial intelligence keep us in the dark, and they probably still are keeping some things from us, but at least we have all of the mission details.”

  He looked around the room at the assembled leaders. “We are going to leave on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 and explore the nearby systems in order to ensure that all of the ship’s systems are operational. They haven’t been used in a really long time. After that, we will try to find a way to get to the Psiclopes’ society to try to find out what is going on. The Psiclopes told us that there are several friendly races out there that might help us. Our mission will be to find and bring back aid, while avoiding the Drakuls or anyone else that would want to do harm to our planet.” He gave a wry grin. “I am very aware th
at we will have all of the planet’s advanced technology with us. If we get caught and killed, the planet’s chances of surviving an alien assault diminish drastically.”

  “As far as combat power goes,” Calvin continued, “we have the Vella Gulf, which, as a cruiser, ought to be able to handle many of the things we might meet while we are gone. If we can’t beat them, the Gulf ought to be able to outrun anything we find that is bigger. We have six fighter spacecraft and 34 combat soldiers, plus the XO and me. All of the crew that we take with us will have implants by the end of this calendar year, and the ship’s crew will begin getting the Vella Gulf ready to go in January. They will need a couple of months of training in order to assume their duties onboard.”

  “Wait,” said the Secretary of Defense, “I thought that the implants gave them all of the information they needed to do their jobs and to understand the equipment that they were working on.”

  “That is mostly true,” agreed Calvin. “The problem is that all they will have in their brains is information. They won’t have any of the skills and muscle memory that comes from actually performing the tasks that they will be doing on the mission. This is especially true for the space fighter pilots. We will need a lot of practice before we will be able to pilot the ships effectively. I’m not sure how I’m going to get time to practice, but I’m going to have to make it. I’ll come back to that in a minute.”

  “The Psiclopes set the primary objectives of this mission. Lieutenant Train, Captain Pierce and I set the secondary objectives. The biggest of these is to bring back as big a replicator as we can find. We had already guessed that they had some sort of replicator; we finally got them to confess that they do. That’s how they’re making the implants and the combat weapons that we will take along with us. The problem is that the one that they have onboard the ship is small. It can’t make anything much bigger than about ten feet in size. While that’s really handy for small weapons and little pieces of technology, it won’t let us build space fighters or any of the major combat ships that we’ll need to fight off an alien invasion. If we can secure one of these, it is my intention to do everything possible to bring it back.”