Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt Page 10

  The implantation spike penetrated the integument of Kirizzo2. The slave sphere rolled into place along the spine. Once in place, the sphere integrated with the nanomachines there, becoming a part of the Gorgalan’s internal network. Policing it.

  Kirizzo1 ran a test diagnostic. The sphere reported full function. It provided Kirizzo1 with the generated codes necessary to use it. Kirizzo1 wiped out his old authorizations on the base, the Clacker, and the Thumper, resetting them with generated keys only Kirizzo1 knew. Finally his attention switched back to the Trilisk AI. He set up the prayer screen to lock Kirizzo2 out. Kirizzo2 had to be prevented from using anything Kirizzo1 did not grant him.

  Kirizzo1 produced his stun device again. Reversing the setting, he canceled out the spinal interference that was paralyzing Kirizzo2. The implanted Gorgalan regained his feet and regarded Kirizzo1 directly.

  “I believe we understand each other,” Kirizzo said to his copy in Gorgalan.

  “Yes, master,” Kirizzo2 replied.

  Chapter 11

  Caden had thought of himself as fast for years. Fast reacting, fast moving, fast thinking.

  I had no idea what fast was before.

  He sprinted across the wide-open bay deck of the Clacker. His acceleration was so hard that it ripped up his sticky-soled shoes. Every few days he had to ask Arakaki for more pairs. He was not sure where she was getting them, but they looked just like the ones he had from Earth. He kept asking for stronger materials, stickier treads, and better fasteners. As he neared the end, he vaulted—first a somersault, then springing sharply upward off the deck with his arms. Time seemed to move slowly. He had time to think on every motion as he soared through the air for one or two seconds. He spun gracefully to land on a platform above.

  “Woohaaa!”

  He took a deep breath. His new body required a lot of oxygen to work. And it felt really good. No warm-up. No soreness. Just command and response.

  In training, both virtual and real, he had become fast enough to bat aside subsonic projectiles, defeat the targeting of many security robots by performing outside the human envelope, and move past security cameras so quickly a normal observer of the feed might simply think they were imagining things.

  This is so cool. I’m so much better now! This may not be the space force, but I’m in for some amazing experiences.

  If there was a downside to Caden’s new condition, it was only that he was not used to using his full abilities. He had been slowly ratcheting up his actions in the simulations with the others, moving faster, jumping farther, performing more feats of strength or agility.

  The entire team had been transformed. As the Clacker moved to their unknown destination, everyone strove to master their new capabilities with him. Yesterday, Siobhan had ripped a training android in half in frustration over a jiu jitsu move she could not master. Even Maxsym expressed appreciation at physical training for the first time. He was a near-sedentary recluse experiencing the talents of a natural-born athlete for the first time.

  Imanol seemed quieter to Caden. Brooding. Worried.

  Caden’s link clock announced 0800 ship’s time. He signed on to an exercise organized by Magnus as he ran to the common room. He challenged himself. Caden sped through the corridors and rooms of the Clacker. At a sharp turn, he leaped into a wall and rebounded off it to make the next corridor. He arrived at his destination in nine seconds.

  His sudden arrival startled Siobhan, who had already arrived, but once she saw it was him, she only smiled. He sucked in vast quantities of air and tried to cool off.

  Magnus connected with them from elsewhere.

  “Today I’ll introduce our soldier robots and familiarize you with working alongside them,” Magnus said. “I sent you all pointers to the basics last night. Any questions up front?”

  I wonder if he’s just checking to see if we all reviewed the information, Caden thought.

  “How many do we have for use?” Maxsym asked as he arrived in the common room with Imanol close behind.

  “Twenty to bring, with twenty in reserve. If necessary Clacker can produce hundreds more given a day or two.”

  “Why not bring all forty?” Caden asked.

  “We will if it looks dangerous right off,” Magnus said. “Some of them may need to defend our base camp. But long story short, we don’t need to show our full strength right away.”

  “Do they coordinate with the scouts?” asked Siobhan.

  Magnus smiled. “Yes, they do. Mostly only for targeting information, though. They don’t really involve the scouts in attack plans unless I tell them to. That should only be for desperate situations, since the scouts are a lot less powerful.”

  Caden nodded. Though it was fun to participate in simulation contests like Blood Glades, he knew in the real world, robots had front-and-center stage when it came to combat. They were faster, tougher, and expendable. Though since the body switch, he felt as fast as a robot himself.

  Magnus’s robots were hardly military grade. But having them along would help make him safer. Caden knew that intellectually, but somehow he still felt self-reliant, probably from the Blood Glades competitions. He had to keep reminding himself, soon it would be for real.

  “First up,” Magnus continued, “travel across unfamiliar terrain to a given destination accompanied by the soldier robots. Upon engagement, you must quickly assess: Do you want to break off under cover of the expendable robots, or assist them fully in an engagement you believe you can win? Remember, the purpose of the robots is to protect you, and if necessary, to die in your place. If it looks bad, you break away and ditch the robots to slow any pursuit.”

  Everyone nodded and connected to Magnus’s artificial world through their links.

  “You’ll each get a crack at team lead. Caden’s up first,” Magnus’s voice said.

  A chance to redeem myself.

  Arakaki had spoken with Caden privately. She said she understood what happened in the test and backed him. But she had made it clear: real life was not Blood Glades. So he had to apply the same skills in new situations. Not everyone was a foe. Not everything was a trap.

  Caden opened his eyes in the simulation. The Clacker’s sims environment was as good as ever, and so was his link. The fidelity of the experience was excellent, but Caden could still tell the difference. Knowing you were in a virtual world was more about what you did not feel than what you did. The virtual environs were smooth, more vanilla than real life: you usually did not feel aches and pains unless from something you had done since it started; you would not get an itch in your nose unless it was from some factor the designer had added; you would not see as many random, meaningless things as in real life. In a sim, things had clearer purposes and understandable sources. Everything was just somehow cleaner than real life.

  In his preparation for the space force, Caden had read books written by veterans about the differences between simulation and real-life action. One of the most colorful ones he had seen said, “In a simulation, you’re never in the head taking a dump when the attack comes”.

  The four recruits stood on an alien planet. The terrain was rocky. Low hills of sharp red rocks rose on either side. Patches of ridiculous-looking plants dotted the area. The things had bamboo-like stalks rising two or three meters to suspend round clumps of green hairlike material.

  Caden could not see very far because of the terrain and the trees. He accessed the mission data. Their destination was a bunker, only a few kilometers across the surface.

  “Everyone see our destination? That bunker,” Caden said. “We’ll give our best effort to reach that. If deterred, we come right back here. If we meet trouble and get split up, head to either destination at your own discretion.”

  So what can our new abilities get us? Need to think differently now. Things have changed.

  Caden leaped straight up. He cleared an extra two meters, seeing just over the tops of the plants. He could see they were blocked by a small copse, not a forest. He landed carefully
on the rocks.

  “Wow,” Siobhan said. “I have to try that.”

  “Unnecessary,” noted Maxsym. He dropped to one knee. “You can see past them simply by lowering yourself. There are no clumps near the ground.”

  Caden felt irritated at Maxsym. “I was experimenting with new abilities. We have to discover new possibilities our increased strength and speed allow. If we’re afraid to try something out and look silly doing it, we’ll restrict ourselves out of habit without even realizing it.”

  Imanol nodded. “Yes, our bodies are trained to our old limits,” he said condescendingly. “We should try to push ourselves and see what we can do. Doesn’t mean you have to turn your brain off, though.”

  Caden’s irritation at Maxsym evaporated.

  At least he’s not as annoying as Imanol.

  Imanol picked up a large rock and heaved it away. It flew several meters before bouncing along the ground. “This is close to Earth gravity? We are strong.”

  “Not as strong as robots,” Maxsym pointed out. “We could be remotely running robots, and be safe back at home.”

  He likes to poke holes in things, doesn’t he? Caden thought.

  “True, but if our connection is scrambled, then we lose,” Siobhan said. “Or at least, we would have to fall back on the robots’ isolated response algorithms.”

  “We have ten robots,” Caden summarized, choosing to ignore the conversation. He flicked through their vision feeds in his personal view. He settled on a bird’s-eye display that integrated what they all saw together and left that pane in focus in his PV. “Destination to the north.”

  “That way,” Maxsym pointed.

  “Should we rip though it?” Siobhan asked.

  “No, we should be cautious,” Caden said. “Let the robots lead the way. I’m sending them forward. I’ll put one behind us, just in case.”

  Did I really just do that? Caution. Hrm.

  The robots headed out. After a couple of minutes, everyone else started forward across the sharp red rocks. Caden had three of them scouting one hundred meters out, with another line of three at fifty meters and the last three at ten meters. He could see the closest three ahead of them when they cleared the first copse of alien growths. He could see himself in the vision of the trailing robot, so he knew it stayed within sight of the group.

  Each of the machines had several sensor mounts for a full sphere of vision, but watching the feeds that way overwhelmed even Caden, who, being the youngest, had the newest link and a strong visual cortex trained since birth to process vision from more than just his eyes. He flicked through the forward vision cones of the lead robots and tried to keep the entire view field of the rear robot in his head. It was difficult.

  The team also relied upon their master tactical view, which combined everything they had seen so far into one integrated model, with color variations to show freshness of information. Caden’s tactical provided a great overall picture, but it did not focus specifically on what was happening each instant, so relying upon it too much could get him killed.

  They traveled across the alien landscape for almost five minutes before a red object appeared in Caden’s PV. It was an enemy highlighted by a scout on his tactical pane. At the same time, a projectile launch cracked through the alien trees.

  Bang.

  “Everyone down. Form a circle,” Caden said. The others rushed to comply. From their kneeling position, everyone could see around the thin stalks that surrounded them. Their weapons pointed out in all directions like a spiny beast ready to defend itself.

  “Anything? Any more of them?” asked Siobhan.

  “Negative. The shot was from our own. Soldier Five sees something, just one. Forty meters to the right of our planned path,” Imanol said.

  “I think it’s a native life-form,” Maxsym said. “Some kind of long, reddish snake or tentacle.”

  “Okay,” Caden said. “It attacked Five, but it seems to have been put off. It probably wasn’t expecting its prey to be metallic. I’m putting two soldiers between us and that thing. We’ll continue, slowly.”

  “Got it,” Imanol said. Caden waited until Soldier Four joined Five a few meters from the snake creature.

  They moved smoothly around the creature. Caden did not even think it was much of a threat. But it was an unknown, and his mission was to reach the bunker.

  He expected the trouble would deepen, but it did not. They left the creature behind and picked up their pace again. He started to second-guess himself.

  Why wasn’t that more trouble? Have I overlooked something?

  Caden knew the first challenge of the day tended to be the easiest. He decided it was just that: a warmup exercise. By the end of the day, Magnus would have dragons diving out of the sky at them.

  It was not long before the next event.

  Boooom.

  The crack of a supersonic projectile echoed across the rocks. Soldier One went offline.

  “Someone shooting at us this time,” Caden said. The shot had not come from any of his machines. “Soldier One is down.”

  The other soldiers moved in on a wide spread toward the spot on their left where the machine had been destroyed.

  Boooom.

  Another distant shot rang out. Soldier Four was damaged. The robots had not managed to sight any sniper.

  Boooom.

  He heard another report. They lost another soldier machine.

  Whatever it is, we can’t see it. Their range is better than ours, or their ability to hide is good.

  Caden checked his overview map in a PV pane.

  We’re close to our destination. Hard choice here.

  “We break off and head straight east,” Caden transmitted. “We’ll take an indirect route. Quickly! Let the robots win or lose this fight without us.”

  “What if we meet more of them?”

  “Retreat if the new route is blocked. We’ll head back to the ship instead. Time to break out the speed as you suggested earlier.”

  Boooom.

  The team sprinted off to the east. Their new bodies moved very well. Caden felt a bit clumsy because his new legs ate up meters with every stride. He started to leave the others behind.

  Slow down. They haven’t been practicing their sprints on the Clacker like you have.

  He turned to wait. Maxsym was in the rear, though even he moved far faster than his old self could have. Siobhan tripped over her long legs but recovered by rolling three times and landing on her feet. Her suit kept the sharp rocks from cutting her skin.

  “Still two robots left back there,” Caden said. “Turn north now. We’re almost there.”

  Boooom.

  The team sprinted in the new direction. Siobhan was in the lead, running gracefully now. As she approached a patch of native plants, a reddish snake-thing struck from among the green clusters. It darted down, heading straight for Siobhan’s head.

  Siobhan grabbed the creature by one end in a flash. She pulled it around her, whipping it in a circle with a quick twist of her body, and sent it flying over the trees. She laughed.

  “Too slow! We’re so fast and strong I bet we could fight security robots with our bare hands!”

  “That would be Magnus,” Maxsym said.

  “What? He’s not here.”

  Maxsym shrugged. “Archaic reference. Never mind.”

  “Enough! To the bunker!” Caden urged. He was in the rear now, looking for any signs of pursuit. They ran for another long minute across the rocks, making incredible time.

  I want them to stay low, Caden thought. He ran ahead to take the lead. Follow me, keep a low profile.

  They ran through a draw, almost at the bunker. They just had to climb up a short cliff and they would be there. Caden knew they would be in the open. From the bottom of the cliff he jumped up, covering half the distance of the rocky wall in one shot. Then he found a narrow ledge and waited, weapon scanning the horizon.

  “Go, go!” he urged. The others hit the cliff and started climbing.
When they were three quarters of the way up, Caden gave up watching and started climbing. He half expected to hear the crack of a projectile weapon, but none came.

  At the top, Caden saw the bunker less than thirty meters away.

  “This is it. Pile in,” Caden transmitted. He led the charge for the ramp. Then his eye caught a glint of steel. “Stop!”

  The halt was almost comical. Maxsym and Imanol tried to stop quickly, but they simply crashed instead. Their new bodies were too fast, and no one had experience with a quick stop. Caden stood silently and kept talking over his link.

  “Grenade at the entrance. Someone’s been here.” The others spotted it: a small metal sphere tucked away beside the door, just inside the entrance.

  “Lucky the grenade didn’t have a camo shell,” Imanol said.

  It would have in real life. Magnus is just taking it easy on us first time today.

  “This bunker has been compromised. It’ll take time to get in,” Maxsym said. “There could be more than one booby trap.”

  Caden nodded. “There’s no one in there, though,” Caden said.

  “How do you know?” Siobhan asked on the channel.

  “The bunker has surface defenses. But they haven’t shot at us. We’re sitting ducks.”

  “As soon as they realize it’s just us four, they might start shooting,” Imanol said.

  If they are in there, we could attack now and catch them by surprise with our speed. If they aren’t, we might walk into more booby traps.

  “Storm it?” asked Siobhan.

  “No. I’ll kill the grenade. Then cover close to the entrance. We’ll do a scan and see if anyone’s inside.”

  Caden shot the grenade with his rifle.

  Boom… Brammmm!

  It saw the round coming and exploded just to spite them. The door of the bunker was so sturdy the grenade did very little damage. They ran up to the entrance.

  Magnus’s voice broke into the environment.

  “Caden, what’s your thinking on the bunker? Why the slow approach?”