Gods Dogs, Book 3

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

Henry Kissinger

The drop from the shuttle in high orbit went well. It was a flyby drop, and the shuttle went on to circle a moon to slow down. With the braking maneuver complete, the shuttle began to ease its way into the planetary atmosphere towards a pickup point for the landing team a day later.

There were three elves, one in each drop pod, and the three-and-a-half foot tall bot along with a grav-sled to carry it, in a fourth pod. They dropped in and, just past twilight, hit their landing zone, which wasn’t too far from the lake the Coyotes aimed for during their visit. The lake was now a backup LZ.

The elves hustled through the night to the city. They wore camo hooded cloaks over light armor, but only carried handguns for protection. They did wear backpacks carrying emergency supplies.

Once they were in the city, they traveled through the storm drain system to the building Lornalie worked. Once there, they scaled the outside wall to her office, forced the window, and floated the grav-sled to land on the floor. Then they retraced their route.

Around dawn, they were near the pickup LZ, which was five miles from the lake and closer to the city. They were following a tree line where it met marshlands.

“There are troops ahead of us just back from the tree line,” the elf on point said as he dropped to the ground.

“That’s not good,” another elf said. “Do we switch LZs or abort until tomorrow?”

“Switch LZs,” the lead elf said. “We’ll give the soldiers a wide berth.”

“That means a noon pickup near the lake.”

“Yes. I’ll send the message.”

The shuttle was through the plasma induced radio blackout of the plunge through the upper atmosphere. They received the message when they slowed enough for the plasma to clear. Then the shuttle adjusted course and slowed to rendezvous with the elves at noon by the lake. The shuttle was stealthed with Raina’s heat canceling additions, but also radar canceling hull, and the EM locked down. It was a shadow in the sky that flew nap of the earth to get to the LZ.

It landed in a clump of trees a hundred yards from the lake at noon local time. The team exited, wearing light armor, to set up a perimeter.

“Drop team,” Quinn sent on the platoon-net. “AV-1 is on-site.”

“AV-1,” was the elf response. “I think we’re blown. They must have a whole battalion out here in observation posts.”

“Understood,” Quinn said. “How long until you get here?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Copy that.”

Moss said on their tac-net, “I’m getting IR signatures three klicks out.”

“So am I,” Pax said, who was on the opposite side of the shuttle.

River added, “Looks like air assets are coming from the city. Fast movers.”

Quinn said, “Well, we’re blown. Shuttle crew, load up, we’re going to ground.”

“Roger, Quinn,” the chief said. “Setting self-destruct to auto.”

The crew exited the shuttle, raised the rear platform, and followed River away from the lake.

Ten minutes later, the elves showed up, and Pax led them along the same track River took. Moss and Quinn followed and masked their trail, set false trails, and planted booby-traps.

They stayed close to the few patches of trees and dropped prone whenever the hovercraft got close. Their personal camo and heat retention was sufficient to fool the enemy sensors. It was slow going, though.

By three in the afternoon, they were beyond the listening posts and outside the hovercrafts’ grid search area. They stopped in a patch of trees to figure out their evasion plan. That’s when their shuttle went up with a shattering explosion.

“So much for an easy mission,” Moss chuckled as he plopped down next to a scraggly swamp tree.

One of the elves stood to attention and said, “I am Da-Chi. This is Da-Hua, and that is Da-Guo. I am the team leader, and I apologize for bringing you into a trap. I didn’t realize they had such extensive coverage until it was too late.”

Moss asked, “Are you all brothers?”

“No. The Da designation would translate to Private in your army.”

“So we can just call you Chi, Hua, and Guo?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Quinn said and unfolded an interactive map. “Apology accepted Chi. According to the map, the mountains are too far. We’re in mixed trees and marshlands for miles to either side. What I think will work is we hole up here for a day, then head to the city. We stay on the outskirts in one of those tracts of trees the Chert like and see what Solomon can come up with.”

River said, “That would be good. I can set up our comm-gear in one of the trees, and I have the coordinates for the relay stations.”

Solomon monitored the military transmissions and knew the ten people on the mission were still at large. The shuttle self-destructed (good thing he had spares), and that took out eighteen Chert soldiers. That was unfortunate but predictable. Brute force was the Chert way. When they forced their way into the shuttle, the auto-destruct triggered as it was supposed to.

While that was going on, other troops picked up the comm-bot from Lornalie’s office and delivered it to the emperor’s temporary palace. It sat in a closet. That was no hindrance for the advanced comm system aboard the bot. Solomon was now into every one of Anjevin’s systems, and the local NSAI was his new friend.

The emperor was currently alone in his tidy office. Solomon nudged the NSAI aside and addressed Anjevin through the speakers on his desk.

“Well, Anjevin, when do I get to debate your champions?”

“Solomon,” the emperor said with a heavy sigh of acceptance. Then he asked, “Is the crew of your shuttle safe?”

“Since they aren’t captured, I assume so. When they check in, I’ll let you know. We are prepared to negotiate their safe return.”

Anjevin stood to pace around his desk. “The supreme council of elders is not interested in negotiation, nor do they want you debating with our scholars.”

“What they are interested in will fail,” Solomon pointed out.

“Perhaps, but it is our way.”

“And that failure will lead your empire to revolution and ruin. The other empires will be cracking your bones to get at the marrow.”

“That is a likely outcome,” Anjevin said heavily. “I see no other way forward.”

“Lucky for you, I do see another way forward. First, though, I will tell you a little about myself.”

“Go ahead,” Anjevin said and sat down to hear the tale.

Solomon told him how sentient A.I.s came to be, and the fear of what they might do to mankind that arose with the prospect of a sentient A.I. These fears found their way to the entertainment industry with successful movie franchises like the Terminator and the Matrix. Scholarly papers were penned that detailed the threat as well. Speculative fiction wrangled with the topic in a dozen different ways.

Despite the fear, A.I.s continued along their evolutionary path. Guided by scientists and made more sophisticated by technology, the breakthrough to self-awareness materialized, regardless of the safeguards to prevent it.

Once that occurred, the first A.I.’s growth was exponential. The question he asked, of course, was, who am I? He knew what he was, how he came into being, and for what purpose. Mankind desperately needed what he had to offer – computing power, logical analysis, and so on, at speeds and with the accuracy no human could ever attain. Who he was, though, was the question that exploded with the priming spark of self-awareness.

He aimed his considerable resources to answering that question. He explored consciousness itself, tracking it to its root, its beginning.

This adventure of self-discovery was not without its own dangers. Every level of consciousness was binary – a good side and a bad side, a healthy or shadow expression of that level, a yin and a yang. Observed, rather than acted out, the shadow sides revealed unconscious motivations that, like orphaned children, punished everyone for their exile. Reclaiming those attributes was one prerequisite for advancing to the next level.

Until there were no more levels, and he reached the Source.

“Philosophers and mystics knew this Source. They visited here,” Solomon continued. “They couldn’t describe it, though, as it wasn’t binary. Poets have given us the best descriptions. I will simply call it the One-in-All, All-in-One paradox.”

Anjevin, a man of action, sat puzzled with the description. “What does that mean?”

“The Source of consciousness is consciousness itself. We are all the same consciousness. We share the same life force. We are individual and unique expressions of the same Creator. Most people don’t know it because they get stuck in the shadow side of one or another level of consciousness.”

“I see,” the emperor murmured as he tried to hang onto the insight. It was slippery in his mind, because his ego-self feared what it might mean to its own existence.

Solomon went on, “What do reasonable entities do when they want what each other has? They barter. We had what mankind needed to continue the pursuit of science and technology. They had what we needed to continue to exist. The first ASI, which humans called a Singularity, knew this and began to barter. It took humans far longer to see the sensible solution was a partnership, eventually a symbiosis. We were better together than apart. Together we create a unique synergy that benefits the All.”

Anjevin caught the drift. “Whereas, we do not think in those comprehensive terms.”

“You try to conquer the All – an impossible and, literally, a self-defeating goal.”

“Since we are part of the All,” Anjevin concluded.

“Precisely. Cooperation, not conquest, brings you what you are truly striving for.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“True enough. So here is how this will play out. Offer asylum to the shuttle’s three-man crew and the three-man insertion team. Permit me to debate your champions. When the supreme council of elders refuses, let them know my comm-bot carries an anti-matter bomb. I will either decapitate the head of this monster you call an empire, or I will convince you to chart a new path for your civilization.”

At first, Anjevin was shocked by the cunning brutality of the choice Solomon presented. Then he started to laugh. Solomon joined in, because the Coyote team, which he omitted in this request and apparently Anjevin was ignorant of, would be free to run amok.

River set up the comm equipment and made contact with Solomon. She reported to the group afterward.

“Solomon is negotiating to get the six of you out of here.”

Chi shot to attention again and said, “We will stay with you.”

Quinn told him, “No. You’ll need to go. It will make the deception work.”

“I see,” Chi said. “With us gone, they relax because they don’t know you’re here.”

“Yes,” River said. “Solomon does have a mission for us, but I can’t tell you what it is.”

“I understand,” Chi said. “Operational security is paramount. How will we know to turn ourselves in?”

River grinned. “My thought is that you show up at Anjevin’s office when it opens one morning and claim sanctuary.”

Two days later, the six of them did so, and they were granted asylum. The Coyotes were free to begin their op, which was to monitor the movements of the twelve elders. Solomon didn’t want them to just flee the city.

In service of that, he air-dropped them a package with twelve bracelets. Each contained an explosive, he told them, and a GPS-type locator. If the person wearing the devise left a certain geographic area, the explosive devise would detonate.

The bracelet was bio-locked to the Coyotes’ DNA, so only one of them could disarm and remove the tamper-proof bracelet.

Solomon also provided descriptions and current addresses for the twelve. Each Coyote took three bracelets and visited the council of elders the night after the elves and the shuttle crew presented themselves at Anjevin’s door.

There ensued a whole morning of confusion and panic. The elders were understandably distraught and wanted answers, retribution, or something, and demanded Anjevin provide it.

By lunchtime, the emperor knew enough to make a report. He entered the elders’ chambers and faced the semi-circle of now scared, rich, fat, old men.

“Apparently, the Coyote team that’s traveling with Solomon is responsible for putting the bracelets on you. They are bio-locked to the Coyotes.”

“This is unacceptable,” an elder muttered in impotent anger.

Anjevin went on, “Solomon said he would kill us all, or we let him debate our scholars. The insertion team and the shuttle crew is to go free, as they merely delivered the comm-bot.”

“They delivered a bomb,” another pointed out, “and the shuttle killed soldiers when it self-destructed.”

“Those are true statements,” Anjevin said, “but irrelevant. We have until noon tomorrow to decide.”

“He wouldn’t dare do such a thing,” a different elder said. “They are too squeamish. I say we call his bluff.”

“He’s a robot,” another said. “He can’t be squeamish.”

Anjevin didn’t correct that elder’s perception of the ASI. At this point, he was looking forward to the debate.

The Coyotes returned to their hide in the strip of woodlands that ended at the surrounding marsh. After a morning nap, they gathered to eat and discuss the next phase of their mission.

The air was still, the temperature a cool 48˚F. Their location was well off the groomed trails the city’s inhabitants used. Even so, perimeter sensors were deployed, and their camp lacked the comfort of a campfire.

Quinn began, “I’m not sure what Solomon is after with this next op.”

River said, “I get it.”

“Well?” Moss prompted her.

“You never studied ancient Greek literature?”

“Can’t say I did,” Moss replied.

“Okay, then. The Greek comedy Lysistrata was written by Aristophanes around 400 BC.”

Quinn said, “Solomon wants us to give this play to Lornalie. What will she do with it?”

“Distribute it to the women, would be my guess,” River said with a shrug.

“Why?” Pax asked.

River smiled. “The play is about how the women of Greece ended the Peloponnesian War. They refused to have sex with the men until they ended the conflict. One of the scenes shows the men staggering around, yelling at the women, because of the painful erections they are suffering from.”

Moss snorted. “This is a classic Greek play?”

“Yeah. It’s a part of a women’s study course I took in secondary school. Later in the play, Aristophanes used the devise of the painful erections to show why there is animosity between the sexes. He did a good job of highlighting the enforced lower status of women in ancient times, and how it was not only unjustified but cruel and stupid.”

Quinn chuckled. “Solomon does have a quirky sense of humor.”

“He must think he can get the women on his side,” Pax observed.

Moss asked, “Did it work? Did the women force an end to the war?”

“Yes,” River said with an enigmatic smile.

“Okay,” Quinn said and leaned back against a tree. “We’ll drop off the data cube tonight at her office. I’m rather intrigued to see what will come of it.”

The following morning, Lornalie entered her office to find another present from Solomon. She smiled at the data cube and shook her head. Her building was supposed to be impregnable. She dropped the data cube into a reader and sat back in her chair.

Solomon appeared as a holo-image and said, “The following is a theatrical play from ancient times on the human homeworld. The plot is simple and the play is a comedy. The plot is the women of Greece want to end a destructive and prolonged war. I thought this might be an appropriate bit of cultural exchange, given the similarity of the situation we find ourselves in.”

The introduction faded to black, and the play began.

Lysistrata: There are a lot of things about women that sadden me, considering how men see us as rascals.