I, Starship

by Scott Bartlett

Genres: Alien Contact; Humorous sci-fi; Military Sci-Fi; Space Exploration; Space Marines; Space Opera

Synopsis

As a Marine, Henry Morgan would have said it was more likely he’d die from enemy fire than from being struck by a flying lawnmower while at a baseball game.

But it was the lawnmower that ended up taking him out.

A century later, Henry wakes up as a reconstituted intelligence, and is promptly drafted to be the governing AI for America’s first military starship. After decades of model-trained AIs wreaking havoc across the globe, humanity is ready to try something a little more…human.

Henry is perfect. For one thing, as a reconstituted intelligence, he has no rights and can be forced to do the bidding of the powers that be. For another, he’s the only Heritage Mind™ with any military experience that survived the Great Power Surge of 2219.

So, Henry’s it.

Blastoff, good Henry! Our hopes and dreams go with you. Oh, and while you’re at it, could you take a look at the aliens setting up shop in our asteroid belt? They seem to be…multiplying.

Download I, Starship now and grab the edge of your seat for this bold new space opera.

Release date: June 11, 2024

Publisher: Mirth Publishing

Sample

Chapter One
Henry, 2027

The ball leapt from the cleanup hitter’s bat and arced over the field toward third base.
Sergeant Henry Morgan’s heart skipped a beat. “It’s coming over here,” he said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice, and feeling a little like a kid. He’d never caught a baseball in the stands before. Sure, this was only a Double-A game, but he’d take it!
As the batter sprinted for first, and his teammates ran around the loaded bases toward Home Plate, Henry surged to his feet, hands cupped above him, his eyes locked on the hurtling white orb.
It passed in front of the sun, and he winced, losing it. He stood there for several long seconds, and knew the moment had passed.
“Where’d it go?” he asked Colonel Richards, who’d kept his seat beside him. He could hear the disappointment in his own voice.
Before the colonel could answer, a voice behind them spoke.
“Looking for something?”
Henry turned around to find a freckled pre-teen holding a pristine baseball triumphantly and sneering. Next to him, a man Henry took to be his father was trying and failing to conceal a smile.
“Good catch,” Henry said, then sat down, resisting the urge to let his shoulders slump.
“Hey, you’ll get the next one, Sport.” Colonel Richards clapped him on the shoulder, harder than seemed necessary. He nodded toward the field. “And look on the bright side—at least they all got Home.”
“Yeah.”
“Sport” was what the colonel had called Henry from the day he’d first approached him, out of a seeming desire to avoid using Henry’s rank without ever actually using his first name, which would imply equality.
It was the seventh-inning stretch, and a cheerleader marched out onto the field holding a microphone and reading from the screen of a smartphone. “All right, baseball fans. We have something special for you today while the pitchers warm up for the seventh inning. The Medford Drone Club is here to give us a short and unique demonstration of their skills! The Drone Club is a group of local hobbyists who believe it’s time for Oregon to finally remove its restrictive laws requiring drone operators to get a license and register their devices. Drones are very safe, especially with the modern safeguards every drone is now installed with, and Oregon is the last state in the union to require license and registration.”
The cheerleader flashed a toothy grin at the stands, and it felt like she was smiling right at Henry, even though he doubted she could actually pick him out in the crowd from where she stood.
“To show us just how safe drones are, for their demonstration today the Drone Club will be using only drones shaped like regular household appliances!”
The moment she finished speaking, a synchronized high-pitched whining came from the edges of the diamond, and at least twenty drones lifted from the grass.
Colonel Richards scowled. “I can’t stand the sound of those things. Did you hear what I said before the home run?”
“Yes, sir. I believe you were explaining why I should agree to be spied on twenty-four-seven.” The drones formed a circle in the air over second base, and a blender zipped through it.
Richards gave a dry chuckle. “You certainly have a way with words. What I have to ask is, what difference would it really make to your life, anyway? You don’t have a wife to complain about it, or kids whose privacy you might want to pretend you’re protecting. Realistically, the agencies already watch all of us, all the time. Sensors are cheap. Cereal boxes come with them, now. And anyone who thinks the government isn’t scraping all that signal is an idiot. There’s no escaping the fact that at this point, we’re all just a bunch of constantly monitored lab rats. But we at the project, all we’re asking is for you to let us spy on you, in this particular way, for this particular reason.”
Was that supposed to be comforting? Henry wondered. “There’s something different about personally knowing the people who are spying on you.”
The drones formed a conga line over the stands to their left, with a toaster on point, followed by a mini fridge, and a vacuum cleaner. They then proceeded across the diamond in an undulating wave. Henry had to admit, the precision-control was pretty impressive.
“You wouldn’t have to do anything different, in your day-to-day life,” Richards said. “I don’t know what it is you’re so keen to hide, exactly—Sport—but you can rest easy knowing that it’s not our job to judge you.” The colonel placed a splayed hand on his chest as he said this.
“Really? That’s not what my DI told me back in bootcamp.” That didn’t even bring a dry chuckle from Richards, and Henry shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t have anything to hide, sir. At least, I don’t think I do. There’s just something about it that makes me feel weird about it.”
“Well, hopefully you can get past a little ‘weirdness’ for the sake of the project. Think of the historical implications this tech could have for humanity. And most importantly, for our country. For national security. All we need is a little more data from our favorite subject to make it sing.”
The colonel had a way with words too, and not a good way. Henry took no comfort in being anyone’s favorite “subject.” But he understood why he’d been chosen. As the colonel had so graciously pointed out, he was unattached. He’d also seen his share of combat tours, the last two with a squad to command, and he had evaluation scores that were above a certain threshold. Plus he was in good shape, a non-smoker, and barely ever drank.
His health score was especially important, since as he understood it, there’d been earlier subjects of the “project” with whom things had gone “unfortunately, very wrong.” He’d been assured the tech was much improved since then, with safety parameters better established.
And even if there still was a little risk, Henry couldn’t exactly complain. He did want to help his country, and the tech which the project had invented, using apparently unlimited black budget money, had undeniable military applications. CP, or Consciousness Projection, allowed the user to process staggering amounts of data, all while retaining his fundamental humanity. At least, Henry had held onto his humanity so far. And using CP felt great.
So did driving the Audi A8 he’d bought with the special-duty pay they gave him at the start of the year.
Still…something in him bucked at the idea of giving those running the project the sort of power the colonel was asking for.
“I don’t know, sir. I’m grateful I was chosen, but lately, I’m starting to feel like this project is swallowing up my entire life. I mean, I wasn’t even an organ donor before this. The whole concept freaked me right out. And now I’ve agreed to give you guys my entire body and mind, all of it, when I die. And with this tech, you even have the ability to scrape out the contents of that mind, to do whatever you want with.”
“Easy, Sport,” Richards said, with a glance to his right. “Classified, remember?”
“Sorry, sir. It’s just—it feels like you want to own my life, now, too, on top of everything else. Isn’t there any part of me I get to keep, just for me?”
The drones had now begun buzzing the audience, arcing up and down all around the diamond, drawing gasps of terror and cries of delight from the onlookers. The bottom of their arcs terminated a few meters above the heads of the crowd. Henry eyed them uncertainly as they approached.
“Well, you know how that goes, Sport,” Colonel Richards said. “You’re a Marine, after all. The Corps doesn’t ask for much. Just everything you’ve got.”
But Henry was distracted by the drones, which were getting really close, now. He leaned to his left for a better view of them. “Sir, does that lawn mower look out-of-step to you?”
The colonel turned. “Huh. Now that you mention it, it does seem a little—”
The drone formation’s collective buzz drowned the colonel out as it passed overhead. The lawn-mower drone reached the nadir of its downward arc—and kept going.
It crashed down on top of Henry, and the world went away.