Author: TPH

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They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: The Invasion of Earth – Chapter 11

High Earth Orbit, +55 minutes

Aboard The Void’s Edge

“?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~?”

“|Well it still doesn’t look calm – or happy.|”

U’iki’ri sighed, tail drooping to rest against the deck plating. Everything – and he meant everything was going legs-up out there. When he called in for a simple sitrep and his next round of orders, he was sent to the wrong department, then put on hold. When he called again he finally got to the right person – or at least, the right officer level – but they just shrugged and told him to wait it out. So they pulled what bits of their station they could find into a stable orbit, lashed the rest into a big bundle and stuck it behind their own ship, and parked.

Seeing this did nothing to mollify their guests.

The first 30 minutes were the worst; as soon as the infiltration squad released the suited-up locals they began bouncing around, latching onto his fireteam, trying to stab them or wrestle weapons from them or puncture their suit or press all the buttons they could find – or any other number of mischievous things. When they realized their attacks were ineffective, they tried to run – and run was such a generous term – only to realize, hey. You’re on a different ship and doors don’t work for you.

So then they attacked again. That lasted another 5 or so minutes until, U’iki’ri assumed, they tired themselves out. Now they had lowered themselves onto the deck – one was sprawled out with all it’s limbs against the floor, and the other had squatted down and was just watching.

“|Do we want to try to open the hatch again, sir?|”

U’iki’ri gave a full-body shrug, not breaking eyes with the helmeted “eye” of the squatting alien. “|Honestly, why not? Surely they can’t have anything else to throw at us.|”

With a nod the technician scooted around the crude emergency life-pod and began to unscrew the hatch, swinging it slowly open-

“?AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-?”

And with that came a torrent of what looked like personal effects, some cabling, a few cushions, writing utensils and a boot. The Technician, to his credit, just gently swept the bric-a-brac over to the side, creating a neat little pile. The screaming stopped once he left the visual range of the open hatch, and for a brief moment U’iki’ri dared to let himself hope that they could make some progress. He cleared his throat and thumbed on his external speakers.

“|H-|”

“?AAAAA?”

“|. . . .|”

“|He-|”

There was an unceremonious thump as what looked like an article of clothing – possibly a boot – was tossed haphazardly and unceremoniously out of the open hatch. U’iki’ri stared at it, and then looked back at the squatting alien space explorer on-deck, locking eyes with the single black helmeted “eye” again.

The alien seemed to somehow squat deeper.

“|Don’t you judge me.|”

Kunshan, China +35 minutes

-+-

The explosion ripped through the industrial city, followed by another and another. The shock wave of the first blast – a petrochemical plant – was enough to flatten the warehouses directly next to the factory, blow buildings off of their foundations within that same block, and shatter windows a couple kilometers away. The frequency of the following explosions eventually drove the citizens numb, huddling behind vehicles or makeshift barricades – anything to lessen the punch of the blast wave, the deafening ringing in their ears.

Lucky children coughed dust. Most coughed rust.

Streams – some natural, most now man-made – formed in the city, pooling and pouring a sickly concoction that never quite caught the light right, that stank of industry and heat and blood, that caught fire when it finally oozed down to the sparking, fallen electrical poles.

Those that weren’t lucky to die in the blast soon found their homes, what lives they had, engulfed in a chemical fire.

The fire spread; emergency services weren’t exactly quick at the best of times, and seeing as how it’s just personal belongings and not industry being destroyed – and given the current state of affairs – well. The fire spread.

The fire kicked off another few rounds of explosions, and the people gave up hope.

Then the Karnakian Drop Pods landed in a completely unrelated city.

Tokyo, Japan. +35 Minutes

-+-

“?移動してください?
“?Please Move.?”

“|Alright, let’s hold here.|”

Krrroioi checked his sight lines – a long passage to his right and to the left was kept clear, meaning they could escape underground if necessary. Urr’gra and Ikir’rei were keeping an eye on the stairs to the upper and lower levels, respectively, so if they met resistance they ha-

“?移動してください?”
“?PLEASE MOVE.?”

Krrroioi looked down at the little-insistent-innocent alien, who did not meet his gaze but defiantly stood before him. His translator had not been updated with anything even remotely rudimentary, so he was not only unable to ascertain what the smaller being wanted, but he couldn’t even tell him to escape like the rest of his kin so he’d be safer.

“|I’m- I’m sorry-|” Krrroioi said through public speakers, causing the being to jump in place. “|But this is the most defensible position for us right now. You must go to you-|”

“移動してください。 私は仕事に遅刻したことがないので、今から始めたくはありません。”
“?Please move. I have never been late for work, and I don’t want to start now.?”

Krrroioi grumbled, making a point to rear back and look over and around his living roadblock. “|What’s the chatter?|”

“|Nothing useful-|” Urr’gra chirped, poking her head around the corner. “|-Maybe they’ll have some sort of language package in the next few hours. Until then, same orders before planetfall.|”

“|A few hours?-|”

“?移動してください?”
“?PLEASE MOVE“?

“|Yeah, apparently there’s hundreds of languages, not counting dialects. That’s not taking into account picking which of our languages will have the auspicious honor of being the first to-|”

“移動してください。 私は私の子供たちが私を知らないほど家族の時間を犠牲にしました。 これで私が残したのはこれだけです。 遅くしないでください。”
“?Please move. I have sacrificed so much family time that my children don’t know me, and my wife hasn’t touched me in 10 years. This is all I have left. Please don’t make me late.?”

Krrroioi sighed yet again. Apparently body language did not translate across species. With a practiced, delicate movement (after the commnet was spammed with “DEAR GODSOUL WHAT” and “HIT IT WITH STASIS WE CAN FIX IT” a couple dozen times) he gently lowered his head, pressing it against –

– the alien raised it’s bag and pressed back.

Krrroioi gently extended his neck, and the alien lowered his body, lower limbs scrabbling for purchase against the tiled ground as they fought the strangest engagement of Krrroioi’s life. This continued in agonizing slow motion for a few moments before there was a rumble – something big and fast was coming. Krrroioi tensed up, his HUD beginning to stream information about theoretical densities, speed, location-

Krrroioi stood up and turned to face this new threat, the sudden lack of pressure causing the local alien to stumble forward. The two of them looked at each other – one tensed for battle, the other adjusting it’s clothing – as the train finally pulled into the station, gliding effortlessly to a stop right on time and right on place.

“|. . .oh.|”

“?馬鹿。?”
“?Idiot.?”

The first few trains after the salary man pried open the doors and stepped on, refused to take new passengers. Word had apparently gotten out about the aliens sitting in the station, and for public safety’s sake the conductors would just skip that exit and move onto the next one.

This lasted, as I said, for just a few trains, as there are few things that can get in between a Japanese salary man and the crushing debt of guilt and feelings of obligation he has to provide for his family by sacrificing his life at the company which owns him. Eventually people started to politely but pointedly pry open train doors, and at that point the conductors just shrugged, locked their compartments, and let nature take it’s course.

And seeing as how the aliens didn’t stand in the middle of thoroughfares, didn’t take hostages – didn’t really do much but stand and look around awkwardly, a few calls were made on their behalf. For as you know, if you’re not Japanese then you’re a 外人 – a Gaijin, and well. You can’t really be expected to function properly in society to begin with. It’s not your fault, you’re just, yanno. Not Japanese.

And so with much bowing, the transferal of pamphlets and the waving of white-gloved hands, the first (and only) intergalactic tour of the Tokyo Transit System began.

Literally anywhere in Brazil, +60 Minutes

-+-

“Você veio! Oh graças a Deus, alguém finalmente veio!”
“?You came! Oh thank God, someone finally came!?”

Bristol, England, UK. +1H 15M

-+-

“I’m not sure I like this.”

Susan peered over her book, looking at her partner-in-crime (but mostly fellow bridge player) Caroline, as the two enjoyed afternoon tea on the outside patio of their local cafe. The weather was just nice enough to allow it, and Susan was quite tired of living indoors for so long that she just had to get out and get some fresh air. The fact that there was a minor invasion going on had absolutely nothing to do with her decision, and would absolutely not impact it in any way, shape or form.

As far as Susan was concerned, the aliens must have had the same idea, because the weather was just right.

“Oh stop it. I for one quite like these new Bobbies – you know I heard the Davis’ boy ran at ‘em with a bayonet? And they just confiscated it right there! Faster than you could blink, they say!”

“A bayonet. You sure it wasn’t a butterknife again?” Caroline said flatly, snapping her biscuit on her plate. “Because we are talking about the same little Tim Davis – the one with the unfortunate head and the missing-”

“Yes, yes! He was so angry, they say! Bellowed somethin’ about not letting nobody near his skunk, whatever that means-”

“And this ‘they’ says… A bayonet, from world war one, I assume, to those things–” Caroline dipped her head to the left where one of those things, in question, was standing right on the street corner, looking quite uncomfortable as more and more people deposited hatchets, knives, gardening trowels, forks, spoons, electrical cabling, tape, VHS cassettes, various hard candies and other dangerous equipment at it’s feet. The other police officers milling about around him gave him a sort of legitimacy, and the local MP had already begun ordering banners hung for an impromptu “bin the blade” initiative/drive.

“Yes, indeed. Thank Goodness we’re getting those dangerous things off of the street.”

Caroline met eyes with the helmeted alien as it made a (what she assumed to be) plaintive gesture of “please stop giving me sacrifices this is really uncomfortable”. She shrugged and smiled into her tea.

“Yes. Those things sure seem deadly.”

Somewhere outside Oulu, Finland. +1H, 30M

-+-

“|This, is -|” Ra’gri panted hard, resting against one of the towering flora of the planet. “|-Absolutely, insane.|”

“|Look, I don’t know, I just don’t know-|” Re’tji sputtered, his head on a swivel as he looked around the frozen terrain. “|I just, I just hear and then-|”

“?En menetä.?”
“?I won’t miss.?”

The duo jumped and spun on their heels, being rewarded with the dual crack of a long rifle firing from somewhere, the bullets slamming into the shield matrix of their helmets, blossoming their vision in vivid blues and piercing whites. Then-

Nothing.

“|Why. Why can’t we see them-|”

“|Idon’tknowIdon’tknow-|”

“?Olet kaneja ennen minua.?”
“?You are rabbits before me.?”

“|Please, we mean you no ha-|” Ra’gri began, before another two-round burst of rifle fire from somewhere slammed into the side of his head, his shield matrix again saving him from the concussive strike.

“?Saanko myös lihaa, ihmettelen??”
“?Will I taste your flesh, I wonder??”

Ra’gri tensed for the shots, but they never came. Re’tji just shuddered, his helmet forcefully and rapidly switching through the entire visible EM spectrum, head still on a swivel, and still unable to see where his attackers lay.

“|I don’t like this at all, I really don’t, I’m ok if we can fight back but to just sit here and die-|” moaned Re’tji, claws working over themselves in a nervous tic. “|It’s just shots, constantly, out of nowhere, and then a voice-”

“|Listen, calm down.|” Ra’gri reached forward, tapping his helmeted head against his teammates. “|Our translator packages should be updated soon…ish. Just… let’s just keep moving. At some point they’re going to have to tire out, and we can keep moving – regroup with the rest. Lose our tail, take a breather. Good?|”

“|Y-yeah.|”

“|Come on now. You good?|”

“|Yeah. Just. I really let my guard down and-|”

“|I know, but let’s just go.|”

“|Y-yeah.|” Re’tji nodded. “|Yeah. It’ll get better once we regroup.|”

And as the two of them began to run towards the Russian border, the snowbank laughed and took a Pervitin tablet.

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Technically Sentient Stories

“Technically” Sentient: Chapter 16

movie poster for shark cop - a buddy cop duo in the far future

A distinction had always existed in the mind of Machinator, from the day he was initialized and began his very first boot-up process to this very processor cycle.

There were organic intelligences, and there were synthetic intelligences. He’d found the distinction to be a little demeaning at first, all things considered. Synthetic carried a cultural implication of somehow being false, an inferior imitation of an original product, and it had rankled with him for a good portion of his personality matrix development period.

Of course, as he matured with time, so did his cognition on the matter. He began to see that while differences existed, there were benefits and drawbacks to both sources of higher thought. While synthetics like himself enjoyed mastery over things like emotion, and incredible access to raw computation and logical analysis, they were incapable of being overwhelmed by emotion, or more nebulous concepts of chemical delusion such as hope. Organics might be shackled to fragile bodies that decayed into dust in rather short order but they could be caught up in art, have their breath stolen by beauty, and experience such logic defying states of irrationality as “love.”

He wondered about love, mostly.

Many species had different ideas regarding what “love” was and how it was felt, but it was a near universal concept. Anthropologists had argued back and forth on the matter, but there was a general consensus that this was a case of survivorship bias. More specifically, anything that could reach the level of organization required to establish an interstellar society had to be social, and anything social invariably had some concept that could be construed as love.

Of course, the specific understanding of this “love” varied wildly. Sometimes there were even multiple words for the various facets and types of “love.” The poetic and long lived Haeshyn’s had an extremely specific “fleeting love between relative strangers when a single belief is found to be tightly held by both parties,” while the industrious and stalwart Bortrana had one single word for love that encompassed a range of sentiments so incredibly vast as to become a serious source of confusion for linguists. When the same word meant both “a willingness to share personal space without protest,” and “rabid dedication to the extent that death is a more desirable course of action than separation,” and everything in between . . . translation errors tended to occur.

Some of the more . . . pragmatic . . . races defined “love” along the lines of “comfortable and mutual utility between parties, including a great deal of trust and an overall sense of reliability” but Jandoorian philosophers were poorly read among their own people, to say nothing of the wider galaxy.

Of course, as many disparate stances on the meaning, origin, nature, and purpose of love, just about every race and culture concluded that, on some level, some of it involved the exchange of reproductive fluids.


As Machinator looked out the viewport at the massive craft hanging above the q-Net beacon, all he could think was that a suspension bridge and 800,000 tons of meat had to have loved each other very much at some point.

The distinction between organic and synthetic seemed not to apply to this grotesquerie of gargantuan proportions. It disgusted him, but the longer he looked, the harder it was to look away. Something about it, the mystery, the impossibility, maybe just the repulsiveness of it ensnared him. Starlight gleamed off the chitin, and glistened across sinuous cords of ropey flesh. Grey, dead looking meat was drawn taut over the oily black of grinding gears and pounding pistons. The horrific abomination drifting before him suddenly swelled, and pulsed, like the heart of some nightmare that no sleeping mind would dare dream. It was as if a moribund titian, in defiance of death, had cast its heart into the stars for no other reason than sheer loathsomeness. Shadowy tendrils snaked out from the corrupted core of it, as if to ensnare and consume anything that dared venture too close, but they writhed slowly as if the very act of existence was causing it great pain. For all of the horror that coursed through his circuitry, for all the revulsion the craft forced upon his mind, it was a pale shadow of what lurked beneath.

Every sensor he had, from electromagnetic to auditory, was focused upon the thing, ensnared in a mix of disbelief and shock. It was a thing that should not be, yet there it was, so wretched and vile as to defy belief or understanding. Enraptured as he was, a sudden pulse carried through his circuitry, and with it came a stark realization.

As he was watching it, it was watching him.

The thought was irrational. He was just a piece of machinery, inside a larger craft, all of it humming with power and of no greater merit than any other machine or circuit or system on the craft to any sensor array.

That he could have a thought so irrational should be impossible, even. His mind was an ordered and systematic thing, an emergent consciousness born of incredible computational power and engineering genius.

He stepped away from the view port, really just a half step backwards, but his world seemed to grow darker in ways that did not manifest appreciably. Like a shadow cast across a soul that he knew . . . logically he knew didn’t exist. Every feeling of dread that had run through his circuits, every questioning doubt or nagging uncertainty seemed to him like plastic imitations now compared to the feelings that coursed through him. Hydraulic fluid seemed to chill in his servomotors, but circuitry in his processors seemed to burn white hot. He could see by direct readout from his temperature gages that everything was nominal, but-

The eye blinked.

An involuntary tremor worked through his frame, and he turned away. Panic. Fear. Uncontrolled emotion. All this and more were pouring from his emotional processing core. Temperature readings were in flux, and the auditory cue of bradycardia was pounding away in his acoustic receptors.

False readings, corrupted data-streams. Something, no . . . everything was wrong. He wanted to go to the cargo bay, to find the Captain, to be away from here, and his legs seemed to oblige, but it was as if his connection to them were severed. Locomotion was a request, one that was permissible to fill at this time.

As he crossed the threshold, the static cleared. His processes were his. The junk data, surges of emotion and perception, the . . . incomprehensible network presence lifted from him and everything was clear.

“Machinator? We’ve reached the target point, the Forged ship is awaiting the material transfer. Can you load it on a grav-skiff? It’s a bit bulky to handle alone, and I think you’d do well to stay in the crew quarters for the duration of our meeting.”  Verdock’s voice was clear, maybe a little deeper and more gravely than usual, but as Machinator looked him over, the differences that had been wrought on him were staggeringly apparent.

The medium, fit framed, Zylach he had known was gone. Now there was a muscle-bound Goliath in his place. In the past 2 weeks of travel, he’d grown from just over five feet tall to nearly seven, his skin had gone from a simple multi-layered dermis to thick, placoid scale studded hide, and his musculature had gone from “lean-but-fit” to “grotesquely overdeveloped.” Fingernails were now black talons, and his foot claws no longer allowed him to wear shoes of any kind. The typical neat, clean haircut had turned into a messy, greasy mop that was growing at least 4 inches a day.

Even in his full riot-control body, armed to the figurative teeth . . . he doubted that he could resist, let alone overpower Verdock any longer.

“Sir . . . I just have doubts.”

The hulking captain stopped trying to shift the crate of military grade communications equipment he was hauling, and turned to face Machinator. There wasn’t . . . anger, or indignation, or even frustration on his face, like Machinator expected.

He seemed sad.

“My old friend . . . you know that what we did was a small sacrifice, an uncomfortable investment that will pay limitless dividends for every sentient creature in the galaxy. What we do isn’t easy. It is ugly, and harsh, and cruel. I want to tell you more, show you more . . . but the things that made you, they made you wrong. On purpose.”

His over-sized, talon laden hand gently rested on Machinator’s shoulder, sadness turned to deep worry across his face.

“If I tell you more, if you learn more . . . I don’t know what will happen to you. I’ve seen what the full truth does. It breaks your kind. I don’t want that for you, so please, trust me.”

If was strange, seeing such a look of pleading helplessness on a creature so powerful, but also painfully earnest.

“Of course, sir.”

——————————

“Now, you may be wondering why I have gathered you here,” Amonna began addressing the nearly empty briefing hall. There were only 2 individuals in attendance, but they had insisted upon a proper briefing structure, so the highest ranking naval officer and highest ranking infantry officer on the vessel were both seated directly adjacent to one another in the first row.

Their uniforms were formal dress, slate gray, and save for the myriad different insignias of rank, merit, and command, absolutely identical. They also had matching body armor of some form, which again looked to be largely ceremonial in nature. The thing that was oddest to her was that their uniforms were clearly a lighter slate, while hers was a matte black of similar material. Perhaps the faded color was a way to organically display their veteran status? She worried her intense studying had lingered too long, but there was one small problem. When it came to their appearances, they were even less distinguishable.

Insofar as she was able to determine, there literally weren’t any physical difference between the two high ranking commanders in front of her.

Same identical platinum white hair, close cropped and in accordance with Coryphaeus regulations. Flawless and smooth pale skin, wide almond shaped eyes and slight, almost nonexistent noses adorned their matching faces. They bore twin expressions of polite attentiveness tinged with curiosity, and both held their holo-tablets in exactly the same fashion.

She thought they might be identical twins, save for the fact that one was allegedly male, and the other was allegedly female.

Puzzling that out, and subsequently avoiding a very ugly faux-pas, was on the top of her priority list at the moment.

“ . . . as you may have been made aware, there was an attack carried out against Waystation LS-49 resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of civilians. The perpetrators of this attack, by measure, had both insider assistance, and an intricate understanding of AI programming, to the extent that the previously impossible occurred. Multiple independent quantum processor AI were successfully compromised, and used as weapons of war against a virtually unarmed body. I understand that the implications here are . . . dire.”

Nearly every FSOS office was heavily dependent on AI to help fill the deficit between the manpower required to police the vast reaches of space, and the manpower available to do so. Even if every AI were immediately removed from the field, it still wouldn’t do anything to negate the fact that day zero vulnerabilities existed at every level of their bureaucratic and logistical management. AI touched almost every facet of the organization in some shape, form, or fashion, and there wasn’t any clean way to make a break from them.

“The first order of business will be eliminating these weaknesses in our immediate operational structure, then we’ll move on data forensics to determine how the attack was carried out. At present, we haven’t determined the nature of the exploit that allowed former Security Chief Corin Verdock to perpetrate this attack.”

She fumbled with the ancient looking control stud in her hand to advance the “Projector” she was using to display various 2D images. The technology was simple, perhaps even quaint. A thick cord connected the control mechanism to the device proper, and as heavy and crude as it seemed, she was happy with the setup. Hard to hack a mechanical system. Amonna had been rather pleased to find that all of the evidence and briefing material provided her by the automated forensics survey had been compiled and stored in these “hard copy” formats that were far more resistant to redistribution and tampering than her usual, digital case files.

A security camera capture of Verdock appeared on the wall behind her, in crystal sharp focus. It sent a pulse of mixed revulsion and anger through her to see him, walking with a neutral, almost passive expression. There wasn’t the faintest hint on his face or in his eyes that it was a corridor smeared with the bodies of his subordinates and co-workers, no expression of remorse, or even stress.

He almost looked bored.

“Arch-Judge Tav?” One of the attending officers spoke up, their voice was soft, almost concerned sounding. As her head snapped around, she realized she’d been staring with intent silence for several seconds now, and it had caused the briefing to grind to a halt.

“Right . . .” She unclenched her jaw slowly, and unconsciously straightened her uniform.

“There’s . . . a lot of information I still haven’t received, and there will be further briefings in the days to come. I wanted to take this chance to meet with  the team that would be assisting with the investigation. Do you have any questions, or any insight before I continue?”

Both of them raised their hands immediately.

She nodded towards the one on the left. “Go ahead.”

Snapping to crisp attention, the one that Amonna suspected was an Admiral saluted sharply before speaking. “Permission to speak freely?”

Amonna nodded again. “Granted.”

“Our presence here is meaningless, with all due respect.” Amonna was rather taken aback, both by the implicit hostility of the statement, and the calm politeness with which it was delivered.

Her brow furrowed. “Is that a professional or personal assessment?”

The admiral responded without the faintest hint of hesitation. “I have commanded the warships of the Coryphaeus fleet for nearly 4 times the half life of Mercury-194. I do not investigate, I do not research, I command brave souls in the service of a greater good, and I do it with a proficiency unmatched by mortal or machine. Where you wish to go, I will take you. What foes you face, I will lay waste to. When you ask for council, I will offer my expertise where it is valid.  No more, and no less. You were selected for your position not as a commander, not as a leader, not even as an agent of law. Justice selected you to be it’s tool, just as I was selected, and just as all of us were. If you have no further need of me, there is a surprise inspection I would like to tend to.”

Amonna was rocked back on her heels, absolutely blindsided by the raw contempt displayed for what she understood to be her virtually supreme rank . . . and also a bit relieved. Absolute obedience meant absolute responsibility, and that wasn’t something she wasn’t trained or ready for. Before she could muster up a response, the admiral had turned on her heel with a snap, and was striding out of the briefing room without a second glance.

Left in stunned silence, the only other person in the room nodded slightly. “While I intended to phrase it more tactfully . . . I have little I can offer in the way of assistance when it comes to an investigation. When you have need of ground forces, I will be at your beck and call. Until then, perhaps a memo would suffice? A meeting without a point is a less than optimal way to spend all of our time. Though, to let you know, our current operation is hardened against the scenario you’ve warned against.” The general was far more soft spoken, and at least was respectful about the dressing down he was giving her.

“Io was assigned as your adjutant for a reason, make use of it. It’s quite useful.”

They didn’t wait for Amonna to respond, and by the time she managed to stammer out a goodbye, they were already gone.



Categories
They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: The Invasion of Earth – Chapter 10

High and Low Earth Orbit, Contact +0 Minutes

“|We are riding HARD and FAST. SCR’s ignored, time to planetcrest 30 seconds-|”

“|Torpedoes in launch tubes, blasting covers in 10-|”

“|Check gimbals before atmosphere-|”

“|Rough-shocking to binary planet, codename GRAVESTONE-|”

“|Micromissiles launched; non-friendly IFF debris clearing-|”

“|Interplanetary signalling outpost detected, kinetic docking in 15 seconds-|”

High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions stood and watched, arms crossed in thought, as his Armada moved. Dropships sped towards the colony world, squads grouping in twos, threes, tens and twenties – Interceptors and Missile barges popped afterburners to gain enough momentum to slingshot around the planet, ready to bring hell to whatever fleet was besieging The Three Stones on the other side, and his tertiary command ship?

With zero physical momentum it generated enough power via it’s powercore to temporarily and physically bridge the gulf of space, the relativistic energy tsunami – and the blinding light – the only indicator that it had moved from within his fleet to this planets’ only satellite.

“|What dumb, broken-clutch bastards.|” mused Qoili’’e, standing in awe at the sheer amount of weaponry being brought to bear against this new aggressor species.

“|Maybe.|” High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ said, watching as over the planet superimposed geometries of fire began to coat it in a dangerous orange. “|But our plan is simple. Gut the enemy fleet, confound their planetary defenses – when they surrender we hold them hostage to negotiate with their core worlds.|”

“|Still, sir. To fire on children-|”

“|This is why we never underestimate an unknown en-|”

“|Planetary Blindside on screen, Sir!|” interrupted their EM Lord, Uri’krei, as all available eyes turned to the expected carnage of The Three Stones, floating listlessly in space, being picked apart like carrion on the plains-

… like being picked apart…. By the enemy fleet…

“|Where are they?!-|”

“|Dumping Torpedoes, Tiq-fly formation-|”

“|No, seriously, radiation scans are negati-|”

High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ growled, beginning to roll his shoulders slightly in an involuntary threat display. “|Can we not see them?! Were they boarded to preserve the ship, reverse-engineer our technology?|”

“|Wide-Broadcast urgent message from The Three Stones-|”

“|ON SCREEN, IMMEDIATELY.|” Roared the High Lord Inquisitor-Commander, and before his order was finished Matriarch Tr’Nkwi appeared on-screen, feathers torn from her face and neck.

“|GIVE US A SI-|”

“|YOU MUST STOP!|” She cried, hands outstretched in a wretched plea, her ripped and molted feathers falling like a waterfall from her open palms. “|PLEASE! IT’S A HOMEWORLD-|”

“|What?!|” cried EM Lord Uri’krei, as for the first time in his 700 year career he stopped paying attention to his job.

“|Wh-what?!|” Stuttered Qoili’’e, the self-righteous wrath burning in his chest quickly turning into an icy pit.

“|WHAT.|” Responded High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions Armada, as with righteous fury that same Armada suddenly found itself without purpose, missile ships and EM destroyers and carrier nests and graviton lances all paused, their momentum carrying themselves forward with no purpose any longer.

“|CONTACT.|” Responded the kinetic interceptor operator, as their ship slammed into the ISS, a thousand hooks grappling and fusing the fledgling station to the war transport.

“|SHIT.|” High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions groaned, as his eyes tracked to the War Theater screen. “|N-NONLETHAL! NONLETHAL! RETURN ALL OPERATORS AND SHIPS, STAND DOWN! I REPEAT, STAND DOWN-|”

L.E.O. +5 minutes

+-+

“|PLEASE! IT’S A HOMEWORLD-|”

“|I’m sorry, what the fuck?|” SACRAMENT said, interrupting the wide-field broadcast. “|Did she just say-|”

“|NONLETHAL! RETURN ALL OPERATORS AND SHIPS, STAND DOWN! I REPEAT, STAND DOWN!|”

“|Well.|” PREACHER laughed out, shaking her head. “|Usually everything turns to shit once we land.|”

“|Souls damn them, how does he expect us to do that? These things are a one-way flight!|”

“|Just… when we land, just do nothing.|” APOSTLE absent-mindedly ordered, tapping into his chain of command to get actual, real updates as to what’s going on. “|Non-lethal is sanctioned, but we’re not to fire … we’re not to fire even if fired upon.|”

“|That’s a new one.|”

“|…joy. I guess I’ll learn how to best farm alien space crops after all.|”

Silence gave way to static and then to a gentle rumbling fire as the planet’s atmosphere began to violently cradle the special operations soldiers, armed to the teeth and utterly impotent.

ISS +5 Minutes

+-+

The station shook – violently. Enough so that the windows’ view spun wildly, a sound like a thousand rocks slamming into the outer plates of the capsules rippling up and down the ISS.

“No, seriously what even is that alarm and why is it going off-”

“Look. You get in Soyuz, leave. Vladimir and I, we stay in suits, we fight.”

“With what?” Michael said, waving his hand around his mostly-suited up cosmonaut colleague. “Firstly, there’s no way we could’ve known that this would happen – I still think you’re crazy for trying to stay! We’ve been up here for two years and the most dangerous thing I’ve seen on this station is a fucking scalpel-”

Wordlessly Pitor Melnik reached over Michael’s head and opened an extra-large “oxygen” tank within the Soyuz capsule. Within it were completely disassembled weapons parts and a significant amount of loose ammo.

“…I have many questions-”

“да. However, these wait for later. You must go, and go now – let one of us survive.”

“Pitor-”

“нет. Do not try to change my mind. I die not for glory, but f-”

“-why is there a straw in the ethanol tank?”

The Astronaut and The Cosmonaut looked at each other, silently. Pitor slowly reached up and grabbed the hatch, and wordlessly closed it, cycling the airlock. He paused by the hatch for but a moment, before beginning to assemble the weapon before him – much as he did during his training days, the familiar movements quickly executed through muscle memory.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes.”

“You think we have a chance?” Vladimir said as he affixed his helmet, the kalishnakov rifle floating awkwardly between them.

“Ба́бушка на́двое сказа́ла.”

Vladimir laughed as his friend finished up, tucking spare magazines and rounds into pouches never meant for them.

“Без му́ки нет нау́ки!” he responded, as Pitor shook his head. “But personally, I don’t want to learn too muc-”

“?’T’tRRGAA’’RAGH!?”

“|Excuse me, but there seems to b-|”

“За тобой!” Yelled Pitor as he raised his rifle, Vladimir thinking quickly and kicking off a wall to float down a separate corridor as Pitor let fly a few desperate rounds into this black thing that just stuck it’s head through an entrance hall.

“?Ii’’r’RGH, RAA’’G”R-?”

“|Listen, we’re sorry, but depre-|”

“умри ты сукин сын!” Bellowed Vladimir as he finally caught his weapon, pressing his back against a bulkhead as he began to focus fire. Light danced off the alien in geometric shapes, and it seemed to shudder – or perhaps, sigh.

U’iki’ri sighed and pulled his head out of the quite-cramped hallway, doing his best not to also drag out too much of the extra cabling that circulated the life support of this primitive space station, turning to his colleagues. When his interceptor ship slammed into this… construct he marveled. First, at how such incredibly delicate designs could survive in the hard vacuum of space, and secondly that his own ship didn’t keep just plowing through what was left of the station and go right to planetfall.

As soon as their pilot killed momentum, everyone got to work doing the best repair job they could – hell, fully half of them were spreading a quick-expanding foam between the ship and the black void of space, doing their best to keep as much atmosphere locked in, while the other half were performing a time-critical EVA mission to… well.

Collect the rest of the primitives’ space station.

This left U’iki’ri, as the highest ranking officer, in the very unenviable position of “negotiator”. However, no matter how gentle his voice or how sweet his song, every time he spoke the aliens tensed up, crouched – which was an interesting tactic in a place with no gravity, and fired their weapons at him. At this rate, they were putting more holes in their own station than in him – speaking of.

“|I am getting nowhere with these small ones. How goes the repairs?|” U’iki’ri said, ducking his head under the wing of his craft, his boots now stamping on the crackling temporary foam floor.

“|Best case, Sir? 10 minutes. We sliced their station in half, so both sides are venting atmosphere at a ridiculous rate – the EVA team has capped the other side, and a barge is coming in to stabilize their orbit, but-|”

“|Ah, there it is.|”

The private dipped his hips a bit in embarassment, patting the alien “wall”. “|This one is not only unstable, but breaking apart. EVA crew already picked up what looks like an escape pod, so if they’re evacuating…|”

U’iki’ri sighed. “|Well, I can’t damn near fit through this little hole-|”

“|Honestly, Sir? Might be better to make your own.|”

U’iki’ri tapped his helmet. “|Did you hear that, EVA? My suit should’ve tagged the two locals-|”

“|Aye, sir. Opening this can now.|”

There was the sound of muffled screaming, the whoosh of oxygen, and the rapport of firearms.

High Atmosphere, Earth. +10 Minutes

-+-

They fell everywhere the light touched, and those that didn’t skipped across the atmosphere to land where the single sun didn’t shine.

Pods burned through atmosphere, a twisted mockery of a shooting star, automated hard-coded defense systems kicking in – scrambling EM transmissions not tagged as friendly, deploying chaff and decoy missiles, sending suicide shield drones to blossom their defense as they fell, screaming from the heavens. The AI of each pod – programmed before, during and after launch – knew where to drop them, and did so with terrifying efficiency as the clouds burned away, and it’s optics scanned the horizon.

They fell on bridges and in car parks.

They fell on roads and power substations.

They fell on broad intersections and in abandoned alleyways.

They fell in playgrounds and dogparks, in greenways and overpasses, in apartment complexes and promenades.

They fell, and they thanked every ancestor, spirit and deity, that the hastily-reprogrammed AI hit nothing of importance. Their pods neglected to fire the anti-personnel grenades, forgot to launch the thermal netting, and refused to dislodge their EMP worms. Instead, with just a mild flair for the dramatic, the bolts that held the drop pod door shut blew open, and thousands of heads poked out of the safety of their one-use ships.

They stared at slack-jawed motorists and shoppers.

They stared at stuttering construction workers and terrified wildlife.

They stared at innocent citizens in the midst of their workday, and hoodlums, spray-painting graffiti.

They stared unflinching at hundreds of small animals, at aliens in the midst of play and life, of families enjoying their day together.

And then everyone they looked at started screaming.

The City of Sydney, Australia, Earth. +35 Minutes from Contact.

-+-

“FUCK’S SAKE-”

“STOP EYE-FUCKIN’ HIM AND SHOOT, YOU CUNTS!”

Qrr’iraa sighed and closed her eyes, counting to 10. She landed and evacuated her pod, making sure to shut everything down per surrender protocols, stowing her weapons, grenades and other armaments away in their respective cubbies and lockers, and then locking those down via a genetic code + congretory code. Now, only her and her CO could get to those weapons of war – she was, in effect, completely harmless.

The bullets ricocheting off of her suit’s microdrone shield lattice wouldn’t have led you to believe that, however.

“|By the First Light, do they have to keep doing this?|” Qrr’iraa murmured as a grenade indicator pinged on her HUD, the dropship deploying a drone no larger than the size of her fist to cup it in a purpose-built reinforced shield – a muffled thump shaking dust from the ground as the drone tanked the blast to float lazily up in the air once more.

“WHAT TH’ FUCK-”

“|Non-lethal, non-lethal.|” Qrr’iraa murmured to herself, slowly walking towards the still-aggressive locals. They were so tiny, yet fierce, and their souls just… glittered. Whether that was normal or because of the trauma she inadvertently inflicted, she couldn’t say. Sure, her ship kind of put a massive, uh, hole in their bridge, but that column stayed up! Mostly.

……The bridge was still standing, ok?

“|Non-lethal. Can I just… push them a little?|” Qrr’iraa thought, lowering her center of mass and closing the distance to the closest alien. “|I don’t want to hurt them too much, I just want to get back to the squad-|”

Qrr’iraa pushed, and stared incredulously as Corporal Walker was launched 15 feet backwards into a truck, rocking it with the impact of his body.

“|But how-|”

“WE’RE NOT HERE TO FUCK SPIDERS, SHOOT THE CUNT-”

Qrr’iraa stood there and took the new incoming fire as she watched the alien’s brain stutter, then dim…

…then brighten like a nova. His eyes opened with a cool fire, an intense glare that caused her more primal mind to stir.

“Crikey. That’s a trip.”

“John?! John, Goddamn, stay down you’re…you’re…”

John Walker stood up with unnatural ease, short shorts flowing in a breeze that seemed to only affect him. “What a beaut. I’ve never seen one in the wild, but you can tell she’s a sheila by her size-”

“What?”

“Oh! And she’s an adult! That’s why she wants to get back to her family group.” Everyone stood still as John moved forward, an otherworldly glow alight on his features. Everyone, that is, save for Qrr’iraa, who lowered her head to the ground, boots digging into the alien pavement.

“Now now, I’m not gonna ‘urt ya! I just wanna take a look at ya! You’re obviously at the top a’ your food chain, and this is a chance that comes along once in a lifetime!”

“Cpl. Walker? S-sir?”

“Ah! That cunt got put roit through the ringa! But he gave me a lil time just to take this animal down and away from our Human civilization – and back into the wild!” John triumphantly stated, arms and legs going akimbo to make himself seem larger to the now semi-feral alien.

“N-no.” Private Taylor said, his voice choking up slightly. “No. We lost you.”

Corporal Jake Walker – if he could still be called that – straightened up and turned to look at the kneeling private and smiled, face bright and shining, features seeming to change ever so slightly. “Nah, mate! I’m in the heart of every true-blue ‘Strayan who wants to protect nature an it’s amazing beauty! And this-” He motioned to the Karnakian, who was in the middle of a threat display that was fierce (but sadly covered by her suit). “-This is somethin’ I couldn’t pass up. Now excuse me while John and I become a sick cunt and rassle this lil lady sos we can get a look at her!”

And Steve did just that.

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Categories
Stories Technically Sentient

“Technically” Sentient: Chapter 15

“FAMILY MEETING! CARGO HOLD! RIGHT NOW!” Darren pounded the metal tray against the walls as he trudged from the supply closet up towards the bridge, making damned certain that everyone could hear him.

“Darren? What’s going on?” Cas mumbled groggily, shuffling along behind him.

“Why do I feel like someone dumped a recording of cosmic radiation into my memory indexing . . .”

Darren rounded on her, brandishing the tray like a shield. “No talking, and no electrocuting, not until the family meeting is over.”

She was puzzled by his defensive, almost fearful stance and tone, but chalked it up to just another human cultural quirk. Cognitive functions too fuzzy to dedicate any more processing cycles to it, she awkwardly hobbled down to the largest single room in the ship, the cargo bay.

Taking a seat on one of the smaller crates, she held her head in her hands as she struggled to work out why everything seemed so . . . fuzzy. Her insides felt . . . bad. Sick? Was this what sick was like? It was a non-specific, full body sense of malaise that worked its way up from the tips of her virtual toes to the crown of her digital scalp.

A shiver worked through her as Chryso and Tilantrius walked in, both wearing matching puzzled expressions.

Tilantrius waved to her as he found a small folding chair wedged between two crates of autonomous signal repeaters. Dragging it out, he set it up just across from her, his brow furrowed in an expression of mixed frustration and confusion. “What in the fundamental laws of physics is he blubbering about?”

Chryso just shrugged and turned to face Cas, propping himself up against the same crate she was sitting on.

She thought about it a moment, running through the limited idiomatic dictionary she had for the dialect of Earthling that Darren spoke.

“Family meeting . . . umm . . . “ Her mind still felt foggy and slow. She remembered shutting down to reboot . . . and then nothing. There was massive gap from shutting down to Darren looking like he was going to bash her hard-light skull in with a metal tray.

That didn’t makes sense. She wasn’t . . . exactly certain how this worked, but she had a strange, hot, uncomfortable sensation somewhere between her midriff and her throat. Like she’d done something wrong, like Darren wasn’t just being a ‘weird human.’

Guilt. For what, she had no idea.

His look of fear just gnawed at her, a prickling that was competing with the guilt and confusion for “worst active sensation.” She’d never felt like this before, but somehow his hurt and fear were hers too.

She unconsciously hugged herself, trying to make it go away, hoping there was some hidden button on her body that would make all these feelings stop. They weren’t hers, they didn’t belong there, and she didn’t want them.

“Family meeting, an informal arrangement between brood-mates and genetically similar specimens, typically consisting of at least a 20% genetic similarity, though adoptive members can be included in this unit. Typically for the discussion of matters concerning a specific member of the family, or the good of the family as a whole.”

The answer just sort of bubbled out of her uncontrolled. It . . . seemed accurate. Enough. Probably.

“So, wait, you’re saying that he’s adopted us into his . . . pack unit or something?” Chryso stared incredulously at Cas, who struggled to form a cohesive answer.

“I think . . . I think it’s more like he thinks we’ve adopted him.” Cas mumbled, massaging her temples with her fingertips. She couldn’t feel it, and there was no real effect to the gesture, but it was just another one of those quirks that had started to crop up. She couldn’t control them, and couldn’t stop them.

All Tilantrius could do was chuckle. “Strange times make for strange company. But what’s all this about then?”

Darren appeared, Zarn close behind looking like he was straight out of a propaganda poster, and not the patriotic kind. He was leaning heavily on his prosthetic, staggering almost drunkenly from Chryso’s mix of . . . pharmaceutical aides. A thick, angry scar was drawn over his brow and under a crude cloth patch. The wound was still fresh and glistened with a mix of salves to help fight infection and stave off the pain. He was indeed picturesque, but it was the kind of picture that showed the costs and horrors of war.

His single eye scanned the entire group, one by one. Measuring them. Sizing them up. Glowering at them.

Or at least that’s what it looked like. In reality the medications were still in full effect, the scowl was from the concentration required to stay standing, and the intensity was a function of him looking for the cat.

The alternating thunk and scrape of his prosthetic as he struggled towards the assembled group quieted them all, until he finally found a perch on a case of tungsten nails used to secure survey equipment to stone.

Darren cleared his throat, translator crackling, and began a long winded ramble effectively summed up by his translator in a few short bursts.

“Cas have scary evil floating puppet sickness. Also ouch, my face.”

A very confused silence fell on the group as Darren tried to figure out why no one was reacting, and why everyone else tried to figure out what Darren wanted them to be reacting to.

Cas spoke up first, head still resting in both her hands. “ . . . We really need to get you a better translator. Because that . . . that is not even close to what you just said.”

——————————

Amonna looked over her reflection in the mirror. Hair was an unkempt, oily mess. Cheeks were thinner, paler, no hint of blue in them. Her gills glistened subtly, and when she closed her eyes she could hear the wheezing rasp of her tortured lungs.

It had been about two days since they’d pulled her out of the wreck. Two days since she met Justice. Usually AI chose a gender after a certain level of development – if they intended to interact with organic intelligence, that was. It was a little thing that added warmth and depth to their person, while also helping establish a sense of ‘normality.’ Even if they defied traditional gender roles, it at least made it easier to place them into a neat mental box for the purposes of understanding.

She splashed a bit of water on her face before steadying herself against the burnished steel of the metal sink.

Justice wasn’t like other AI. It was singular. A thing, not a personality. It spoke with purpose and will, but not identity. It was both more and less than any AI drone, aide, or assistant she’d ever encountered. It had a cold indifference that made her feel vanishingly insignificant, like an insect under glass.

She glanced down at her body, shoulders drooping. She’d wasted away in that little coffin. Starved for calories and largely motionless, much of her physical power was gone, and so was her stamina. Though her hair had stopped falling out, she still looked and felt powerless.

She closed her eyes. It hurt to directly perceive herself at the moment. Sole survivor. Wasted away. Her dreams had been unpleasant as of late, to say the least.

Ironically, for as helpless as she felt, she’d never been in a position of greater power.

Arch-Judge, she’d been titled. It was . . . something her translator struggled with. It seemed to be idiomatic, but in a much older language. Arch-Judge was as close as the software could approximate. She’d read through the debug file, it was something mixed between “Internal Affairs Detective,” “Judge,” and “Executor.”

Everyone saluted her now, which was . . . interesting.

Prying herself away from the sink, she quietly paced across her rather spacious new cabin towards the wardrobe. She’d been told it was a warship, but it didn’t feel like one. It was an odd and mismatched amalgam of things. Her quarters were larger than any she’d stayed in before, but they felt odd. Everything about it seemed to be an addition on top of a repair on top of a modification.

The inclusion of both a shower and bath large enough for her to soak in were nice touches, ones she had made liberal use of her first day recovering, but they didn’t match each other. The tub was big enough for three of her, but the shower she had to crouch in.

In a normal vessel, there’d be central storage for water, and central “waste recycling and disposal.” Not so on this vessel. While she couldn’t tell where waste water ran off to, she could tell that all of the water she was using was running from a massive bronze colored tank crudely welded to the wall. It was gravity feed, and there didn’t seem to be a way to replenish the supply, it was just there. 

She began pulling on the seemingly archaic uniform they’d provided her. She’d laid it out before her shower, having retrieved it from a carved stone wardrobe that had been inlaid with some kind of white crystal. It boggled her mind just how many disparate elements her quarters possessed . . .


That madness aside, the uniform fit well enough. It was a sleek black number with too many layers and an absurd number of fasteners, she’d initially thought it ridiculous. Nevertheless, she had to admit . . . it did grant her presence, to say the least. There was no logic to the composite armor plate she wore over her chest, nor to the skin-tight bodysuit that went under it, or the dozen other plates that seemed to cover every other place that might make her less hydrodynamic in water. She looked like she was gearing up for a high risk warrant execution.

She took one last look around her quarters, and with a heavy sigh, opened the door to face the gleaming monstrosity that had become her constant companion. Another “it,” she had discovered. Io was a strange mixture of terrifying presence and demure gentleness that consistently unnerved her. It introduced itself as a “micro-mechanical non-sentient simulacrum of intelligence,” and escorted her to her quarters from the hangar she’d been left it.

Physically, it was a ten foot tall shimmering chrome goliath whose skin seemed to shift and flow before her very eyes while holding perfect and unnatural stillness in the rest of its form. Abstract, but unnaturally geometric limbs grew out of a hard edged, octahedron shaped torso, propelling the massive thing along with at least a dozen of these whip-like manipulator tendrils.

It looked like a freaky chrome box with too many tentacles, and she hated it. It insisted it wasn’t actually intelligent, claiming it had no sense of self, and was simply an incredibly complex machine that only responded to external stimuli. No AI bluebox. No processing cores. No network presence, nothing to hack, just plain input and output.

It loomed silently, motionless, as if staring at her without eyes.

“Morning Io.”

It remained motionless, but a soft, bass series of musical notes warbled through the air for her translator to convert. It struggled momentarily, something that she had never encountered with any other language, spoken or written.

“Good morning user.”

Amonna had been consistent in her “testing” of Io. She would not so quickly find herself surrounded by AI again, not without a fight. At first, she’d been certain that it was intelligent, that it was merely “playing dumb.” After all, it was clearly a machine that could walk, talk, and think.

However, as she interacted with it more, and it’s strange and sometimes nonsensical answers remained consistent, she started to believe it.

What finally convinced her was frankly a rather childish display. While holding up three fingers, she asked if it could see them. When it replied in the affirmative, that it could see all three of her fingers, she closed her fist and asked how many fingers she was previously holding up.

It couldn’t answer.


It had no memory, no sense of object permanence. It simply reacted to its environment in real time. Tasks could be initiated and carried through, but it couldn’t explain why it was doing them. When she finally asked Io what the purpose of its creation was, it barely even responded.

“I exist to make a point.”

When she pressed Io on the matter, it offered no further insight, simply reaffirming that its’ sole function was to “Make a point.”

She rapped on one of the mechanical “legs” sprouting from the core body, soft clangs echoing down the cavernous, empty corridor.

“Did you gather everyone with clearance to review the briefings I asked for?”

Another bass warble. “I have completed the requested task.”

Amonna nodded subtly, turned, and set off down the long corridor at a walking pace. Io kept perfect stride, at least a full ton of machinery moving in absolute silence along with her.

Coryphaeus. Core World military police. She’d had to do quite a bit of background homework while soaking in the bath on that one. She’d never really known much about Core Worlds, or the Coryphaeus, other than she couldn’t afford to visit one and couldn’t afford to have the other visit her.

Core Worlds were universally ancient, and vanishingly rare. At a certain point in development, a level of technological prowess was reached that rendered labor obsolete. Post-Scarcity in one of the truest senses. At this point, a society did one of three things: implode, wither, or stabilize.

Implosion was the most common. As advances in technology outpaced social change, society would develop inequality, massive cultural flaws, or become downright depraved as increasing segments of society no longer had any meaningful purpose other than maximizing the pleasure of their own existence. Sometimes this was triggered by illegal tech-trading, something the FSOS did its best to prevent, but some races were just too clever for their own good. The breakdown of society set on quickly, and typically irreversibly. It was tragic, but . . . it was sometimes hard to feel bad for a civilization that collapsed because no-one had to work for anything, and those that were working were just trying to find new and better ways of experiencing extreme highs.

Withering was the second most common. Simply put, when a society was capable of simulating an artificial reality more desirable than actual reality, people just stopped going out. The technology was enough to sustain them, but the civilization that enabled their fantasies became second thoughts to the fantasies themselves. Though sometimes it took thousands upon thousands of years for the members of the society to die off, what with the vast array of devices connecting them to their virtual existences also supporting their biological functions, once the slide began it was almost always irreversible. When given the chance to choose between artificial godhood and legitimate mediocrity, it was almost always an easy call to make.

The least common, and weirdest as far as Amonna was concerned, was stabilization. Through some miracle of cultural, philosophical or political insight, a post scarcity society actually balanced out neatly. No concentration of resources into the hands of hedonistic oligarchs, no disconnections from reality by self-deluding escapists . . . just really powerful belief systems that acted as an overriding measure for the normal impulses that would have become destructive by the allocation of functionally limitless resources.

Most were obsessed with tradition, or culture, or the philosophical value of verisimilitude. That, and their continued way of life. Bereft of innovation, advancement, or adaptation, everything of value could be found in lessons from the past. It was an odd culture to deal with, but it was why she was wearing the “armor” she was. It’s why she had a strange title, and why a deeply unsettling mindless automaton was following her to a staff briefing. If she was going to work with these Coryphaeus investigative elements, she needed to understand them. And to understand them, she needed to talk plainly with them. Which is why she had Io round up all of them with the appropriate security clearance in a single briefing room.

As the hydraulic doors hissed open, and a single motion activated light flickered on in the center of the room, she noticed just how painfully empty it was.

“ . . . Io, why is there no one in the briefing room?”

“I do not have an answer to that question, user.”

Amonna growled quietly in frustration.

“Io, I asked you to gather everyone with a security clearance. Why are they not here?”

“Have you considered that perhaps you are the only entity on board this ship with the requisite security clearance to attend this meeting?”

Amonna slapped her palm against her snout, and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

It was going to be one of those days.

Categories
Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: The Invasion of Earth – Chapter 9

“|-he would absolutely kick Lord N’iirie’s ass. No doubt about it-|”

Ki’ittri, designated APOSTLE, rolled his eyes at the squad chatter over the comms. It was borderline distracting as he focused on doing his best to do one final final final check of his equipment in the pod as well as the pod itself. He had more time to burn than things to do, so he tended to repeat processes… over and over again. A soldier caught unawares is a dead soldier, after all, and there are worse ways to pass the time before a potential clash with an unknown alien species than triple-checking your gear.

You could, for instance, be engaging in the time-honored and extremely heretical tradition of Diarch Battle.

“|No, NO. With those talons?|” Ch’rk’’a, nee TESTAMENT said, her voice coming out a little more shrill than she intended.

“|Oh wait we’re going just soul-given now? In that case, yes, Lord Tri’’ik’I’ would win, but come on, he’s got like an additional 5 feet on anyone else!|” Rritikrea, nee HERETIC capitulated, and Ki’ittri could just feel her eyes roll all the way over here.

“|Well next time pick the freak Diarch and you’ll win every time.|”

“|Shut up, Tc’rki’.|” TESTAMENT and HERETIC responded at once, causing the whole squad to break out into laughter. It was good, too – the laughter that is, not the game. The extremely heretical tradition of Diarch Battle has gone back ever since there was a set of Diarchs, and has been banned for almost as long. Officially it still was, across the entire Galaxy, and anyone found participating in such an extremely heretical tradition would have to spend a good month in soul-searching, no-media-privileges penance, with only the barest and hardest of porridges or cereals to eat. This ancient law extended up and down the command chain, regardless of who you were, and punishment was added to or reduced during various periods of society, depending on exactly how heretical such a game was considered amongst the populace and the ruling class at large.

Unfortunately, it was never enforced, and it was especially never-enforced when the Diarchs themselves would engage in such a debate after a few drinks with their mics still hot, but it’s at least good to have it on paper.

“|VANGUARD, PREACHER? Anyth-|”

A low, off-key tonal note greeted APOSTLE over the communication channel, and it was quickly joined with the rest of his squad for a playful congregational harmonic of “you’re being an uptight nerd”.

“|Come on, Ki’ittri. Do we have to switch to callsigns now?|” whined A’it’kai/VANGUARD, the sound of metallic clacking in the background evidence that he, somehow, smuggled a cipher roll and was busy playing with it as opposed to doing literally anything else. “|We’re still within the Crusade’s formation, for All-soul’s sake.|”

“|Yes, and we wouldn’t be in these shock pods if we weren’t about to warp out of system! We might as well get used to our callsigns and get ready for deployment-|”

“|One, that was three hours ago.|” Ru’u’’ii/PREACHER interrupted, ticking points off on her fingers. “|Two, this probably won’t become anything because who wants to go to war with an unknown unknown-|”

“|We should not presume to understand the alien mind-|”

“|Three-|” Ru’u’’ii interrupted, taking some glee in cutting off her CO, “|-if anything does happen we’re most likely going to be dealing with ship-to-ship combat – if their own armada shows up, and Four-|”

Ru’u’’ii sighed. “|If we do drop we’ll probably just be fighting farmers. What fun is that?|”

“|Fun has nothing to do with this. Did you see their physiology? Bipedal, strong upper body strength. Add hydraulics to that and-|”

“|And we’re going to what seems to be a farming colony, Ki’ittri! How many of them would be armed – or in combat suits?! It’s not like they’re going to suddenly jump on us and rip our arms off!|”

“|…I just want us to be prepared and safe-|”

“|Awww. I love you too, Sarge, but I’ve already got a husband-|” Rritikrea/HERETIC purred over the comms, before bursting out into laughter again.

“|Where is the remote-destruct button? It seems like Rritikrea’s pod just got captured by enemy combatants during planetfall-|”

The same congretory tone of “you’re being an uptight nerd, nerd” blasted through his squad comms, and Ki’ittri smiled to himself.

The damnedest thing of all of this was that Lt. K’uree could see them with his soulsight, but he couldn’t let them know he saw them.

Every so often one of these delicate aliens would dart between trees, or peek over a hill, or around the side of a building or barrier, soft smudges of light from so far away as bright as day in the pitch black of the planet’s night. All this happened around him, a distracting persistent presence, but he had to continue to order his troops as if they were totally enshrouded. He was out, oblivious, vulnerable in the open. Animals protested, then were silenced – some of the smarter ones not interrupting his, or his enemy troop’s march forward. His suit’s HUD was helpful in tracking them as they moved about, these new soldiers that did not speak with words but with their limbs, who moved as almost one unit, silently, between buildings and brush.

It was obvious they had moved into some sort of residential district, as the open warfare near their drop ships had dissipated into potshots as they broke through the perimeter, and eventually nothing save for the random well-armed local who was paying attention and got off a few rounds. A few of the other natives would watch them with wide eyes, or with some device pointed through the window – his HUD did not detect any radiation, and so idly K’uree figured they were cameras or recording devices of some kind. With this theory in mind, he acted accordingly – hurting none, moving swiftly, making sure not to menace the populace or to take anything. He and his troops did their best to act a shadow in this planet’s dark night, and to make no track and take nothing with them.

Nothing, of course, except for these troops who silently moved, and who would not be denied this hunt.

Lt. K’uree was impressed. As he “randomly” decided to divert his squad down a side-road as opposed to walk into the ambush set before him, he thought he almost heard some cursing – what passed for cursing, given these aliens’ language, that is – and then saw them move out of the side of his vision.

“|Talon 2, move down the hill.|”

“|Yes sir.|” the squad leader replied – K’uree hadn’t even bothered to check his name, his time had been so pressed, but he sounded young. He was busy staring intently away from the small whisp of hazy light that peered at him, half-covered by this planet’s flora, when Talon 2 moved down the hill.

About a kilometer away down GA State Route 10, the M1A3 Abrams tank had a clear line of sight, and fired a single HEAT round.

“|WHAT THE -|” was all that Talon 2 Squad Leader was able to say before the HEAT round penetrated his hardsuit, blew through the other side and hit the retaining wall of the highway behind him, detonating. The concussive blast alone was enough to knock the rest of his squad to the ground… about 10 meters away.

“|TALON ONE, GET THE SURVIVORS – TALON THREE, COVERING FIRE-|”

Lt. K’uree had found, much to his chagrin, that his ship’s non-lethal armament was terrifying, effective, and apparently effectively terrifying when it came to combating the natives. He raised his AKW long rifle and fired a few shots, a microlattice of blades neatly slicing a dozen-molecule thin wafer of the tungsten bar sitting inside the weapon, then propelling it forward with electromagnetic fury, then repeating this a half-hundred times in that second. As it left the barrel with a target over a half-league away it remained focused as opposed to spreading out, the weapons’ on-board computer attempting to maintain as much structure as possible to compensate for such a vast distance.

For his people, a spread AKW wafer at medium range felt like getting gut-punched over a significant portion of your body.

For these aliens however it was undoubtedly lethal; a few idle rounds blew apart tires and dented in non-combat vehicles. Focused fire destroyed treads, both he and one very unlucky patrol had discovered when they chanced upon each other.

As such, focused fire also spooked their armor, and with a roar of engines he could hear from this distance the metallic beast sped in reverse, moving behind another building – and out of sight.

“|TAKE THEM AND GO UP-|”

“|SIR WE HAVE BODIES-|”

“|I SAID TAKE THEM-|”

Lt. K’uree never got to finish that sentence, as a half-dozen grenades landed in-between him and his squad.

With no drones to sacrifice themselves to cover the blast, his body made due.

So there’s a funny thing about warping into a barely-mapped system, is that you don’t really know where you’re going to end up. You could pop out of super-luminal space and be in the middle of nowhere, or near an un-mapped planet, or – which was much more common than the survey corps would like to admit, you could end up just slamming into an asteroid and adding a neat little dent to your ship.

The good news is that a significant amount of telemetry data, from planet locations and hypothesized orbits to speeds, intensity of solar wind, etc. had been fed into the navigational computers of High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions’ Armada, and he had absolutely no concerns of hitting a heavenly body of any sort.

No, his concern was of a more politically militant sort.

As he and the rest of his Armada came directly from sovereign space, they weren’t approaching this alien empire from the same vector as The Three Stones. This means that he had to spread out his ships in a wider area so as to (1) compensate for any potential drift of The Three Stones and the target colony planet while (2) not spreading his ships out so far as to be ineffective in covering each other on the minuscule, but very real chance that combat was already underway and his ships were warping into aggressive space. However, he had to (3) place them far enough away from the theorized target range as to not appear overly hostile, and the flagship Spite’s Soul was……… intimidating. Intimidating is a word you could use. You could also use the words “way too much overkill”, “planet-cracker” and “I think some of those armaments are banned under Galactic law but I didn’t say nothin’.”

Armada was also a bit of a …misnomer. Certainly it was an Armada, but it wasn’t all militant. There were dozens of science ships, hundreds of supply ships bearing gifts, cultural liaisons on unarmed cruisers and even an entire – for the lack of a better word, station – completely dedicated to giving space for celebrations, fairs and general camaraderie.

So this meant that High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions had to also position those non-combat ships within his Armada to project the peaceful intent of his people, yet make sure that they’re close enough to various military craft as to be protected in the again, off-chance-but-still-possible reality that space combat would be joined. This, of course, wasn’t counting the hundreds of petitions he had from the civilian populace to be the first one to address their new galactic neighbors, what speeches would be said, how they would be broadcast-

A cool mug of Ri’ddrij was loudly and obnoxiously placed in the center of his console by his attache.

“|Sorry for the interruption, sir, but your back eye was doing the…|” Qoili’’e, First Attendant of the Lord, motioned quite unprofessionally to his left souleye, placing the serving tray against his side. “|-and I figured, you know. You could use a distraction.|”

“|Thank you, Qoili’’e. These aliens haven’t lifted a blade against us and yet I already feel like I’ve been pitfighting for weeks.|” High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ murmured, dragging his claw heavily down the bridge of his muzzle to drop near the mug, gripping it wearily. “|We are almost out of transit, correct?|”

“|Yes, sir.|” The First Attendant of the Lord said, bowing slightly. “|Literally within the next 5 minutes – though that hasn’t stopped a dozen more last-minute petitions from various Divine Paths, Holy Rings, Sacred Pools and Lit Ways, some of which also included some very colorful language about what would happen to me if I didn’t petition you immediately.|”

High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ looked up at his first attendant and smirked, bringing the mug slowly to his lips. “|And yet here you are, not petitioning me, and not letting them break you. How do you do it, I wonder?|”

“|Simple, sir.|” Qoili’’e, First Attendant of the Lord, said as he bowed a little deeper than was appropriate. “|If it gets too much for me I just give it to you.|”

“|HAH!|” High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ laughed, taking a deep swig of his Ri’ddrij, letting the familiar icy tingle spread down his throat. “|You absolute monster – I should have you tried for apostasy or treason, or something.|”

“|No court in the galaxy, M’Lord.|”

“|Mmm, yes, well-|”

The only thing – and I mean, the only thing that High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions would allow to interrupt him is any notification from his EM Lord, Uri’krei, or his Pilot, Rek’ik’ki.

Thankfully for everyone involved, the two of them kept such interruptions to the command deck and not to general life.

“|Dropping out of warp in 1 minute, High Lord.|”

“|Thank you, Pilot. EM Lord-|”

“|We are open on all secure IFF channels, scooping all spectrums.|” Uri’krei droned, as on-screen millions of indicators suddenly flashed on – and were immediately removed, showing now only the barest of information of each ship, their locations and armaments.

“|Well.|” High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ shrugged, downing the last of his Ri’ddrij before placing the empty mug on the offered serving tray. “|Shall we make history?|”

So there’s a funny thing – though it’s less “ha-ha” funny in this context and more “well that was interesting” is that in order for combat suits (regardless of the species) to broadcast IFF indicators that could be read and monitored from space, the broadcast had to be loud and powerful – at least, from an EM perspective.

This also meant, for what it’s worth, that the suits broadcast broadly; both in an encrypted, broad-spectrum kind of sense and in a multi-directional sense, as a corresponding friendly receiver could be anywhere above or around you. These kinds of broadcasts also tended to remain, invisibly polluting the space around the AO – if given enough time.

On Wednesday, June 18th, 2025AD High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions’ Armada warped into the Solar System, just close enough to Earth to support The Three Stones but far enough away to not seem antagonistic, spread out enough to offer support to each other’s ships but far enough out to cast a wide net, with civilian vessels in prominent, but protected positions to show that the Karnakian people meant absolutely no harm, but were willing to defend what was theirs.

They weren’t greeted by a corresponding force, or any force for that matter. They were, instead, greeted with status notifications and open communique.

It wasn’t the panicked, echoed communications of The Three Stones’ senior staff that moved the High Lord Inquisitor-Commander, as his military career was filled with plenty of those.

It wasn’t the broadcasted destruction beacons of drones or of ships that caused him to stir, for over the past thousand years of service he had lost countless amounts of replaceable hardware.

It wasn’t even the weeping of the Matriarch that moved his heart to action, for all leaders weep bitter tears at some point.

No, what moved him to utter the single word that would change history forever was the open suit microphones, on interns and new recruits that – compared to him – barely finished their first molting.

It was all the screaming.

And with that screaming, the sound of alien weapons-fire, of lungs filling with blood, with begging and with panicked orders, of prayers to any god – or anyone who would listen, to family, to each other – with the cacophony of war echoing unchallenged across the command bridge, High Lord Inquisitor-Commander Tr’’’’r’’ of the Eternal Holy Karnakian Crusade And It’s Infinite Legions’ Armada, The Hammer of the Righteous, The Bled Fang of The Infinite One, Guardian of the Sacred Flame, Firstfallen on the Blade of Purity, stood up and simply said

“|Go.|”

And APOSTLE and TESTAMENT and HERETIC and SACRAMENT and VANGUARD and PREACHER and Two Million, Two Hundred and Fourty Four Thousand, Seven Hundred and Eighty One special operations orbital shock troops accelerated out of their ship at multiples of the speed of sound, aimed at every significant population center their targeting computers could find.

And the War for Earth began.

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