Kick the Sphere 20 (Patreon)

A/N: welcome to chapter 20~! This story probably would not have reached here without all of your votes and support, so take a pat on your shoulder from me.

Now. Let’s get rolling.

-VB-

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 20

-VB-

Alan Marris

The Manufactory became a minor asset within the month of the attempted invasion and then .

It wasn’t that it wasn’t useful, because I continued to use it.

However, I used it to create general resource extraction replicators and sent them to the neighboring planets in the same system. Already, my dear replicators worked hard to strip those planets of resources I needed to create a bigger and better fleet as well as more tactical dolls.

And I did need literal planets’ worth of resources, because I would not be fighting just the League or the Confederation, but the entire Inner Sphere once word of my abilities got out.

If ComStar was smart - no, if they were wise - then they would have already alerted the rest of the Inner Sphere. If they were no different than the polities they claimed were “scavenger” lords, then I would have even more time and thus chance to pacify all of humanity.

And yes, I intended very much to “pacify” the current human civilization, and I had a plan on how I would achieve that.

“Commander.”

I turned around in my seat and saw who called me. It was Kar98k, or as she preferred to be called, Catherine. She was the quickest out of all of the tactical dolls to choose a name for herself. It spoke much about her. See, choosing a name, I figured, was something that was not a part of the tactical doll artificial intelligence software. Despite acting more like a fully operational general AI, tactical dolls were, in my humble opinion, a general AI bordering on narrow AI.

General artificial intelligence was no different from an organic individual. They can learn and change as circumstances changes.

Narrow artificial intelligence, sometimes called virtual intelligence in many settings like Mass Effect, was incapable of growing like a person. They lacked the ability to compartmentalize on higher, middle, and lower levels of intelligence on their own, incapable of changing their own logic flow on their own, and incapable of stepping outside of the context on their own.

What Kar98k showed was an individual growing up quickly outside of the established boundary of her programming. She was using her general AI-level sapience and grew out of her narrow AI mindset in under a few days.

What did that mean?

She was scary. Scary good, that was.

Had she been my enemy, I would have made it a priority point to hunt her down and leave her six foot under as soon as possible, because an enemy that can and will learn, adapt, and react to personal issues will no doubt be able to do so on interpersonal, tactical, and strategical levels, no matter how affinities for them.

“What is it, Catherine?” he asked her.

She had also asked what her purpose was, and I had given her one when I asked her to be one of his “lieutenants.” Accepting the title that everyone had been using behind my back, I also had to change the titles everyone used. For example, Catherine, Rebecca, and Louise were now colonels, and most of the other tactical dolls became majors or captains.

“Is it alright for me to be the expedition leader?”

“... I believe so. You won’t act outside what I asked of you, right?”

“Of course not, general. My job, as you asked of me, is to defeat any naval or land assets my planetary target may have. Civilians and their infrastructures are to be left alone… unless they choose to fight as partisans.”

“Yes. Personally, I am unsure how the Capellans would react to your forces, but I nonetheless need them tied up in their own systems while I take over… secure the systems adjacent to ours.”

“Of course.”

It was why she was being sent not just with replicators but also more advanced Lantean tech-based ships that I could make with the current resources in my possession. Though their outer appearance was comparable to that of rugged Minmatar’s Typhoon, that was because each ship was made with a cargo hold capable of holding at least fifty thousand tons of replicators.

And she would be in command of three such ships.

Of course, I had to sacrifice quite a few things to make that cargo hold exist. As a result of the design, these “Tsunami-class” carriers were designed to act as command ship that directed the “flow” of replicators. It had a weak hull and not many ship-to-ship weapons, but it compensated for those weaknesses with energy shields that would, theoretically, withstand continuous fire from a hundred 155mm artillery fire for a full day. It might not be much, especially for a shield made using Lantean technology, but a lot of the components needed for a higher-tier energy shield … well, naquadah didn’t exist in this universe and, without it, those components could not be made.

I could use my current 500-point stockpile to get something that may give me naquadah, but I felt that there might be something more worthwhile. I could work with a little handicap.

“Then you are in charge of raiding Capellan Confederation’s center of manufacturing in the Betelgeuse star system. Unleash the replicators and eat away at their critical infrastructure related to military logistics.”

She gave me a snap salute.

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. Good luck.”