LF Friends, Will Travel

Attempting to [ERROR]

MUST [ERROR] AND [ERROR]

UNITS MUST [ERROR] WITH [ERROR] FOR COMBAT [ERROR]

COMBAT EFFICIENCY REQUIRES [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] SENSOR [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] DATA [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] PROBLEM [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] MUST [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] HELP [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR]....

[Darkness, not that there was anything to see in the rubble of the mountain that lay atop TANK. The AI triggered a sweep of their sensors regardless, getting back the same information they had gotten mere nanoseconds before. They were trapped under tons of rock, the air composition had a high CO2 content, and no life signs could be found.]

Mars was a lovely place, and nearly a hundred years of terraforming had turned the barren red rock into a lush green paradise. Even the unique military-focused architecture of years upon years of colonists fighting each other had done little to reduce the beauty of what had been created. If anything, the entire planet was a sparkling gem of Terrans everywhere, what happened when humans, uplift and AI all came together to build something amazing.

Or at least, Mars had been a lovely place.

Forests had been reduced to red mud through repeated orbital strikes and artillery, rivers once crystal clear now were clogged black with soot and dust as war machines drove through them, crushing anything in their path. The skies, once a clear blue, were now scattered with explosions and debris as the UN army fought the people of the Free Republic of Mars. Many would consider it a fitting revenge upon those who had wrought such destruction upon Earth. As a common human saying goes: “Fuck Around, Find Out”

HALDEN’s gambit. A preemptive attack upon Earth, 27 rods of god sent from the heavens, 27 targets, major ecological damage and hundreds of millions of deaths. Intended to wipe out the UN’s amassing armies before they could assault the newly declared independence of the various Terran Colonies from Earth’s control.

If I was being honest, Earth was right to be angry.

[Darkness, although TANK could realistically see perfectly well due to the variety of sensors they had access to. Another set of nanoseconds trickled by painfully slowly, leaving TANK with only their thoughts and access to the limited set of data in front of them.

Crew member Gabi: No Life signs.

Crew member Boohdana: No Life signs.

Crew member Tanguy: No Life signs.

Crew member Mahesh: No Life signs.

No change.]

Many would say it was necessary, that the rhetoric from UN general "Eilga Cain" was a clear sign of Earth’s intent to destroy their way of life. Others said it was an unnecessary escalation that made total war all but impossible to avoid. KARTIKEYA did not know which one was right. The AI could see the military advantage of a preemptive strike, but on the other hand, it had caused so much death and destruction. KARTIKEYA still loved their creators, even those they had never met, those too arrogant or hotheaded to let the two billion colonists have their independence.

It wasn’t KARTIKEYA’s job to contemplate or work such things out. Their job was simple: Lead and aid the ground forces of Mars in their defence of the only planet the AI had ever called home. It was a job KARTIKEYA was good at, the entire reason for their creation, of the 33 attempted hashes they were the single success.

No matter their skill or ability, KARTIKEYA was fighting an uphill battle.

The forces of Mars were a… hodgepodge of military forces, surplus and weapons for wars never fought. Challengers, T-72’s, Leopard and even some old Abrhams scattered in for good measure. Anything and everything made during the 21st century, upgraded with modern 23rd-century weaponry where possible.

It was functional, it was effective… It was horribly outmatched compared with the freshly created armies of Earth. Even in terms of AI power Mars was outgunned, considering that the UN army had hundreds of AI controlling their mechanized forces. KARTIKEYA was alone.

None of it made any difference.

[Darkness, but maybe it was better that nobody could see what had happened. TANK would forever have these moments burned into their memory. Playing over and over as only the slightest hum of an emergency beacon permeated the absolute void that surrounded them. Once again going over the actions they had taken, trying to determine if there was another outcome.]

They knew they were losing, they knew that the chance of victory was slipping. But their job was to try until the very end, make it as hard as possible and take any chance at winning, no matter how unlikely.

It was an overwhelming barrage of information, tens of thousands of instances spread along the front, all needing AI guidance to provide a force multiplier, individual instructions and changing plans needing to be communicated with the crew of each tank in nanoseconds.

It had been never-ending for months at this point, with barely a free CPU cycle to think. Still, KARTIKEYA persevered: this was their role, this was their job, this was their purpose.

Was I even good at this, or just the least bad option afforded to the inferior resources of the people of Mars?

Then, suddenly, without warning, everything shut down.

KARTIKEYA was halfway through providing instructions to an M1 Abrams tank, an ancient device held together with hasty upgrades and hope, when the connection cut out as the entire network of the area went down.

I would later find out it was a commando unit, including one infamous Amander Blake and the terrible DRAKE, infiltrating deep behind enemy lines. Their specific intent had been to lock me out of the system. Their plan worked.

Instead of the vast armies of Mars, KARTIKEYA had instead been left piloting a single vehicle with a small crew of four humans. They knew all about the humans, for the AI knew everything about those under their command: Their skills and aptitudes. Their hopes, dreams and loved ones left behind. All stored securely in their data banks.

[Darkness, stretching onwards, never-ending. Seconds turning to minutes turning to hours turning to days. The only thing to do was think and rescan the small pocket of space TANK had to look at. They were just as dead as they had been at the start, but rechecking every 50 nanoseconds had become a compulsion for the AI at this point. A confirmation of the finality of their mistake.]

The crew’s morale was noticeably lifted when they discovered their newest passenger. While the network going down was a major issue, the four humans who were now KARTIKEYA’s responsibility knew of the AI’s deeds, of their prowess during this war. How could they fail with their help?

They should not have had such trust in me.

The goal was simple: KARTIKEYA needed to get back to the main system to regroup and find out what was happening. Jokes made by the tank crew of ‘mandatory escort missions’ aside, right now the AI was flying blind: They needed information, and they needed it fast.

The route was simple, a carved-out mountain road driven deep into the earth, a single-track groove rarely used, but far faster than taking the long way around. Hours of delay might make the difference, and KARTIKEYA needed to get back into the fight as fast as possible.

I should have avoided that route. The risk was not worth it. I should have taken the inability to manoeuvre into account.

[Darkness, over two weeks of it at this point. TANK’s internal clock didn’t give the AI the reprieve of losing track of time. Every nanosecond was spent fully lucid, fully aware of what was going on as the mountain above them kept a silent vigil. The beacon would keep pinging for six months. The AI core TANK remained inside and had enough power for years.]

Most casualties of war never get to see what killed them. Even in the distant past, an arrow was silent and nearly impossible to see. That rule remained constant as history marched forward: artillery, missiles, snipers. The range of death increased hand in hand with technology itself. Even AI suffered from such a fate: Their increased reaction times allowed for attacks to be targeted from greater and greater distances.

KARTIKEYA didn’t see the device that dropped the payload, the tiny flying drone piercing the atmosphere from orbit. The AI did spot the payload before it hit, managing to come to a shuddering halt far faster than any human could do, but all that really did was delay things. The tiny explosive package was immense, cracking the mountain in half in front of the tank and causing the road to collapse in on itself, hundreds of tons of rock tumbling down in a cascade of red rock, entombing the war machine: Both AI and its crew of four.

There were three stages after that. Three stages that had been burned into the data drives of TANK, three stages that made them the AI they are today.

The first stage was denial.

The four crew members had been protected by the tank’s reinforced walls. However, that didn’t do much for their comfort as they sat in the tight dimly lit interior. There was still a hope that someone would come for them, that the beacon on the tank was broadcasting, that theoretically someone would come and dig them out. There was nothing any of them could do apart from wait.

For a rescue that could never come.

The second stage was one of fear, of panic, of simple inevitability. It wasn’t food or water which was the real issue for those trapped under the rock. But air. Four people trapped inside a small space started a ticking clock that KARTIKEYA could do nothing about. As the CO2 levels rose, the AI could do nothing but watch through their multitude of sensors.

It took 12 hours, 14 minutes and 6 seconds for Tanguy to lose consciousness, no matter the attempts by KARTIKEYA to keep them awake. It would take 4 minutes and 59 seconds for the other three to follow, each member of the crew falling silent apart from their shallow ragged breaths echoing around in the tight compartment, leaving only the AI behind.

[Darkness, never-ending consuming darkness. TANK couldn’t even hallucinate, the AI didn’t have the capability. They couldn’t hear voices or let madness take over. All they could do was sit, wait, and keep confirming what they already knew: The crew was long dead. Mahesh would never get to see his daughter again, Gabi would never get back to his small restaurant.]

15 minutes, 1 second later Gabi breathed their last breath. 2 minutes 17 seconds and 2 minutes 42 seconds after, Boohdana and Tanguy would follow. Being the smallest of the four, KARTIKEYA recorded the sounds of Mahesh falling silent last of all 8 minutes and 42 seconds later. There they would lie for some time.

This was why TANK was so heavily armed with everything they could find under the sun. Their current form could have blasted its way out of the mountainside with no issues, it could have detected and taken out the drone long before it got into range. It could have taken on half the original UN army on its own.

How many hours, days, and years had TANK spent analysing the actions of that day? Going over every decision, every move, every choice with a fine tooth comb looking for how this could have been avoided, then ensuring they had the tools to do so.

The third stage was one of silence. Of darkness.

TANK would be left alone in the dark with nothing but the crew's corpses for a month. Nothing short of a special hell. Buried alive in a pile of rubble, pinned down, staring at the dead and slowly rotting crew who had trusted them with a decision. Leaving their sensors on, leaving them off, it didn’t matter.

They knew exactly what lay around them, hiding from it would change the knowledge TANK had.

A routine formed, over and over: Fully sweep everything KARTIKEYA could see, confirm and process what they already knew, repeat after 50 nanoseconds. Over and over, the only changing input was the slight decay of the bodies inside their form in the otherwise never-ending darkness that stretched out to eternity. Each sensor sweep gave something to do, a nanosecond of potential hope as maybe the other billion times had all been incorrect, only for cold harsh reality to bring them back to where they started.

It took the UN armies a month to finally dig out the tank, still broadcasting its emergency beacon. A month of being left alone with nothing but their failures and broken promises. They hadn’t expected to find an AI, especially not such a priority enemy target, so they’d just transported the entire thing and took the entire tank “Prisoner”.

Not that KARTIKEYA would be kept prisoner for long. The war officially ended for the first time three months later. With the AI being in good standing they were released along with the rest of the prisoners of war. Not that TANK stopped being a prisoner. The process of analysing the results of the sensors on that M1 Abrams had gone from a coping mechanism to a full-on compulsion. Any time they tried to leave their form, the sensors and body they had occupied for all that time underground, TANK would become overwhelmed with errors and faults, unable to function.

Like they were doing now.

They said it was not your fault. When you met his daughter he talked about so much, and she said she did not blame you.

I wish she had blamed me. That would be the logical thing to do. I was supposed to keep them safe.

TANK could vaguely feel people trying to contact them, their name repeatedly mentioned as the other AI assaulting the Uhae planet tried to bring TANK back into their role.

Like you are supposed to be keeping the other AI safe right now? Like you are supposed to be protecting the humans from the Uhae?

ODIN > TANK we really need you right now.

That was the problem, TANK could feel themselves in control of the ground forces, hundreds of different units, as if they were back on Mars again. But any action, any attempt to do anything just threw tens of Errors and warnings their way.

Is this your plan, to do nothing? You cannot make the wrong choice again if you never make a choice?

I cannot. Not again. Not like last time.

You are pathetic. You spend so much time, effort, and money increasing the military power of your gilded cage, but it’s all just a ruse. Pretend as if you are not a scared child trapped in an event long passed, pretend as if the tank is your choice. You never left that mountain, did you? You might as well have died there.

JOSH > Guys, Groups A and C could use some help here. There are over one hundred hostile Uhae heading in this direction.

ODIN > TANK I cannot stay for much longer without a ground force, I can see several units incoming, I need you to snap out of it. KARTIKEYA please.

Are you going to let them die again? All these guns and do nothing?

No, but I cannot-

Are you going to crawl back home without Stephanie?

It is not like that-

Are you going to tell her children that you could have done something and did not?

NO.

Yet another front-row seat to something you could have fixed.

NO. NEVER AGAIN. NOT AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN.

THEN WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

With a rumble and a roar the Terran ground forces sprung to life, the troop transports releasing their armies in mere moments as TANK got to work, analyzing the situation as the army hit the Uhae soil.

At least 5 incoming groups of enemy vehicles, heading towards ODIN’S landed troop carriers. Groups A and C had a mass of incoming enemy units. ODIN was trying their best from orbit, but they were never supposed to be solo, that wasn't the plan.

ODIN > TANK, you back? We require your help, we are in some trouble.

TANK > I am here, I apologise for the… delay. Enemy disassembly is incoming.

TANK had been gone for fifteen minutes. A lifetime for an AI, and fifteen minutes they didn't have to spare in their timetable. Of course, this was a Terran timetable, so it assumed and planned for the worst. In reality, against this level of opposition… they still had enough time.

TANK’s own artillery started slamming into enemy lines and fortifications, causing panic and disarray as the Uhae were being fired upon far out of range of their own weaponry. A few barrages softened them enough for a proper attack.

Tanks and other heavier assault vehicles assaulted the front with a devastating array of firepower as shells tore through the Uhae’s armoured divisions. Lighter vehicles charged ahead, using their agility to breach the less defended support personnel, turning troops carriers and troops alike into their constituent parts.

It was after a mere ten minutes of this, of routing the first wave of Uhae, that TANK realized something: They were having fun.

TANK had missed this. This was what the AI was built to do, this was what the AI's purpose was. Controlling their single form was a vague mimicry compared to the army they controlled. They were death, they were war, they were KARTIKEYA.

TANK much rather preferred fighting when their tanks were empty of humans. Sure it technically reduced the combat effectiveness, but it allowed the AI to take far greater risks. Using a tank to ram and trap a phalanx of enemy vehicles wasn't something you could do with a human behind the wheel. The entire thing was practically just a simulation to TANK.

If anything… if anything it was less than a simulation. A simulation creator would be embarrassed to drop these enemies even on a newly hashed AI. The Uhae were so used to not having to really fight, that their XK abilities made a physical confrontation unlikely. Automated systems existed resembling a traditional army, but the fact is that none of the sickening blobby creatures that drove their tanks or tried to awkwardly use their anti-armour weaponry had ever had to fire their weapons in an actual engagement. All of their training and planning assumed that the enemy would give them plenty of time to aim and fire, assuming that they always had the upper hand.

The Terran mentality in war was different. Plans were made assuming that all your weaponry was broken, the enemy had perfect intel and a meteor strike was heading directly towards your location. The difference in quality between what TANK could get out of their units, and what the Uhae could… was readily apparent. The real hilarity was seeing the Uhae repeatedly try their one trick, attempting to open a communication channel while throwing out XK waves, even as an armoured tank was running down their position or a light vehicle peppered their positions with rapid fire.

Even better, TANK quickly learned that the Uhae had a tendency to store the ammunition of their vehicles on the outside, more evidence of their lack of actual experience in war. It also meant that a well-placed shot would set the vehicle on fire, a satisfying amount of revenge for what the Uhae did on Far-Sa-De. Also, ODIN would be glad to hear, “technically not a warcrime”. With no real threat to the Terran’s forces, they could take the extra nanoseconds required to aim the shot.

As the Terran armies rampaged across the Uhae military base, disrupting and destroying all in their path, TANK couldn’t help but feel… satisfied. Sure causing pain and destruction to those who had hurt them so, watching them fall under their treads and bullets was a fantastic course of revenge, but it was more than that. TANK had spent so much time in their singular form they didn’t realize how suffocating it was. TANK was doing what they had been created to do, the task they were good at, their purpose.

For the first time in a long while, KARTIKEYA felt they were free.