LF Friends, Will Travel

ODIN was getting frustrated with the situation. Even ignoring how absolutely rude it was for the Uhae to finally join the war during their holiday, everything about this damned situation was conspiring against them fixing this easily. The Terran AI’s first plan had been simple: Connect to the twelve ships through the data link they were broadcasting to every listening device on the planet, then open up all the airlocks and make some warp cores go boom… standard AI against organic stuff.

That was when ODIN found the first issue: There was nothing there. The connection was open, data was being sent, but nothing was on the other side. It would almost be a cliche horror story told to newly hashed AIs if it weren’t for the reality of it. It took vital time out of their attack to investigate and work out exactly what was going on, during which more innocent people were being led into the Uhae vessels.

Biological machinery. ODIN hadn’t seen anything like it. The entire thing was a theoretical possibility that the Terrans had never seen implemented before, simply due to how much easier it was to build systems normally. If only there was more time for them to look at these systems, some interesting concepts could be discovered. Since the Uhae seemed to be an XK active species, that might have driven them to use biological machinery over more standard builds.

But there wasn’t any time to just enjoy an alien system, and the entire thing was not… conductive, to the AI’s goal of stopping the attack—this left plan B. While the organic Parket had all been incapacitated by the current attack, the systems they used to defend the planet from such aggressors still existed, they just needed someone to pull the trigger. Someone like ODIN. The Terran just needed access to the anti-orbital weaponry.

This… was proving harder than expected. The Parket had seemingly, at some point during their time with the Terran Alliance, decided that the powers the Terran AI had were a bit too dangerous, so they had spent some serious R&D into anti-AI systems ‘just in case’ the Terrans ever became a threat. On the one hand, ODIN couldn’t help but feel a little proud of the crazy chaos birds taking their fate into their own wings. On the other… it really did hamper his ability to shoot back.

With a digital sigh of relief, ODIN finally broke their way into the military network of Far-Sa-De… their jubilation stopped as they realised they had access to a single anti-orbit gun. It took a moment for the Terran to understand the horrible truth: They were all on separate networks. Perfect if you were trying to stop an AI from taking over your entire military, but terrible if you wanted an AI to take over your entire military.

Immediately ODIN began using what they had on hand, firing at one of the 5 remaining ships in orbit, before watching as one of them returned fire, disabling what had taken ODIN ten whole minutes to gain access to. The Terran AI took a few nanoseconds to give a digital forlorn sign of annoyance, before getting to work breaking into the next system. They hoped that Scellestra was having a better time of it.

—------------------------

It was like nothing else the Uhae had seen before. A metallic wall stretched along the beach, rippling and moving as the breeze touched it. They knew what lay inside the 100-meter-wide structure: 37 beings that the Uhae considered important enough to take with them. Each of the Uhae could feel the minds of those trapped inside pressing against the barrier, trying to join the Uhae soldiers as they had been commanded to do so.

The group of fifty weren’t particularly well trained or even wanted to be there. While the psychically attuned Uhae didn’t focus on it, they still needed conventional weapons occasionally, lest a single automated turret take out their entire fleet. Still, to be relegated to such a physical and menial job was a task reserved for the least powerful of the Uhae, those weaker in mind and strength.

“What do you think it is?” one asked, looking on confusingly at the… the… the whatever it was.

“I don’t think it’s natural,” another responded, causing the others to look on in annoyance at this statement.

“You don’t say?”

Slowly the group began to surround the strange structure, each one edging closer with slow, wary, inelegant steps, holding their guns out at the shining wall. One decided to fire at it, the plasma bolt blowing a hole through the barrier, only for it to slither and reform back into place. The others glared at the one who’d decided to do such a thing.

“What is wrong with you? You could have hit those inside! We want them alive!”

This stupid action had luckily for the Uhae not ended with any of their targets dead, so they continued, getting closer as they tried to work out how to remove the item that was blocking their path. One of the Uhae soldiers poked the wall with the end of their gun… and disappeared. One second the soldier was there. The next, the sands they stood upon gave away and with nothing more than the slight smell of blood and a lingering blue tinge on the ground. He was gone without even a scream.

Others started suffering the same fate; one, five, ten. Each one finding the ground they stood upon shifting into a devastating blender. A few managed to give out a cry of surprise, each abruptly stopped the instant they had started, but most died before they even realized something was happening.

Panic was eventually starting to spread. Twenty seconds and seventeen missing Uhae soldiers were enough to cause the untrained meat shields to panic and rout as more continued to fall into the deadly beach. They didn’t know what was going on, or what made these sands so deadly, they just didn’t want to be there anymore.

The remaining twenty-two Uhae were in a full panicked run now, each one not caring about their mission, just wishing to flee from the evil beach that ate people. Scellestra was in no mood to grant them their request. These things had done something to the Terran they had come to call a friend, caused the organic harm, and caused Ivan distress and pain that even now the Woolean could see and hear. There would be no mercy granted this day.

“Retreat, flee, something is-”

The sands finally billowed out, the nanobots expanding and taking to the air, chasing after the Uhae attempting to escape. One by one the swarm engulfed them, and one by one the Uhae just… fell apart, either into wet gory chunks with a tearing blending sound, or just disappearing into a poof of blue mist as millions of tiny blades tore the material of their bodies apart and added it to their own mass.

74.8 seconds was the time between the first sudden death and the last fleeting straggler being chased down. Once again, apart from the sounds of distress from the beings Scellestra was protecting, the beach was silent once more. While there was a limit to how big a Woolean could get, a surprising amount of mass could be acquired before that limit would be reached, allowing Scellestra to cover a significant portion of the sand with parts of themselves, awaiting their next victim.

Any who tried to take Ivan away from them wouldn’t live to regret it.

—------------------

Why was science so hard?

That was the thought that JOSH kept thinking as they wired up the changes required to hopefully bring their crew back into their own faculties. It really shouldn’t have been this difficult to set up, but the crew was causing constant distractions.

The AI took a moment to weld another door shut using the ship's repair drones. There was an annoying issue that JOSH was facing: Humans liked their backups. At any point, if something could be done with a computer, it could also be done or undone with some sort of mechanical bypass. Terrans had a constant paranoia regarding “What if the power went out”. This made keeping the crew in one place… harder than expected.

The good news was that whoever was controlling them didn’t have access to their knowledge of the ship's internal workings. The bad news was if you blindly pulled every lever and pushed every button, eventually, you could work out how to override the locks on the doors manually, and JOSH was starting to run out of doors to lock and weld shut.

The systems were never designed to trap people, that is not my function.

This would hopefully stop being an issue shortly, as the final modifications to the ship were made. With no time to waste JOSH switched the power to the new circuits, feeling the humming and wiring of the jury-rigged anti-XK device as it booted up.

The impact was instantaneous, all at once the crew just… stopped. No longer banging against the doors and walls trying to leave, each human just stood still as they felt the presence leave their minds. A laugh sounded out. A real one, one made up of the end of adrenaline after something scary had happened. The laugh spread, from person to person, each of them looking down at their limbs that they could now move on their own. Everything was going to be ok.

With a spluttering bang, the device whined and whirred as power went out. Bare metal connectors sparked off as the system was overloaded as the communal mind of the Uhae saw the barrier and crashed against it, thousands of minds using millions of amplifiers to collapse the anti-XK field like a soda can in the hands of a child. Once again the peace was gone, once again the humans were plunged back into their terror as the outside force gripped their minds.

God. Damn. It!

JOSH needed more power, the millions of amplified sources were too much to stop using the ship’s power source alone. An idea started to form in the AI’s mind. Their plan worked, they just needed to go bigger. They just needed an entire planet’s power generation to beat back this attack.

JOSH still had much work to do.

—------------------

“KNOCK KNOCK I HAVE CANDY”

The wall collapsed in on itself as the tank round blew a hole through the organic material. The booming digital voice announced itself as TANK crashed through the entrance they had made. Tens of Uhae barely managed to register what was happening before multiple sources of gunfire cut them down, many still connected to the Uhae communal mind before their physical bodies were torn asunder.

TANK didn’t stop as they continued to rampage through the landed Uhae vessel. Killing the enemy was a good start, and always a good move, but this wasn’t their real goal. While the Terran AI could have simply peppered the ship from the outside with antimatter rounds, there was the unfortunate problem of the ‘hostages’ that lay inside. Sometimes you needed a hammer for a job, sometimes a scalpel. TANK’s task was simple: Disable the ship so it could not leave with the civilians.

“I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU ABOUT YOUR SHIP INSURANCE!”

TANK burst through another wall, not even bothering to slow down as it plunged through the organic material with a wet tearing sound, followed by Uhae's screams of panic and confusion as heavy treads ran them down. The Uhae warmachine was dependent on the power of their psychic abilities removing all possible threats before they could attack them. Fighting an actual war was not something they were accustomed to.

The room was… beautiful, even if it was made of horrible creatures. Vines filled with flowers and fruits made up the walls, the floor a soft comfy moss, the likes of which might be found in untouched forests, and even a small stream ran through the room. 15 Uhae stood in the communication centre, all with vines wrapped around their blobby slimly nubby limbs, each of them moving and controlling the living entity that was the ship through their thoughts, leaves opening and closing to display screens made of glass and crystal.

Fire erupted from TANK’s main barrel, the bright orange flames catching easily on the leafy greenery around them, smoke filling the room and choking the Uhae as the Terran continued their rampage, bullets making quick work of anyone still standing as the AI continued to carve their path through the ship, looking for the main engines. TANK was no fool, they knew that panic and terror would only last for so long, they had a limited amount of time to do what they needed to do before they had to leave.

An echoing bang sounded from the end of a hallway, not from TANK. Damage. A glancing blow from an external source, one of his armour plates had cracked. A direct hit would have been far worse. It took mere nanoseconds to discover the source: A group of three Uhae firing a very large weapon, one that looked as if it had been dragged from the side of the ship into place, to await the AI in ambush.

“FEEL THE POWER OF GENERAL MOTORS!”

TANK's own shot was far more accurate, the weapon and its crew disappearing into a ball of fire, the AI hardly giving a moment to confirm the kills before moving on and continuing to drive straight towards their destination. The real difficulty was not destroying the enemy, but avoiding hurting others.

The ship was a depressing distinction between opulence and poverty. The Uhae’s quarters for the blobby disgusting creatures were expertly tended to and beautiful living gardens. Right next to them were bare unfurnished rooms of dirt and dead leaves where non-Uhae lay huddled in terror and despair as TANK rolled on by.

There would be time for them later.

TANK broke through a final door, leaving behind a trail of devastation in their wake as they entered the engine room. It was the closest thing to something you’d find in a regular spaceship; No matter what powers the Uhae had, the laws of physics were immutable and some things needed metal. Everything was sturdily built: You’d need a lot of heavy firepower to take out an engine like this.

Or just a TANK.

The barrage of fire was glorious, explosions and bangs as round after round of artillery slammed into the finely crafted, delicately created FTL engine. It took an average of 6 months for one of these to be created, and TANK turned it into scrap in a mere thirty seconds.

Then they were gone, blowing another hole in the side of the now very expensive paperweight, a mere 15 minutes after initially entering the vessel. They were off before a retaliation could be had: This was what TANK was good at.

—-------------

ODIN was getting faster. There was a minor security oversight in the Parket’s systems that made breaking into the defences easier. 5 minutes had turned into 47 seconds, and while each of their newly acquired orbital defences was quickly taken out as they were fired, ODIN’s barrage was starting to have an impact.

It almost felt… nostalgic. This had been their job, so many years ago, commanding large armies for the now-defunct UN. Sat behind enough weaponry to take on a fleet, it brought them back to their time assaulting the secessionists on Mars. The great colony rebellion, the end of the start, back when the only thing Humanity had to worry about were other humans.

ODIN spotted something strange. Another variable also assaulting the Uhae fleet. It took them a few moments to find a clear picture of the vehicle as it moved across the landscape with considerable speed. A tank. A Terran-made tank, firing some serious weaponry towards the ships in orbit. Clearly, ODIN wasn’t the only AI on the planet.

ODIN wasn’t about to look such a gift horse in the mouth, focusing their next volley of fire onto the same target. Something exploded, something important was hit, and a 2nd ship started to fall from the sky as the pair switched targets to their next victim.

This was almost too easy.

—-------------------

“Can someone please explain what is going on!?”

Saelihn was not one to lose their temper. It didn’t help matters much, it didn’t change what was going on, but now even the Queen of the Uhae could feel annoyance. Three vessels had been destroyed or incapacitated, 2 others damaged, and countless Uhae had died. This was an outcome expected from a race that could resist their gifts, not a planet that was fully under their control.

“Perhaps it is an automated system. We are targeting the aggressive weaponry where we can”.

Her first advisor spoke up, stress evident in their voice as they relayed the theory. That was the real kicker for the Uhae: they had no idea who or what was causing this damage.

“Have you ever seen an automated system this intelligent? There must be a pocket of resistance we missed.”

Saelihn responded dismissively, staring at her three advisors for answers.

“There are no signs of life, even from the machine that’s been tearing our glorious forces apart. I would suggest a retreat. If we leave now, we still can take half our expected targets, then we can learn from them what manner of madness these Terrans are using to defend.”

A crushing defeat, admitted by her second advisor. Fleeing from cursed beings with their own free will, unable to hide what they did, taking heavy casualties against what should have been easy prey. Such a result might even call for the Uhae to retreat entirely from the war, a devastating collapse for a first strike, taken out by an unknown foe.

But at this rate, it was the best option. Saelihn was not the kind of queen to fall for a sunk-cost fallacy.

“What if they weren’t lying?” The words were simple, quietly spoken by the third remaining advisor, but they caused all heads to turn in their direction in one go, each Uhae in the room awaiting further information.

“The Terrans claim that they have AI. That not only do they have AI, but that it is under their control. We initially ignored such claims as obvious propaganda, but now I’m no longer so certain.”

There was a pause, a moment as every Uhae briefly considered those words. AI was… heretical. Not only was it dangerous, but the idea of adding more cursed free will to the universe that wasn’t the Uhae’s… was disgusting.

“It would explain certain actions. There were strange electronic signals detected attempting to connect to our fleet, but we dismissed them as automated protocols.”

The first advisor mused the thought, each of them coming to the same conclusion: The idea did fit. If this was accurate, it provided a major problem for the Uhae. They couldn’t control an AI, an AI was immune to their entire way of life.

Saelihn then gave a smile, an assured smile, one that told her she knew exactly how to win this fight. The AI could not be touched directly, but there were other avenues of attack.

“Tell me. In their propaganda, what is the relationship between Terran and AI?”

There was a brief pause as the third advisor seemed to think.

“They claim to be equals, to be friends.”

Saelihn gave a small laugh at that news, simply looking upon her trusted compatriots.

“Then we have already won.”