Talisman of Earth Page 21

  At first, he had merely waited for the battalion to pass before attacking them from the rear. Moving quickly and using the foliage to his advantage, he was usually able to take out five to ten of the enemy before they surrounded him. On his third play of this simulation, Gray’s actions led him to a view of the terrain that piqued his interest. He chose to lie in wait on higher ground and attempt a sniping attack. As he scrambled up the ridge, he saw an entire line of trees canted at an eighty degree angle, leaning downhill toward the path. Their furry roots were lifting out of the muddy ground. Out of curiosity, he fired a few rounds at the sodden earth. The impacts rattled the trees, and several large, blue-green curled leaves drifted down around him. All was quiet for a long moment.

  Until the ground gave way under his feet, trees toppled, and the whole hillside slid away. Rhodes fell along with it, but was quickly engulfed in rolling piles of mud and undergrowth.

  He died in that sim, drowned in a mudslide. But it gave him an idea, so he tried to use the Ridge itself against the Valgon battalion the next time. Rhodes waited on the hillside until the enemy appeared in force, moving purposefully along the path. When hundreds of them were in view, he started to run, opening fire with his automatic rifle as he dashed around tree trunks. Below him, armor piercing bullets thudded through the exoskeletons of a dozen Valgons. Roars of pain greeted Rhodes’ ears as he continued firing.

  And then the enemy returned the favor, sending hundreds of plasma bolts, searing lasers, and micromissiles in Rhodes’ direction. The withering fire tore through branches and ripped up rows of tall, yellowish ferns. Rhodes didn’t have enough time to even turn away, let alone find cover, before his body was riddled with holes. Before the last light blinked out in his eyes, he saw scores of screeching micromissiles plow into the ridgeline at his feet, throwing up huge blots of wet earth. As he fell against the ground, he felt it begin to shift. That was all for that life.

  This time, he knew his plan could work. The key was living long enough to see the results. That was what mattered: the satisfaction. He found his position again on the hillside, and stopped against the strange back of an alien tree. It was wrinkled and covered in irregular folds, a bit like an elephant’s skin. From experience, he knew that you could drill a hole about ten inches into the center of the tree and it would leak a thin, sweet liquid that tasted a lot like green tea.

  A staccato sound of thousands of spiky Valgon “feet” marching in sync flew up from the path below. Rhodes tensed, rifle at the ready. He would have to time it perfectly. There were nearly three seconds between the time he started running and firing to the time he was killed. Rhodes had adjusted his position on the ridge several meters higher, putting him within just a few feet of the top. It shouldn’t affect anything negatively, he thought.

  When the battalion had filled the half-kilometer area of the path he could see, Rhodes began his ballet of death.

  Run right. Hold rifle tight between arm and chest, leveled at a twenty0five degree down angle. Pull trigger. Fire on full auto. Ten strides. The Valgons cry out. Twenty strides. The battalion returns fire. Trees shatter. Mud splatters. Red lasers slice through branches.

  Rhodes would have died in the next instant if he didn’t leap sideways. He tucked and rolled over the ridgeline at the same time the wave of violet plasma bolts shot overhead. Half a second later, the micromissiles slammed into the hillside. As Rhodes tumbled to a halt against a thicket of ochre ferns, he felt the blood-thickening, thunderous sound of the mudslide in his ribcage. He pictured the Alliance battalion spread along the path, looking up in astonishment as half a billion metric tons of roiling terrain and jungle growth broke away from the ridge and hurtled down on them.

  Nowhere to hide or run, they would jump and yelp over each other, their claws digging into fellow warriors. In the next moment, they would all be crushed to death and buried under vast mounds of ruptured earth.

  Gray Rhodes stood, sore and covered in dirt and debris. He hiked uphill through brush, and came out on the ridgeline to a beautiful sight. Hundreds of meters of hillside was laid bare to the rusty clay. Where the jungle path had been, clogged with a column of Alliance warriors, there was only a broad plain of mud and skewers of broken tree trunks.

  Rhodes smiled, and raised a fist in the air, ready to cheer for his victory.

  “Hey,” came a soft voice to his left.

  Rhodes whipped around, almost tripping on his own feet. There was Kyra Weller, wearing khaki pants, an olive drab poncho, rubber boots. Her long hair was tucked under a black knit cap, and when she grinned at him he noticed some slight wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

  “Kyra,” he said. A whinny startled him, and it was only then he noticed that Dr. Weller was holding a lead, which was connected to a shiny, chestnut-coated mare. The horse puckered its lips at him, showing off huge white teeth.

  “That’s Helga. Here, give her this,” Kyra said, producing a waxy red apple. Rhodes took it from her hand and held it up to the mare’s mouth. The horse’s lips brushed against it before plucking the apple eagerly from his palm.

  “Beautiful animal. What are you doing here?” Rhodes asked.

  “First, thank you for the complement. Secondly, you left this labeled as a public sim, so anyone can just wander in,” said Kyra wryly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Gray and Kyra ambled along the muddy rim of Siamith Ridge, her loyal mare walking behind them.

  “I’m guessing you visit this particular sim fairly often,” Kyra said.

  “Fairly,” said Rhodes, looking up at a plum-hued sky.

  “I crossed over just as the hill was coming down on the Alliance. It was quite a sight.”

  “I’m going to watch the replay from third-person view so I can see the looks on their ugly faces,” Rhodes squinted in anticipation.

  “It’s good to blow off some steam,” Kyra commiserated.

  “What were you up to?”

  “Exploring a procedurally-generated random exoplanet. My usual thing,” she winked. “I named this one Kablooey. Three supervolcanoes had erupted in a chain reaction event about thirty million years previously. The dominant species had died out and the world had been almost taken over by a form of sulfate-reducing bacteria-like organisms that existed in huge colonies. They oozed all over the place like big black blobs.”

  Rhodes’ chin crinkled in disgust. “Sounds scary. But boring, too. Scary boring.”

  “So if I’d been lugging around a gun and shooting all the blobs it would be less scary boring?” Kyra joked, nudging him as they walked. Helga neighed and shook her big wedge of a head.

  “Don’t blame me for having a little fun,” said Rhodes.

  A grunt sounded from near a jumble of twisted tree trunks, amid the sea of mire. They looked over as four Valgon arms struggled to keep a grip on the pile of half-submerged wood. The Valgon pulled itself partway out of the muck, an angry, pained cry emitting from its mud-caked mandibles. Rhodes let his rifle hang by one side, pulled a bone arrow from its quiver and raised his Althorian bow.

  Kyra watched Rhodes curiously as he casually nocked the ivory arrow, drew the bowstring, and loosed the projectile. It whistled into the thick air, striking the entangled Valgon through one of its soulless black eyes with a repugnant pop. Kyra trembled at the sound.

  “I’ve gotten pretty good with this,” Rhodes bragged, flicking the bow over a shoulder.

  “Too good, maybe. I’ve been meaning to ask how you’re feeling, since the...attack,” she said.

  Rhodes breathed deeply before answering, “Well, I’m still here. Doing my job. Thinking clearly, all that.”

  “I am really sorry about the twins,” Kyra said.

  Rhodes stopped walking. He turned to Kyra and took her by the arm with his right, human hand. “That wasn’t your call, Kyra. Sorakith and I, we both know that you were only following orders.”

  “One of the medics in Sickbay overheard when the Captain visited you. He told me you had it out with h
er over the hibernation. I almost wrote him up for eavesdropping. I almost didn’t let you and Sorakith in when we put the girls under,” Kyra spoke softly, her voice beginning to waver.

  Rhodes squeezed her arm gently. “I understand. Being in charge of something, anything, it’s tough. Every decision is a little fight, sometimes.”

  “It wasn’t that. I wanted to keep you farther away, Gray,” Kyra said, more firmly, as she gazed up at his dark brown eyes. He questioned her with them. She persisted, “We were close, almost together, for that first year, and then we weren’t. You began spending time with Sorakith. But that whole time, I kept thinking about you. Growing up on Freya. Flying with your Uncle and falling in love with it. Losing your family on Mars. You, almost dying after losing your arm.” She stopped herself from saying more.

  Gray pulled her closer, holding around her waist with both of his arms. He nestled his head next to hers and spoke quietly, “I remember everything, too, Kyra. You were there for me. Thank you for that.”

  Kyra pulled him tighter to her. “Why didn’t we work out?”

  “The ghosts were too strong back then. But they’re not, anymore.”

  “Ghosts,” she stated, the weight of the word bearing down on her.

  “I wish you hadn’t stayed so alone all that time,” said Rhodes, lifting his head from her shoulder and staring into her eyes.

  Without thinking, Kyra put her hands on Gray’s broad shoulders, lifted herself up on her toes, and kissed him. She had had enough thinking for one day.

  Rhodes met her lips with his, and the kiss went on.

  In a few minutes, Rhodes and Dr. Weller both stepped out of their sim units. They peeled their helmets away, Kyra revealing mussed hair and Gray a sappy, boyish grin. She stood there, in the chamber, with one hand on a hip, looking at Rhodes as if he were a three-headed ice burrower from Gliese-876d.

  “What’s wrong, Doctor?” Rhodes crowed.

  “That wasn’t real, Lt. Commander,” she said flatly.

  “It wasn’t? What would you call it, then?” He added with a smirk, “Roleplay?”

  “It was a simulation,” Kyra said as she unzipped her skintight black sim suit, uncovering sheer white underclothing. She turned away modestly.

  Rhodes pulled his suit down over his body, his light brown torso moist from all of the activity in the sim. He only wore briefs beneath it. “So be it. There’s room for each of us to think differently.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said, turning toward him again, suddenly not so self-conscious.

  “You aren’t going to convince me otherwise, Doctor.”

  “I could. There are drugs I could use.”

  “Mmm, drugs,” Rhodes said, taking a step closer to her. “That would be in violation of your responsibilities as Chief Science Officer.”

  She stepped to within a foot of him and stopped. Looking up at him, Kyra smiled foxily and said, “I suppose you would have to give me a reprimand, Commander.”

  Rhodes began to lean toward her, but in a heartbeat she put her palms on his chest, pushed away, turned, grabbed her clothing, and strolled out of the chamber. Rhodes was left alone. He groaned miserably, screwed his eyes shut and banged his head back against a wall.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Greg Hu and Carly Ming found themselves side-by-side, watching the two six-armed, wine-stained alien starfish cartwheel around the makeshift obstacle course. One would seemingly become stuck inside a spinning wheel, and the second would come along, bang into the wheel and knock it over to release its companion. Then, the two continued spinning on their merry way. Carly guffawed, decidedly unladylike, and Greg couldn’t help but catch the contagious laughter.

  Watching the starfish had become somewhat of a pastime aboard the Talisman since they came aboard after the LM-32f away mission. Dr. Seok Won Cho enjoyed keeping and caring for them as part of his duties in the tiny exobiology compartment. He had a host of equipment, all tidily packed and readily accessible, a workstation, some storage, and two clean rooms which were rated at top Level 4 containment. He had also convinced the Talisman’s Chief Steward, Petty Officer Dougal Taylor, to give him a cot so that he might sleep some off-shifts in the lab. “Convinced” may not be the proper terminology. Cho had more or less bribed Taylor with some of his private yeast brew that he quietly kept going in one of his storage closets.

  Cho noted that Hu and Ming had moved a few inches closer and were starting to talk in low tones. Knowing they had some kind of history together, he shuffled away to the opposite side of the compartment to tend to one of the DNA sequences he was running on the starfish.

  “Thy remind me of kittens. Sort of,” Greg Hu said.

  Carly agreed, “They do. Me too. I wish we had some real kittens aboard.”

  “Really? Pet hair. Dander. Not good for some of the systems.”

  “Oh, you mean not good because you’d be the one cleaning after the?” She jibed.

  Hu grinned, “Good one.”

  “Pets are good therapy for people. Stress-relievers.”

  “When I think of stress relief two things come to mind. One of them is combat training. And the other is not ‘kittens’,” Greg said.

  Carly Ming rolled her eyes and glanced back to the rollicking starfish. “We really need a better name than ‘starfish’ for these guys.”

  “Definitely. Hey, remember DXR-34c?”

  “I do. What about it?” She was clearly lost in the whimsy of the twirling alien playmates.

  DXR-34c was the first habitable planet the Talisman had stumbled upon, following the ship’s stranding. It had a somewhat similar atmospheric composition overall to Earth, but with slightly lower volumes of oxygen and nitrogen, and a slightly higher volume of carbon dioxide. It was also extremely humid, the air containing double the amount of water as found in Earth’s atmosphere.

  But the layer of air from sea level to several hundred feet above, planet-wide, was deadly. It was thick with methane generated by its biomass, which consisted almost entirely of a phylum of creatures that sprouted from the ground in fractal patterns. This resulted in a stunning variety of living things that, at first glance, most of the crew thought to be plants. In fact, the diversity of life on DXR-34c from that single phylum proved to be amazing. There were sessile creatures ranging in size from smaller than a blade of grass to mature oak trees, and there were mobile ones across nearly same scale.

  Their shoots and leaves, unlike their counterparts’ many-hued chlorophyll greens on Earth, were highly variegated shades of blues and purples, while their skins (“bark”?) were pliant and usually of gray and olive pigmentation. The massive tree analogue creatures moved slowly over the alien landscape on miles of root-like tendrils, like million-armed octopi.

  Even Lieutenants Rax and Sorakith remarked on how strange it was to wander such a primordial and upside-down world, and they had spent most of their lives traveling across alien planets and witnessing vistas most humans could only imagine.

  Greg Hu shrugged. “You had me worried there. After the pond exploded and you got that concussion.”

  “You sound like you blame yourself for it. None of us could have known that the water drone would set off a chain reaction. Besides, I lived,” she smirked.

  “It’s not that. Not only that,” Greg stammered a bit. “I tried to be there for you, and help you. But nothing was ever the same after. And you pushed me away.”

  “Things changed,” was all she said, not looking at him.

  “Yes, it was a hard time. But we all had it hard. That’s when you need someone else. When you should have someone else. I was there for you!” He looked down as he raised his voice, embarrassed. They could hear Dr. Cho suddenly start whistling to himself, open the hatch and leave the compartment, leaving the two of them alone.

  Carly sighed, “You were always good to me. And I’m sorry I’ve been so... unbearable? So tough with you. But it was the only way.”

  “Only way,” was all he said.

 
; And Carly knew she had to tell him. She had to tell him, or he might never move on.

  She said, “I fell in love with someone else. And I knew I couldn’t have you both, because I know you wouldn’t want that.”

  Greg took a step back bumped against the clean room’s partition. He brought his gaze up to meet hers, and began to nod casually, acceptingly.

  The hatch clicked again as Dr. Cho peeked in. He quickly shut it when he heard the staggering silence.

  It began as a flicker, an errant bit of data that drifted through his subconscious like a dandelion puff bobbing on a summer breeze.

  There had been emotions before, true emotions that he recognized as such. So had the League long ago, and humans more recently, realized that AI Cores were capable of such feats. Gulliver knew sentiment and caring for other living things; he knew fear when events spiraled out of his control; he knew anger when the Hartford’s AI, Ulysses, perished; and he knew sadness when numerous crew members died aboard the Talisman.

  The crew, humans and aliens alike, represented a precious cargo for Gulliver. To him, they were like cherished friends. They were his caretakers, and he in turn took great pains to maintain their safety and health.

  Part of his programming--one of his priority directives, in fact—-explicitly prohibited Gulliver and all other AI Cores from taking any action that could harm, or allowing by inaction harm to befall a crew member. That was law. It had been since before there ever was a real artificially intelligent being.

  But the seed took hold, somewhere deep inside Gulliver’s bio-quantum matrix, and it grew. Feeding on his other emotions, it thrived.