Broken Soldier (Book One) (14 page)

It is due to my intrusion into you thoughts,
Captain. I was able to see how your people communicate and how they
use intonation to generate further meaning. It helped me to
replicate your wife’s aura for you.

Mike’s built in time stamp told him the entire
exchange between them had taken less than a few seconds.
Incredible.

Without knowing why, he asked,
How do you feel
about that?

I think it’s…
she froze up for a moment, and
then,
I have no opinion on that. A computer gives responses,
based on the information it has on file, based on the direct
questions put to it and the implied intent of the being submitting
the request.

Mike noticed that after she froze up for that brief
half second, she began comming him in a more stylized machine tone,
lacking the very inflection they had been discussing. He suspected
there was a great deal more to Bambi than she wanted him to see. He
would talk with Jo about it, while Bambi was blocked from listening
in.

Oh yes, Jo. He was in the room with Mike. He
wondered if Jo had been privy to his comm with Bambi.

Using his slowly improving understanding of the
Mental Control Panel (MCP), he sensed the appropriate trigger for
his alien friend.

Jo, are you out there.

Yes I am, I’m sitting right next to you. I’m so
pleased that you’ve begun to grasp the method for using Bambi to
communicate. How are you feeling?

I’m feeling much better, thank you. Bambi has been a
tremendous help to me. However, while I am mentally awake, I’m
physically exhausted. How long did all of this take?

Jo coughed, before telling him,
It’s been five
weeks since the procedure began.

“Good grief, five weeks. Why so long?”

Jo shrugged, as a human would and said, “There was
no way to know how a human would react to the process. Bambi
monitored every one of your functions the entire time. She slowed
the process down, when it looked as though your body wasn’t
handling it well.

“As this was the first time Bambi had ever infused a
being with the combat upgrade, she learned a great deal. She is now
aware of human reaction to the overall process and specifically how
they respond to the gene therapy and the nanites. She will be able
to ameliorate the process a great deal for the next person to
undergo the procedure. She says that it will also make it easier
for me, when it is my turn to sacrifice for the common good of our
people.”

Mike shouted, “Do mean to tell me that Bambi had
never done this before? I was a fucking Ginny pig?”

Jo looked away, and then back. “Ah yes, Ginny pig.
What an interesting term and I understand it now. Technically yes,
you were a Ginny pig. However I must point out that this procedure
has been performed millions of times and that Bambi had acquired
the method from a military computer, years ago. It was felt that
she might be used to repair and upgrade damaged warriors who were
being transferred by this ship.

“Of course, some assumptions had to be made, but she
did have the advantage of several races experience in utilizing
genetics and nanites to enhance various different beings. You were
never in any real danger. Unfortunately, until at least one human
underwent the procedure, there was no way to know all of the
millions of variables involved. Now we know.”

“Shit! So how long would it take, now that Bambi is
so much fucking smarter?”

Jo raised his eyebrows. “We’ll have to query her. Go
ahead. You do it. You need the practice.”

Bambi, how long to upgrade a human, now that you
know what you’re doing?

Without emotion, she replied,
Due to the vast
amount of data I collected from your upgrade, I calculate that I
can upgrade a human to the basic level in thirty two hours. If you
wish the combat program to be installed as well, it will take one
hundred and twelve hours. Those estimates will vary from human to
human, based on weight and variances in genetic code, which already
exist throughout their body. Of course, you had far more extensive
alterations done than would be practical for every warrior.

Mike was still somewhat angry with her. He spoke out
loud, “What the hell are you talking about? We never spoke of ‘Far
more extensive alterations’.”

She responded out loud, in a mechanical voice,
following Mike’s mode of communication. “We spoke of providing you
with every package of combat programming that I could install. When
I told Jo what I would have to do, you were already partially
sedated. He made the suggestion to extend your body, and it worked
out perfectly”

Mike’s eyes immediately gazed down the length of his
body. It looked the same; although he was amazed at the six pack
abs he now sported. He demanded a mirror and a robotic arm appeared
from the wall and extended a large metallic mirror. Mike was
shocked and pleased, as he gazed at his new body.

“Wow, I’m a kid again. I don’t feel like one, but I
look like one.”

Jo told him, “My friend, you still have some
recovery ahead of you. As your body and mind adjust to your new
abilities, you will begin to feel the youth and vitality of a
virile young human.”

He moved various body parts to look his body over
and admitted, “I’m quite sure I would never want to go through that
again, but I do like the results.”

Then he recalled what Bambi had said a few moments
earlier. He asked, “Bambi, what are you talking about, when you say
extended?”

“Sir, in order to install the additional backup
persona and to place all of your control systems in an armored
container, I would have had to remove part of each lung, your
spleen and several feet of your colon. By extending your torso and
matching that to longer arms and legs, I was able to implant it,
without removing any of your internal organs. You are now six feet
ten inches tall. I only had to add six inches.”

Mike wanted to be angry, but his fatigue forced him
to stay calm. As he lay his head back down he said, “Gee, thanks a
lot, Bambi.”

“You are welcome sir.”

The human inflection she had displayed before
remained hidden. He was definitely going to have a chat with Jo
about that. He enjoyed hearing it, but wondered if there was some
hidden agenda that caused Bambi to hide her capabilities.

And what would be the ramifications if Bambi turned
out to be sentient. Could she be trusted? Would she see all
biologic sentients as enemies? Might humans be able to work with
her as an ally? What would she want, as payment for her help?
Considering what she had already told him, how would the other
races react to his people, once they learned that humans allied
themselves with a sentient machine?

Chapter
8

When he first became aware of time, he had expected
everything he did to seem faster. It didn’t work that way. Time did
not move any quicker, but what he was able to do within that time
increased beyond his measure.

At Bambi’s suggestion, the ship’s timetable was set
at Earth standard. The reasoning behind it was solid. When the
other humans began to arrive, they would easily organize according
to the twenty four hour clock, as any group on Earth would do.

Mike slept at night and worked by day. He spent his
early days learning the best way to organize his MCP and to learn
as much as he could about the ship. He was especially interested in
the various types of robots, as they were actually the primary
crew. They performed virtually every function necessary for the
ship to operate.

They maintained the engines, which he avoided
studying for the moment. Some form of robot handled environmental
controls, food processing and so many other details, which he
didn’t think he would ever understand.

As he scanned a few of the millions of files in
Bambi, he stumbled across a file listed as
Shields.
When he
opened it, as expected, it gave him the condition of the shields,
which were operating at full normal, a term the Saurans seemed to
abuse frequently.

He queried Bambi.
Why do the Saurans use a term
like Full Normal? Why not just normal or sub-normal.

Her quick response was,
It has always been thus.
The Saurans have established the various states of performance in
all things they deal with. They are Damaged and unusable, Damaged
but Barely usable, Damaged with use available with diminished
functionality, Damaged with normal use for an extended period of
time, Normal, Full normal with heavy use non-threatening and in
extreme situations, Extra-normal emergency abuse authorized only by
the Senior Commander.

Mike told her,
We will shorten these terms to
Damaged, Usable, Normal and Emergency.

Bambi responded,
Yes sir. I’ll change
them.

Mike was amazed at the complicated terms. He did a
quick look at a few hundred monitors around the ship and saw the
terms were in constant use.

Bambi, why haven’t the Saurans shortened those terms
for easier use?

It is their way, Captain. These terms have been in
use for millennia. The Saurans don’t like changes. They are very
effective at many things, because everything they do is based on
long standing methods and policies. In this way, all of their
forces utilize a standard that can be easily understood by
transferees. There is no need to retrain them, because nothing is
new. They apply severe penalties to anyone who deviates from the
norm.

Damn, he thought. That’s one more piece of the
puzzle that could be manipulated to their favor. Human militaries
had been using standardized terms for many years for the same
purpose, but some of those terms varied from the Army to the Navy,
Marines, Air Force and certainly the civilian world. Mike felt that
standard terms would be a small but important detail to help new
recruits learn quicker and perform better.

He chuckled as he remembered some of the terms that
men had used to describe people, places, procedures and a variety
of other things. No matter what the official term was, men often
created pet names for these items. He wondered if that might make
it more difficult for the Saurans to follow. And what of potential
allies? Would they have trouble understanding the bizarre methods
of human terminology?

Some of the men on his reviewed list were excellent
strategists and he felt certain that a few good ideas would come
from this knowledge alone. By golly, if they could disrupt the
Sauran standards, they might be able to gain an edge on the
battlefield.

By golly? Where in the hell did that come from? He
had never used that term before the upgrade, and yet, he just had.
It concerned him, because it meant he had been changed somehow and
it had to be due to the upgrade.

Bambi, why am I using a term like By Golly?

Jo was worried that your occasional improper
references to God would cause trouble, when we negotiate with the
Zhanukiabanolis. So he had me plant a suggestion in your mind to
avoid such improper uses of the God of the Universe.

He sighed.
Bambi, this would be a good time to
mention any other changes to my thought process that were made for
me.

Captain, there were a large number of changes to
your body and capabilities, which I shall reveal to you, as you
begin to learn in what new ways you are now able to function. For
instance, you have told Jo about soldiers getting into fights with
other humans. At your current strength level, if you struck another
human in the head, you would easily crush their skull and possibly
decapitate them.

“Gee whiz. Oh golly. I never realized how much I
enjoyed the freedom of cursing.”

Sir, you did curse. You just didn’t curse in a way
that would offend the more religious races. They will not mind if
you curse, because apparently, all races curse to one degree or
another. Jo wanted me to inform you that if you truly wish to make
use of a religious deity in a negative phrase, you can do so by
triggering a release here.

She mentally flashed him the appropriate file. He
pinged it and began, “Jesus Fucking H. Christ. Why didn’t you tell
me earlier? This is great. God damn, now I’m a happy soldier
again.”

A warning pip appeared on his MPC, telling him to be
aware because he had used a religious curse. Well, he thought, that
doesn’t stop me, but it might help me to avoid a major fuck up.
I’ll set up an automatic religious cut off anytime I’m on the air
by voice, or in the presence of aliens. Most of the recruits will
need that as well.

He sent that info to Bambi and she responded,
Got
it, sir.

This is good, Bambi. I think I’m going to like this,
once I get the hang if it.

He continued to expand his use of the upgrades and
do research in the exhaustive files available to him. Having a
computer science degree, he was able to appreciate the
extraordinary programming codes that comprised Bambi’s
intelligence. In some ways it wasn’t that much more advanced than
human programming abilities. But, over all, it was way ahead of
anything the human race had created.

He paused his research and asked her,
Bambi, if I
wish to change or rewrite existing code, how do I access that
routine?

You cannot, sir. The entire database is made up of
locked down code. That prevents an accidental change that could be
catastrophic. The Saurans are especially cautious where program
codes are concerned. They have one location, near their home world,
where their code masters produce programs for new items and
procedures. There are relatively few code masters, because so
little is allowed to change. But, when they conquer a new race,
they’ll spend as much time as necessary reviewing every code that
race ever used. Their code writers are the very best in the
Galaxy.