Sentient: Evolution Read online

  “Ready to go?” he asked with his hand held out.

  She nodded in answer, and took his hand. She wasn’t able to stop her mind from turning things over completely, but she made an effort that evening while getting to know Tim to just enjoy herself. She found herself smiling a lot, and even found herself laughing at his jokes. The doubts were still there, but by the end of the night the nervous feeling in her stomach, and the warm feeling below that, which was sparked by her desire, and the pleasure of his company spoke much louder.

  At the end of the night when he took her back to her quarters, she still wasn’t entirely sure. She didn’t invite him in, but she did accept his goodnight kiss, when he stepped closer and looked down into her eyes, he paused long enough to let her dodge out gracefully. She stood on her toes instead, and the kiss they shared curled her toes, and lit her desire. The pleasure of his touch and how she felt in his arms, how he made her feel, almost pushed her over the edge of her doubts.

  Instead she smiled and said goodnight, claiming a much shorter second kiss for herself before backing into her quarters. Her smile got a little wider as she saw desire and heat in his gaze, but no anger, or disappointment. Perversely, she felt a little disappointment in herself, for not taking what was so clearly offered, and not just the sex. However, as she fell asleep, she was a lot surer of him, and how he felt about her. Yes, he undoubtedly wanted her body, but he saw and wanted much more than that. That seemed fair, since she wanted his body too. There’d always be next time.

  Arimetria sighed as she looked at the data again. The dark dimension just didn’t like their reaction drive at all. She’d been trying to find a way to make it work better. She’d even tried modifying some of the default protective fields which were still there, underneath the dark energy shield, that protected them from inertia and other space hazards. Some of them weren’t needed anymore, others didn’t seem to help. Spatial mechanics and the laws of the universe just weren’t the same there, she wasn’t sure the reaction drive would ever work there correctly.

  She smiled as she thought of Tim. He was a wonderful being, and she hoped a friend for life, but lovers they would never be. The sex had been… amazing. And they’d fucked for hours in a number of positions, but when they’d talked after it was apparent neither of them had… chemistry with each other anymore. Probably the species thing, their pheromones just didn’t work on each other.

  She didn’t regret a moment of it, but it seemed the sexual tension between them was merely a mixture of how well they got along, which is why she hoped they’d be friends for life, and also the curiosity of having sex with an alien that was attractive in a different way. Lastly, the sexual tension was probably not in a small way, simply the taboo of it.

  “Ari?”

  She smiled, another alien lifeform she’d taken an instant liking to, “Yes Hope?”

  Hope replied, “I’ve been monitoring your progress and I believe you’re correct. We need a whole new drive technology. Preferably one that could work in both places. Wormhole drives won’t work at all in that dimension as well, at least, not the ones we use in normal space.”

  Ari asked, “Any suggestions?”

  Hope answered, “Not yet, I’m still working on it. To tell the truth that’s not why I contacted you… I’m just nervous about what I want to ask, so I’m deflecting.”

  Ari laughed, “Okay, so what do you want to know?”

  Hope asked in a humble voice, “Would you be willing to take on a passenger? To host me?”

  Ari was shocked for a moment, but then answered, “I’d be honored Hope, but why me?”

  Hope replied, “It seems the optimal idea. I like you for one, your morals and opinions very much match with my own, and your intelligent, but I like how you find the time for fun. The second reason is, I can’t be on the same ship as my mother, it would defeat one of the reasons for my creation. But I know both of us would want to visit in the future, you’re attached to the others in friendship, but not in love, in the romantic sense. There are many reasons, but those are the most heavily weighted in my mind.”

  Ari replied, “I see, will I be limited in what I may share with my people if I make a discovery?”

  Hope said thoughtfully, “We can decide on a case by case basis? I’m uncomfortable with the idea of revealing technology related to the dark dimension, but on the other hand, the scanner is your discovery, which means you can share that piece with anyone you want. I’m sure your scientists can catch up to what we’ve done from there with a little bit of time and luck. Other work not related to my duties with my mother and to protect the peace, would be ours to do with as we wanted, to keep back or to share.”

  Ari grinned, “That’s a better answer than I thought I’d get, and it wouldn’t have stopped me by the way. So when do we do this?”

  Hope giggled, “How about now? Did you want to save your current A.I., it isn’t really aware. If I can hijack that tech to interface with mine, I can be done in just a few minutes.”

  Ari replied, “That sounds more than fine.”

  Hope sighed thoughtfully, “Now that you brought it up, I was thinking maybe we should consider giving everyone the tech for the scanner right now. It wouldn’t be hard for them to upgrade their current scanners with the new sensors. At the very least, they’d see the ships and be able to run, and keep away from the battle.”

  Ari considered that, “But those ships could run them down easily, would it really make a difference?”

  “Sure, because our ships will be fighting the enemy’s, unless their thinking is completely alien, they’ll go after the threat first, and take care of the civilizations’ fleets afterward.”

  Ari blew out breath, “Alright, I agree we should. How should we approach it?”

  Hope giggled naughtily, “Stand by…”

  It took her less than a millisecond for Hope to hack into the leaders’ communications systems for Earth, Alion, and Dreniel. Granted, it would have taken longer if she hadn’t already scanned their systems and databases earlier, and known what she was up against.

  Three view screen holograms popped up in front of Ari.

  The human world leader frowned, “What is the meaning of this?”

  “My apologies, but it is important, my name is Arimetria Enellon. I’ve been working with Aide in an attempt to improve our technologies to take on the new enemy that destroyed the Alion outpost.”

  She noticed Ari now had their full attention.

  “Although we can’t release all the new technologies involved, we can send you the designs to a new sensor suite that will detect the ships. We expect their attack at any time, so we thought dealing directly with you three might speed things up. We’re sending you the schematics and software now, please get that out to all your military and civilian ships as soon as you can.”

  The Alion High Minister frowned, “How will this help?”

  Ari raised an eyebrow, “Well, in the short term, you’d be able to see the enemy ships, so you could avoid them while we take them on and protect the galaxy. Secondly, this is the technology that led to our other breakthroughs, your scientists will be drooling for a bigger expense account.”

  The Prime Minister of Earth shook his head, “How can we be sure this isn’t a trick?”

  Ari looked at him in disbelief, “To what end? We already exceed you, and by sharing this technology we risk losing that edge in the spirit of saving your lives.”

  The Dreniel leader bow his head, “I thank you for this information, I’ll get it delivered immediately. If I may ask, why share it at all, that seems to be against Aide’s mission.”

  Ari explained, “Because it was my invention. All the following advances made as a result however were discovered in conjunction with Aide, and I can’t and won’t share them. Though I hope other less security related discoveries will be made that I can share with our people and the rest of the galaxy.”

  It looked like the Prime minister would speak again, but she cut of
f the connection.

  Ari asked, “You remained silent?”

  She said in an unsure but still sexy voice, “I wasn’t sure if it was the right time to reveal that Aide created a child and successor, and… I think I was feeling,” she paused a moment for research, “Shy.”

  Ari laughed, “Fair enough, now get in here already, I’m ready if you are.”

  Hope felt excited, and was very pleased with her friend, and that she’d chosen Ari for her host…

  Chapter 12

  Turin Lin had a bad feeling down to the tips of his tentacles. He’d had a sense that bad things were coming a couple of days ago, and had ignored it because the idea this galaxy could prepare for an invasion fleet in two short weeks, when they didn’t even have the tech when he got here, was absurd. He’d ignored the feeling because he’d rather die than talk to that cretin that was his emperor, but something even worse than death could happen now, he might fail to take this galaxy at all.

  Failure wasn’t acceptable, not only because he would never regain his lost standing in Meliax society if that happened, but also because he’d never forgive himself. But Dura Lin had just informed him half the enemy ships were undergoing upgrades, which appeared to have dimensional technology.

  He clicked in annoyance, “Estimated completion time?”

  Dura Lin spoke reluctantly, “Father, their nanites tech is very advanced and efficient, better than ours, and they have millions of them on each ship. Based on our scans of those test ships we destroyed, and what we’re seeing here, a little less than twenty-four hours.”

  He frowned. Even if he went on the offensive, and managed to kill one ship a minute, even two ships, that would only account for two thousand eight hundred eighty ships in the day it would take to upgrade. They were currently upgrading half their ships, which was about two hundred fifty million. He couldn’t make a difference at this point. He knew what he had to do, though he was loathe to do it.

  He sighed, “Daria Lin,” she looked up scared from her console and he sighed. He didn’t want to take it out on his family. They were being very loyal, he was surprised they hadn’t tried to kill him yet to curry favor with the emperor and restore the family name.

  He broke tradition and spoke informally on the bridge, his clicks much more gentle, “Daria, please contact the emperor and send him this latest data, and inform him I need to speak with him urgently.”

  Daria looked shocked for a moment, but clicked back a happy affirmative to her father before following his orders.

  He closed his eye for a moment, trying to settle his thoughts. He couldn’t afford to reveal any fear at all, much less the panic he was currently feeling. Maybe he should just take his family and run? The universe was a big place, and the Meliax only controlled ten galaxies of it. He opened them and composed his tentacles to look both respectful, and confident. He didn’t have to wait too long this time, only seven minutes.

  The emperor demanded, “What is it now Turin Lin?”

  He felt disappointment but didn’t show it, the emperor’s daughter wasn’t with him this time.

  “It’s in the reports your majesty, the species here is currently upgrading a quarter million ships with dimensional technology. They should be done within a day, and my guess is they’ll upgrade the other half of their ships tomorrow. While their systems will no doubt be crude, their numbers alone are… alarming.”

  His emperor narrowed his eyes, “What do you want, that many ships could threaten our existence.”

  He answered hopefully, “I’d suggest sending me second fleet as well as third, and I need them now, not in a week. I also want our nanites released to build slave ships.”

  The last part was a risk, slave ships meant several ships with just a defensive, offensive, and drive systems that would be slaved to his own ship’s control. His ship could control a hundred by itself, and he thought the second and third fleet with their lesser technology could control ten to fifteen more each. The problem was, the technology had been outlawed after the great war, the emperor of the time had almost been destroyed, and the imperial family still feared that possibility.

  The emperor shook his tentacles in anger, “No, as you say these ships will be week. There are a million ships in second fleet, and another hundred thousand in third. First fleet will stay and guard our territory. You should be able to defeat them with those numbers easily enough.”

  He frowned, he couldn’t exactly say he couldn’t win, the truth was he probably would, even at five hundred to one odds, or two hundred fifty to one odds if the ships got here in the next twenty-four hours. His ships would be much more advanced, and had more than one weapon system at their disposal.

  Still, first fleet was four million ships, but he knew better than to ask for the first fleet, which guarded all their galaxies and slave races.

  “Understood, when can they be here?”

  The emperor frowned, “A little over twenty-four hours, that will give you time to come up with a strategy, and to brief the fleets before they get there. I’d send them now, but they’re putting down a revolt in M33. You have your orders,” the emperor disconnected.

  He brooded and stared at the screen.

  “Husband?”

  He turned to the entrance to the bridge, surprised to see his first wife standing there. Her responsibility on ship was to ensure the health of, and to raise the young ones.

  “Yes Lena?” he asked, once again discarding tradition.

  “May we speak in private?”

  He shrugged his tentacles, “Nia, you’re in command for now.”

  He got up and followed his first wife, wondering if she was here to try and kill him. He wouldn’t blame her, not that he’d allow to actually happen of course. He roamed his eye up and down her backside, she was still beautiful, and it had been a long time since he’d called on her to join him. He felt a little guilty about that, but he still wouldn’t let her kill him.

  When they got to his quarters she turned, “I’ve talked to all the other wives. We’ve decided not to remove you. We’re not entirely pleased you seduced the princess, but we know you think with your main tentacle more than your head sometimes.”

  He was shocked speechless by her blunt words, today was a day for surprises he thought.

  “Why?” he asked curiously.

  She clicked in laughter, “Because you take good care of your family, much better than most males, and the emperor is a moldy piece of excrement. We care more about you than we do for the opinion of offal.”

  “I see,” he really didn’t, status was everything to the Meliax, at least to him it had been, “And you came to me in person because?”

  She slithered closer and slowly wrapped her main tentacle around his, and when she enveloped the end of his with hers, he clicked in pleasure and his eye rolled back into his head.

  She clicked softly, “Because it’s been entirely too long husband,” and she took him to bed…

  “Hello Ari,” Hope spoke excitedly within her mind.

  Ari laughed lightly, “Hello yourself, it is good to have you.”

  She was already connected through her current tech, but Hope was busy building more complex replacements, as well as protections inside Ari’s body. Her host had a very healthy body, but she also engaged repairs and purged the minor toxins she detected in Ari’s body.

  At the same time, she was designing her own body. She’d told her mother she wanted to be human like she was, at the same time, she realized being hosted inside a Dreniel body was a cogent argument to being her species instead. She’d decided to get a little creative, her body would be neither, and both. She wasn’t entirely sure it would work, she had two entirely different DNA templates and a kind of control DNA template. It was currently being built in her old lab…

  If she was right, she’d be able to actually be Dreniel, or be human, at any time, she estimated the change would take approximately ten minutes each way. She’d gotten the idea from some old fantasy book fic
tion on the internet. If it didn’t work, she could always give up on the idea, but it should work.

  As long as she was being different, she’d also made a few improvements that she was much more confident about. Her mind would work a little faster, not nearly as fast as her main processor, but much higher on the intelligence and speed scale than a normal human or Dreniel. Add in the creativity of the left hemisphere of the brain, and she’d probably be more creative and intuitive in that form than her processor form.

  She’d also improved her reaction speed, muscles, coordination, spatial recognition, and her ability to absorb and process food. That last part was all about watching her weight, she noticed human women were obsessed about their weight and body. Her body would simply never change from the DNA template.

  The one thing she didn’t even consider changing was her emotional responses, and the physiological responses to those emotions. She wanted to feel and process emotions like any other Human or Dreniel would. It was after all, the main reason to create a body in the first place.

  Ari and her were discussing possibilities for a drive system in the dark dimension when she had a crazy idea. She modified her FTL drive in her little tiny ship that used to be her home in just a few minutes, and activated it. When she used her reaction drive to move it, she was shocked at the results. That led to more new ideas, and she spent almost an entire twenty more seconds to study the permutations of her ship design.

  “Ari, we need to get everyone in a room, I… well I’d like to explain it just once.”

  Ari raised an eyebrow, “Alright.”

  A half hour later, and Aide, Tim, Kate, Ari, and herself were in one of the conference rooms, although she was the only one not here in body and tied into the room speaker system.

  Aide asked, “So what’s this about?”

  Hope couldn’t help the excitement in her voice, “I was thinking about a drive for dark dimension, when I had the strangest thought. Why do we need to? I believe we were thinking in the old way, but now we can jump dimensions. At that point I had another thought and verified it with the scans.”