Theogony 1: Janissaries (12 page)

“Sorry for interrupting, but I’ve got some good news and bad
news,” said Calvin.

The president and assembled staff looked up in surprise as Calvin
walked into the DUCC’s conference room uninvited.

“That’s OK,” said the president, “we were just about
finished anyway. I take it that it must be important if you feel that you can
just walk into a presidential-level meeting.” Although the president’s words
were welcoming, his tone indicated that he thought the interruption was
inappropriate, and that Calvin should not do it again in the future.

The president looked at Calvin with a funny look on his
face. “There’s something different about you. Have you lost a lot of weight?”

“I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight,” said Calvin, “but
what I’ve got has certainly been shifted around some. I just had the operation
to put my implants in and, as it turns out, the medibot that does the implant
procedure has the ability to do a lot more medically than just put in implants.
I got the whole Warrior Package in addition to the implants, which as near as I
can tell makes me stronger, gives me more endurance and a variety of other
things that are supposed to make me better in combat. They can even turn you
into a cyborg if you’re willing to give up all of your body parts.”

The president raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No sir,” replied Calvin. “I didn’t have it done, nor did I
authorize any of the men to have it done. I think that it would be a big
problem with Arges if we started turning out super-warriors before we have an
integrated planetary government. For the record, that was how Achilles achieved
his invulnerability, but that’s a story for a different time.” He looked around
and saw an empty chair. “Mind if I sit down, Mr. President? I’m still getting
used to this new body.”

“Go ahead,” said the president, waving him to an empty chair
at the conference table. As Calvin took the indicated seat, the president asked,
“So, what is so big that you needed to break into our confidential meeting?”

“Well, the first thing that I need to tell you is that your
meeting isn’t as confidential as you think it is,” said Calvin. “Apparently Arges
bugged the room at some point when he was here, or he can access your computer
network. He is able to watch anything that is done or said in this room. I
walked in on him watching yesterday’s meeting.”

“
WHAT?!!
” asked the president. “This facility is
supposed to be impenetrable to surveillance! I will have to talk to our
security section. I don’t want him to hear everything that goes on here!” He
looked around the room with a guilty look on his face. “Besides, I don’t think
we’ve always been very charitable with all of our comments about our ‘friends.”

“I don’t think he takes any of the comments personally,”
said Calvin. “When you look in on things unannounced, sometimes you get to hear
the unvarnished truth. Regardless, their information technology is well beyond
ours. I don’t think we have the capability to create an environment that would
be impervious to their spying. Just a second.”

“
Solomon, Calvin,
” he commed.

“
Yes, Calvin, what can I do to assist you?
” the
artificial intelligence answered.

“
Is there any computer network on Earth that you aren’t
able to break into if you wanted?
” Calvin asked.

“
No, there is not,
” Solomon answered. “
The most
difficult code that Terrans currently have takes me less than 0.3 seconds to
break. That doesn’t mean that I listen in on everything. I am programmed to
respect intelligent beings’ privacy, unless asked to do otherwise.
”

“
Thanks, Calvin out.”
He looked at the president. “As
I suspected, the AI onboard the
Vella Gulf
is able to enter any of our
networks that it wants to. It says it doesn’t do it unless asked, but I don’t
think you can keep the Psiclopes out of anything that they want to be into.” He
paused. “If it makes you feel any better, when I walked in on Arges, he was
also watching a meeting of the Russian president and a meeting of the Chinese
premier at the same time on other screens.”

“No, that doesn’t make me feel any better, but it does let
us know that we’re at least on a level playing field with all of the other
nations on Earth,” replied the president. “Was there anything else that you had
for us?”

“Yes sir,” replied Calvin, “I do. I’ve got quite a bit,
actually. We had a very fruitful meeting with the Psiclopes. Now that the
leadership of my platoon and squadron have implants, it’s a lot harder for them
to keep things from us. They could probably still have the ship’s artificial
intelligence keep us in the dark, and they probably still
are
keeping
some things from us, but at least we have all of the mission details.”

He looked around the room at the assembled leaders. “We are
going to leave on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 and explore the nearby systems in
order to ensure that all of the ship’s systems are operational. They haven’t
been used in a
really
long time. After that, we will try to find a way
to get to the Psiclopes’ society to try to find out what is going on. The
Psiclopes told us that there are several friendly races out there that might
help us. Our mission will be to find and bring back aid, while avoiding the
Drakuls or anyone else that would want to do harm to our planet.” He gave a wry
grin. “I am very aware that we will have all of the planet’s advanced
technology with us. If we get caught and killed, the planet’s chances of
surviving an alien assault diminish drastically.”

“As far as combat power goes,” Calvin continued, “we have
the
Vella Gulf
, which, as a cruiser, ought to be able to handle many of
the things we might meet while we are gone. If we can’t beat them, the
Gulf
ought to be able to outrun anything we find that is bigger. We have six fighter
spacecraft and 34 combat soldiers, plus the XO and me. All of the crew that we
take with us will have implants by the end of this calendar year, and the
ship’s crew will begin getting the
Vella Gulf
ready to go in January.
They will need a couple of months of training in order to assume their duties
onboard.”

“Wait,” said the Secretary of Defense, “I thought that the
implants gave them all of the information they needed to do their jobs and to
understand the equipment that they were working on.”

“That is mostly true,” agreed Calvin. “The problem is that
all they will have in their brains is information. They won’t have any of the
skills and muscle memory that comes from actually performing the tasks that
they will be doing on the mission. This is especially true for the space
fighter pilots. We will need
a lot
of practice before we will be able to
pilot the ships effectively. I’m not sure how I’m going to get time to
practice, but I’m going to have to make it. I’ll come back to that in a minute.”

“The Psiclopes set the primary objectives of this mission. Lieutenant
Train, Captain Pierce and I set the secondary objectives. The biggest of these
is to bring back as big a replicator as we can find. We had already guessed
that they had some sort of replicator; we finally got them to confess that they
do. That’s how they’re making the implants and the combat weapons that we will
take along with us. The problem is that the one that they have onboard the ship
is small. It can’t make anything much bigger than about ten feet in size. While
that’s really handy for small weapons and little pieces of technology, it won’t
let us build space fighters or any of the major combat ships that we’ll need to
fight off an alien invasion. If we can secure one of these, it is my intention
to do everything possible to bring it back.”

He looked around the room and saw most of the military
personnel nodding; he figured that would be the most important thing that he
could accomplish during the mission.

“How do the replicators work?” asked Sarah Roberts, the
Secretary of Technology. “Can we build more replicators of our own?”

“I asked the Psiclopes the same thing,” said Calvin. “They
won’t tell us. Based on some of the things that I’ve seen and heard, I think
that it works by turning materials into energy and then reconverting them back
into matter, but just in a different pattern. With a replicator, the materials
are fed into it and then are reassembled into the thing that you want based on
the template that is in the replicator. Things can be broken down to the atomic
level, but whatever type of material goes in is what you get back out. As the
implants we’re getting have a lot of rare earth elements in them, they have to
put those same elements into the replicator. As I understand it, you can’t get
matter for nothing; you have to put into the front of it what you want to get out
the back of it. So....if you want to build another replicator, you can, but
since it is bigger than what can be produced, it will take some time to make
all of the individual pieces and then even longer to assemble them. Things
would be a lot easier if we could bring back an industrial-sized replicator and
use it to create smaller ones, which I understand is possible.

Calvin looked around the room. “The important thing to
remember is that you don’t get something for nothing. If you want a ship that
is full of heavy metals and rare earth elements, you have to feed them into the
front of the replicator. They don’t have to be fully processed, because the
system will break them down, but you have to have the needed elements to get
the things that you want back out. Whether that is through a major mining
program on Earth or towing asteroids to the moon, or to wherever you end up
putting the replicator, you need to start stockpiling materials for when we get
back. Hopefully, I’ll have a big replicator in tow, but if not, we’ll have to
start small and build our way up to the big one.”

The president nodded. “We have already begun on some of
these programs, and we will continue to ramp up our efforts. I agree that we
need as large a replicator as possible.”

“We’re not going to be able to do this on our own,” said the
Secretary of Commerce. “We just can’t. We don’t have access to all of the
materials we will need. Some elements are scarce and only found in areas that
are unfriendly to us.”

The president looked at the Secretary of State. “Isabel,
we’re going to have to move up our time frame for implementing a world
government. We need all of the countries working together for us to have a
chance. I will talk with you after this meeting breaks up.”

Calvin nodded his head. “That will be helpful for more than
just resource access. I get the feeling that there is still a lot more that the
Psiclopes are not telling us, like the geopolitics of the Psiclopes’ society or
the Alliance of Civilizations. Arges has a very strict interpretation of their
rules on technology transfer. Personally, I couldn’t give a shit less about
trying to take over the world; I’m trying to save it. Having just fought them,
I don’t particularly want to have Chinese in my platoon yet; the wounds are
still too fresh. Regardless, I’m not interested in taking over China or Russia
or any of the other countries. I got Arges to agree to provide us what he did
by promising that the platoon wouldn’t be used to take over any other
countries.”

“Is that it?” asked the president.

“No, sir,” said Calvin, “I’ve got one more issue. As I
mentioned earlier, I need some time to get up and start flying the space
fighters. At the moment, I have too many bosses to report to and be tasked by
that I can’t do anything effectively, much less do any training. It is like the
Chinese torture ‘Death by 1,000 Cuts.’ None of the cuts are big, but added up,
you’re dead. Similarly, I have about 1,000 people on a daily basis that ‘just
want five minutes’ of my time. I can’t do it. Now that I have implants, I can
access information quickly; however, I need to have a single boss to report to.
He or she can then report up the chain of command. Otherwise, we will not be ready
in time. I don’t care who I report to, but I need it to be a single person, not
the 20 bosses that I currently have.”

The president looked at the Secretary of Defense. “Make it
happen!” he ordered.

* * * * *

“I can’t believe that we’re finally getting our high tech weapons,”
said Sergeant Ed ‘Shadow’ Pesik, looking at the racks of weapons. The platoon had
gathered in the hangar to get the new weapons from the Psiclopes, and a general
feeling of excitement permeated the group.

“A weapon is no more and no less than the hand holding it,”
commented Yokaze as he walked by.

“That may be,” said Shadow, “but I don’t want to kill Drakuls
with throwing stars. I’d rather kill them with high explosives from
much
further away.”

“Know yourself, and it won’t matter where your enemy is,”
replied Yokaze.

“Ah’m with you,” drawled Corporal Jimmy ‘Colonel’ Sanders as
Yokaze walked off. “Ah’d much rather have a big weap’n to kill dem big froggie
things. Come ta think of it, dat der pointy thing looks a lot like the frog
gigs we had back home. Only bigga’, a course.” There was a rack holding about ten
of the trident weapons and another four racks holding what looked like about 40
cheap, plastic toy rifles. Along the wall were 36 piles of new combat suits.

Brontes and Steropes transported in. “Are you ready to get
started?” asked Steropes.

“Yeah, we are,” replied Calvin. He looked around. “Is Arges
not coming?”

“No, he’s not,” said Brontes. “I think that he’s having
second thoughts about putting weapons in your hands, so he decided he needed to
attend a meeting that the president was having. He is also an extreme pacifist
and does not like weapons.”

“Fine,” grunted Ryan. “He’s a pain in the ass anyway. Too
bad the lieutenant didn’t break him when he had the chance.”

“Now, now,” corrected Brontes. “He’s really not that bad; he
is in a difficult position and feels honor bound to follow the rules. He is
doing what he feels is best.”

“No,” said Ryan, “he’s a pain in the ass.”

“In any event,” interrupted Calvin, “yes, we’re ready. What
do we need to do?”

“The weapons are all the same,” said Steropes, “so it’s just
a matter of handing them out, and then we’ll activate them.”

“Activate them?” asked Night.

“Yes,” answered Steropes, “they have to be activated for the
platoon’s use. That way, no one else can just pick them up and use them, not
that the Drakuls would want to use our weapons if they were close enough to
just grab you.” He shuddered. He nodded to Ryan. “If you would have everyone
pick up a rifle?”

Ryan passed on the request, reminding everyone to ensure
that their rifles were set on ‘Safe.’ All of the members of the platoon came
forward and picked up a rifle, and then they returned to their position in the
formation. After a second’s indecision, Calvin stepped forward and picked up a
rifle too. He didn’t think he’d need it, but then again, he had never thought
that he’d find himself looking down the business end of a Chinese assault
rifle. It was an experience that he didn’t hope to repeat any time soon. Or,
hopefully, ever.

As the interface on Calvin’s right hand made contact with
the grip of the rifle, he saw the rifle’s status display illuminate at the top
of his in-head display. All of it was grayed out, with the exception of the
word ‘Activate’ at the far right end.

“The first thing you will want to do,” instructed Steropes,
“is to thought-click the word ‘Activate’ on the right side of your display.
Does anyone not see this?”

A hand went up from the platoon. Calvin saw movement from
the corner of his eye and looked over to see that it was Petty Officer Steve Conboy.
A commando diver from the Royal Australian Navy, he was a good looking guy whom
the ladies loved, but technology hated. No one knew if he had some weird
electrical field around him or what else the problem might be, but computers
and other forms of technology often failed when he used them. After two of his
comrades’ legacy iPods had ceased functioning when he picked them up, no one in
the platoon would allow him anywhere near their personal electronics. He was
also the only person whose implants had failed to work correctly on insertion,
a fact that had driven the medibot to near meltdown. A second set of implants
had functioned correctly, as had the first set, once they were removed from his
head.

“Did the display not activate for you?” asked Steropes.

“No,” replied Petty Officer Conboy, “I don’t see any
display.”

“Hmm,” said Steropes. “Perhaps that rifle is not functional.
Try another one.”

Conboy walked back to the rack of rifles and picked up
another one. Shaking his head, he picked up a third rifle. That one must have
worked for him, because he smiled and walked back to the formation.

“OK,” said Steropes, “everyone should thought-click where it
says ‘Activate’ and follow the instructions. You want to allow other members of
your platoon to use your weapon if needed.”

Calvin clicked on ‘Activate’ and a dialogue box popped up.
It read, “Are you sure you want to activate Vella Gulf Rifle A00015?” Calvin
clicked on the “Yes” box and felt a low hum as the rifle powered up. He could
see text going by quickly on the left side of his display. Apparently, the
rifle had some sort of boot-up sequence. After a second, a new box popped up.
“Would you like to allow other members of your platoon to use the weapon if
needed?” Calvin again clicked on the ‘Yes’ box. After a few more seconds, a box
that said, ‘Rifle Activated,’ appeared for two seconds and then disappeared. He
noticed that all of the display was now active.

Looking at the right of the rifle icon, he saw that ‘Activated’
had changed to ‘Standby.’ To the left were indicators that read ‘517’ and ‘Full.’
His downloaded training told him that he had 517 shots remaining at the
selected setting of Full Power. The rifle was supposed to get 500 shots per
battery, so he knew the rifle had a new battery. The rifle could also be dialed
down from its full power setting, based on the needs of the user. This would
give it more shots, but at a reduced energy level. With the right type of cookware,
you were even supposed to be able to melt snow and boil the resulting water at
its lowest power setting.

“All right,” said Ryan, who had been briefed on what to do
next, “we are now going to calibrate the rifles. In order to do so, we are
going to make three lines right there.” He pointed to where three large ‘Xs’
had been drawn on the hangar floor. “If anyone arms their rifle before I tell
them to, their ass is mine! Keep them on ‘safe.’” 

After everyone had made three lines facing a wall of strange
looking metal with three bullseyes on it, Ryan continued. “Here’s how this is
going to work.
When you’re told to
, you will arm your rifle. You will
then click ‘Calibrate’ on your display and fire one, and only one, shot down at
the bullseye designated for your line. If you need a second shot, follow the
program’s instructions. When you are finished, you will put your rifle back on
safe and take it back to the rack. Are there any questions?”

Hearing none, he said, “First row, arm and calibrate your
weapons.”

Calvin watched as the first three soldiers armed and fired
their weapons. As each weapon fired, there was a low ‘
pang
’ and a flash
of blue light toward the metal wall.

“That rocks!” exclaimed Bad Twin. “They’re blue.” If nothing
else, Calvin thought, having implants was good for telling which twin was
which. While he couldn’t tell their voices apart, the software could.

“I thought lasers were supposed to be yellow,” Bad Twin’s
fire team leader, Sergeant Gordhain MacKenzie, said. “That’s what you always
see in the movies anyway,” added the Scotsman.

“Naw,” said Good Twin, “blue light is better than yellow;
it’s got, like, more energy.”

“And you two idiots are physicists now?” asked Staff
Sergeant Patrick Dantone. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Dude,” Bad Twin replied, “it’s simple physics. Blue’s got a
higher frequency, so there’s more energy. Everyone knows that E = hf.”

Judging by the blank looks on almost everyone’s face, Calvin
could tell that everyone did
not
know that equation. He remembered
hearing about it a long time ago in college physics, but he probably wouldn’t
have been able to come up with it on his own.

Good Twin sighed. “Dudes and dudettes,” he explained,
looking at Suzi Taylor so that she knew he included her in the second group,
“Physics 101. The energy of a packet is equal to the frequency multiplied by a
constant. Since the constant, like, never changes...”

“Which is why it’s a constant, dudes,” chimed Bad Twin.

“Right, since it
is
a constant,” confirmed Good Twin,
“the amount of energy is related to the frequency. Blue light is like, a higher
frequency than yellow, so it has higher energy.” He looked at the rest of the
group and smiled, watching them shake their heads. “It’s just that easy,
dudes.” He saw Suzi look at him. “And dudettes,” he hastily added.

“If you knuckleheads could concentrate on the
high energy
weapons that you have in your hands,” Master Chief growled, “I’d like to get
this accomplished sometime
today
.”

The front line fired again, and whatever software they were
running must have been pleased with the result, as they put their rifles on
safe and returned them to the rack. The rest of the platoon followed, quickly
calibrating their rifles. The only anomaly was Petty Officer Conboy. When he fired
his rifle, the energy it released was obviously
NOT
the low power
setting. The wall exploded in a shower of sparks that resembled an enormous
piece of aluminum foil in a microwave, along with an electric discharge that smelled
of ozone. A small melted spot could be seen just slightly above and to the
right of Conboy’s bullseye.

He quickly turned to Ryan, although he kept his rifle pointed
at the wall. “It was the low power setting, Master Chief! I swear!” he
exclaimed.

Ryan sighed. “I’m sure it was,” he said. “Safe your weapon
and return it to the rack.”

Within a few minutes, it was the officers’ turns. Calvin
stepped up to the ‘X’ and toggled his rifle to ‘Arm.’ Immediately, his display
went from ‘Standby’ to ‘Armed,’ and a set of crosshairs appeared in his vision where
the rifle was pointed. He thought-clicked the ‘Calibrate’ command and watched
as the power setting went to ‘Low.’ The system told him to fire a single shot
at the center of the bullseye in front of him. As he looked at it, he could see
it glowing slightly where he was supposed to aim. He put the targeting
crosshairs on the target and pulled the trigger. His rifle fired, and he could
see it hit just low and left of the center of the target. A box popped up in
his mind that said, “Adjust aim?” He clicked on the ‘Yes’ button and was
rewarded with an information box that said, “Adjustment complete. Please fire
again.” He fired again, and the shot hit in the exact center of the target. 
“Calibration complete,” popped up, followed by, “Please safe your weapon.” He
put his weapon back on safe and saw the crosshairs disappear.

The whole process was pretty cool, Calvin thought. He
couldn’t wait to try it out for real. As he returned his rifle to the rack, he
saw the in-head rifle display disappear as well. Looking at the rifle rack, his
rifle glowed in his sight, designating it as ‘his’ rifle. Even cooler.

“OK,” said Ryan, “now we’re going to try this with suits on.
Everyone get your suit and put it on.”

Along with the rest of the platoon, Calvin picked up his
suit and began putting it on. As his interface made contact with the plate in
the suit’s right glove, a new display winked on in his head. A picture of the
suit appeared on the far left of his vision. The entire suit was outlined in
green, indicating it had structural integrity. Next to the picture of the suit,
the status was displayed for all of its systems. He saw that the power and
oxygen levels were right at 100%, and that everything else was labeled in
green.

As he concentrated on each one, he understood what it meant.
‘Pharma’ was the readout from his suit’s pharmacopeia of drugs. It had a
variety of stimulants, analgesics and other drugs that could be dispensed when
required. ‘Nano’ was for the suit’s nanobots. There were some that could be
used to repair minor damage to the suit, and others that worked on healing
damage to the person wearing the suit. ‘Sensors’ were his suit’s ability to
sense dangers like radiation, toxins, explosives and a hostile atmosphere. The
last one, ‘Def Sys’ were his suit’s defensive systems that allowed it to
camouflage itself and to shield him from some limited forms of damage. It was a
very capable suit. Wearing it, he could have taken on several companies of
conventional human forces all by himself. Which would be great, if they were to
run into any Russians or Chinese soldiers where they were going. Unfortunately,
that was unlikely.

He was interrupted from his thoughts by Steropes, who asked,
“
Does anyone have any problems with their suits?
”

Only one hand went up. Calvin couldn’t see who it was inside
the suit. “I wish I knew who was in that suit,” he muttered to himself. As he
did so, the word ‘Conboy’ illuminated in his display over the suited soldier.
He realized that his suit, a command suit, tracked all of the other suits and
could display who was inside all of them. ‘Display all suit names’ he thought,
and names appeared over all of the soldiers. Even though the names were
transparent, that many names in that small a space cluttered up his vision.
‘Names off,’ he thought, and they all disappeared again.

“
Everything is yellow in my suit,
” commed Petty
Officer Conboy.

The person standing next to Conboy, Corporal James ‘Cyclops’
Ball, reached over and slapped him in the back of the helmet. “
Ow!
”
Conboy commed. “
What was that for? Oh wait, that cleared it. I’m good now.
”