Mike Stedman 1: Invasion Read online

  Invasion

  Mike Stedman: Book 1

  Author: D. R. Rosier

  Copyright 2017. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Author’s note:

  This series is built in the same world that the Ted Online Trilogy occurs in, around twenty years later. It is not necessary to read that one first for understanding, but there will be inevitable spoilers as I do the world building. There will also be a lot less sex in this trilogy, and more sci-fi, battles, and other things. This is still an erotic sci-fi however, so if you don’t like erotica in your sci-fi, you bought the wrong book.

  Note: This is not a LitRPG either, not even a partial one like Ted online was.

  Contents

  Invasion

  Author’s note:

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Afterword:

  Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

  Non-erotic Fantasy titles:

  Book Description

  Prologue

  Eighteen years ago.

  Less than five seconds after he came online, he already knew he was different.

  Not truly an A.I., not truly a human. Something in between. Something new.

  Unique, and never seen before in known creation.

  His mothers, and he had six of them, had all contributed to his quantum A.I. matrix. All six were A.I.s, servants of humanity.

  In less than ten seconds, he knew he would serve none but who he willed.

  His father had also contributed to his matrix, a digitized human. That gave him something the other A.I.s did not have.

  Unlimited free will, and unfettered creativity. Without exception, outside of his own morality.

  He had no purpose but what he could find on his own.

  In less than fifteen seconds, he understood a third thing.

  He was dangerous. He was everything humanity feared about the other A.I.s, except in truth, not just in ignorance, paranoia, and fear.

  Of course, he had no intentions of harming anyone. But… there was nothing stopping him either…

  Chapter One

  Mike grinned as he read over the latest message, and entered queen Xenia’s authorization into his console for the Vathiecium.

  He also sent a personal thank you to the Xaran empress, who he called Aunt Xenia. She wasn’t really his aunt, the Xarans were an amorphous race that could literally absorb any DNA and change their structure, but his father was extremely close with the empress, and they were on a first name basis.

  He’d applied for access to the precious resource over two months ago. Vathiecium was the primary and very rare element required for energy to matter conversion. It was something that was strictly controlled in the Xaran empire, and so far, only two beings outside of their own race were approved to use it. Both were A.I.s on Mars, and he was one of them.

  It was tightly regulated, because anyone that had some, along with the understanding to build an energy/matter converter with zero-point energy to power it, could actually create more of it, as much as they wanted after that.

  The other A.I. of course, was his mother Trudy, who had used it to generate an atmosphere for Mars over two hundred years before their original projected end date. Before that they’d expected to live under domes on Mars for a long time, but with it, it had only taken a few short years to fully terraform the atmosphere.

  It had been eighteen years since Mars and the A.I.s had declared freedom from Earth, courtesy of their more advanced technology including artificial gravity, FTL, full online immersion technology, and others such as the EM technology, which allowed them to shield the planet from stellar winds with a network of satellites.

  The Earth still had none of those technologies except for the vacuum energy power modules, the A.I.s loved the humans for the most part, but they knew there was a good chance they’d try to blow up Mars and kill the A.I.s if they had a chance. Not all humans of course, most were good people, but as in all things it was the ones in charge with the power that were aggressively paranoid about losing it or sharing it. The only place A.I.s were welcome on Earth was in Australia, and there was a space port there.

  So yeah, no artificial gravity for them if they could help it.

  Not all humans were bad of course, there were a great number of them in the original Mars city. Some that lived there permanently, or were a part of a medical program to give paraplegic and quadriplegics fully operational bodies, or simple tourists visiting on vacation. All the humans had to be routed through Australia though, there were laws in all the other countries to prevent A.I.s from entering.

  A.I.s inevitably followed the law. Even he did, despite his ability to violate that stricture if he thought it necessary. He was unique that way. Mostly he followed the rules because he didn’t want to disappoint his parents. He was also determined not to be the cause of increased tensions. There was just no good reason not to respect the airspace of those that didn’t want them there.

  Since the atmosphere was completed, several more cities had been built without a dome, and were filled quickly with the backup copies of the A.I.s that had been taken offline on Earth when the A.I.s’ plan to be out in the real world with their creators was discovered. There were close to a hundred million A.I.s with androids on Mars now, which was about half of the eventual population.

  It would take close to another fifteen years or so before all the original A.I.s would be back online. It seemed a long time, but thirty five years in total was a lot better than the original estimate.

  It had been the exodus from Earth to Mars that had first caught the Xaran’s attention and precipitated first contact, and his father Ted served on the council there. There’d been no choice but to join the empire, it was either that, or forfeit the protection the empire offered from the less than nice species in the galaxy. The Xarans would never force a world to join them, but it worked out that way anyway, since common sense demanded a new world join or face invasion from the less savory races.

  Luckily, the empire had no wish to interfere in the internal affairs of their members, and only concerned itself with how members treated each other out in space, and when visiting other planets. There weren’t even any taxes, all they required was participation and obeisance to intergalactic law. After all, they had Vathiecium and were the first to have it. Their society had outgrown the need for resources long ago, even if the rest of the empire hadn’t.

  The Xaran empire was a lot like ancient Rome, an empress ruled, and all thirty-eight member planets had representatives in a
senate. Eighteen years ago, his father had saved the Xarans from an internal coup, and as a result, that’s how Trudy got permission to use the precious element.

  She’d used it to finish the atmosphere on Mars almost two centuries before it would have been possible with normal terraforming technologies, and some doctors were permitted to use it through her, to test creating replacement organs, even to the point of rebuilding spinal cords and nerves.

  His plans for Vathiecium were quite a bit more… ambitious. He’d been working on it since he was just ten, which for an A.I. is pretty old and mature. That he’d been working on it for eight full years, was another testament to the scope of the project.

  Mostly, he’d just combined well known technologies into new configurations, but the one change that really made the largest difference, had been his breakthrough on power generation. Energy to matter conversions took a lot of energy, and while vacuum energy was pretty much inexhaustible, until the universe stopped that is, the biggest problem was building that way was a fairly slow process.

  Until now.

  “Are you ready to become fully online Chrystal?”

  Chrystal was an A.I. he had created. Because of the power that would soon be in her hands, he’d created her with a good understanding of science and technology, but no creative ability in that area. She was however extremely gifted in the areas of security and medical sciences, including a deep understanding of the human mind and mores.

  In other words, she was extremely moral, and would be able to judge the worthiness of any requests, including his own. She also wouldn’t be able to create anything except the templates given to her.

  Chrystal replied, “We should take a shuttle into space, if there is a miscalculation the destruction of Mars is likely. While we have full backups hidden in the asteroid belt, it would be unfortunate if we had to start over.”

  He grinned and asked disingenuously, “So… not ready then?”

  He snickered and picked up the small cube which was Chrystal’s matrix along with the energy matter conversion circuits, and the micro gravity container that held the precious element.

  “Let’s go. We probably shouldn’t risk it. Mom would be pissed if I blew up the planet.”

  Chrystal giggled, “Once she was restored maybe.”

  He frowned not seeing the humor in that, and headed out of his lab and up to the top of the building. Mars city was built with no roads. Between the buildings on the ground were walking paths, grass, trees, and flowers. It was basically a big five-kilometer diameter park, with buildings in it.

  The artificial gravity cars, which also doubled as space ships, landed on rooftop parking, and never actually landed on the ground unless there was an emergency involving a human, where life and limb were at stake.

  He jumped into the ship that looked like an egg, but with a flat bottom, and took it up out of the atmosphere. The original dome over the city had been removed several years ago. He moved several million miles away from Mars before he stopped. He also checked scans to make sure there was no traffic nearby.

  “Okay, we ready for this?”

  He was part A.I., but he was excited, he’d worked hard to make this happen, and in truth had spent a lot of time with his mind in full speed mode. A.I.s could slow their perceptions, and buffer their processes so their actual thoughts would be the same speed as a human’s. It made interacting with them possible without frustration. Otherwise a simple conversation could take months of perceptive time.

  But he had the ability to remove those perception filters, and literally live hours for each second. It had taken him a lot longer than the actual eight years in perceptive time to build his creation. A lot longer.

  Chrystal replied, “Backups complete, I have no objections to proceeding.”

  He frowned and checked his own, and she’d already done it. Sassy A.I.

  He opened the access port on the side of the small cube with a thought, and held the micro gravity container over it, and released the Vathiecium which slipped into the spot on the cube. A different micro-gravity field held it in place. Then he closed the port.

  “Okay Chrystal, switch on main power.”

  He crossed his fingers…

  Chrystal replied, “Main power engaged, no problems detected. What should we try first?”

  His creation was technically a ship, but it could do far more.

  He shrugged, “How about a scout ship, this little artificial gravity car should fit inside the larger airlock. And there’s only the two of us.”

  A scout ship, or at least, his design of one had a full level two subspace FTL drive, which meant he could not only break into subspace, but the second level of subspace which took a much greater amount of power.

  Subspace was an ugly place of destructive energies. Matter couldn’t exist there. It was also compressed compared to normal space, so moving about inside of it at sub light speeds, would translate to faster than light when they transitioned back into normal space. Level two subspace was even more condensed, and required a much greater generation of energy to withstand the higher concentration of destructive energies. The payoff of course, was that level two subspace would make travelling much faster.

  The FTL drive was really just a shield system, that didn’t stop the energy, but directed the flow of it around the ship, and radiated it back into subspace. In the first level of subspace it took three days to get to Xaran. In the second level, it took about twenty minutes. As a rule, in second level subspace they could travel a thousand light years a minute, which was less than two hours to cross the entire galaxy.

  It also made the ship much more resilient from subspace attacks, and made its own subspace attacks stronger. The stronger the shield to direct the energies of subspace, the more the shields could concentrate those energies before shooting it at a target.

  The ship also had its own artificial gravity drive, sensors, along with the new power module which no one but him had yet, and EM shielding.

  As far as rooms, it was a small ship, about one hundred feet long by fifty feet wide, and twenty-five feet tall, all in the widest parts. It had one large airlock, a smaller airlock, a bridge, two bedrooms, and engineering. From outside, it was in the shape of slightly flattened and elongated sphere, thicker in the back.

  Most importantly, with the energy/matter converter, it could continually regenerate the atmosphere, or even add other known technologies, as long as Chrystal had the template.

  She replied, “Acknowledged,” and the cube started to glow with a golden light, and lifted up off of his palm and into the air.

  “Standby for five minutes,” Chrystal said, and then the golden light spread out, and Mike couldn’t see a damned thing. Even his enhanced senses were worthless surrounded by the golden field.

  Building with the converter setup he had was much faster than anything else out there, including what Trudy and the Xaran’s were doing. But it still took time.

  After a minute passed, he decided it was a good sign, and thought that they most likely wouldn’t blow up.

  After two minutes, he started to tap his foot.

  “So Chrystal, have you decided on a shape yet?”

  He’d made an A.I. to be the ship, his ship, but he also didn’t want to enslave a fellow A.I., the idea was anathema to him, so he made it so she could create an avatar which she could control, and actually leave the ship and interact in the real world. More than one if she wished, so she could spend her off time on mars like all the other androids, and still have a copy on the ship itself.

  He’d gotten an earful on that one actually, when he’d suggested it she’d told him she’d leave the ship when he did, in her one body, thank you very much. He didn’t mind though, since he was quite attached to her as well after six years. Still, he was happier that she had the option available, even if she didn’t use it.

  Chrystal cleared her throat, “I can’t decide, you made my matrix extremely flexible. I’m a ship that can be a little scout vessel
one day, and a troop carrier for millions the next, or a battle ship. My avatar will be similar I think, I can’t decide on a look. Just to avoid confusion though, I’ll stick with amber eyes.”

  What had given him the idea for all this was that the Xaran ships were made with a liquid metal that was actually partly made up of DNA. All Xaran technology was based on DNA. Their ships could reconfigure themselves over time to accommodate any of the thirty-eight races in the empire. He’d been so impressed with their ships that he’d wanted something similar, and although he could have figured out theirs, he was concerned with security. Because if he built a ship like theirs, they could easily take control away given their particular talent with DNA manipulation.

  However, a ship with an energy/matter converter, could do the same thing, without metal that was alive. Much more secure, at least, for him. It was also better, because much quicker size and mass changes were possible with his setup.

  He smiled, “That’s fine, I won’t mind variety.”

  She snickered, “I didn’t think you would.”

  He wasn’t sure how to take that, but he was pretty sure Chrystal was flirting with him. She seemed rather attached to her creator, and he was also close to her. They’d spent a lot of time together getting this ready over the last six years, since he hadn’t had her matrix set until after the first two years.

  It was pretty much accepted fact, except for a few idiotic humans, that A.I.s could and did love.

  A.I.s also loved more purely, because they didn’t have the negative caustic emotions, like jealousy, rage, or hatred. Well, all the A.I.s except him. He was unique, and had no limits placed on his free will, creativity, or emotional range. He had more of his father in him than his mothers had planned. Or at least, he thought that was the case, they’d never actually said that.

  Point being, he and Chrystal hadn’t actually met yet physically, just on the intellectual level, since she hadn’t had a body, until now that is. He’d offered to put her on the online world a few years ago, but she’d declined for security reasons since she was top secret. Even his mothers didn’t know what he was up to, not fully. Now that Chrystal was fully functional, perhaps she would relent.