Sentient (6 page)

Earlier…

Maj. Darnell thought the General might have a heart attack as he screamed.

“What do you mean you lost them?  How hard is it to follow someone on a damn date?”

Darnell replied, “General, he is special forces.  Still, I don’t believe that’s what happened.  He didn’t find the bug, we are sure he was in the cab of the truck with the Carver girl when the bug burned out.  On top of that, we were unable to pursue due to the car not starting.  It’s completely dead, and I can see the CPU is cooked.

“We checked the satellite pictures General and his truck is gone, even on the older pictures where we did originally see it.”

He took a deep breath, knowing his next words would probably see him busted a few ranks and sent to the funny farm.

“General, I’d like to task a couple of drones to look for the truck.  I believe we may be looking at a foothold situation here sir.  Perhaps they haven’t gotten into those systems yet.”

The General turned bright red and then went rather pale as the anger drained from his face.

“Very well Major, make it happen.  For god sakes don’t put that in a report yet, but I’ll be sending a couple of teams your way just in case you find them.  Out.”

The major stared disbelievingly at the blank screen for a moment, then picked up his secure phone and started sending orders.

----------

Sgt. Simmons was the baby on team, just getting his promotion a few months ago and fresh out of training.  He was well trained and loved his country.  He’d never complained about keeping the missions a secret from his wife Jennie.  It was just what needed to be done.  After the briefing though, all he wanted to do was call his wife and send her into the hills.

He hoped they were wrong and jumping to conclusions.  Outside of hiding, the implied presence of… he hardly could even think the word, the alien hadn’t done any actual harm.  On top of that, for the last two hours it seems all the target has been doing is screwing his hot neighbor in a damn field.  Perhaps he was just foolish, but that didn’t seem like a matter of national security.

Maybe though, it was just his reluctance to even believe in an alien, much less one with a foothold on their planet in Montana.

“Simmons!  Get your head out of your ass and pay attention.  We’re coming up on target.”

He looked up as the Humvee pulled off the road.

“Yes L. T.” he said smartly.  

According to the live raw video stream from the surveillance drone it looked like they were packing things up and getting ready to leave.  They were maybe a half mile out when the video feed just stopped.  He checked his weapons and safety one last time as they all loaded live rounds into their 9mm hand guns and magazines into their assault rifles.

The orders were to take them alive if possible, but return any fire with deadly force, or if it looked like they were going to escape.  He turned on his night vision as the driver killed the headlights.  As they turned into where the field was he caught a glimpse of tail lights taking the next turn.

The Lieutenant said, “They’re running!  Stay sharp.”

He did his best to maintain balance as they went off road and into a canyon.  They had eyes on the target now; he was maybe a quarter mile ahead.  It looked like a dead end was coming up, and then there was a flash of light.  The night vision cut off to protect his eyes and when it cut back in he could hardly believe his eyes.

“FIRE!  Don’t just sit there!” the lieutenant screamed.

-----------

Kris had figured the best defense was simply not being there.  It had only taken a few moments for both of them to get into the truck and take off.

Kris said tensely, “I don’t see anyone coming.”

Aide replied, “
Their
headlights are turned off, they are using night vision
.”

He cursed under his breath.  Of course they were.  Discharged for a couple of days and he was already thinking like a civilian.  He was about to follow the road around and back down the mountain when Aide stopped him.

“
Turn left here into that ravine and follow it to the end.
”

He questioned his instant obedience when the truck started to bounce all over the place, he could barely keep a grip on the steering wheel.  After about a mile a bright light lit up the sky.

“
Stop underneath.”

His jaw dropped at what he saw, it looked like a… well a flying saucer.  It was big, and it glowed white on the bottom.  He only got a quick look at it, and then he hit the brakes and came to a stop.

He asked a little tensely, “What now?”

He started hearing gunshots.

“
Don’t worry, we are within the shield.”

Then the last thing he ever expected happened, his truck started to rise from the ground and up into an opening on the bottom of the huge saucer.  He rose into what looked like a flight deck of some kind.  There were a handful of very small craft about the size of a car.  They were moved over to an empty place and he could see the hatch closing.

He looked over at Stacey and felt better at the look of awe on her face rather than fear. 

“Can you get us out of here, anywhere really.”

Aide replied, “
Yes, one moment… …  We are now cloaked and in low Earth orbit.
”

He grunted, “That was fast.”

They got out of the truck and Stacey came over and dug into his side and leaned against him.

Aide asked, “
Would you like a tour?
”

Stacey replied in a weak voice, “Sure…  Why not?”

Instead of her walking them around the ship, he felt his head start to tingle and everything he would need to know about the ship started to fill his mind.  It was a lot less uncomfortable the second time around.  He almost laughed at the idea the tour was virtual.

The ship was fairly large, much larger Aide informed them than the fighting vessels, although this command vessel would be very capable of fighting as well.  There were three main levels in the saucer, as well as one smaller level above and below.  The top level was basically crew quarters, meeting rooms, and a few labs.  The bottom level encompassed labs, the flight deck, and various storage holds.  The center level around the outer ring had additional storage, spare parts, a kitchen of sorts and ten executive suites for the command staff.

In the center ring was both the bridge and engineering, surrounded by secondary shields as well as extremely thick shielding.  It wasn’t like in the movies, the two most important areas were the ones best protected. 

He was curious about seeing the bridge, and engineering, though the latter was fully automated by both bots under Aide’s control as well as billions of nanites to maintain the ship in perfect order.  But he had to admit he was exhausted.  As for the dimensions the saucer had a circumference of a thousand feet and was just over a hundred feet tall at the center.

He asked Stacey, “Do you want to check out the bridge, or find us a room?”

Stacey smiled but raised an eyebrow, “Are we sharing when there are ten executive rooms?  Are you asking me to move in with you?”

He was brought up short by that but saw her lips twitching and felt a little better.  Actually he hadn’t even considered the idea that she wouldn’t be staying with him in a room.

He could play too, so he said in a strong military command voice, “We talked about this already, I’m taking you with me woman.”

Stacey hated overbearing men but the way he said that made her core tingle in desire.  Yes… he could take her anywhere he wanted.  She did her best to play it off though.  She didn’t want him to know exactly how much she was under his power.

“I suppose that would be okay,” she tried for a teasing tone but it came out more than a little breathlessly.

She gasped when he slapped her butt playfully and took her hand.  He led her to the lift and up a deck and straight to the Captain’s suite.  He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting.  The rest of the ship the walls were a metallic silver color with the floor and ceiling being a luminescent white.  There were no light bulbs or fixtures, the entire floor and ceiling seemed to generate a soft uniform light that was easy on the eyes.

When they entered the suite they both stopped for a moment before walking through the place.  The suite hadn’t been part of the download, and a part of him suspected Aide left it out on purpose to surprise him.  They had walked into what looked like a living room.  It had leather couches, a large screen television and what looked like a stereo.

There was a small nook in the corner with a sink and he saw what amounted to a replicator according to his new memories.  It wasn’t immediate, but it could put out a meal in just a few minutes, or a cup of coffee in about thirty seconds.

The bathroom had multiple shower heads and a whirlpool tub.  It was tiled and even had a throw rug in front of the double sinks.  Another side room looked like a miniature board room with another large television.  Lastly there was the bedroom.

There was a king size bed, oak dresser, and oak bed frame.  He saw an open wooden door that looked like a closet.  About the only thing that didn’t make it look like a normal human bedroom were the luminescent lights on the ceiling, although the floor looked like hardwood.

It was lacking the personal touches of a bedroom, but it didn’t look like a hotel room either.

Aide asked a little nervously, “
Do you like it?”

He was speechless but Stacey said, “It’s wonderful Aide, thank you.  What about the lights though?  Why no lamps?”

They both felt a mental shrug followed by, “
It has to do with health.  The luminescence is as good as sun light, it takes more than just artificial gravity and radiation shielding to keep a human well in both mind and body.  These lights will serve the same purpose as the light of the sun, without the harmful UV rays of course.
”

He said softly, “Thanks Aide, it’s all great, and the rest of the ships are on schedule?”

Aide replied, “Yes Captain.”

He asked, “Captain?”

Aide said, “It is appropriate, now that you have taken command of the command ship.”

He frowned, he understood the need for military discipline, but his only subordinate was Aide and he didn’t see the point in this case.  She felt more like a friend to him than anything else; he wondered if that was a foolish thought.

Regardless he said, “Please continue calling me Kris.”

Aide replied, “
Okay.
”

He asked, “How about those three people, have you chosen them yet?”

Aide replied, “
Yes, I have three top candidates
.”

One of the walls turned into a monitor and it showed three pictures.  One was a woman his age who was quite attractive, the second was a few years older than him, and if anything even more exotically beautiful.  The last was a seventy year old man.  If it wasn’t for the latter, he’d have thought she picked the most attractive females she could find.

He noticed Stacey didn’t appear very happy looking at the women on the screen.  While a primitive part of him preened at the jealousy she showed he knew that could be a problem.  Besides, she had nothing to worry about, he was hers.

He said slowly, “Umm, Aide, how did you select these people?”

Aide replied, “
Using the parameters for what we require.  First, we needed someone intelligent and educated enough to get a grip on the current technology, one for shields, one for weapons, and one for power generation.  I came up with many possibilities and added additional parameters.  The first I added was no family, we can’t afford to take a husband and wife away from a family, and I am not prepared to bring families aboard.

“Two, I read their doctoral thesis looking for certain qualities.  After that I still had too many, so I looked for those that the academic community does not take very seriously and are working outside the field they love despite their brilliance, in the assumption they would be easier to recruit.  Does that answer your questions?
”

He nodded.  He understood the two beautiful women now; no man would take them seriously in the scientific community.  They looked more like naughty librarians than intellectual geniuses.  He just hoped that wouldn’t cause a problem, he obviously thought they were attractive, but he really wasn’t interested in that.  He was relieved to see Stacey didn’t look all that jealous anymore, if anything she looked angry on their behalf.  I was sure she ran into similar problems, she was gorgeous.

Stacey asked, “So when will we start recruiting?  We only have what, little less than twelve days?”

Aide replied, “
That is true, but at the same time not.  We probably have close to a month, I am on target for building our fleet and barring unforeseen circumstances it should be sufficient for the first thirty scouts.  It is the follow up waves that will become an issue.
”

He frowned, “So dumb it down for me Aide, how does this technology work exactly.”

Aide was silent for a few seconds, “
You understand nuclear reactions?  It creates heavy particles and frees massive amounts of energy.  Also, we have quantum connections, much like the spooky action at a distance your current understanding of quantum physics employs, except we know how to bridge a connection.”

A picture of the sun appeared on the screen.

Aide continued, “
This is our reactor.  Your sun.  In layman’s terms what we do is open multiple quantum connections into the sun itself.  This connection, or many connections, actually streams plasma through millions of small conduits on the ship, and then ejects it back to the sun through a reverse quantum connection.  These quantum connections are limitless in range, we could be across the known universe and the power from your sun would still be at the same strength.

“
Some of our systems directly tap into the plasma, such as our reaction engines which generates movement through gravity.  Our weapons systems also directly tap the plasma and in essence eject it toward the enemy.  The plasma balls are protected inside a shield that resonates and is attracted to enemy shields and ships, so it can change course even after being fired.