by Tom Germann
MORNING ROLL CALL
I wake up when the alarm goes off. My entire body aches and I feel drained. I don’t want to get up, but I slowly drag myself off the bed. I pull the suit on and then there is a knock at the door.
I freeze. No one has ever knocked at that door while I’ve been here. I walk over and open it.
Mouth is standing there with her hands on her hips. She opens her mouth and I’m worried she is going to yell at me, then she pauses and pushes me back into my room. She closes the door, reaches up and tilts my chin down so that I am looking at her dead in the eye and then she stares at me.
I blink a bunch and then she sort of smiles and throws her arms around me, crushing me in a bear hug. She mumbles into my chest, “I knew you were still in there.”
She squeezes me even harder and then pulls back. She looks me dead in the eye and says, slowly and clearly, “You killed those people and you should have. You should also have made those hopped-up scummers suffer more.”
I’m shaking my head no. “I shouldn’t have done that. I should have called the cops or something else, like you’re supposed to.”
She grabs both my arms and glares at me. “No. Never for a second think that. You were right in killing them; they deserved it. You should have thrown them into a grinder on the slow setting with their feet first.”
She takes a pace back and points at the chair, stops, looks at my chin where she can see the stubble that I had seen in the mirror, and she points at the door. “You need to shave now; we still have a bit of time, but not much. Seven—or Armour, as you call your ‘love bird’—” I start grunting and she smacks me on the arm. “Geez, man, you know I’m kidding!”
We walk down the hall and into the bathroom. She walks right in with me and leans against the countertop while I start shaving.
“She told us everything last night. Some people knew a bit about it, but we only knew what the media had said. The Corporation went digging and pulled all the digital files and reconstructed everything. Not one of us thinks you should have done anything different.”
I’m halfway done my shaving and stop. “It was still the wrong thing to do. Maybe the cops would have been able to arrest them…”
She shakes her head. “No, Sam. The parents would have owned the cops. Or at least enough of them that mattered. I am telling you with my training now as a Marine, and I feel stronger about this than the rest. Women tend to be stronger in this way sometimes. Killing them was the only justice that you were going to get. And you got it. Your family can rest easy knowing that you did the right thing then, and now you’re one of the hundred people from this world that are able to deploy and keep humanity safe.”
I stand up and dry my face. She grabs my towel and wipes my face again. “There, now you look presentable.” Then she pulls me down, presses her body against me, and kisses me so hard that I think I’m going to fall over. She pulls back and smiles again. “You’re also a lot of fun, even if you do need practice!”
The smile leaves her face and it is the serious expression I am used to. “Let’s go. We can still get a drink at breakfast and make it in time for training, or Armour will be upset.”
I throw my towel into the wall receptacle and drop my shave kit in my room. We take off out the door and make it in time for a drink. All the rest of the candidates are there and nod at me. No one is looking at me or pointing at me and making a big fuss about it.
For the first time ever I feel accepted.
ADVANCED ALIEN TRAINING
We head back to the room where we continue doing more contortionist exercises. We quickly advance past the basic stuff and half of us are moved to an identical room next door and start doing more strenuous activities.
At lunch we are told we are done that for the day. We have lectures after lunch and are given directions and timings. We run to the location and move in.
I walk into a small, sterile classroom setting with seats and tables in the middle of the group. Like everywhere else, there is a podium at the front. I don’t recognize any of the equipment at the front of the class, though. There are seats for twenty, so the few of us fit, no problem.
There are four rows of five seats. Every row back is elevated by two steps so everyone can see the front.
We move in and sit down.
A man walks into the room. He looks like one of those government types, in a standard blue suit with short brown hair and a hard face. He doesn’t look like a happy family kind of person. More like he lives at work and has no life.
He puts down the folder he is carrying at the front and looks around at us. He seems to stop and stare at me for a while before continuing.
“Good morning everyone, call me Mr. Smith” says the grim faced man. We all just sit there and stare at him.
He smiles and there is a grim edge to it, like he finds something funny that is not funny to the rest of the world.
He nods to himself and continues. “You will be seeing me for the next series of lectures. You may address me as Smith. What you will cover with me in this classroom is restricted information, and you will not discuss this with personnel outside of your fellow Marines. Discussing these topics outside of official lines will result in disciplinary action and have a negative impact on your career.”
He sounds like he’s reading a prepared speech that he has given a lot.
Smith continues. “You will learn, over the next two days, what we know about the alien races out there. You will be shown what the public is aware of and then what we really know. We are going to cover how we perceive them and how they perceive us. We’ll try to understand aliens, and the problems we and they have with communications and understanding. Why some have tried to help us. What we have been lied to about, and more.”
Smith nods at the complex machinery next to him. “We have the latest three-dimensional imaging gear on the planet here. You will also go through limited sim training so that you know how the aliens move and what we know from direct observation. I must point out to you two things to keep in mind. The first is that any contact we have with alien races is always controlled. Anything we know about them has been communicated by them to us and what we have observed. That information may be completely wrong, as we are only being given what their controllers are willing to give us. The second point is that every culture may be vastly different; we have never observed and taken data from home worlds. There are no embassies on the alien planets. Any negotiations happen in space, almost always well away from the core planets. So with that, the most interaction that we have had is with the space-faring specialists or castes that every civilization has. Those members are willing to head off into deep space away from their home world. Given some of the groups’ beliefs and attitudes, this means that anything we infer from observing those beings may be highly inaccurate. As we consider it, they may be insane in their culture. But then we are applying our perception and understanding to those that crew their starships.”
Smith stops and sighs. “My coworkers and I have spent years trying to gain any insight into the workings of the alien’s minds. We have not succeeded. Really, we barely understand how different humans work sometimes if they come from vastly different cultures.”
He flips open the case he had been carrying and pulls out a computer chip. He walks to the podium and drops it on top. I can see the top light up and then the wall comes alive as a huge screen with the corporate logo and “LOADING” in big foot-high letters.
“We can tell you how individuals will react if we see them again, and we are quite accurate with that as far as it goes. For none of the races do we fully understand how body language works or whatever cultural mores they may have that cause their perceptions to shift one way or the other. We don’t even fully understand if they have emotions like we do. Urges and drives? Yes, they have those, but that is so basic that in most circumstances we cannot use this to our adv
antage.
“A big part of the problem is that we do not have enough time around the aliens where we can evaluate and begin to understand how they interact at the most basic level with each other and with ourselves. So we do the best we can.”
The wall screen clears and different folders appear on it. There are no names, just numbers on each one.
Smith crosses his arms and glares at us. “The reason I am telling you all this is so that you hopefully understand and remember that whatever you are taught here and in updates that come out is all based on human perceptions. Any decisions you make based on this information may be wrong. My last example, and this is something that we have figured out: Security is vitally important to everyone. Guarding your secrets is more important than you would believe. We as humans already knew that as far back as you want to go in our history. But keeping information and technological breakthroughs hidden from aliens that are trading partners is how this works.”
A screen opens behind Smith, showing a small space station in deep space. I recognize it, like anyone should. This has been promoted across Earth and the solar system as the “gateway to Sol.” Any alien race that comes to our system stops here and does all their negotiations and parlaying before we let anyone into the system. Every race does this.
I don’t get it, though. They have to go and check in and do their political talking at this small space station before being “let in.” How would any species be kept out? There is no real space navy with fighters.
The official explanation is that the small station allows any race’s ships to dock, and short-range communications devices can then begin the process of trying to talk to one another. The station is small but full of computer systems dedicated to processing the different races’ comms so that there is no misunderstanding. They even have a three-dimensional imager so the solar negotiator can “see” the other race as they are. If the race allows it.
The pictures on the screen are flicking fast, showing different images of the station. It stops at a current picture of the solar negotiator. He is an older man who looks to be in rough shape. It isn’t hard to believe that filling a position like that would age anyone.
Smith looks at us. “The ‘solar negotiator’ was a tag that the Corporation leaked out a very long time ago. It came about as a suggestion from some alien contacts. The official reason that every official negotiator is only in that position for a maximum of two years is the stress. They may only interact with an alien race once or twice in that time. The real reason is that every negotiator is terminally ill and cannot stay out there any longer than that.”
I gawp at the nut talking to us. Why would a terminally ill person be put out in deep space on their own to represent the entire human race to aliens that are coming to trade with us? I can’t think of anything. I just sit there in shock.
Smith had stopped after the bombshell and then carries on. “Any alien race will be faced with a sick person who will not give them accurate medical scans on our physiology. All the negotiator’s levels are very far off and some are on machine support, which would cause confusion. The other part is that within the entire shell of the station is built in a very powerful bomb that operates in three phases.”
I can feel my mouth dropping open. I can hear others in the room sucking in their breath and somebody is coughing like they had swallowed their tongue.
“If an alien race attempts to scan the station, it will come across as clean with no booby traps. The station itself is chock-full of high-tech wonders and our almost best software. Any race coming in with hostile intent would capture that first-off as it is worth a great deal and is not defended. As soon as it is identified that they are hostile, the station defense AI activates and decides the best course of action.”
I can see someone’s arm going up for attention and then hear Kelly’s voice from really far away. It is cold. “Why would the Corporation do that?”
Smith nods like that is a good question. I still can’t believe what I’ve heard.
“Watch the video,” is all he says.
The screen shows a mid-size spaceship coming toward the space station. It comes in nice and slow for normal docking, and then when it is synced up with the movement of the station just a few feet back from the docking clamp, magnetic grapples shoot out and a boarding umbilical extends over the hatch. The view switches to inside the station where a solar negotiator I recognize from a long time ago is sitting in a mechanical wheelchair smiling. There is no sound but it looks like he is talking to himself. The airlock hatch falls inward and two armoured individuals come in with laser rifles.
The negotiator raises his hand. I think he is saying, “Greetings,” when they open fire on him. The two laser blasts cut him into pieces and he is dead pretty much immediately.
I thought the armour was from the Kah-Choo Empire but I can’t tell for sure.
The view switches to another outside view of the station and the ship. It’s surprising when the entire station goes up. The wreckage and spears of flame shoot forward and tear into the ship, destroying a good bit of it and wrecking the rest. Almost immediately after that, something comes toward the viewer and then there is nothing.
Smith doesn’t say anything for a second. He just watches us. “You all recognize him. The incident happened almost nineteen years ago. A small ship came in with all the codes. It was a smash-and-grab by pirates. They may have been officially working for their race as privateers. The gear that the two wore onto the ship was from the Kah-Choo Empire, even though the ship was not. Kah-Choo will sell to anyone, which is why we believe that it was not them. When the Kah-Choo deploy on an important raid, they tend to only use their best. The station was destroyed and its replacement was in place with a new negotiator in forty-two days. The official story was that the last negotiator had fallen ill and retired. You are asking why people would do that, correct? Why go out into deep space while terminally ill and act as the solar negotiator.”
I am nodding. I still couldn’t grasp this as none of it made sense.
Smith continues “They know they are sitting on a bomb. There are no shortage of volunteers. Everyone in our system knows they are heroes. When they die, their families are set up for life, and while they live they get the best medical treatment.”
The screen clears back to a corporate logo and Smith walks to the centre of the open area. “Let’s deal with your questions now so you can focus on what I am trying to teach you. Then you are off for more sizing and testing for your armour.”
There are a few questions that I think were stupid. Who cares about the impact if the aliens figure out that we are using weird people as our spokesperson? If we are doing it and trying to spoof their sensors, they are likely doing the same to us.
We head over for more armour work. Every day now we wear the body suit. The interlocking armour and the armour plates are being worked up to ensure that our armour works for us. Every suit of armour having to be customised and synced to our system is difficult but it means we will wear it like a second skin.
I can accept that.
We walk into the fitting area and move to the front of the machines that we had started at. The technician activates the sim program and I am wearing a full set of powered armour. Every time we enter the armour, we conduct the same checks in the same order. I run power through my implants testing responsiveness, started firing my different motivators, and then start slowly and carefully stretching, turning, bending and jumping.
If you were watching someone do this, then it looked hilarious the first time. It did for me. But when I actually have to go through every single movement every time I put the armour on and power it up, it is a real pain.
It has to be done. Taking off in a suit of armour that has problems with the linkages can cause big problems, including the death of the wearer and then failure of the mission.
When we receive our suits finally
and are completely cleared on them, we would be doing this testing every day. In an emergency, a Marine could don armour and be ready to fight in less than ninety seconds.
Until we receive our armour, every time we walk into the sizing room we go through the process so that the testing will become purely instinctual.
While we are running our checks and tests, the technicians and AI are monitoring us and gaining more data on our bodies and how they work.
After forty-five minutes we stand down and then come out of the sim. I had put the armour on twice and discovered several small errors both times that would have caused feedback into the system, cutting my effectiveness by 4 percent.
We leave and head for lunch, which is a protein glop that we are supposed to eat that will load our system with markers that the AI can scan to see how every element of our bodies works.
It tastes like crap, but orders are orders.
The next morning is the same. A quick series of calisthenics in the medical room that are harder than the day before, lunch and then we are sent off to the classroom where Smith is waiting for us.
We walk in and sit down when he starts. “There are currently four alien races that we have had direct contact with, including trading and some negotiations. Those are, in order: the OOng, Kah-Choo Empire, Crill or Krill as you like, and the ASSA. We are going to cover what we know about those organizations over the next few days. Their names are not what they call themselves but rather what our early programs labelled them as. They do not care what we call them, as long as we are consistent.”
“The first race that we met is the OOng; everyone knows that they gave us the first early version of the star drive and warned us about the cost of building true starships. They are small and fuzzy. They are bipedal. The assistance that they gave us was not really that helpful, as we were a short time away from having the early star drive at a testing stage.”
As Smith talks, an image forms through the three-dimensional projector. It is a small, fuzzy creature, about half as big as a human and doesn’t look very aggressive at all. The image turns and moves into different positions, showing full range of movement. It could never be mistaken for anything from Earth. Its face is flat, with small eyes, nose and mouth. I can’t see ears. The arms are longer, hanging down past its knees and the paws have seven long fingers coming off that have several more joints than we do. One of those paws clenches and nails show out from the end that look at least an inch in length. The torso is slender like the rest of the creature, and the legs are shorter than a human’s would be in relation to their body. The image “walks” over to the side and freezes. Another image materializes. The same creature in armour is a bit taller and bulkier. The armour is also stylized and very distinctive, with different markings on it. Another suit appears next to the first and the markings and helmet are very different.
