Reclaimer [01] -
-o-
Imagine a giant snake the size of a kaiju, growing up with a bony plate over its face and formed as a living battering ram.
… no, wait, let's make this simpler.
Imagine Rayquaza; advised the "me" that contained the memories of someone born in the advent of the 21st century. Only, as a sea-dragon. A ginormous sea-dragon, nearly a kilometer long, coiling and looping in strange abstract patterns.
The ARM Commander had faced sea-dragons before, the native lifeforms of Hydross. We called them Sea Serpents, and they would spit out a cloud of corrosive compounds that could dissolve even monomolecule Heavy Armor. It was a pity I had to destroy them, but they were in the way of the chase after that last remaining CORE Commander and its Core Contingency - the Galaxy Implosion Device.
Sealurks were more dangerous. Bodies capable of withstanding the ocean depths, scales formed with natural compounds that served as ablative armor, and apparently capable of achieving speeds measurable in mach numbers underwater.
Fully mature sealurks were very, very, very big. One of them was wrapped around one of my Advanced Construction Submarines. The deep pressure hull was creaking.
I had no idea why – it didn't seem hostile. If anything, it seemed to be nuzzling the submarine. Maybe it considered the hammerhead-shaped submarine cute? The Adv. ConSub was in the middle of constructing an Underwater Fusion Plant. The warmth and brightness of the nanolathe was surely attention-grabbing at these depths.
I had another Construction Sub pull alongside. I had no attack platforms in the area, but the nanolathe could disassemble things into resources as easily as it could assemble things from teleported nanobots.
I ordered Submarine #2 to peel off the outer layers of its natural armor, that should sting without being harmful.
Whap.
A tail whip sent Sub #2 spinning out of control.
What.
What the hell.
The impact was not unexpected. I had a clearer understanding now of just how these Sealurks were reported to wreck havoc on shoreline bases. They could demolish buildings by hammering their faces into it, while its whiplike tail would splinter even reinforced concrete with repeated hits. Underwater, it had all the room it needed to build up momentum for the strike.
No, the problem was that we were attacked before carrying out the order.
(Submarine #2 – kill! Nanolathe in Reclaim mode at full power!)
And the Sealurk screamed.
Submarine #2 was removed from my influence. Of course, it was not like the clone brain inside was even capable of any fear, but it was still effectively paralyzed. Its senses were overwhelmed. Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
The ARM Commander controlled his forces with what was effectively telepathy; though more properly called quantum foam encoding. Circuits were triggered in another platform due to actions or thoughts in something else very far away, all practically instantaneously. The only limit was signal deterioration – the more units on the field, the less information can be successfully dis-entangled.
This was usually resolved through having multiple ARM Commanders on the field, or separating each assault group into self-directing units operating on a battle plan.
Planet had no such problem due to its neural network of planetwide fungal mats.
I was telepathic.
Planet was telepathic.
We used the same method of data transmission, differing only in encoding. Orders were pure information, and given the quality of the clone brains on the other end, the only emotion in that link would be mine.
Planet could read my intent.
-o-
"We have a problem."
"Yes. I can see that."
"We are trailing Isles of the Deep. I'm not really sure Deirdre would like to have… however many buttloads of Mind Worms delivered to her doorstep."
Nobel nodded. "You just bring the strangest gifts, Nemo."
"Could you both please take any of this seriously?" Jenny hissed through clenched teeth.
"Oh, we are. We are taking this very seriously." Nobel responded. "It is just that panicking is not helpful to our situation."
There were fifteen floating islands following the Matilda, like the long trailing veil of a bride, fluttering in the wind. Eight Lurker-class submarines were arranged in a circle around the Hulk-class Transport Ship, like sword-armed groomsmen. We were steadily moving along at forty knots or about 75 kilometers per hour. We were five days out from Morgan Transport, and one by one they joined the procession as we passed the fungal mats clinging to the thin islands in the Straits of Prometheus.
"Where do these Isles of the Deep get that energy?" I mused out loud. "Mind Worm secretions gluing together so they float, okay, I can understand that. But what's the biological mechanism behind their water jet? What do they eat to power their high-speed movement?"
"The Centaurian equivalent of krill." Nobel responded. "Planet's waters contain motile algal life-forms that process natural nitro-oxide compounds from air and water with only the input of solar energy. They are in turn the primary food source of Centaurian krill, which serve as a highly-concentrated stock of biofuels. And of course, they also eat whatever it is that Mind Worms can eat, which appears to be everything including armor plate."
"I see. Planet sure does have a lot of these things that are not quite plant/not quite animal, huh?"
"Back on Earth, ours was the food pyramid, going from producers to apex predators, with a corresponding loss of energy with each level of the pyramid. Planet's ecology has astounding levels of energy conservation, that lifeforms that could be classed as predators can obtain most of the energy stored by first and second-stage producers."
"How can there be second-stage producers? Oh. Right, living refineries. Like Mind Worms and their planetpearls."
"Which until you arrived was actually the best source of highly refined rare elements on Planet."
I rubbed my jawline. "That's interesting. I wonder if tamed MindWorms and Xenofungal Mats could be a source of industrial materials?"
"We Explorers have managed to capture some individual Mind Worm specimens before. Taming is not exactly the right word, though they are surprisingly sessile when unprovoked. They are like most annelids, these worms are not even as smart as chickens. Trying to 'farm' Mind Worms runs into the obvious problems of having enough of them suddenly deciding to eat your face and lay eggs inside your brain."
"I see. It's like the difference between a grasshopper, which is beneficial to a field, and a locust?"
"Quite. The morphological change between a grasshopper and a locust happens simply because of overcrowding. Rubbing hind legs changes a locust from its green grasshopper phase into its yellow swarming locust phase. Mind Worms exhibit similar swarming behavior, but of course we cannot apply Terran models onto Centaurian models so simply."
We stared out at the Isles of Deep in peaceful contemplation for a few more minutes.
"Any idea why they're following us?" Nobel asked.
"Jen? Options." I replied nonchalantly. Off to my left, Jennefer huffed.
"Maybe it's the noise of the propellers? Something about harmonic frequencies?" she replied. "It could also be the speed and volume of water being displaced. What if they're following us because we seem like a large enough Isle of a Deep to serve as a leader?"
"For the first, my submarines don't use propellers. They use a gas-based supercavitating propulsion system. It's why they can keep pace with the Matilda even at full speed."
"That just makes it much more likely!"
I nodded. "EM signals may spike the interest or anger of native life. But that leads to the question – why aren't colonies under constant attack because of their constant low-level EM and radio emissions? Planet should have retaliated against human impact by now."
"Thinking of the Mind Worm as Planet's immune system is pat theory that doesn't really explain anything." Nobel had to point out. "It creates a divide between 'natural' and 'unnatural' in the ecosystem, when the divide should be between 'symbiotic' and 'competitive'. The Mind Worms utilize portions of the EM spectrum to sense their surroundings, and as such they likely react to what they perceive as an attack."
"I'm surprised. I thought Gaians were all about 'Planet' having its own form of distributed intelligence that responds to human actions."
"What are you talking about?"
Oh. Oh shit. Deirdre had yet to formalize that doctrine.
I coughed. "As for the second scenario, that assumes that Isles of the Deep do have that instinctive behavior. We have a hypothesis. So we need to experiment!" I turned around and grinned. The crew had gathered in the bridge in preparation for what was already plenty obvious. This was an unmatched opportunity to study Centaurian native life. If I did not raise the point they were about to ask permission to unhook a lifeboat and take samples.
"Nemo…"
"So, who wants to be the first suicidal idiot to poke at a living island full of ravenous Mind Worms with a stick?"
Only silence greeted my announcement.
"What?"
Jennefer twiddled her thumbs. "Umm. Sir? We've all done that."
"Even you, Jen?"
"Even me, sir."
"Balls." I grinned wider. This was why I liked these people.
-o-
At full speed it would take us twenty-five days to reach the Song of Planet, the Gaian's third and newest colony facing the Sea of Pholus. That suited the Gaians with me just fine. This was a great opportunity for research – never before had they encountered Isles of the Deep that were not attacking from ambush or swimming away beyond the ability of little Foils.
"Day by day theirs numbers are increasing. Like, what the hell." There were now nineteen island-sized monsters on our tail.
"We are getting so much data!" Jennefer squealed.
"This may save so many lives in the future." Nobel said to me. "Mind Worms are surprisingly complex organisms, and we still don't know what triggers their attacks or how they coordinate."
"Ant brains are tiny, but they're capable of some very sophisticated behaviors. Like army ants. You don't need to resort to distributed intelligence when instincts and swarming behaviors can apply just as well."
"Nemo, you're the one that keeps bringing up distributed intelligence."
"… crap."
"What do you know about Mind Worms?"
I shrugged. "Practically nothing."
Nobel coughed into his fist, sounding suspiciously like 'pshyearight'. "And theoretically…?"
I sighed. "All right. First, the psychic attack of the Mind Worms is a repeatable, testable phenomena, right?"
"Right."
"And therefore as scientists, because we know it is repeatable, it is testable. So, here is the problem – by what mechanism is the psychic attack affecting human brains?"
"There are quite a few theories about that."
I looked aside. "Jen, have you ever experienced a Mind Worm psychic attack?"
With her lips pursed in a thin line, she nodded. "Yes, I have."
"What's it like?"
"Fear. Fear like nothing you've ever felt. Fear to steal the air from your lungs. Fear so bad you'd do anything to get rid of it…" She hugged herself and shivered. "It's death, sir. It's what dying feels like."
Nobel leaned back on his chair, and drummed his fingers on the table top. "It doesn't affect everyone the same way. Some people feel like they're burning to death, others find themselves unable to breath and drown inside their own breathing masks, others go on a psychotic break and kill others around them before they're killed in turn, while others find it a great idea to commit suicide. Fear is such a neat little word, but it rules the human existence."
I nodded. Fear could overcome anger, hunger, fatigue, and in an instant reduce a man from the super-predator into something less than an ant. Worse than the sudden animal fear was the fear that developed slowly – paranoia, self-loathing, timidity, and cowardice.
Yet also the counter to fear was a prepared mind.
Huh. Long term exposure to Mind Worms just might explain why the Cult of Planet could stand to live in such an unsightly manner. "Jen, make a note please. What are the effects of long-term exposure to the low-level psychic emanations made by Mind Worms?"
Jenny flipped open a notepad and did so. "This sounds a bit unethical to test, sir."
"Nemo, if you think loading people up with dopamine activators would suppress the effects, let me tell you right now – it won't work. The University shared some of their research. It doesn't matter if you're high as a kite when you meet a Mind Worm. It's even worse. Those who can resist psi attacks need that clarity to keep moving despite their brains vibrating from the inside."
I beamed. "That's what's so curious about it, isn't it? It doesn't induce some chemical changes, it seems to stimulate those neurons directly. If it was ultrasound or some other wave effect, then masses of concrete and armor should stop that cold. There should be attenuation from distance."
"It does, otherwise running away from Mind Worms would mean nothing. If there was a medium for its transmission, that would imply it's possible to block the effect, yes."
"This is straight-up telepathy, bitches." I raised my index finger. "And telepathy, by default has to go both ways. Whatever is being triggered in the receptor must also echo in the transmitter because how else are you supposed to know something is happening?"
"So, what are you saying? That Mind Worms are… projecting? That the fear we experience is not our own?"
"This is one of my pet theories… just a theory, mind you, and I'm not particularly inclined to test it… that the Mind Worms are empaths. You feel fear as they feel fear, and that is an expression of the natural symbiosis of Centauri life-forms. The prey and the predator become as one in the moment one ceases to exist. And why do they swarm over you, chew into your eyesockets and lay eggs into your skull? Because they want to fertilize you."
"That's horrible." Jen gasped. Her cheeks puffed up, holding back a sudden need to vomit.
I tried to phrase it more delicately. "The mind that they remove is being replaced, much like an ethical logging company plants two new seedlings for every tree chopped down."
Nobel rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I'm not sure what to feel about that."
"Welcome to Planet." I spread out my arms. "The problem isn't that this deathworld wants to kill you, the problem is that it's a goddamn yandere."
Nobel punched me in the shoulder. "I have enough nightmares, Nemo. Thank you so much for that."
"We need to get rid of these Isles of the Deep asap." I sighed.
-o-
Jenny spoke into a voice recorder. "Test number one, Centaurian life form response to high-energy transmissions from an autonomous testing vehicle."
It was a microwave oven we took apart, hooked up to a megajoule capacitor, and put on an inflatable raft. It was tethered to the end of the Hulk-class Transport's massive crane as if it were a fishing line.
The Gaian engineers were set up at the roof of the Matilda's superstructure. It was high enough and we were moving fast enough that wind was a serious problem. The rest of us stayed inside the bridge to monitor the situation.
"Pulling the switch in five, four, three, two, one – cyclotron activated."
The testing rig began bombarding the nearest Isle of the Deep with pulses similar to radar. The Isle of the Deep responded by tilting slightly to the side. One-second signal. Five second signals. Five seconds on, five seconds off. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds.
"I don't see anything." I spoke up. The main screen showed the testing rig bobbing in the Matilda's wake. "Or feel anything."
The testing rig exploded.
"Test number one, Centaurian life form response to high energy transmissions from an autonomous testing vehicle. Electrical overload in transmission apparatus." Jennefer announced
"Psi attack caused electron build-up inside the apparatus." I scratched my head. "I have no idea how that's possible."
"Interesting. Without the emphatic response, does this mean it just keeps trying and trying to get something back until whatever it is triggering by the psi attack goes silent?" Nobel mused.
"Radio doesn't attract angry Mind Worms…" someone said in a high-pitched voice to disguise his or her identity while hiding behind the taller Gaian crewmen crowding around the holotank display. "We were wrong about that. Radio attracts horny Mind Worms."
Winces all round. "I don't think that's quite accurate…" Jen mumbled.
"Whatever the mechanism used for psi attack, I don't think it's in the electromagnetic spectrum." I said. "If it were, we could shield it with enough lead. Jen?"
"Test number two, Centaurian life form response to high-energy transmissions from an autonomous testing vehicle, protected by heavy lead casing."
The second testing right was protected by a Faraday Cage and then sheathed in lead walls two inches thick. I just 'found' them lying around somewhere (cough ARM Commander nanolathe cough) to the absolute belief of just about nobody.
After a few minutes, the guide wires reported that the insides were a burnt-out mess.
"So, not the spectrum. If it were, we should have experienced an increase in energy levels from the sensor behind the slit for the energy projector." said Nobel. "Just because we expected it to happen, it doesn't hurt if our hypothesis is verified. That's what testing rigs are for." This he said to remind the engineers that their efforts were appreciated, even if it seemed to be wasted effort.
I nodded. "So then, test three?"
"Test number three, Centaurian life form response to high-energy transmissions from a remotely controlled testing vehicle." Jennefer announced.
"Hmm. I'm still not sure about this test. We're veering into some pop psychology bullshit here, aren't we? We humans have a tendency to treat our objects as extensions of ourselves. How are Mind Worms supposed to tell the difference?"
Nobel sniffed. "Maybe, maybe not. If it's actually telepathy, we need to know if human brains emit something they can detect."
I'm a machine telepath; I did not say. I needed an implant replacing my hippocampus just to be able to receive and transmit on a limited basis. It was powered by a miniature radiothermal battery. How are squishy flatline brainmeats supposed to do that? They do not have the energy levels. I had little confidence in the test results, but the future history of this world spoke otherwise.
Testing platform Number Three floated into place while the inflatable rafts from tests One and Two were being reeled back for reuse. The third rig was a wire-guided miniboat. "Bridge, this is the Engineering Team. We're having problems controlling the test platform, the waves kicked up by the Matilda's wake are too strong."
Captain Nobel looked away from the screen to inspect the robot boat through his binoculars. "All right, I suppose this will have to do. Wiggle the boat right and left as much as you can, have it act like a living being and pretend you're saying 'hello!' when you activate the transmitter. Thirty seconds movement, then pulse the magnetron for five seconds on and off."
"Copy. Approaching optimal range, will commence in five, four, three, two, one – initiating."
Test model three completed the sequence. It lived.
"Huh. No response."
"This one is meant to be more life-like, if there were creatures that communicate via radio – which is not an unthinkable prospect." Nobel noted. "Cetaceans have sonar, bats have echolocation, it makes some sense that 'blind' creatures might use invisible regions of the spectrum for navigation."
Jenner said "I'm actually fairly sure that Centaurian native life do communicate something through EM, or they wouldn't even react to radio waves. Electroreception in sea life is common."
"But the sticky thing is that Mind Worms are a terrestrial vector. Air is much poorer conductor for bioelectric fields and lightning storms would mess them up every time." I replied.
"But a natural radio receiver isn't that unlikely."
"Yes, but what sort of selection pressure would evolve Mind Worms to receive and respond to radio anyway? The fungal mats emit a natural EM flux. What's the point of it all compared to biochemical triggers?" I paused and began to walk around in a small circle. "When Planet's orbit takes it closest to Alpha Centauri B – Hercules – this Perihelion Event warms Planet, dumps so much cosmic rays into the atmosphere and encourages the growth of native life. This happens every eighty years, and the next one will happen in 2190."
Captain Nobel nodded. "We know this. The orbitals are predictable."
"So when there is an increase in cosmic rays… ambient radiation… Centauri life is stimulated to breed. All right, I can understand that. Higher incidence of mutation, but also greater chance of beneficial natural selection. But why would it respond to directed radiation so aggressively?"
"Planet is big and unexplored, sir. Perhaps there is a creature out there that is an organic radio transmitter. Perhaps there was once a creature like that, the same way our dinosaurs were made extinct and evolved into birds instead."
"Like I said, they're not angry. They're aroused Mind Worms!" said again that person from before.
"Who said that?" Nobel whirled about. No one answered, all were too busy at their stations.
I looked up at the main screen again. "By the way, how many microwave ovens did you guys buy anyway?"
"Eleven, sir." Jen replied promptly. "And we only made seven testing rigs. Four remaining now."
"You know, I'm rather surprised no one's tried robot-based experiments like this before. It's clearly within your tech level and surely they don't take up that much room inside a Rover or Explorer Foil."
"It's the difficulty in having Mind Worm boils staying put to oblige or not trying to eat our face off, sir." Jen said with a shrug. "This is very much a priceless opportunity."
"I see. Bridge to Survey Team. Did you name that robot out there?"
"Yes, sir," the crew at the roof replied. "It's named, uh, Marleen."
"Marleen. Marlin. Hm. I don't know why that sounds familiar…" I turned to Captain Nobel. "Marleen's probably going to be lost from this, but could we return to a focused electron beam while still moving around and the guys thinking 'HELLO!' even harder at the Isle?"
"That is the next phase of the experiment, yes."
"Survey Team, this is Nemo. Please do so, but think really hard alternating 'HELLO!' and 'DON'T KILL ME' in as you pulse the signal."
"Understood, sir. Fifteen-second duration directed signals ready to commence."
"Do it on three." Nobel spoke up.
"Aye, captain. In three. Two. One. Activating."
"Come on, Marleen." I whispered. "Don't die from this."
The Isle of the Deep erupted into pink. Mind Worms poured out of the holes. The test robot kept throwing its high-frequency radio signal at it, and the worms concentrated around the point where the beam touched the Isle of the Deep.
"Stop transmission." I said suddenly.
The crew stopped transmitting. "Bridge, we're reading buildup in… Marleen is burnt out, repeat, Marleen is burnt out."
"Psi attack." Nobel commented unnecessarily.
"Sir, we're seeing movement in other Isles of the Deep." Jen noted. The main screen circled in red two Isles of the Deep. "Also the subject Isle of the Deep."
The nearest Isle of the Deep surged forward and nudged the test rig. Mind Worms swarmed over the miniboat, some of them falling off into the ocean.
After some time, we realized that the two other Isles were trying to get closer to our ship, not the test platform.
I had no need to go to the wheel. Standing there at ease, with my arms still clasped behind my back, I said "Matilda, full speed." The ship lurched under my feet.
No one was surprised by this. By this point I'd already admitted to them that I didn't have any other crew, not even in those submarines. No one was at risk. All my machines were automated, and no; there is no risk of a Skynet situation. The ARM Commander would not have hesitated to tell them about why cloned brains were better and more moral compared to personality chips, but fortunately the "me" that understood 21st Century more understood that people were quite squeamish about such things.
"Fascinating. I wonder, does this mean both theories are plausible?" Nobel said. "The only difference between Test Platform Two and Test Three 'Marleen' was directed movement. It's not motion, we know they're not fooled by motion, we tried this with dummy balloons before."
"Psi Attacks do have range limits, otherwise we'd be writhing on the deck by now." I said. "They can't hope to close the distance with this fusion-powered ship." I clenched my teeth. "This bugs me. This bugs me so much. How does it transmit without a medium or any particle carrier and yet still bypass defenses in the way?"
"It's a field, obviously. You can leave the domain of a field."
"I refuse to call it an Absolute Terror Field."
Captain Nobel blinked. He nodded somberly and patted my shoulder. "And that is why you are a better man than I, Nemo."
"Sir!" Jen shouted in alarm.
I turned around, but already the ARM Commander knew the issue and relayed the information into my head. Up on the main screen the radar showed two blips from ahead our ship's heading. They appeared as if out of nowhere. How the hell did floating islands sneak up on my frequency-hopping shipborne radar? Weak cloak?
"Two Isles of the Deep inbound at an angle closing aft and starboard vectors. We can't evade them, sir." Jen reported, her voice only very lightly touched by panic.
Nobel rubbed at his chin. "This should not be a problem. Nemo has torpedoes. Regrettable as it is, sometimes it is necessary to destroy wild creatures to defend ourselves."
"But this is already atypical behavior for Isles of the Deep. What if doing so attracts even more of them?" She took a deep breath. "And what if we're wrong about the range of an Isle of the Deep's Psi Attack?"
While I stood there, clenching my fists, Nobel ordered the engineering crew up top to return and for everyone to equip themselves with flame guns.
Something wet and warm slid into my brain.
And once more I stepped onto a world plated entirely in metal.
-o-
####
MEMSTOR keyword "Cloaking"
- n retrieved:
Cloaking is separate from Jamming. Primarily, cloaks refer to rendering a unit invisible through direct observation and passive sensors, while jamming disrupts active detection mechanisms of the enemy.
All ARM and CORE units have a passive ECM and spoofing suite that renders them functionally invisible to most forms of detection until visual range. This is known as the 'weak cloak'. It can be defeated by Radar Stations that scan on many different channels including neutrino emissions, quantum foam trails, and the tell-tale transmission vectors used by Commander units. 'Radar', through linguistic drift, has come to mean 'to detect through active sensors'.
ARM actually pioneered the use of cloaking and jamming on the tactical and strategic level, allowing them to overcome the CORE's initial industrial and numerical superiority.
Cloaked units are invisible to the electromagnetic spectrum except at extreme point-blank range. They are still detectable through radar, but radar itself has limited range and can be spoofed by Jammer units. Cloaking is very energy-intensive. Cloaking a Fusion Plant takes approximately half its output, while cloaking the Commander takes eight times the energy output of its antimatter reactor per second. It is a time-distorted photon field effect, and energy use increases exponentially while in motion. Both sides developed a wide-area Cloaking Field to hide their bases from high-altitude observation, but in the grueling conflict this too became lost technology.
Only a few units and structures still have Cloaking mechanisms, in particular the "Infiltrator" ("Parasite" for CORE) Scouts and "Shooter" Assassin K-bots to allow them to sneak past enemy lines. The latter unit in particular is a careful balance of firepower and stealth, possessing a laser equivalent to an "Annihilator" heavy laser turret capable of destroying most units in one or two shots, but with reduced range and firing rate.
Since its usefulness is limited against fortifications, CORE has no equivalent Assassin unit but instead several speedy long-range Mortar and Rocket mechs meant to operate in teams with Jammer and Radar units.
