Desperate Measures: The Issog Read online

  "Do I have a choice, or has the decision been made?" I asked. I didn't like where this was going. The owner of a Robotics company didn't have a fleet of military cruisers, so I wasn't interested.

  "You will have a choice, but first the bad news. You must undergo an operation that has a twenty-five percent chance of permanently scrambling your brains with unpredictable results. If you survive the operation, there is a sixty-two-point-five percent chance you will be unable to adapt adequately to your new...equipment, which we cannot safely recover at this time. Finally, the equipment may be beyond your capacity to command."

  "What's the good news?" I was hooked and he knew it. Command. Besides, any project with that many negative outcomes had to have a prize worth the risks.

  "If you succeed, you will command a fifth century warship."

  "Where do I sign?" I quipped, but not in jest. He grinned in satisfaction.

  "I had a feeling from reading your file that you would be interested. You love commanding a ship for the sake of protecting the Commonwealth and are not interested in rank or glory. As of today, you're on medical leave. You can have as much time as you want to straighten out your affairs, visit friends and family, take a vacation, or whatever—because you're going to live and work at this facility, your available free time will be unpredictable, and..."

  "I could die or become mentally incompetent," I filled in his poignant pause. "I understand. Give me a week."

  "You can have a month if you need it," Mikel said. His face and tone carried real concern. "We want you healthy, free of any distractions, and ready to work."

  "I'd like to start today, but I know I'm not at one hundred percent, although I've told the doctors, the Office of Assignments, and every admiral who would talk to me that I was. Apparently, someone agreed." I laughed.

  "No. Everyone knows you're lying, but they're desperate. They want you on the frontlines fighting the Issog. You've got good instincts and have been consistently effective. You would have a command today, except Admiral Fossett believes this project has the potential to give us an advantage over the Issog. So when I selected you, he decided to give me a chance to recruit you."

  * * *

  The ride back to Utopia took about thirty seconds—or so it seemed. My mind went wild with speculation. What kind of a cruiser were they developing, and why would it be dangerous for the...captain? Couldn't be everyone on the Bridge or they would need a standard configuration, about thirty people for three shifts. Mikel had talked about mental problems, so the equipment most likely involved implants rather than robotics. And if he knew it could cause mental problems, then there had been other lab-rats before me. How many? More than one, since he had a probability ratio for several scenarios. That also meant someone, or maybe several individuals, had succeeded. If so, why was I important? Were there other candidates?

  I stood on the curb, my mind a blank, wondering where I was as the vehicle sped away. It took several minutes for me to realize I was outside the Senior Officers' temporary quarters—in my case, permanent quarters when not on assignment. I had been married twice, the first time to a civilian. That didn't work out because I was on ship assignments more than I was home. He got lonely and found someone to warm his bed when I wasn't there. I didn't blame him. In truth, I could have had more dirt-side assignments if I had wanted—I didn't. The second time I thought I was smarter and married a Lieutenant Commander. The problem was he enjoyed flying as much as I did, so we seldom saw each other. That might have worked out—eventually we both would have retired on some planet—but he wanted kids. I wouldn't have minded, but what were we going to do with the kids after they were born? Neither he nor I intended to stay home and raise them. Have them and hand them off to someone? Even I'm not that selfish. In the end, it didn't matter. He died two years ago, fighting the Issog.

  That made me an ideal candidate. No family ties to get in the way of work, nor to grieve if something happened to me. Another reason to hate the Issog. My father, mother, brother, sister, nieces, and nephews all lived on the planet Kammu, which the Issog took control of early in the war. They could be alive or dead. There was no way to tell. Dead, I hoped selfishly. There were lots of unsubstantiated stories that the Issog lived on blood and they were using captured humans for their food supply. Not too unlike us raising animals for food, if you could compare humans to cows or chickens, but the thought of breeding humans for a constant blood source made me want to vomit every time the uninvited thought crept into my mind. At least the lizards didn't want to eat us. They just considered us pests—like rats—that needed exterminating.

  I concluded I didn't really need to change anything for this assignment. My life was organized around fulltime ship duty. What I needed to do was to get my head on straight—clear my mind of everything but my new assignment. I dialed up an old Hungarian goulash dinner on the food genie, opened a bottle of red wine, changed into pajamas, and settled down in front of my house communication unit.

  "Alex." I had named my unit after my late husband. "Display Utopian resorts. List ten at a time in order of their ratings." I spooned in a mouthful of steaming hot goulash while I waited. As I chewed, ten resorts appeared along with a picture of each property and a brief description of its location, amenities, price, and rating. "Save Rocky Point, list next ten." By the fourth ten the ratings had dropped to four stars. I disposed of what was left of my dinner, refilled my glass of wine, and settled back down in front of Alex.

  "Alex, display my saved list." Immediately six resorts appeared. I spent the next two hours researching each resort, slowly eliminating one at a time until only two remained. "Alex, using my profile, select the resorts most likely to meet my needs," I said, unable to decide between the two.

  "Zoe, are you intending to relax, celebrate, or hide?" Alex asked in a baritone close to the real Alex's voice. I laughed. That might have been the reason I couldn't decide. I didn't know what I was looking for.

  "Relax." I finally decided.

  "Willows Resort and Spa," Alex responded. "Would you like me to schedule it for you?"

  "Yes. Ten days beginning tomorrow." I settled back with a refilled glass of wine, feeling relaxed—no more hypothetical questions. The answers suddenly didn't matter. I'd find out eleven days from now. My job for the next ten days was to heal mentally and physically.

  * * *

  A Time to Relax and Heal

  "Good morning Zoe. Your travel arrangements and resort reservation are on your ICD, Intelligent Communications Device. A limo will be here in two hours to deliver you to Wycant Airfield for your shuttle to the Willows Resort..." Alex went on to detail the type of shuttle, travel time, food available, room accommodations... I listened abstractly as I finished a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. "Are those arrangements satisfactory?"

  "Yes, Alex. Most satisfactory." Alex had booked a luxury vacation, including the transportation. Expensive, but I could afford it. Most of my salary stayed in the bank. It was hard to spend credits when most of your year was aboard a cruiser assigned to a theater of war.

  When I arrived at Wycant Airfield I was surprised to find a private shuttle owned by Willows Resort.

  "Good morning, and welcome aboard. I'm Susan." The trim blonde attendant in a light blue pantsuit paused to look at her tablet. "Would you prefer Miss, Mrs., or Captain LaFon?" she asked. I hesitated. I'd been a captain for so long I had begun to think it was my first name.

  "How about Zoe, if it isn't against the rules." I was supposed to be relaxing and clearing my head. Given that, I would try and see if I could forget the war, death, or anything even remotely connected with the Issog.

  "You're a special guest and our only passenger, so you make the rules, Zoe." She waved toward the shuttle’s interior. "Take any seat you want, and change seats as often as you like. Can I get you something to drink while our pilot tries to figure out how to get us airborne?" Her amused smile would have reduced any male to jelly.

  "Coffee...with something interesting
in it. You choose," I said, working to get into this relaxed mode. On a cruiser, I never drank or ingested anything that would impair my judgment. You never knew when the space jinni would appear, and if you weren't at your best, people died. I looked around and finally chose a couch. The shuttle looked to hold a minimum of eight people in real comfort. The seats were covered in a light tan leather material, padded everywhere, adjustable, and most swiveled. The takeoff was impressively gentle. A minute later Susan returned with a steaming cup of what smelled like coffee. She stood waiting as I took a sip. "Wow," I choked out. It tasted fantastic and warmth began spreading from my head to my toes. "What is it?"

  "Just ask for a Susan special. Everyone at the Willows will know." She disappeared, but every time I looked up from reading about the Willows and the area, she stood there asking if I needed anything. The inflight meal was steak, something I seldom see. The pilot circled the Willows Resort several times to give me a bird's eye view, while Susan pointed out the interesting buildings and trails.

  * * *

  For ten days, I did all the things I wouldn't normally do, beginning with having my hair cut short—the pony tail gone—shampooed and styled. Out with the old and in with the new. After a leisurely lunch, I scheduled a massage. I climbed on the table regretting the impulse and lay face down. The small Asian woman removed my towel, dripped oil on my back, and began kneading it with her hands. I squirmed and complained as she worked her fingers into my muscles.

  "You hard like rock. Break fingers. Wait." She ran off. A few minutes later she returned with two silver balls. When they touched my back, they were warm. Using her palms, she rolled them around my back, down my butt, on my thighs and calves, and up onto my back over and over again. At some point my whole body seemed to loosen and I moaned with pleasure. "Better," she said. "No longer tight."

  In the days that followed I had multiple massages, tried the mineral baths, went hiking, ate way too much, and talked with some very rich people about nothing and everything. As I stood waiting for the shuttle to land I felt relaxed, healed, and ready to work. On the flight home, Susan made me another Susan Special, symbolic of the clock striking midnight for Cinderella.

  * * *

  A New Beginning: Phase I

  When I exited the shuttle, the same black vehicle waited for me. It stopped briefly at my apartment for me to pick up the two suitcases I had packed before I left on vacation, and we were off. This time the trip seemed to take only minutes. I reminisced about my luxury vacation and how wonderful it had been to forget about everything except me. When I reached the wooden counter, the same young woman greeted me.

  "Good afternoon, Captain LaFon. Mr. Mikel is expecting you." She handed me a visitor's badge. After the non-disclosure papers I had signed, I expected a permanent badge. Shrugging, I clipped the badge to the collar of my blouse and entered the elevator. I almost panicked when it went down and not up. The door opened into a room the size of the building, filled with monitors, banks of computers, and equipment whose function I couldn't begin to guess at.

  "Welcome back, Zoe. You look...rested and ready for a new adventure. Carla, give Zoe her new credentials." Mikel nodded to a young red-headed woman sitting at a workstation a few steps away. "We don't use badges anymore. People tend to mislay them and they are easy to copy."

  Carla waved me to her desk. "Hold your eyes up to this machine."

  I did and saw two tiny lights off in the distance.

  "Good. Now place your hand on this pad and count from one to nine three times." She patiently waited for me to finish, glancing occasionally at one of the monitors on her desktop. After a few minutes on her computer she nodded and picked up a strange gun. "Give me your hand." When I did, she held the gun to the area under my thumb and the gun fired. I felt only a slight sting. "There, if you will type in a password. Six or more letters or numbers or symbols but nothing someone could guess at if they knew you—like Willows." She grinned. When I did too, she continued. "The system now has your eye, hand, and voice information. Depending upon what access you're requesting, it may ask for one or more of those items."

  Mikel collected me then. "Welcome officially to the AHI program, which stands for Advanced Human Interface and says nothing and everything. Come, for the next several days I will explain the AHI's goals, your part in the project, and introduce you to the members of the team."

  I followed him down a long hallway past rooms with floor-to-ceiling glass windows which had given me the illusion that area was one large room. About halfway, he ushered me into a room that look like a media suite.

  "Have a seat, Zoe." He picked up a tablet and typed for a minute. "I have always thought robotics were fascinating and useful. But unlike others, I never thought they could or should replace humans. Most robotic companies continue trying to make what they believe is progress towards that goal. Humans are unpredictable, which would lead you to believe they are trying to build unpredictable machines. They aren't. They want very predictable machines, Q.E.D., they won't be human. Ironically, it's that unpredictability that I believe frustrates the Issog and accounts for several of your successes." He stopped to look at me. I nodded after a minute's thought. "The conclusion is therefore that we need predictable machines controlled by humans. But humans are slow and machines fast—like matching a turtle with a dolphin. Consequently, I have for many years worked to improve the human interface with machines—specifically robots. My customers want machines which humans can control, and which are easy to reprogram on-the-fly. A few years after the Issog invaded us, the military became interested in my approach. They didn't want to eliminate the ship's captain, but rather to make him or her more efficient—machine and man working together."

  "You're talking about our physical slowness: keying information, talking, head and eye movement..."

  "Partially. The time it takes once you decide to punch a key until you punch that key. The turtle in action. Also, the time it takes to assemble the information, make that decision, decide on an action, and initiate that decision."

  "That appears a lot of work for a few seconds’ gain," I said while nibbling on my lip.

  "If you and the machines that controlled all of the Bridge's positions were one, you would still be a turtle, but with longer legs and a lighter shell."

  "All right Steven, you lost me." I wasn't sure I understood what he was driving at, but I knew it was way beyond what I was thinking.

  "The Captain controls the ship through people at various stations: navigation, ECM, weapons, etc. These individuals interact with machines to implement the captain's wishes. What if you could replace all those people and talk directly to the applicable machines? You would be the ship, or at least, as much a part of the ship as the machines that constitute it."

  "That's impossible!" I blurted. The concept gave me a headache just thinking about it.

  "I hope not, because if it is, then we will disappoint a lot of people who have worked very hard." For a minute, Mikel had a faraway look. He smiled when a young man entered the room. "Zoe, I'd like you to meet Peter Lieser. Peter is currently the only person who has successfully completed the AHI program."

  "Then why do you need me?" Maybe I should have asked why there weren’t twenty others in training besides me.

  "Peter has successfully completed all the requirements, but the results weren't what we were hoping for. About the same as a Captain without the AHI enhancements. I…we were all very disappointed until I realized...conjectured the reason was Peter. Not that he isn't intelligent, far above average actually, but that he has never functioned as a military officer in any capacity. Peter has to think about things a Captain would automatically know from years of experience. I would imagine most Bridge Officers who have only served in one position would find it difficult to perform at an average Captain's level."

  "Too many think they would be better than their current one. I see your point, but won't have an opinion until I get to where Peter is. Sorry, Peter. It's nice to meet you
." I held out my hand, which he took with a firm grip.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you, Zoe. Your service record is impressive. Mr. Mikel was kind not to add that I don't have the killer instinct I imagine you...acquire in training, or develop when people are trying to kill you." He blushed slightly, although he needn't have. He was right. We were killers in a killing profession. I wasn't sure whether it was already in those of us who made it to Captain, or whether we acquired it because people—or blood-sucking aliens—were trying to kill us. Mikel interrupted before I could reply.

  "I'm assigning Peter as your mentor. He not only knows the program but has been through it, so he will be able to share his experiences and conjectures. I think that is enough for today. Peter will show you around the shop, introduce you to the phase-one personnel, show you to your assigned room, and help you get settled. Everyone who works at Next Robotics has permanent quarters assigned on site. Those who work on the AHI project have quarters on the second floor. Those who work on the company's robotic business have quarters in one of the two other buildings. Those employees are free to come and go when they are not working, and more than fifty percent have permanent homes elsewhere. AHI personnel are also free to come and go when not working or restricted, which happens when they are participating in an active phase with a participant. Then they must remain on site. They are also more closely monitored." He paused, awaiting my comments.

  I laughed. "Since I'm a participant, I assume that means I'm permanently restricted."