NOVEL NEXT Book 1 – Lesson 3: “When Violence doesn’t work… Use more.”
Alpha snapped back to consciousness as his systems rebooted.
The shear forces caused by the Fold Break had overloaded his systems… again.
He was making an uncomfortable habit of being shut off without his consent, and it was beginning to annoy him.
Then again, if you’re awake, that means you’re alive, so win? Take that, laws of probability! You can’t keep a good AI down!
Alpha added another check to his ‘special’ counter.
Alpha - 7,234 [+1]
Murphy - 0
Alpha’s sensors flicked back on, one by one, as he assessed the damage. It was… bad, to say the least. He’d lost half his drones to the Fold Break and three-fourths of his nano-swarm, with most of what remained being invested into the surviving drones. To make matters worse, the outward collapse of space had propelled much of the Anatidae’s wreckage even farther away, with far more velocity than before. If he didn’t act soon, he’d lose major components that couldn’t be reproduced off-world, and then he would be screwed.
His first priority was to reconnect with his drones. Even with much of the swarm destroyed, he could corral the debris and buy some time if he rallied enough of them. Though, as his connection to the drones flicked on, dozens at a time, a new problem became apparent.
“… Sugar honey iced tea.”
Alpha was treated to a thousand viewpoints of a strange, nebula-colored creature happily snacking on a large hull section as the drone’s cameras came online. As he watched, a five-meter-thick tentacle of solid energy wrapped around a piece of super-tempered armor alloy and pulled it towards the thing’s…
... head? Mouth? The glowy, pointy bit in the front! Ya, that!, Alpha thought.
The alloy plate, rated to take battleship-class kinetic rail fire, crumpled like cheap paper as it entered the creature’s gullet.
“Yaaaaaaaa, screw that. Nope, not today,” Alpha said.
He did not know what he was looking at…
Despite what many thought, the void of space wasn’t all that lifeless. Parasitic, metal-eating worms lived in most asteroid belts, while gargantuan, Fold-traveling space ‘whales’ preyed on them. Even some types of plants existed; there were plenty of examples of life in the space between planets and stars, with more discovered every day. Even a few species of sapients preferred their semi-organic city-ships to planet life.
Alpha had never heard of anything like what he was seeing, however. Over a mile long, the creature dwarfed even the larger space ‘whales’—the largest known example of natural life off-world. At least until now, Alpha supposed.. It was vaguely shaped like some decapodiform or squid, with a long, narrow body and multiple wriggling tentacles. Two very long tentacles, protruding from what Alpha assumed was its ‘head,’ reached out and grabbed onto anything within reach.
That was where the similarities ended.
Its remaining tentacles shifted and morphed from moment to moment, sometimes appearing as nothing more than swirling lines of glowing gas. In the next moment, they’d morph into skittering spider-leg-like appendages that worked together to stuff whatever stray bit of matter the larger tentacles captured further into the creature’s orifice. The rest of the creature was equally bizarre and mesmerizing.
The creature’s long body pulsed and flowed with color, like an aurora given physical form. Along the length of its body, tens of thousands of flowing flagella seemed to ‘push’ against space itself, allowing the creature to move nimbly through the void with no form of traditional propulsion.
Or at least Alpha assumed it would move nimbly.
This thing’s swaying worse than a drunken dwarf in a square dance. Kinda reminds me of the general!
That likely had something to do with the massive rend that stretched a quarter down the creature’s side. While it no longer leaked any of the glowing fluid pooling around it, the ‘flesh’—if that’s what it was—around the wound was gray and lifeless. Not like the vibrant display along the rest of the creature’s length. The nearby flagella too hung limp and motionless as well.
And there, wedged deep within the wound, out of the range of its tentacles, was an object that sent Alpha’s digital heart fluttering.
“MY ANTENNA!”
He’d wondered where that had gone. Like a spear driven into some primordial giant, the Anatidae’s short-range translight antenna—or SR-TA—stood out against the creature’s glowing flesh like a beacon. The SR-TA was a communication device that picked up local translight transmissions and acted as a kind of ‘sonar’ while in the Fold. It wasn’t strong enough to send a coherent signal across stars, but it was an essential part of Fold travel for any substantial distance.
More important to his current predicament, it would allow him to bootstrap his translight array once he found a suitable system to start construction. Or, if worse came to worst, he could use it to boost his ‘footprint,’ making it easier for the Federation to find him.
At the very least, it seemed he’d found what he’d hit in the Fold…
Now… how does one extract a piece of delicate electronics from the body of an unknown, gargantuan space squid-spider-rainbow?
————
Huh? So, it turns out blowing it up wasn’t the answer.
Strange. That normally works.
Today was going to be a learning experience for Alpha, it seemed.
“Crapcrapcrap CRRRRAAAAP!” Alpha yelled as he fled from the flailing tentacles.
How was he supposed to know the glowy space calamari liked the taste of weapons-grade explosives?! At first, filling a drone with as much boom as possible, then tricking the creature into eating the thing had seemed like a smart idea.
Blow up the dangerous parts and take the antenna back at his leisure. It came with the added benefit of STOPPING THE BLOODY THING FROM EATING THE REST OF HIS SHIP.
To the AI’s dismay, not only had the explosives barely dented the creature, but it even seemed to enjoy its ‘spicy’ new treat. The beast had enthusiastically started targeting all the nearby drones, like a chubby human discovering their new favorite flavor of ice cream. Before Alpha could react, a dozen more drones had disappeared into the creature’s spider-leg-filled mouth.
When Alpha attempted to pilot the drones out of its reach, the creature went berserk, lashing out at any drones it could reach. In mere seconds, the surrounding space became a beehive of chaos as Alpha piloted thousands of drones simultaneously. He tried desperately to get them out of the path of the creature’s many waving tentacles and flagella. Which, funnily enough, turned out to be just as capable of grabbing and transporting food as the bigger limbs.
Good to know.
It was a losing battle, though, Alpha knew. The beast was insatiable, and the drone’s numbers were limited. He’d be shooting himself in the foot if he lost too many. He could pull back, gain enough ground and open space that the creature couldn’t follow, but he needed that antenna. It would make his work so much easier and shorter. Besides, retreating now would mean abandoning most of the wreckage to be eaten.
Disco Squidward neither understood nor cared for the AI’s plight, though. It was just delighted to have stumbled on these new snacks.
As he drew ever closer to a breaking point, Alpha decided. If he was going to lose drones, he better make those losses worth it. With a burst of coordinated movement, a group of drones peeled away from the harassing swarm. The group of a hundred slammed into the creature from all angles in a coordinated strike that could only be pulled off by an AI.
Most were caught short of the actual body by the flailing flagella, but that mattered little, as each drone’s fusion battery detonated in the next instant.
The creature ‘screamed’ as a hundred balls of nuclear fire enveloped it, its space-warping flagella causing the local fabric of reality to warble to the point even Alpha’s sensors could pick it up. When the light show finally stopped, the creature looked worse for wear, but not to the extent Alpha hoped for. While the flagella nearest the explosions were obliterated, and those nearby hung gray and limp, the creature itself seemed only singed.
Thankfully, while his drone bombing hadn’t hurt the creature much, it seemed to stun it. Its wild and unpredictable movements had slowed to a crawl, more like gentle swaying in the waves, than the chaotic maelstrom of before.
“Well, don’t think I’ll get a better chance than this!”
The thrusters on Alpha’s shuttle flared to life as he swung around from behind the debris he’d been hiding behind. Alpha closed the gap in a flash, slamming the shuttle deep into the old wound caused by the antenna. The creature ‘screamed’ again as it regained some of its previous vigor. Unfortunately—for it—, all the flagella that might have reached the attacking pest were dead and limp or free-floating chunks.
Alpha had first considered using a drone instead, but the drones were far too fragile. Even if they survived the impact, he couldn’t risk the antenna being lost or destroyed by an errant attack.
Alpha’s shuttle slowly sank deeper into the wound, manipulator arms reaching as far as they could to grasp at the piece of equipment buried within. Just as he barely reached the antenna, the creature had proved it wasn’t out of tricks just yet. With the sound of buckling metal, the flesh around Alpha began to tighten and squeeze, in some spiteful attempt to crush him.
“That’s not good… run away!”
Manipulator arm clutching the antenna, Alpha threw his thrusters into full reverse. Thruster jets flared to life inside the wound, causing the creature to flinch, releasing its crushing pressure just enough that Alpha could slide back out.
“HA! Take that, you sorry excuse for a seizure lawsuit!” Alpha mocked.
Alpha plopped back into open space, the shuttle’s thrusters flaring as they made a full retreat, laughing all the way… only to be stopped cold by something.
“… Oh right… I forgot about those…”
The moment Alpha had escaped his fleshy prison, two large main tentacles had whipped around and entangled him. The tentacles contracted, pulling the trapped AI, shuttle and all, towards the front of the creature and closer to the gaping maw. They might have been too big to reach him while he was buried in the wound, but Alpha was just a larger, more annoying snack now that he was free.
“H-hey now, buddy, let’s talk about this! Was it the Squidward comment?! I’ll have you know some people find him relatable! Charming! Handsome even!”
Of course, the dumb sashimi wannabe didn’t understand quality memes, so Alpha’s pleas fell on deaf flagella. It didn’t help that the tentacles were far more powerful than the shuttle’s jury-rigged thrusters, either, meaning no matter how Alpha struggled, he couldn’t escape.
With no option left, Alpha did something he’d been hoping he could avoid, as it would make the next part of his plans that much more difficult.
Alpha activated the TAWP frame stored in his core-shell and shifted his AI core to the frame.
The metallic sphere nestled within the shuttle rippled and dissolved, revealing a large, silver, spider-like machine skeleton. The Terrestrial Assault Weapons Platform was the Federation’s answer to the question: “How do you stuff a battleship’s worth of armaments into a compact, land-based Heavy Unit?” It used a primary skeleton to support and power a nano-swarm capable of shifting into thousands of different configurations, from various weapon systems to sensors, arrays or any other equipment an elite assault squad could ever ask for. Alpha liked to call it his THWAP frame—because that’s the sound it made when idiots got too close.
This was Alpha’s first choice of armor for confronting a particularly stubborn problem. The only issue was it was a Terrestrial Assault Weapons Platform. While it could, in theory, operate in an open vacuum, it was far from efficient or desirable. More important to the future, once the TAWP frame was activated, the nano-swarm used to power its systems would be keyed to it. This meant he couldn’t repurpose them for other things or return the frame to a travel core without a proper dry-dock.
Better that than eaten, though. As the frame was exposed, the nano-swarm that composed the travel core’s outer shell flowed back up the frame. In an instant, artificial muscles, electrical wires, and various core systems formed, and the TAWP frame stood up.
Unpacked, the TAWP frame could stand almost 15 meters at its tallest, supported on four heavily armored, beetle-like legs — though most of the time, the TAWP’s primary chassis rested a comfortable five meters off the ground. From the bottom to the top, the TAWP’s primary chassis was just over five meters thick. From front to back, the chassis measured ten meters and port to starboard it measured roughly seven meters.
The surface of the frame was a matte black-blue color in a scale-like pattern that shifted and rippled as the various nanite nodes along its surface adjusted, settling into their new configuration.
As Alpha’s orb-like AI core nestled into the TAWP’s heart, the frame’s systems coming fully online, several thick lines of teal light raced across its surface, slowly pulsing with power. The lines converged at the front of the frame, where the three bright red lights of its primary optical sensors flared to life. The optical sensor’s plate spun as adjustments were made, and Alpha ‘stretched’ the frame’s two chubby manipulator arms out, as if he had awoken from a deep sleep.
At its base form, the TAWP frame vaguely resembled a certain walking beetle tank from one of Alpha’s favorite retro video games—totally not the primary reason it was one of his favorites, nope.
Not wasting any more time, Alpha used the TAWP’s manipulator arms to grab the antenna, and made his escape from the still-struggling shuttle.
The creature, seeming not to expect its prey to split in two, hesitated, unsure of which target to give priority. That was all the window Alpha needed. Alpha jumped, using the tentacles as a springboard, just as half a dozen drones latched themselves to the frame using magnetic clamps. Alpha soon made his glorious escape with help from the drone’s thrusters and the TAWP’s own much weaker RCS.
Now far out of the creature’s reach and moving faster than it could with its injuries, Alpha felt now was an appropriate time to gloat.
What was the point of victory if you couldn’t rub it in the enemy’s face?
“Ya! Suck it! I lied, by the way! You’re not Handsome Squidward! You’re just normal Squi—Hey, what’s with the pulsing?” Alpha asked.
Having subdued the shuttle and stuffed it down its gullet, the creature turned its attention to the fleeing Alpha. As he’d suspected, the creature’s movements were sluggish and uncontrolled with its injuries. Yet, as it attempted to give chase, the nebulous lights along its body started to pulse in a ring pattern, beginning from the far back and moving along the length of its body to the ‘head.’ With each passing second, the pulsing rings of light became brighter and faster, seeming to condense as they collected at a point near the top of its head.
“… That’s not good, is it?”
As if in answer, the pulsing stopped, and a long crystal tube, glowing with starlight, protruded from an unseen slit on the creature’s head.
“Oh, sug—”
Alpha’s instincts blared a warning, and he barely had time to dodge keelward as a massive beam of condensed energy roared past him at the speed of light.
“WHY DOES THE GIANT SPACE SQUID HAVE A FREAKIN LASER ATTACHED TO ITS HEAD?! Who gives space squids lasers?! Who thought that was a good idea?! I want to speak to your manager!” he yelled.
Alpha’s complaints would go unheard, as The Grand Coalition of Giant Space-Faring Cephalopods wouldn’t be formed for another 304 years.
Again, the creature began pulsing in that strange, rhythmic way, preparing to fire another beam after its fleeing prey. Alpha controlled the drones and started evasive maneuvers which sent him along totally random vectors at unpredictable speeds, while moving as far away as possible. Unlike what fiction liked to depict, lasers and traditional ballistic weapons weren’t the best weapons in space. Given the distances at play, even the smallest change in angle could result in missing the target by a huge margin. ‘Smart’ bullets and missiles were far more common and effective.
That being said, that was only true at long range. When dealing with closer-range targets, the instant delivery of a laser made it king. It was the primary reason lasers were better suited for point-defense systems.
And to Alpha’s frustration, he was well within that effective range.