Shepard knew dream telepathy was a distinct possibility. A search through the data archives revealed the phenomena of dream sharing, as it was clinically known, could explain how Ritch and Stynx had mentally interacted even though they’d never met.
“Dream sharing is theorized to be a latent form of telepathy,” the AI said. “While rare, the phenomenon has been documented in medical studies, but only between identical twins. There is also the phenethylamine drug PTL-29, which significantly enhances psi abilities. However, PTL drugs are strictly limited to military use only. There are also a few alien species with telepathic abilities, the Jarda most notably.”
During the war against the Jarda, there had been an urgent rush to understand telepathy, or more specifically, to devise means to negate it. The tenacious vine creepers had used crippling psionic attacks to knock people into blackout comas. A hunting technique that enabled the Jarda to catch faster, more mobile prey. They had even been able to shutdown AIs at decisive moments, with predictably catastrophic results.
Billions had died as the Jarda swept across scores of Human/AI worlds, seemingly unstoppable. Everything changed when, in a think-tank on Rexel Annex, an elite team of scientists and AIs came up with a defense, creating a psi-shield of electronic jamming. This was incorporated into the existing shields of warships and troopers alike, providing psionic immunity.
After that, it was a fair fight.
“You’re saying I’m telepathic?” Ritch’s expression implied skepticism.
“No, I am saying Stynx may be telepathic. It is the most plausible explanation. Occam’s Razor, as you will recall from your studies with Professor Tottle, states that the simplest answer is most often the correct one.”
Ritch shrugged, obviously confused by it all. “So, what now?”
“We both enter a simulation to meet Stynx.”
Ritch’s eyes went wide with excitement. “Excellent. I’ll set one up right away one and link you in.”
He practically ran over to his bedroom’s recreation alcove, turned on the simulated reality unit, then yanked open a drawer in the end table it sat upon. Sorting through the contents, he pulled out an optical-link cable and plugged it into the SR unit’s Player 2 socket. Ritch plugged the other end in a nearby wall jack through which players elsewhere on Argo could connect to the unit. “You should be able to link in now.”
Shepard accessed the wall jack, receiving an immediate query pulse from the SR unit. Shepard replied with an acceptance code and waited for simulation input. “I am linked in.”
Ritch had pleaded with Shepard many times to join him in SR adventures, but Shepard always declined. The AI did not want to encourage the boy’s fondness for violent games. Shepard had discussed this with Tarn once, citing evidence that showed violent games led to violent behavior in later years, but Tarn brushed it off, claiming his son was a “gentle soul” who wouldn’t harm a fly. Shepard knew better, yet encoded restrictions prohibited an AI from interfering with parental prerogatives, unless, of course, a child was subjected to mental or physical abuse. For all his faults, Tarn was a loving father and Shepard had not observed the slightest inkling of abusive behavior.
And so, knowing Ritch as well as it did, Shepard expected this simulated adventure would be spectacularly brutal. Ritch did not disappoint.
“Battle of Sonora,” he said, dialing up the game on the SR unit’s control panel. While Ritch selected player options for them both, Shepard perused the game’s description, noting players could “join the action” as a trooper, ground-attack pilot, infiltration sniper, destroyer captain, even the admiral in charge of Federation forces. One could even play as a K’klacken assault monger or dread ripper. It was a historically accurate recreation of what many considered the most important battle in human/AI history.
At the time, the Sol Federation―a unified government that included all of humanity and AI citizenry―encompassed Earth, a terraformed Mars and the rest of the densely populated Sol system, thirteen Earth-like planets that would later be known collectively as the Inner Worlds, 217 colonized planets or moons with burgeoning populations, plus thousands of outposts, mining bases, and research stations, all scattered across a volume of space approximately 1,100 light years across by 320 deep.
A decade after the K’klacken invaded, the Federation had lost more than seventeen percent of its territory and forty-two worlds. Inevitably, the pacifist chancellor who’d been entrenched in office for the past thirty-five years was finally ousted and a four-star admiral elected to take his place. To reverse the plummeting morale that had infected civilian and military populations alike, the new chancellor realized she needed a victory. Sonora would be it.
The Federation threw everything into their assault to retake the planet. It was there, on Sonora, where Ritch’s simulated reality took place.
Shepard gave the digital equivalent of a sigh, dreading what was about to occur. Yet the opportunity to meet Stynx could not be ignored.
“We’re all set.” Ritch pressed Start, put on the SR helmet, and then sank back into his recliner. “Prepare for action.”
A vibrant surge of sensory stimuli flowed into Shepard’s processing cores. A moment later, the AI was no longer a part of Argo but instead in an enclosed space within a machine of unfamiliar type. There was a thickly padded chair below, obviously for a human, with vehicle-type controls, dials, indicator lights, and various other instrumentation―a U-shaped cockpit, it appeared.
Surprisingly, Shepard did not find itself encased in an environment sphere and in control of a war machine of one variety or another. No, the AI was in its true form, a crystalline entity comparable in size and appearance to a fourteen-carat diamond. Shepard floated in a self-generated suspensor field, studying its new surroundings via input from 128 molecule-sized sensors spread uniformly across its body―sensors that provided visual, audio, and olfactory stimuli. Shepard had limited mobility, and could, by gently manipulating the roll, pitch, and yaw parameters of its suspensor field, levitate higher, sink, or slowly drift sideways. Very slowly, half the pace of a human adult’s walking stride. A modern generation-R3 AI was designed as the control entity for a mechanical body, and was ill-suited to be unbodied as Shepard was now. The AI found this unfamiliar experience unsettling―comparable, perhaps, to a person walking about nude in public―but Shepard must adapt, and quickly.
“Where am I?” Shepard tried to ask, but no words came out. After a quick diagnostic, the AI found it was not connected to a voice box, speaker, or some other apparatus with which to speak. Most disconcerting.
Shepard studied the cockpit controls spread before it. After several milliseconds of inspection, photon tubules emerged from the AI’s body, each tubule only a few electrons in diameter and wrapped in an electromagnetic sheath by Shepard’s suspensor field. They flowed down like microscopic tendrils, touched specific control devices, and snaked their way inside. A tubule connected to an intercom speaker.
“Where am I?” Shepard asked again. This time a voice was heard, a tinny utterance, yet sufficient for current needs.
“In a Maus super-heavy hovertank,” Ritch answered. “Our tank is part of Fox Company, First Regiment of the Ironside Division. We’re spearheading the attack, forming the vanguard of the southern pincer in a major offensive to surround and retake Bisbee, the Sonoran capital.”
“Why am I in true form and not the controller for this vehicle?”
Ritch was a few meters behind Shepard, in the tank turret on an elevated chair. Shepard heard an electric whine as Ritch’s chair lowered, allowing him to see the AI.
“Uh, you should be the controller of a mechanic ’bot,” he said, his facial expression denoting surprise. “I don’t know why you’re in true form. I selected tank driver for you with a robot mechanic’s body so you could handle the controls.” Ritch was also in true form, a freckled boy with reddish hair, sitting in a chair designed for grown men. His oversized combat helmet kept sliding to one side, forcing him to push it
back up. “Can you drive this thing, or should I abort?”
By now, Shepard’s tubules had thoroughly infiltrated the driver’s cockpit, enabling the AI to access the tank computer. It was an unusual design in that it consisted of multiple processors in locations throughout the tank, redundancy, Shepard concluded, to enhance survivability in a hostile environment. Quantum processors used monopole spin isomers, advanced for its day, but simple compared to modern dynaplex design.
Shepard tapped into the memory sticks, accessing the technical specs, operational files, and the driver instructions for the Maus MK-VIIB, an early-war variant of the hovertank weighing in at an impressive 155 tonnes. Dense, 18-cm thick, sloped polyceramic armor covered the front plate, while the sides, turret, and skirt had fifteen centimeters of armor. Six turbofans under the armored skirt provided lift, while lateral thrusters propelled the monster tank at speeds up to 130 kph, even over the roughest terrain.
“Yes, I can drive this thing,” Shepard replied.
“Excellent. Then get us moving,” Ritch urged. “The order to advance just came in from our company commander.”
Shepard engaged the controls, and the Maus lurched forward. Viewplates, one forward and one rear, provided 360-degree vision. Sonora was a semi-arid world, and the terrain outside reflected it. The hovertank skimmed over a ravine carved by fast-flowing water, none evident at the moment. A dusky brown plain stretched before them, strewn with copper-red rocks and boulders. There was vegetation: scrub trees, thorn-covered bushes, and pale yellow grass that grew half a meter tall, and flowers, yes, lots of colorful flowers. Lots of flying insects, too, Shepard noticed. A mountain range was off to the left, some of the peaks venting smoke.
Fox Company consisted of eight tanks, spread out in a ragged line eighty meters apart. Theirs was number three, with the company commander’s tank on their left. Armored troop carriers followed behind them, with hundreds of spy ’bots and minidrones reconnoitering the route ahead. None of this mattered to Shepard. The AI was here to meet Stynx, nothing more. But until that happened, assuming it even did, Shepard would immerse itself fully within the simulation and play its part. Total mental interaction might somehow be a prerequisite for Stynx to appear.
“Here comes our air cover,” Ritch announced.
Seconds later a shrieking sound passed overhead, loud even through their tank’s insulated armor. Sonic booms came next as a dozen fighters streaked by. Four peeled off along a course that paralleled a low ridgeline, dropping guided bombs on an unseen target. Flashes of light erupted in their wake. As they rose higher, one exploded in midair. The others twisted and rolled as they sought to evade the kinetic-kill rounds that hammered into them from a K’klacken ground battery.
Tanks seven and eight swiveled their turrets to the left, following orders from the company commander to destroy that K’klacken battery. Spy ’bots had pinpointed its location, backtracking the kinetic rounds it fired. The fire-control processors in each tank plotted distance, elevating the 190mm gun for an arced shot over intervening terrain. The tanks fired a second apart. The plasma rounds ignited in the air as the protective casings sloughed off, leaving a trail of deep-blue flame as they rose high into the air before streaking down on their target from above. Blue flashes were visible on the horizon as the rounds stuck home, obliterating the battery.
“Incoming,” Ritch warned. “Evasive maneuvers.”
Shepard began zigzagging the tank, jogging left and then right a few seconds later, changing forward speed with each jog. Every tank in Fox Company was doing the same.
Five large, ungainly, low-flying assault craft approached from their right flank, closing fast. They began firing from ten kilometers out, the mass drivers that extended down their entire length propelling seventy-kilo tungsten darts at Mach 5 speeds.
Tank one was struck near the base of its turret, the dart punching through the protective armor with enough kinetic energy to incinerate everything inside. Tanks two and seven suffered similar fates. The others sent a volley of anti-air missiles chasing after the assault craft as they sped overhead and away. The air-cap fighters were chasing them as well. Green blips on the tactical screen in front of Shepard identified them as Kirov-29 strike fighters; small, nimble, and fast; not nearly as rugged as K’klacken aircraft, but a match for them in a dogfight. Three assault craft were shot down. The last two fled to the south, one of them trailing oily smoke.
Suddenly, Shepard felt their tank slammed upward as something enormous rose beneath them. The AI’s first reaction was to calculate the power needed to lift a 155-tonne Maus tank with such force, but survival instincts took over and Shepard pushed the throttle controls all the way down. The tank surged forward, sliding off whatever had hit them.
“Dread rippers!” Ritch shouted.
Shepard knew from historical archives that the K’klacken had evolved as top-tier predators along the river estuaries and coastal shorelines of their birthworld, burrowing into sand or mud flats and ambushing prey whenever it came within range. K’klacken battle strategy reflected that evolution, and the Federation had learned the hard way they were superb ambush tacticians. And a dread ripper was the ultimate ambush weapon, undetectable when burrowed in, deadly when it struck.
A trio of the enormous machines had risen simultaneously, two under Fox Company, the third directly ahead, its ten-meter-long impalers raised high. The metallic-red goliaths resembled hermit crabs, a thick armored shell on top, eight legs underneath, and two oversized impalers that “ripped” prey to shreds, hence the name.
The one that had struck their tank was visible on the rear viewplate as it rose out of the rust-brown soil, its eight crab legs working together to lift the metal monstrosity higher. Shepard steered the Maus hard right to avoid the third one ahead while Ritch swiveled the turret, targeting the main gun on the ripper behind them. A sudden, loud wham reverberated through the tank as the 190mm fired.
On the rear viewplate, Shepard saw a molten-blue fireball erupt where the ripper’s face should be as the plasma round exploded. More fireballs erupted as tanks four and five fired at the same target. During the early years of the Red War, the 190mm plasma cannon was the only weapon in the Federation arsenal that could take down a dread ripper short of a nuclear warhead, and the damage inflicted on the metal beast reflected its destructive power. Shepard watched in stunned amazement as the melting hulk sank back into the ground from which it had arisen.
Tank eight took a fatal blow, an impaler from the second ripper slicing up through a turbofan and into the turret above, eviscerating the gunner. The tank skidded into the ground as the power cell for the gun servos exploded. Tank six was pounced on by the third ripper, both impalers slicing down through the turret’s thinner overhead armor and demolishing the interior.
Wham! as Ritch fired the 190mm again, targeting the third ripper as it tore tank six apart. Shepard heard electric motors whine as the autoloader slid a new shell into the breech, and Ritch fired a third time. While the spent shell casing was ejected, flying into a storage bin for later repurposing, Shepard took a few milliseconds to marvel at the simulation’s realism. Even olfactory senses were engaged, with the acrid scent of thruster fumes permeating the air as the Maus surged forward. Shepard even felt heavier, its internal accelerometers sensing a downward tug of 1.24 standard g―which matched the actual Sonoran gravity!
Still more amazing, Shepard had experienced genuine fear when the ripper had struck from below. Incredible realism. Shepard now understood Ritch’s obsession with these simulated realities.
The Kirov fighters―only seven of the original dozen still flying—had returned to help the remnants of Fox Company finish off the dread rippers. On the viewplates, Shepard watched K’klacken soldiers clad in red armor emerge from underground burrows. Those armed with large-bore assault rifles took aim, and Shepard heard the pings of tungsten slugs bouncing off the heavy Maus armor. Some K’klacken carried satchel charges, a serious threat to tanks. Ritch opened up on the
m with the twin 25mm lasers, the neon-green beams scorching through the onrushing attackers. Federation troopers in black power suits had spilled out of the carriers to join the fight, and they charged in with weapons blazing.
The battle in close-orbital space above was just as hotly contested as the ground offensive below. Energy beams and the gray blurs of high-speed mass driver projectiles crisscrossed the pale green sky. Bright flashes marked nuclear detonations.
“Friendly at one o’clock!” Ritch shouted. “It’s Stynx!”
Shepard veered the tank right for half a second then straight ahead again. On the forward viewplate, an insect shape ran from a K’klacken. Shepard heard the cannon servos whine as Ritch shifted aim. Wham!
The K’klacken exploded as the plasma round struck.
Ritch activated an external speaker. “Stynx! Over here. It’s me, Ritch!”
Shepard slowed the tank until they came to a full stop. The turbofans spun down, and the Maus settled gently onto the ground.
As Stynx scurried toward them, Ritch opened a side hatch in the turret. A minute later, the Scout subForm was inside the Maus with them.
They made quite a trio, Shepard had to admit. Stynx was just as Ritch had described him: an antlike creature with an emerald-green exoskeleton and three bright, beautiful, jewel-like eyes.
“Hello,” said the AI. “I am Shepard. It is a pleasure to see you.”
Stynx looked where Shepard’s voice originated from, but saw only a tiny, black-mesh speaker amid the controls of the driver’s cockpit.
Shepard understood his confusion. “Look higher,” he told Stynx. “See that blinking orb.” Shepard began to pulsate like a lighthouse bulb spinning around. “That is me.”
“Hello, friend Shepard.” Stynx took a step closer, staring at the pulsating crystal that floated in midair. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes, you can.” Shepard ceased its spinning light pulses and hovered motionless, excited yet also somewhat nervous as Stynx extended a finger. The AI didn’t know what effect, if any, the alien’s touch would have on its processing cores. A first contact always carried risk, even in a simulation, yet such a wondrous opportunity must be explored to its fullest despite possible dangers.
The Sphere Imperium: Book Two of the Intentional Contact Trilogy Page 12
