WORLD ENOUGH
by Robert E. Hampson
We are in the early day of the brain-machine interface, but it is a time of rapid strides and the movement from experimental phase to real-world applications. The author, who is also a noted neuroscientist, is on the forefront of such research. Here, the ultimate union of man—or rather woman—and machine arrives in the heat of battle. The danger in such an amalgamation may be that the human component will fade into the machine. The hope is a that a strange new, highly effective synthesis may be possible!
“Lieutenant! Orders from higher. We’re advancing into the new tunnels.” Lieutenant Flagg was in charge of Charlie One—first platoon, C company of the TEF—the Terran Expeditionary Forces on Fortunes World. Patch technically outranked him by virtue of six months seniority, but Flagg was a line officer and platoon leader, while Patch was an “intel weenie” and observer attached to Flagg’s platoon.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t be slogging through the muck.
“Roger, Lieutenant. Moving out.” Patch picked up her rucksack and once again mused on the similarity between this situation and history. She’d studied a TwenCen battle in Europe where nearly a million lives were lost between two sides trading the same six miles of territory back and forth.
Sort of like what was happening here. Her platoon had advanced before, only to be driven back by artillery fire and collapsed trench walls. The artillery itself was not usually a direct hazard to the troops. The trenches varied from two to five meters in depth—the “natural” ones caused by the comet impacts, that is. Sure, the bases and assembly areas took damage, but most rounds were at too shallow an angle to hit a trench straight on. The bigger threat was shrapnel and collapsing walls from a near miss. To counter this danger, the TEF had some tunneling equipment and made their own reinforced trenches and tunnels. Part of the problem, though, is that the enemy seemed to do the same thing, only faster.
They also tended to shell or undermine any location where Humans concentrated forces and equipment. Neither Humans nor their current opposition, the Aneliad, were the first to land on Fortune’s World. An expedition from Earth arrived on Trappist 1C to seek their . . . fortune . . . in the rich mineral deposits, only to discover that the technologically advanced Sylph were already present. Fortunately, the Sylph were (mostly) peaceful, and they really didn’t like the weather on T1C, with its 2.5 Earth-day solar orbit and 225 Earth-day planetary rotation. The short “year” meant extreme tidal effects from the other planets huddled close to the cool red dwarf star, while the long “day” meant extreme weather ranging from midday temperatures in low triple digits (Celsius) and nighttime temps that stopped just short of freezing oxygen out of the thin atmosphere. The two races reached an agreement to share the planet, with Sylphs providing the mining technology, and Humans providing the surface workforce . . . and defense.
It worked well, until a new race arrived to claim Fortune’s World.
Patch marveled at the smooth walls and floor of the tunnel. They were standing atop a valuable field of oganesson—the only known noble metal—used by the Sylphs (and now Humans) to protect high-energy reactors and engines. This particular deposit of OG was termed “fusite,” since it included high-pressure carbon and tantalum, making it impossible to mine without the Sylph-provided machines. Yet somehow, the Aneliad tunneling devices cleared the muck all the way down to the fusite layer—in fact, the tunnels tended to descend to the fusite anywhere the surface trenches didn’t quite reach the OG vein. The walls and roof were rounded, and the surface was glossy as if it had been coated with a hard resin.
Patch was in the middle of Red squad. There were two tunnels to scout, therefore Red took the easternmost entrance while Blue squad took the west. Lieutenant Flagg assigned Patch to Red and told her to stay at the back of the formation. Her job was to observe anything about the enemy and report back to HQ. It was the whole reason she’d been embedded with the platoon. Flagg would follow in five minutes with his own squad, Green, while the final squad, Black, would do the same in the opposite tunnel.
While moving, Patch kept her eyes moving to be alert for any sign of the enemy, but when Sergeant Brodén called a halt, she turned to study the wall of the tunnel. Closer inspection showed it to be slightly pebbled, and not exactly smooth. She took off a glove and touched the surface. It was warmer than she expected. she knelt to do the same with the floor of the tunnel.
“Something unusual, Ell-Tee?” asked Brodén.
“We’re not just on top of the fusite, we’re in it.”
“What? How?”
“See this?” she pointed to a dark line about half a meter up the wall. Below the line, the material was blue-black, with a slight sheen; above the line the shading turned more to brown with a dull finish. “This line is the top of the fusite layer. Whatever the Annies used to create these tunnels dug into the fusite.”
“You can’t dig fusite, can you? I mean, even this big deposit can only be chipped away from the edges. These tunnels are mines?”
“Perhaps. They could simply be tunnels made by something that doesn’t care what it’s tunneling through.”
“Either way, I don’t like this. An enemy we’ve never seen, troops that disappear without a trace, and now impossible tunnels.” Brodén pitched his voice to activate the squad net. “Wattana, Pandev. Take point, and take it slow. Red Squad, move out.”
“Movement!”
“Contact!”
“It’s moving fast.”
“Aa—!” The scream cut off almost as soon as it started.
“Sword, Panda, report!” Brodén called on the squad net.
“Sar’nt, this is Fatman. Wattana and Pandev were about twenty meters in front of Gecko and me. It looks like there’s a cross tunnel. I saw Sword step forward, and there was a dark blur. Panda’s the one that screamed, but he’s gone, too.”
“Acknowledged, Fattore. You and Lissard hold right where you are. Don’t move up, don’t investigate. Wait for me to come up.” Brodén turned to Patch. “Come along, but stay behind me. Higher would have my head if I let something happen to you, Ell-tee.”
It was almost one hundred meters to the place where the point team disappeared. As Patch and the sergeant passed other platoon members, he instructed them to stay put and be alert for any sound or movement. As they reached the cross tunnel, the air temperature increased noticeably.
Patch placed her gloved hand on the wall at the junction of the two tunnels and pulled it back quickly. “It’s hot. The tunnel walls have been heated.”
“Look down. It’s fusite all the way up. Whatever dug this tunnel . . .” Brodén paused. “This tunnel was dug right through refractory metal. Who does that?”
“Offhand, I’d say the enemy does.”
“Yes, well, that thought doesn’t fill me with joy, Lieutenant.” The sergeant switched on the light mounted to his rifle and flashed it both ways up and down the cross tunnel. When they’d left their positions in the trench, the passage had still been open to sky, but they’d now descended several meters, and the top was completely closed, blocking all light except for reflections from back the way they had come. “Up there, there’s something on the ground.”
The new tunnel was wide—wide enough for a tank, in Patch’s estimation. The two of them stepped down into the cross tunnel—she could feel the heat through the soles of her boots—and then back up to where the original tunnel continued on the other side.
There was body, or at least half of one.
“Panda. Cut in half,” Brodén observed.
Patch looked around, and both directions down the cross tunnel. “And no sign of Sword. If he was in the cross tunnel when whatever it was came through? Something that can cut, melt, or eat fusite isn’t going to leave much behind.”
A voice came over the comm. “Contact! Movement at six o’clock.”
“Move up, get out of its way,” ordered Brodén.
“This is Fatman. It’s moving fast, I don’t think we have time and there’s no room to evade, Sar’nt.” The sound of energy and projectile weapons fire could be heard as the comm cut off.
“Gecko to Sabaton. No joy, Sergeant, it didn’t even notice our weapons, but apparently it wasn’t heading for us, just cut into the tunnel wall and made its own. The rock just melted.”
“What did it look like, Private?”
“Big. Long. It filled our tunnel and then some. When it disappeared into the wall, it had a long body that took plenty of time to pass. Sort of like a worm.”
“Worms.”
“What was that, Lieutenant?” the squad leader asked.
“I said ‘they’re worms.’We should have known. The Sylph’s translators work with what they can find in the language database.They called them ‘Aneliad.’That’s close enough to ‘annelid,’ which is an old Terran word for worms.”
“Worms that eat fusite?”
“Possibly. It could be food, like termites and cellulose. Maybe they regurgitate it later, like bees.” Patch thought for a moment. “The Ops Center needs to know. The tunnels they’re digging are big. We could fit tanks down here.”
“And armor them with what? Not fusite.”
“No, not fusite, unless we want to attract them. We probably need to electrify them; it works with a lot of Terran insects.”
“Last I checked, Terra didn’t have . . .” Brodén looked at the cross tunnel, “. . . ten-meter-wide worms.”
“Agreed, but we need to start somewhere.” Patch pulled out a sensor package and took some readings from the tunnel wall and then forced herself to focus it on Pandey’s corpse. “I know I’m not really in command here, Sergeant, but I think we need to retreat and report this.”
“Agreed Lieutenant. I’ll call the PL.”
While Brodén was on the private comm channel to Lieutenant Flagg, Patch stepped down into the cross tunnel to return the way they had come. She heard a distant shout of “Lieutenant Passchendaele!” and saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
Someone grabbed her by the straps on the back of her pack and pulled her back out of the tunnel. She felt a searing heat and then a sharp pain in her left foot. As she lost consciousness, she sensed more than saw the alien creature disappear back down the tunnel where the rest of the squad waited.
Patch opened her eyes and saw white. After a moment, her eyes adjusted and she could see enough features to discern white-painted walls and ceiling.
Hospital. She’d been injured and was now in the sickbay of the St. Benedict, the TEF’s troop transport maintaining orbit around Trappist-1.
Memory came flooding back, and she tried to sit up in the bed. She needed to report to the commander.
“Relax, Patch. I’m here,” came a voice to her side.
She turned her head and saw a window next to the bed, with two figures in the observation area beyond. One was Colonel Aachen, deputy commander of the Strategy and Intel group and Patch’s actual boss. Beside him was General Plumer, head of operations for the TEF. The small woman looked at Patch with concern as her taller subordinate spoke again.
“Don’t try to move, Patch. You’ve got burns and chemical inhalation.”
A nurse came in, covered head to toe in protective clothing.
“Am I contagious?” she managed.
“No, but you’re very sick.” He spoke through a comm unit beside the bed. “This is for your protection.”
Patch had many questions, but the nurse told her to wait for the doctor, who would be along in about an hour. He then pressed a button on one of the consoles, and she drifted back to sleep.
The next time she opened her eyes, she saw two figures in the protective suits. One was unfamiliar, and therefore probably the doctor. The other was General Plumer.
“So, what happened to me?”
“Your platoon encountered the Aneliad—‘worms’ you called them in your report. The staff sergeant apparently tossed you to safety, but the rest of the platoon . . . Hell, the rest of the company was wiped out. When we got you here, you were badly banged up, your leg was crushed, and you had uncontrollable muscle spasms.”
“We had to give you a neuro blocker to stop the convulsions,” supplied the doctor. “Your peripheral nervous system is well . . . the best answer is that it’s misfiring.”
“What? Why?”
“The best guess is something that we’ve only seen twice before. For now, we’re calling it fusite poisoning.”
“Fusite’s inert, it’s a refractory metal. It can’t be a poison.”
“Unfortunately, it can, under extreme conditions. There was a tech who stopped a runaway antimatter reaction in the engine room of the Worlds of Wonder passenger ship about a decade back. He had to open the outer containment and fill the reaction chamber with fusite to stop the reaction. Then there was the orbital fusion power plant worker who survived an explosion because he became mostly encased in fusite released from the chamber.”
Patch was confused. “Sure, we have plenty of fusite here, but I haven’t been in the vicinity of any high-energy events.”
“Actually, you have,” said Plumer. “The worms do something to the fusite to digest it. The science teams have been puzzling it out, but your case points to it being some sort of controlled high-energy process.”
“Oh, okay. So, you just need to detoxify me and flush it out, right?”
“I’m sorry, it’s not that simple. There’s no known way to reverse the process. Your peripheral nerves are degenerating and your immune system is compromised. Organ failure will follow unless we do something immediately.”
“Do it, then. I authorize it. Whatever it takes.”
“We need to talk about this, Patch. It’s a pretty radical process.” Plumer looked quite concerned behind the faceplate of her isolation suit.
The process was called capsulation. Patch’s body would be placed in a full life-support chamber similar to the cryostasis units used for travel across long interstellar distances, except instead of hibernation, neural implants would create a brain-computer interface so that she remained awake and mentally active. The capsule would provide everything her brain needed and slow the deterioration of her body. It was theoretically reversible—if someone could find a way to reverse the damage to her nerves and organs in the next few months—but for all practical purposes, it was a one-way procedure. Most COIs—capsulated organic intelligences—chose to interface with computer systems and work in surveillance or data analysis. A rare few chose to operate robotic devices, android bodies, or other surrogates for their natural body, but the urge to interact with the outside world tended to fade the longer the COIs inhabited their digital worlds. A capsulated person had a longer lifespan than if the disease or damage were allowed to take its toll, but as far as anyone in the TEF knew, the longest a COI had remained viable was two years. Patch had read a book once about COIs operating starships, but she knew thatconcept was purely science fiction.
“No, I do not want to be interfaced with the Ops computer.” Patch’s voice emanated from speakers located through the room. “I want to be installed in a tank.”
“That’s just not practical. You’re our best analyst. It makes the most sense to install you in either Ops or S&I. You’ll have access to all the imagery, the sensor packs, and even the comms.” The lead technician waved in the direction of her capsule. “Besides, you won’t fit in a tank!”
Patch sent a signal to one of the cameras located in the capsulation lab and directed it toward her life support unit.
It looked almost exactly like an egg, two meters tall, just over a meter across at its widest. It rested in a wheeled cradle, with robotic arms and sensors adjacent to, but not directly connected to the capsule. Only one connection marred the smooth, translucent surface of the egg. Lights raced just underneath that surface, in random-appearing patterns leading from and to a fifty-centimeter trunk connecting the base of the egg to a monitoring console against one wall. The life-support system in the capsule was self-contained, and could sustain her body and mind for a month without replenishment. While connected, however, the umbilical trunk provided nutrients, removed wastes and provided high-speed communication to the facility’s computers.
All other connection was via encrypted wireless radio and visual light connections similar to the secure comms used by the troops, including the speakers over which Patch was arguing with the technician. Each word was punctuated by swirls and patterns of light on the egg, with colors accentuating the words. The patterns became redder as the argument continued.
“Dammit, I didn’t go through all of this to be stuck in a remote base, watching the battle secondhand. Besides, there’s plenty of space in a Command tank.”
“Major, that’s not true. Your capsule and the interface will take up the entire crew cabin. You’ll be the only one there. Who will operate the tank?”
“I will operate the tank. Don’t you get that? I’ve got all of the interfaces, and as a COI I can multi-task. I can drive the tank, fire the gun, operate a squad of remote tanks and chew gum at the same time.”
“Ah, no, I don’t think that’s quite right.”
“Okay, so I can’t chew gum anymore, but all of my motor cortex is intact. My legs will be treads and my arms will be weaponry. I can do this.”
“We’re going to have to take this up with higher.”
“Then do this. I’ve been away from the war for long enough. I saw the intel. The push to Phaseline Arnim was forced back and we risk losing the Messine Formation. One more advance by the Annies and we lose the Salient. I have what, a year in this shell before I go insane or get lost in my own dreams?”
“I’m going to have to call this up the chain.”
“Yes, well then call General Plumer right now.We talked about this when I accepted capsulation. She and Colonel Aachen know I want this, and they know I can do it.”
“If you say so. It’s a big risk, though, and I’m not sure even the general will authorize risking you like that. I think this needs to go to Marshal Byng.”
If Patch could still feel her physical body, and if she still formed words with her mouth, she would have bitten her tongue. Marshal Byng was praised by many . . . except his own troops. He tended to make the most politically expedient decisions, rather than the ones that made sense to a soldier in the field. He was also rather fond of the memory of a particular ancestor . . .
Byng had visited her soon after she had returned from her first encounter with the Aneliad worm. “Passchendaele, eh? Just like the town in Belgium. You know, I had a relative in that war. Julien Byng. Noble fellow, commanded the field there in Flanders. Hmm, Flanders. That would make a good name for this field—all of those trenches, eh? Good names. Right, well, hurry up and get better, I’m sure Felix Aachen needs you back on your feet in Ops as soon as possible.”
And that was it. Sixty seconds and he was gone. It was his entire command style, staying on the St. Benedict and communicating with the ground troops once a week when the starship’s orbit coincided with Fortune’s World’s orbit and rotation such that the newly renamed Flanders Base was in view. He took to naming all of the planetary features for early TwenCen Belgium. He seemed overjoyed at the family connection. The troops were mostly indifferent, but Patch had actually studied history, and knew the reputation and implication of the bloody battles of Ypres in the Flanders fields. The only way to avoid the same fate was to get out there and take the offensive, instead of waiting on the worms’ next move.
“‘Had we but world enough and time / This coyness, lady, were no crime. / We would sit down, and think which way / To walk, and pass our long love’s day.’We don’t have ‘world enough’ and we certainly don’t have time. Tell the colonel and the general ‘But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near . . . ’”
“That’s . . . interesting. Did you write that?”
“No. It’s from ‘To His Coy Mistress.’ It was a love song written by Andrew Marvell, a seventeenth-century Earth poet and politician. He’s saying to seize opportunity and not let it be wasted. Tell the general that I said that the time for coyness is over.”
The technician hadn’t been quite correct in saying that her capsule would occupy the entire personnel compartment. There was room for one person, even though quarters outside the command deck were limited. Patch was Tank Commander, driver and gunner all in one; therefore, her “organic component” was assigned the role of assistant gunner. Patch had thought that Command would saddle her with a nurse, or worse yet, one of the capsulation techs. Fortunately, she received an actual assistant gunner from the command tank at Lille. It took a couple of months to become fully skilled at operating both her own “body” and remotely operated drones, but soon, operating the smaller tanks in parallel with her own vehicle felt no different than flexing her fingers or curling her toes. Life as a tank was good, and Patch knew that she could solve the issues controlling both crewed and uncrewed assets locally, on the battlefield where it was needed.
She also knew there was a clock ticking. The psychometricians called it “digital fugue”—sooner or later, COIs stopped communicating with the outside world. The theory was that the more a human brain inhabited a virtual environment, the more the real world became abstract and unreal. The numbers were equally split between COIs simply becoming catatonic vs. commanding their life support to cease.
So far, Patch didn’t think she was falling into digital fugue. Sure, she could get distracted when she was multitasking, but on the whole, being in the tank . . . beingthe tank . . . was exhilarating. The machinery was her body and the instruments were her senses. She felt part of the world, part of the war, even if she hadn’t been released to operate entirely on her own. She was confident that time was coming.
In fact, it was coming today.
“Unit P-C-H of the Line, reporting for duty.”
“Um,” the comm crackled. “Patch, that’s not your designation.”
“It’s traditional, Jonny,” she sent back. Down in the control room, Corporal “Mac” Macmullen tried to suppress giggles. When Patch had discovered that Norma Macmullen was a fellow science fiction fan, she’d shared several TwenCen books featuring tanks operated by artificial intelligence.
“A girl and her tank,” Norma sent.
“A tank and her girl,” Patch replied.
“A tank and her comm discipline. Cut the chatter, Patch.” The voice on the comm was formal, but there was just a hint of amusement for those who knew the speaker well.
“Yes, sir, Colonel Aachen. CT1917-P is ready.”
“Good. We’ve lost the signal from Hill 60 and there’s movement warnings out in the Salient.”
“Understood, Colonel. Do we have release?”
“Yes, Patch. You have release. Godspeed.” The comm crackled, and cut off, but Patch’s digital senses picked a few last words out of the signal before it disconnected. “ . . . and may He have mercy on us for sending you out.”
“Hill 60’s close, Mac, but it’s probably behind enemy lines by now. I’m headed to Hill 65.” Using the same Earth World War I terminology Marshal Byng was so fond of, the TEF holdings on the fusite field were termed the Salient, since they represented a Terran bulge into what was otherwise Annie territory. Named landmarks corresponded to surface features (what few remained), mines or staging areas; “hills” referred to places where the subsurface tunnels approached or even broke the surface. These were good entry points for the command tanks to enter the Annie-dug tunnels.
“What about sending drones to 60?” Mac suggested.
“Good idea. I’ll send Larry and Curly to Hill 60. We’ll keep Shemp, Moe, and Curly Joe with us, and send Ted and Joe out on perimeter patrol.” Patch engaged the drive, and the tank platoon left Ypres Base for the first time as an independent command.
The mining tunnels were large enough for drone tanks, but much too narrow for command tanks; the tunnels dug by the Annies, however, were more than large enough to fit multiple tanks. The TEF had enlarged a few tunnels of their own to allow tanks to reach out into the salient. For this effort, a full battalion, consisting of sixteen command tanks and forty-eight drone tanks, headed out from Forward Operating Base Ypres down into the primary system of tunnels that Byng had designated the Menin Road. Each command tank could remotely operate a single drone at a time, with the remainder of the drones operated from FOB Ypres. Patch’s unique capabilities made her a “Command, Control, and Countermeasures” or C3 unit, and she and her contingent of seven drones set out separately to cross the broken surface of Flanders and enter the tunnel system at Hill 65.
“Okay, Boss,” Mac called from her station underneath the main gun. “How do you want me to set up the magazine?” While Patch had complete control of all aspects of the tank, including the ammunition for the main gun, protocol called for the assistant gunner to set up a ready magazine of rounds that could be loaded in sequence to deal with expected targets. There would be a separate magazine for “unexpected” targets.
“High explosive, then penetrator. Five each, alternating. If we come across a worm and need to get off a quick shot, I don’t want to fool around. Just blow that sucker up. After that, we may need to clear tunnels, so we’ll have the depleted uranium penetrator rounds.”
“What about plasma rounds?”
“Load the secondary magazine with those. I don’t want to use them right off. Shemp and Moe have the plasma cannons, and Curly Joe has the special munitions. We’ll keep CJ at the back of the formation and only use him if absolutely necessary. The other two can take point if we think we need energy weapons.”
During the past six months of conflict with the Aneliad, it had been determined that the worms were vulnerable to explosives and energy weapons even if the ground was not. The trick was to get a clear shot within the tunnels either before a worm could close the distance, or before getting oneself caught in the back blast. Blowing up the tunnels was only good in the short term, but it could be used to herd the Annies into a selected battlefield. Thus, General Plumer planned to sortie all available tanks to push the enemy back out of the Salient and close down the tunnels leading to the human mines. The command and drone tanks would be under Plumer’s overall command for this battle. Patch was there for when events didn’t follow the plan.
As the platoon rolled out, an artillery barrage started. The general’s plan was for the artillery to disrupt any surface activity and drive the worms back as the tanks advanced. Patch had her doubts as to whether it would work; after all, the worms seldom occupied the surface, and tunnels collapsed from surface shock waves never seemed to impede their movement. Still, the walking barrage would cover the tank movements—assuming the Annies sensed movements using some form of seismic sensors.
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