BattleMaster (The BattleMaster Corps Book 1)

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BattleMaster (The BattleMaster Corps Book 1) Page 22

by Nathaniel Danes


  “Well, to be more accurate. Ten clusters of two hundred each.”

  Stanner flipped his wrist. “Oh, ooookay, then. No biggy.”

  “I did say this is revolutionary.” Bach smirked.

  “Ground or aerial?”

  “The swarm is airborne. They can fly very low and slow when needed to attack at ground level and fast at medium altitudes. You will learn to control them, to engulf your targets from every angle, dealing death by a thousand cuts.”

  The last of the pain disappeared. Stanner twisted his lips. Shouldn’t I be able to think faster or something? “Doc, it seems like I am thinking as I usually do. I thought you said the wetware was enhancing my natural abilities?”

  “It has.” Bach rolled to examine a screen. “But only when in use with the BattleSwarm system. See, the true genius of the system is the two-way link between the drones and controller. It’s...”

  “Isn’t the standard BattleMaster link two-way? They receive sensor feeds and stuff. I’ve heard they feel bullet impacts on their body like they’re being hit.”

  “Yes, they do.” Bach bobbed his head, then his face lit up. “But this takes it to the next level. The inspiration for the system came to me when I read about Doctor Sheila Nirenberg. She was a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in neural coding. Her work in the early twenty-first century created the first effective prosthetic retinas. She achieved this monumental task by being the first to truly understand the mathematical equation dictating how the brain interprets light into images.

  “It was revolutionary because earlier prosthetic eyes simply sought to hardwire cameras into an individual’s visual cortex. It worked, but the resolution was poor. That got me thinking. What if we were leaving something on the table by not making the link between master and machine deeper?”

  Bach rolled to within inches of Stanner and leaned in. “Sure, the current link sends data into the master’s brain and the master sends back commands, but what if the master was inside the drone?”

  “Huh? Inside?”

  “Exactly.” A line of saliva flowed down Bach’s chin. “The human brain is nothing more than ones and zeros, when you get down to it. I thought, what if we could copy part of the controller’s mind into the machine? What...”

  “Wow, wow.” Stanner put up his palms. “You want to download me into two thousand little drones?”

  “It’s not like that.” Bach waved him off, shaking his head. “Only a fraction of yourself is copied in each unit. Just enough to improve their combat efficiency by giving them the ability to start to think like you. Done right, they’ll take some of the burden off you. The tiny computer cores of each drone can store an incredible amount of data, but two thousand isn’t nearly enough to hold an entire human consciousness.”

  “You’re talking about the singularity?”

  “No.” Bach held up his thumb and index finger a quarter of an inch apart. “I’m talking about something much simpler. The singularity, the perfect wedding of man and machine, is still the stuff of science fiction. Countless attempts at this unicorn have failed because they’ve been unable to transfer the essence of a person onto a hard drive. Memory, yes, but a person is so much more than that.

  “And as I said, both ends of the connection must be active in order for it to work. You won’t be a walking super computer, if that’s what you were thinking. Just enough of your brain, which is designed to function in a diffused manner, will be in the drones. The part of you in them is ever-shifting and temporary. Once the link is closed, it’s erased.”

  “Well...” Stanner chuckled. “That would’ve been kinda cool.”

  “Indeed, but I doubt I’ll see it in my lifetime.”

  Stanner scooted to the edge of his chair and sat up straight. “Okay, what’s next?”

  “We...” Beep. Bach’s wrist chimed. He glanced at it. “Um, I’m afraid I’m being called away to attend to other duties at the moment.” His eyes shifted, then looked at the floor.

  Bach fumbled as he snatched his tablet en route to the door. “You should rest anyway. Give your implants a chance to settle. Please take it easy for the rest of the day. Get a good, long night’s sleep and we’ll start fresh in the morning. Meet me here at five a.m.”

  Bang! The door slammed shut as Bach rushed out.

  Stanner arched an eyebrow. “Okay. Bye.”

  ***

  Bach picked up his pace, taking strides that stretched the limits of his groin. Beads of sweat formed on his balding head. His body was used to sitting behind a desk, and the brisk walk was proving to be a strain.

  He paused before a door and took several breaths as he wiped his forehead with his sleeve and steadied himself. Plastering a smile on his face, he took hold of the knob and entered.

  “You’re late.” Major Lowen stood with crossed arms, glaring at him. “We’ve been waiting here for ten minutes.”

  Bach’s head jerked back. “Major, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

  “And if you had known I’d be here, you wouldn’t’ve been late?” Lowen gestured to Cpt. Butler sitting in a patient-chair. “But you don’t think there’s anything wrong with keeping Captain Butler waiting?”

  “I...ah...”

  Lowen held up a palm. “Save it, doctor. I wanted to be here to personally express the importance of this project — and I can see I needed to. This project is your number one priority, doctor.

  “I saved you from your grease monkey duties to solely focus on it, based upon the personal recommendation from your former superior, Doctor Dean. She said you’d been trying to develop a similar system for some time and assured me you’d be motivated. I trust she wasn’t wrong.”

  Bach slipped a hand into his lab coat pocket to clench his fist. Dean never listened to me! If she had, she’d know I would never think your fucking idiotic idea was worth my time. He exhaled and grinned. “Of course, major. You can rest assured that I will give your project all of the attention it deserves.”

  Lowen nodded and regarded Cpt. Butler. “I will leave you to it, then. I’ll be checking in regularly for updates.” He eyed Bach as he left the room.

  Stephanie shifted in her seat and looked around the room.

  Bach cleared his throat and pulled a chair to himself. “Let’s get started, Captain Butler. First, we’re going to map your thought patterns in preparation for new wetware installation. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chinese infantry poured out of their mountain fortifications, rushing toward Stanner. It felt as if every one of them was gunning for him. The slope appeared to have turned into liquid and was coming to sweep him from existence.

  Triple-turret tanks sped out from the flanks in an encirclement maneuver. American craft buzzed from above, blanketing the rocky surface with scatter-bombs. Infantrymen died by the dozen, but the tanks’ drivers were safely behind inches of armor.

  The wave of flesh and steel came closer, impervious to everything hurled at them.

  “Mr. Stanner,” a frantic voice called over the com-link, sending his heart into overdrive. “We’re activating the BattleSwarm. Engage and destroy the enemy.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Stanner closed his eyes and ran his hands over his black suit. It was the uniform of a BattleMaster and he was wearing it. Its touch gave him confidence and slowed his pulse. Opening the program within his mind, he took control of his two thousand drones.

  The tiny rotor-driven craft filled the night with the soft thmoop, thmoop of their blades. More joined the chorus and increased the power of their formation until the gentle noise became a thunderous battle-cry.

  Stanner felt the power coursing through his veins, but his mind was being stretched at the seams by the sheer weight of data flowing through the wetware. Ten windows feeding him information on two hundred drones was overwhelming him.

  It was chaos.

  Information came and went so fast it was a blur.

&nb
sp; Warnings flashed, threatening to kick him out of the program. That wasn’t an option. Too many men were counting on him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut harder and every muscle in his body tightened as he focused all of his mental abilities into the task and delegated some to the drones carrying a piece of him. The endless stream of information slowed. He began to understand it.

  The enemy advance came into view. He saw it from ten angles but with one eye. With a thought, his swarm charged to meet the threat. High, low, left, right, and straight ahead, the black clouds of carbon fiber encompassed their first victim.

  The lead tank fought back. Its machine guns fired wildly into the air. Metallic slugs obliterated the tiny attackers. Stanner felt each kill and sent the flock into twists and turns as the swarm corkscrewed closer and closer.

  Nearly two thousand lasers lanced out. Individually, the low-powered pinpricks were no match for the thick armor, but that was not how they struck.

  Stanner ceased breathing as he coordinated the assault. He segregated them according to their approach vector, putting hundreds of the Wasps into temporary groupings. They trained their stingers and hammered the vehicle into slag within seconds.

  Victory! His spirits soared. He was a BattleMaster! No, better than that, he was a SwarmMaster. A man, the supreme weapon of modern warfare. History had come full circle and returned his gender to its rightful place on the battlefield.

  Suddenly he was light-headed and the world inside his mind spun. Then everything went black.

  Cold. That was the first thing Stanner remembered thinking when he came to. A throbbing headache was the next sensation. “Oww.” He held the side of his head with his hands. “What happened?” It was too painful to try to open his eyelids.

  “You lost — again.” Bach’s said.

  “Yeah, I got that. I thought I was doing well and then I just blacked out.”

  “You did do better than the last dozen or so times we ran the sim. You at least got the drones off the ground without crashing the program.” Bach sighed. “And you managed to destroy an enemy tank and take evasive action. However, your losses were still too high. Your response time was too slow. Most importantly, your breathing was erratic. You hyperventilated and passed out. At that point, you lost your entire compliment of Wasps. Not exactly a fair trade, one tank for two thousand drones.”

  Stanner sat up and cracked his eyes open. “But I’m getting better, right?”

  “Without a doubt.” Bach smiled. “You’re making good progress. I’ll be able to make further refinements to your wetware and programming based upon this data. I may need to wire your automatic body functions into the network to avoid your passing out.”

  “Let’s get to it, doc. Fix me up and let’s do it again.”

  Bach glanced at this wrist computer. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have this morning. We’ll meet again at nineteen hundred hours.”

  “Okay.” Stanner pulled off the cap dotted with sensors. “Why do we only meet early in the morning or in the evening, outside of regular duty hours?”

  Bach had his tablet under his arm and ready to go. “Unfortunately I have other projects underway and must manage my time accordingly. I’ll see you tonight, Mr. Stanner, and do keep in mind that you are not allowed in this area without a test in progress.”

  Stanner nodded. “I’ll be out of here...”

  The door clicking shut behind Bach rendered his further reply moot.

  He strolled out of the lab alone, again feeling like some kind of afterthought. Hell of a way to treat the future of warfare.

  Stanner found himself wandering around the base compound. All he had back in his quarters were the entertainment streams, the mind exercises Bach gave him, and messages from his parents, none of which sounded appealing.

  He’d walked aimlessly for the better part of an hour before realizing his feet had circled him around to his old unit’s stomping grounds. In fact, he’d come out of his daze right where he and Olsen had collapsed on their way back from the bar. The memory painted a grin on his face.

  “Stanner,” a familiar voice called out, ripping him out of his head.

  He turned to the source in time to see Olsen jogging toward him. The two gave each other a quick man-hug, complete with solid slaps between the shoulder blades.

  “How are you doing, man?” Stanner pulled away and noticed Olsen’s upper arm. “Corporal? They promoted you? Damn, I didn’t think things were that bad, but we must be on our last legs.”

  Olsen’s white teeth glowed against his dark skin. “I know, right. It turns out that being associated with the great Michael Stanner finally has its privileges.”

  Stanner rolled his eyes. “Please, I don’t think anyone knows what I did. According to the news feeds, Stephanie Butler did everything herself.” He felt bad for saying that. Stephanie hadn’t wanted more praise then she deserved. Still, the whole situation left a knot of festering resentment in his gut.

  “That might be how the jerk-offs on the feeds are playing it,” Olsen waved his arm in a board stroke. “But everyone else knows what you and Veech did. They know Butler’s pretty little ass wouldn’t have managed to start a campfire without you guys, let alone turn the tide of the war.”

  “Don’t talk about her that way,” Stanner blurted out, his grin disappearing. “Sorry. I mean...she’s cool, and she can’t control the story the brass wants to tell any more than you or me.”

  Olsen cocked his head, staring at him intently before smiling as wide as he could. “You like her. Oh, my God, that’s it — you have the hots for her, don’t you?”

  Stanner blushed. He kicked himself on the inside for failure to control the telling reaction.

  “I knew it.” Olsen clapped his hands. “I should’ve seen it sooner but just thought you wanted to tap that like everyone else.”

  “What?” Stanner’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  Laughing, Olsen put his palms up. “Hey, man, no offense. I just mean she’s attractive and it’s hard for a guy not to notice.”

  “Oh, okay. Sorry.”

  “You really like her, huh?”

  Stanner pressed his lips together and stared off for a few seconds. He did really like her. But what the hell could he do about it?

  That evening, Stanner returned to the R&D security checkpoint fifteen minutes before his allotted appointment. He held out his wrist for the guard to scan when he caught a glimpse of a familiar form exiting from a side door.

  He pulled back his arm and hurried to cut her off. “Hey...” He stopped himself before referring to her by her first name. “Um...Captain Butler, it’s nice to run into you here. I knew you were around here somewhere, and I was hoping we’d run into each other.”

  She raised her eyes to meet his. They looked different, bloodshot and duller. That spark he’d found enchanting wasn’t here. “Stanner?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay, captain? No offense, but you don’t look so good. Maybe you should get checked out.”

  “I’m fine.” Stephanie coughed, wincing as she did it. “Just a really bad headache. I have them after every session. They go away after a couple of hours.” She looked him up and down. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story, but that doctor guy, remember the one who gave your first exam for Lowen? He noticed something about me and had me transferred for a project of his.”

  Stephanie cocked her head. “Bach? You’re seeing Bach? When?”

  “Right now, as a matter of fact. I see him in the morning and the evening.” Stanner shrugged. “Guessing he’s got your project during the day.”

  “Yeah,” Stephanie managed a weak chuckle. “He’s busy torturing me.”

  “What? He did this to you? What are you doing?”

  “That’s classified. What are you doing?”

  “That’s classified, too.” Stanner reached out and took hold of her arm. “Do you need any help back to your quarters?”

  Stephanie waved him o
ff. “I’m fine, corporal. I do this every day. I’d better get moving. Need to get to the mess before they stop serving and then hit the sack to be ready to begin another fun day tomorrow.” She took one step and stopped to regard him, letting her voice drop almost to a whisper. “It was nice seeing you, Michael. I hope we run into each other when I feel better.” Her shoulders slumped. “Though I’m not sure when that will ever be the case again.”

  Stanner looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. “Take care of yourself, Stephanie. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  Stephanie’s lips turned up a fraction of an inch. It wasn’t much of a smile, but he could see a little bit of the woman he knew return. “Same to you. I might just take you up on that sometime.”

  Stanner watched her walk away. An aching pain in his gut ate at him as she shuffled down the hall. What the hell is Bach doing to her?

  Chapter Thirty

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “Off.” Doctor Xavier Bach rolled onto his back. Bed sheets tangled around him. He stared at the ceiling for a minute before dragging his hands over his face and yawning. Working his way out of the snare he’d put himself in with another restless night’s sleep, he headed for the bathroom.

  A glance at the clock on his nightstand confirmed what he already knew. It was six in the morning. He’d gotten two more hours of sleep than usual. This fact served to irritate him more than anything else.

  It was a reminder that today was a Sunday, the one day a week he couldn’t compel Stanner to participate in his tests. He’d demanded the day off, the first in weeks. Lazy fool. Doesn’t he understand how close I am to perfecting the BattleSwarm system?

  Bach performed the annoying bodily hygiene requirements while his mind was elsewhere, thinking of the project, of how to put the final refinements in place. He hated anything that distracted him from his work. As he felt himself coming closer to the elusive success he’d sought for so long, he became more obsessed.

 

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