Cold and Dark

by Marc Neuffer

  This war was a fresh one. The Zees wanted to continue a low-level, but violent, conflict here for many generations. When the actual cause was lost to memory, it would be more difficult for the opposing sides to come to a peaceful and lasting settlement.

  A four-man team was going in to make the snatch. Haldon and I stayed aboard the two ships as overwatch. Two fighters, under our ships’ AI control, took a rotating, opposing circuit around the base, pointing inward. It was dead midnight.

  Haldon and I monitored the incursion. The first ground barrier was kilometers away from the physical boundary. Three rings of microwave, sound, and vibration sensors gave early warning to the squatters.

  They had just started constructing a wide roadway to join their headquarters to another base twenty kilometers away. Apparently, air travel was an iffy thing here. Each side had missiles and lasers to shoot down anything leaving a protected area. The road construction equipment, outside the base perimeter, was our way in. To get to it we had to start a stampede.

  This planet had large grazing herds resembling buffalo with long necks. Over the last week we had used gentle, nudging harassment to move them from thirty kilometers away to just two kilometers from the fence line. They were playing havoc with perimeter sensors. You could have driven a huge ground-slapper to within visual range before they knew something other than the herd was moving about.

  To ensure the animals were the only things out there, several foot patrols and visual emplacements had been hastily employed. They expected the migratory animals to move on, in a day or two. Instead, they were going to move on tonight, right through the compound, and our team with it.

  The two fighters took station on the flanks of the herd, north of the facility. Our ground team was at the south, near the huge roadmaking machines. The area began to rumble with the sound of the stampede. Movement our fighters had created by strategically stinging the males at the edge, keeping them in a straight line to the northern gate. Fifteen-thousand of them, on the move, fast.

  After the base came to alert, our ship’s AIs commandeered the road equipment, spoofing commands for them to move through the southern gate to the northern one, to act as a blocking force, splitting the herd east and west. The base commander was pleased that someone had come up with that idea. He was in the command bunker, monitoring his troops and the herd’s movement.

  In full cloak-suits, our four interlopers were aboard two of the automated land levelers. The other machines took a path between the command bunker and the communications building. Our two rides peeled off, parking behind that structure.

  There were three entry points to the building. We had chosen the one facing the fence line. A skeleton night-crew were on duty inside. After entry, sleepy-gas dropped them before they could raise an alarm. We needed about ten minutes to get what we had come for; the base AI.

  It was a cube, two feet to a side, and heavy. If we simply grabbed it, a warning would be issued to the enemy ships overhead. Questions would immediately be asked. A ground response could quickly encircle the com building, if they could get through the stampede. The road equipment had opened a gaping hole in the perimeter to the north. Beasts were streaming through, trampling everything in their path, sectioning off our target quadrant.

  Trader needed a few minutes to make a spoof connection to replace the automated coms between the base and ships in orbit; a millisecond switch-over. The other three of our team were dragging the unconscious com-team away from, what would be, a small meltdown of our replacement tech. Leave no tech behind; my personal motto.

  While the cloak-suits provided stealth, you can’t hide footprints in the dirt. The suits had duck-like feet to emulate the race we were stealing from. Our team was slowed by that necessity. I was holding my breath. Ten minutes, in situations like this, can seem like hours.

  Finally, Trader had made the switch, cloaking the AI for transport. Our four-man lift team made toward the designated exit, but halted. A squad of the web-foots had come around the building. They’d tried the other doors and found them locked. No coms, from inside, were replying to their entry request.

  I was aboard Caspar, hovering, waiting to make the extraction. The weapons suite on our modified recon ships included a brain-scrambler wave similar to a hand held version I’d used long ago. I like non-lethal means, if it can do the same job, of putting down an enemy, without killing them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get an angle that wouldn’t also affect our team in the building.

  The stampede was running out of energy, most of the herd had moved out through the southern gate; only stragglers remained. An explosion, south of the building, sent the patrol moving in that direction, under a spoofed command. Caspar had done her job. Fire and confusion erupted.

  Our team rushed out and up the extended ramp into my ship. We lifted slowly away to avoid creating excessive air disturbances that could be detected by the microwave sensors. As we glided up, Trader took out a small device, slid open a port and pushed a button. Our AI stand-in melted down into hot, elemental slag.

  One down, one to go. Tomorrow night we would visit the opposing force.

  25 Reaction

  Reaction: a response to an action, a force generated against another force.

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  The fighting on this planet had created an untenable situation for the citizens of this world. While they, and both of the opposing sides, in this war, were the same species, they came from different clans. In the past, it had been my policy not to interfere in intra-species squabbles. But things change.

  Both sides had interstellar drives, but they were slow. Their weapons were missiles, lasers and chemical-propellant kinetic rounds. No sign of nuclear weapons being used. But it was still a dirty, personal war for the natives..

  Surveying the area, looking at the deployment of forces, near our next AI target, we saw kilometers of refugees flowing from the farms on the plains, to the hills and forests. Many were dropping from exhaustion. They had no fuel for mechanized transport. We were going to do something about that. First, we had to get rid of the orbiting stalemate.

  One side had ten warships, the other eight. Neither one held a strong enough hand to engage the other. Occasional, single-ship, forays resulted in a few bruises on both sides. It was nice of them to deploy in straight lines for us. We sent all but two ships, one from each side, back to the outer fringes of their respective home systems; with a message. It would take them months to get back here.

  After killing the remaining ships’ Q-capable AIs, we deployed an uncloaked, Q-shielded drone to contact the remaining ships. Playing the part of a non-aligned clan, we asked them one question. “Why are you fighting your own kind?”

  Both ships detected the drone. After some thrust and parry, they gave up attempting to close on it. We gave warning, if either ship released weapons, both would be destroyed as had the others. They would find out later that we had lied to them about the destruction of their other ships. I didn’t care.

  The next night, we raided a very antsy, very small encampment. This theft was easier. The ground forces had received bogus orders to relocate their headquarters command to a remote valley; all other forces to remain in place. Flying over the valley, we brain-scrambled the lot of them, landed and carried off their AI. This planet would remain Q-dark. Communications from their home worlds was severed.

  Both ground commanders knew they had only one ship remaining in the system, and no means to contact their home worlds in a timely manner. Leaving a broadcasting drone over each major force, we let them feel their isolation for two days. We took the captured AIs to Shangri La. Noah and Sarah joined us for our return. They needed to see this.

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  Ground forces were directed, under the gun, to care for the refugees, then return them to their farms and villages. Fuel was again available. It would be a hard slog of recovery, but they had been headed to genocide through starvation and deprivation.

  After some pointy-end of the stick
examples were made, eighty percent of the belligerent’s supplies and transports were given over to the native population. When commanders asked how they would feed their troops, we replied. ‘In this clan’s opinion’, the locals could provide food and assistance on an emergency basis. Perhaps they should consider growing their own food.

  There had been a few attempts, by both sides, to shoot down the airborne drones. The end results were simply pretty fireworks as the missiles impacted the drone’s shields. After that, all long-range weapons were dismantled, either voluntarily, or by very precise slicer-weapon strikes from the drones. We followed that up by requiring all offensive weapons be destroyed. Officers were allowed to carry sidearms.

  I called in a fully loaded Traveler-clone ship to continue pacification until Sandy’s peacekeepers arrived. The web-foots didn’t know what to make of all this, but knew they were on a new gameboard, with many more players.

  The manner in which the Zees infiltrated AIs had a weak spot. We found that spot by analyzing the captured AIs and reviewing Surron and Mintic records of similar intrusions from their times. It was a game changer. We now had a way to neutralize them and, more importantly, make them believe the instigated conflicts were continuing. We started a covert disinformation campaign, not requiring us to show our hand or even hint that we were pulling their strings. Automated Q-drones could accomplish that task. Our sentient AIs managed that with ease. With the Surron’s help, we’d cloned the three library AI’s a hundred times over for those tasks.

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  Our active plan had been going on for five years. The continuing, hard work was to encourage de-escalation if both sides were equally matched, or close to it. Stopping warlike species from crushing less able neighbors was harder still. Sandy’s armies were needed a hundred, no, a thousand places at once. The congressional diplomatic corps worked as hard as the Navy and Marines.

  While we could easily send away entire fleets from a battle zone, digging out entrenched ground forces, without a massacre was a lot tougher. Some species are just plain suicidal.

  Tougher nuts to crack involved those who had subjugated what they considered inferior races. They were using them for cannon fodder in the fields of battle on distant planets. All for the glory of territorial gain, the ruling species didn’t need. Those instances took a lot more research and planning by the political and sociological sections.

  The Bears were still the prime movers in that. We could remove a despot, but there was always a line, stretching to the horizon, of others willing to take their place. In most cases it took years to find a workable solution before we even made contact.

  It seemed like a hectic pace, but Martin showed me the projections. In thirty thousand years, even with force escalation factored in, only eight percent of the universe would be disinfected. We may be winning every battle, but the Zees, by virtue of time, were winning the war.

  We were going to have to take the war to them. Adam and Archer had a plan, and it seems, a ready-made army, already on their side of the dimensional wall. I just hoped it wouldn’t blow up in our face, taking the universe with it.

  We were going to fight the remainder of this war in a quantum-virtual reality; sending the only five soldiers who could go; Adam, Roger, and Dodger; all three had been Zees before becoming human. The other two were my children ... Sarah and Noah.

  Of all the humans, Bears and Surrons, they were the only ones, with a strong enough quantum-edge, able to make the trip. They were also the only ones who could take the ex-Zees back to their previous realm, and return them.

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  Dr. Font cautioned us; Noah, Sarah, and the Zee-humans should have extensive psychological conditioning before embarking. While the three ex-Zees had an understanding of what being on the other side might mean, the twins had no point of reference. Deep hypnosis would provide all of them a safe, internal haven for their individuality, something that was very fluid for the Zees. The hypnotic prep also locked in a vision of the virtual reality (VR) world they would choose to inhabit.

  Teams of Bears and Surrons had filled in quite a bit of knowledge lost or not understood by the Surrons in the past. The Mintic records, overlaid on the Surron archives, gave us a clear picture of how our force could enter and leave the Zee dimensions, as well as how to create a VR shell-world for our squad during their cross-over.

  They would see Zees as human inhabitants of a large, human-like city, while the Zees, from their perspective, would perceive the humans as fellow Zees. A virtual communication filter would work the same way, translating not only words but also correct content, inferences and intent. In the VR world, they would have no need for food, water, or rest.

  Adam had assured Sandy, several times, no physical harm could befall them. In the dimensional-substrate VR, time would pass normally for them, though here, on their return, not a second will have ticked by between their leaving and returning.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The Mintic world, we had discovered, held the only multi-dimension portal we had located so far. One of the containers we’d found there had dozens of portal adjustment devices. We would use one to pick the correct emergence point. Surron-made finger rings, similar to the one used by Riley, would keep them connected to each other and anchored here for their return.

  Bear and Surron engineers and technicians had prepared the portal room. Another piece of Mintic tech expanded the step-off alcove to provide more room for the team of five. Sandy, Archer and I could only stand back, watching.

  Martin paced just outside the alcove, briefing them again on what to expect on arrival and return. He recommended, to avoid vertigo, each of the team take a three-point contact stance with the floor of the alcove.

  We didn’t say goodbye before they left. Sandy and I had done that in private. To us, they would never leave. To them, they could be gone for several subjective years or more. Sandy was made more nervous by the assembled medical team and row of ten, powered up, AI-linked, Auto-docs. Precaution I hoped were totally unnecessary. The team’s minds had been recorded and stored.

  Everything was ready. They were about to cross over, jump behind the battle lines; start an insurrection.

  26 Intrigue

  Intrigue: (v) to plot craftily; to carry on a secret or illicit action. (n) Clandestine machinations, plot or crafty dealings.

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  From this high perch, the city looked like I had imagined it. The VR training had done its job. As a double check, Adam asked everyone to describe what they saw and felt. Noah looked at me, he had always been a smidgen over protective. I was his twin, but in his mind, I was his kid sister. Having met Dad, I saw where he got that from.

  We, and the Zees we would encounter, would dress, speak, and generally act like the people of Satchel, our VR model. All of us were thoroughly familiar with that planet.

  Trekking down the mountain, we headed to our destination; the ranch, our home here. We hadn’t included the caverns or Surron tech and ships, those would have been an unnecessary complexity. Another difference would be the absence of any animal or insect life.

  To keep things simple, the level of tech we would interact with here was a few generational steps below what Satchel currently held. This world was as real as the one Riley, Noah and then Dad had visited when they’d met Archer.

  Adam was team leader, he had specific people we needed to see, needed to convince, needed on our side; old friends and acquaintances.

  I stood on the lawn, facing the ranch house. Familiar and comfortable as an old glove. The slight differences served to remind me it was all a convenient construct. Dr. Forest had told us those differences were important, to keep us from mentally detaching from our ‘real’ reality.

  Approaching the wide steps to the porch, I noticed the under-facia board, rimming the porch, didn’t have children’s names carved in it. Every child of the extended family, at age ten, was allowed to etch their name there. Even Adam’s children. Family is more than blood.r />
  We settled in. The reality here evidenced that we had simply, and recently, gone for a walk and returned. The house felt lived in. Lived in by us. My old room was still mine, the same for Noah. Adam, Roger and Dodger knew where their rooms were and described the same familiar feeling.

  Night and day passed here, just as on the real Satchel. The analog night was a cyclic stealth time, letting us move about with fewer opportunities for being observed. We would be driving to the city tonight for first contact.

  We had three layers to get through. How do you convince someone that they, and almost everyone else, had been fooled, forever? Then, how do you get them to agree that the falsehoods and misdirection held significant detriments for them. And third, how to spread that awareness across a broad population, with resultant actions, without detection?

  You start small; revolutions always start in the dark corners.

  We met an old friend of Adam’s; himself. When the Zees had penetrated our domain to request help from my father, they had extended, like a balloon through a knot hole; part of them were on our side and the remainder on theirs. Time had closed that orifice, leaving the Zees on our side, voluntarily, detached from Zee-land.

  Adam’s twin here was a functionary in the city planning office. An employee of the administration. I’m not sure how that worked in the real Zee realm, but it indicated he was connected both up and out; there was no down in the Under-Zee communities.

  It was strange seeing the interaction between the two when they met. Two close friends, picking up where they had left off; not two parts of a single whole, being reconnected. Thomas was the part of the Adam’s Zee who had stayed behind, continuing the existence as it had always been, though he had exposure to humans and the other side before the opening closed to separate them. That exposure had caused an unsettling dissatisfaction. By the very nature of the rift-closing mission, Thomas knew there were things the Uppers didn’t tell the Lowers. Adam, knowing he could trust himself, revealed everything.