[Experimental] The Gatekeepers - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

I HEAVILY RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ THESE NOTES

Okay, so, as many of you know, things have not gone well IRL. I had the joy of my appartment being filled with smoke (cooking problem, no real fire), and inhaling it. This seems to have genuinely damaged my lungs and possibly done something with my asthma because I had to use my inhaler yesterday. I have an appointment with a doctor for this, thankfully. I don't know if I'm cursed or what, but...yeah.

In any case, given that, plus the fact that I'm running against the deadline for the edits for book 11, I wasn't able to write anything significant.

It didn't feel fair to post anything, so...I had a thought.

Over the years, I have written dozens of introductory chapters/text to stories. Some of them you saw in a poll long ago. Most of the time they're just that, introductions, chapter 1, sometimes 2. The largest going all the way to 12k words, I believe.

I wrote them mostly to get the idea out of my head. Also to get some sci-fi binge out of my system, since my stories tend to be more on the fantasy side of thing.

Many of those ideas were recombined into stories you've seen. For example, for this one, which I had called The Gatekeepers, was written in 2023 and had many of its elements folded into Manaforged Robotics. It's not a direct precursors, but ambassador androids come from there, for example. Note that they do NOT share timelines, tech, ect. The Terran Federation here is extremely, fundamentally different from the one in MFR. This story was also heavily inspired by the Murderbot Diaries.

So, in the absence of other work as things seem to be collapsing on my end, would you guys be interested in seeing them ? If so, the next upload will be the second chapter of this concept, and the one after that the third and 'final' chapter I had written.

Then I can start putting out more of those. In some of them I experimented with magic, and various concepts. Some of them are quite old, in fact.

Of course, if things normalize and I get new chapters out, they will take priority.

I hope you'll enjoy it, and don't hesitate to tell me what you think.

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Chapter 1

Terran Federation Inner Worlds

Delta Pavonis star system, planet of Pavonis Prime

21st of june, Year 2 871, Terran Standard Calendar

Amita blinked as she retook direct control of her android, and turned towards the door to her office.

Being an AI in the Terran Federation was weird. Artificial beings like her had long since been granted equal rights, but in an odd way. AIs were required to be treated no different than humans. Which meant that, as an AI inhabiting an android capable of walking through a volcano unharmed, the company was still required to give her a climate controlled office, lunch breaks, and a whole host of other things.

Now she usually wouldn't care, but HR had been quite clear that simply parking her android in the corner of the room was demoralizing to her coworkers, so she'd actually written a program to have it behave like a human. Well, actually, modified a program she already had for it to include an 'office worker' mode. Which in this case was slowly, at human speed, retyping the entirety of 'journey to the west' on her holographic keyboard while looking up referrences from time to time on autopilot while she did something else. In this case, that was perusing the latest after action reports in the company's database and digital magazines on the latest in automated combat hardware.

The thing was, everyone knew it. So very few people actually bothered going to her office, if someone wanted to talk to her they could ping her on the company's net and she could hop into their implants or desk's holoprojector.

The glass door opened, and Valmira Sanchez, her company's chief of security operations and her direct boss walked in.

"Hey Val. What's up ?"

"Hello Amy. And a lot. Which is why I wanted to talk to you in person." She looked at the glass wall and doors behind her and sighed. "Room ? Privacy setting override, set to maximum."

"Acknowledged." Answered the ethereal voice of the not-quite-AI that ran most of the day to day operations of the entire facility. There was an actual sapient AI in case the program ran into something unexpected, but she was usually busy with far more important things than changing room privacy settings or opening doors. "Privacy settings set to maximum. Please be aware that all communications will be shut down at the end of this message, including to this program. To lift maximum privacy mode, please use a manual interface for authentification."

Valmira sighed, and pulled up a chair in front of Amita's desk as the glass polarized and turned black. As in black black, the smart glass would now absorb damn near any wavelength of light, even some in the gamma spectrum. Incidentally, it would also stand up to anything short of an anti-tank weapon. There were some perks when working for a security company whose execs were so close to the military.

"So, Amita, to put it short we've had contact from the higher ups in GSP. They have a rather problematic issue and they're ready to pay top dollar for it to be handled discreetly and efficiently."

"GSP ?" An overview of the company popped up from her internal database. Thankfully she had one hell of a memory core and she could store a lot of data without relying on outside queries or the company's databanks. And 'company' was a bit of a misnomer. GSP stood for Glen Standard Products, a megacorp born out of old Earth's Glencore mining consortium. It had long since diversified in manufacturing and consumer products, and was now one of the ten largest corporations in the Federation, behind the true super-giants like Arcadia Systems and Lockheed-Dassault. "They have their own damned corporate security division. Shit, they have their own battlefleet, what do they need us for ?"

"Well, that's the core of the problem. See a few months ago they had some issues with one of their mining operations in the Fringe. So they sent a dedicated investigator to look into it. They found his body less than a week after arrival in a storm drain. They sent a second investigator, this time with his own in-house security team. Full squad, combat armor, the works. When they found them the bodies had taken so much damage they had to use DNA tests to identify them."

"Damn." Amita leaned back into her seat. "Can't they call in the Feds ? I mean we're cozy with the navy and the marines but GSP practically runs raw material procurements for the entire military. I'm sure they have some strings they could pull."

"You know how stretched thin the navy is, especially in the Fringe. And even if they weren't, GSP wants to keep the Feds as far away from this mess as possible."

Amita straightened up immediately.

"Why ?"

"Because the mining complex has three times the output its official records show, and the missing two thirds are all high level radioactives that conveniently weren't mentionned in the original survey."

The AI closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her android's nose, taking a deep breath. Technically not necessary, but she was based on a human mind, and even if she hadn't, interacting so much with biologicals would mean she'd pick up their habits sooner rather than later. And radioactive materials mining for the black market ? Of course that's what it was !

"Oh this is just perfect." She opened her eyes. "Please tell me it's not for nukes."

"It's not. But the Feds tax the hell out of radioactives, and since they just so happen to be a critical component in, oh, name any artificial gravity system…"

"Yeah, I see the picture." Especially as any space ship used a crap ton of those. Gravity generators for the reactionless drive, more generators for the inertial compensator, then just the generator to keep people's feet on the ground…and that wasn't even delving into simpler things like high end hovercars, drones, and even just space stations ! "So they have a mine they'd rather not draw attention to, where weird shit is happening. I assume the issue they're having is that some shipments went missing ?" Valmira nodded. "Well that's just perfect. And I assume you're coming to me because you want me to handle it ?"

"Yeah. GSP is a big partner of ours -they might have their own in-house security, but we have a lot of contracts with them-, and they've called in some favors on this."

"Right. I assume they know I'm no investigator, so they're sending their own people, right ?"

Valmira nodded.

"A single person to be precise." She gestured, and Amita's monitoring programs notified her of her boss' implants connecting to the office's holoprojector. A 3D hologram of a young woman appeared above the desk. "Sandra Lovelace. One of their best, and incidentally also someone they really can't afford to lose."

"Lovelace ?" She closed her eyes again, briefly, as she delved into her databases. "That's…Tau Ceti old money, right ?"

"Oh yes, big time. They don't own a large chunk of GSP, but enough to make her loss…impolitical. At the same time she's so good at her job they can't really afford to wrap her in cotton either. And she's guaranteed to not go against the corp's interests, no matter what happens."

"Wonderful, a silver spoon kid from the big wigs, who just happens to be some kind of data genius. Oh, and probably a corporate fanatic. What's next, gonna ask me to bodyguard Arcadia ?"

"Arcadia practically owns the fucking navy, you know as well as I do that she's never going to need external security." For that matter, navy connections or not, Arcadia was the only private citizen in the Federation to own a stars damned dreadnought. If she had the firepower to crack a planet in half, she sure as hell could protect herself ! "But regardless, Sandra's a complicated but competent VIP that you need to keep alive. Think you can handle that ? Without needlessly antagonizing her ?"

Amita sighed.

"Yeah, yeah, of course." She shook her head. "I don't have to like her to keep her alive, and I can keep my thoughts to myself. But just to be clear, company policy still applies, right ?"

"Favors or no, we wouldn't have accepted the contract without that."

"Great ! Then there shouldn't be any issue."

Their company, Contingency Response, which was named after a famous pre-Federation military unit, had a simple policy when related to clients : their security personel were there to keep them alive. Not please them, not be their errand boys, keep them alive, period. Which meant that if the client threw a fit or was trying to do something stupid in a firefight or any other dangerous situation she was perfectly authorized to stun them and carry them to a safe zone.

"Excellent. Now, as I'm sure you've summarized, a regular security package isn't going to cut it. For that matter, a VIP package won't either."

"Yeah. I assume we'll be heading to the armory ?"

"Oh yes. With some…limitations."

"What kind of limitations ?"

"Let's get to the armory first. We'll talk about it once we're there." Valmira stood up, and gestured for Amita to follow. "In the meantime, have you read the latest after action reports ?"

Amita sighed as she got up, smiling. Valmira might be her boss, but they went way back, and she still valued 'her' AI's input a lot. Besides, she could also tell the woman was stalling.

It was going to be one of those contracts…

*****

"-so we really need some of that new combat armor. If we don't we might as well start pulling out flesh and blood personel from contracts in the Core Worlds, those new laser rifles are insane and unless you want to import shield generators we're going to need to call in some favours from our contacts in the military."

"Agreed." Valmira looked up as the elevator chimed, and the door slid open. "And we're there ! Come on, we can discuss your loadout for this contract."

Amita nodded as she stepped into the armory. Well, 'armory', more like a gigantic secure warehouse crossed with a garage. There was everything from racks of gauss rifles to an assault shuttle, complete with anti-tank missiles and laser guided smart bombs.

"So, finally think you've applied enough vaseline to shove it down my throat."

Valmira almost stumbled as the AI said that, before chuckling.

"I suppose I did deserve that. I wouldn't have worded it quite this way, but alright. Yeah, problem is, you're going to be helping an investigator. And her job is going to require some…discretion. Especially as we don't want people asking too many questions, given the, ah, problems our client would have if the Federation took notice. So no grav-tanks, heavy power armor, or flashy mechs."

Valmira gestured at the collection of heavy hardware in the room, and the AI sighed. She would have liked the option to at least bring a mech. Yes, they were flashy, in fact that was the entire point of them. A big stompy robot was really pathetic in terms of efficiency compared to a grav vehicle, but it was so impressive most people just shot at it instead of at the far flimsier drones that were the actual threats. Hell, most mechs' guns were purely for show, they did a lot of noise and threw up debris but that was about it. There were a few old, pre-artificial gravity military ones from the colonies who were genuinely made to kill people, but even those had chemical firearms attached to them and whatnot, so they weren't really effective weapons platforms nowadays.

"Great. What then ?"

"Mostly everything that's low profile. Standard and covert security bots. Drones, that kind of things. There is a bright spot however."

"Which is ?"

"These." She snapped her fingers, and a lifter, basically a spider robot crossed with a forklift that gave most humans nightmares, trundled over to them, depositing a drone that looked vaguely like an old-pre space stealth bomber, albeit far smaller. A kind of black delta wing.

Amita frowned as she scanned the drone, then her eyes went wide.

"Pathfinders ? I'm getting pathfinder drones ?!? I thought those were only for combat missions !"

"We are being very well paid for keeping that investigator alive. So yeah, you might not get the flashy stuff, but you'll get the good stuff. None of that pseudo-civy crap, mil-spec and then some."

Amita nodded. Mil-spec was something of an understatement in this case. Pathfinder drones were the stuff the Federation's marine force recon units used. The people you dropped from high orbit onto a planet that was still shooting at them, and expected to blow up the guns from dirtside. They were stealthy, armed to the teeth and while far from invulnerable, tough as nails.

"Same for my ambassador's gear ?"

"Yep." Ambassadors, like the android Amita was currently in, were mandatory for Federation AIs. One of the issues with 'must be treated exactly like humans' law was that, well, a program didn't exactly have a human body. And in the true fashion of politicians and bureaucrats the galaxy over, instead of admitting they were wrong and fixing the law, they instead decided to throw billions of credits on a massive bid for corporations to develop and make human like androids that would be fully functional in every way that counted. You could eat, sleep, hell, even have sex with them. Whatever a human could do, they could do it. "We don't have that much high level gear but you'll get unrestricted accesss." Valmira held up her hand. "On the discreet stuff. No requisitioning a tactical nuke, thank you very much. Or the fucking plasma guns. And don't even thing about sneaking an anti-tank missile in there, I know you."

Amita opened her mouth…and closed it. As well as the requisition forms she'd already been falsifying. Valmira really knew her too well.

"Alright, got it. I'll try to stay reasonable. What about weight requirements ? How light do I pack ?"

"Well, you're going to be shipped over there in one of the big freighters that do the milk runs. It saves on costs and gives you one hell of a cover. But in case something goes wrong there'll be a ship ready to get you and the investigator offworld, and wherever you need to be next if necessary. It's a modified Hawk-class transport. It's small enough to serve as a shuttle, big enough to serve as a base of operations and give you gate travel capabilities. It's not a gate hopper, but it's not a corvette either."

Amita nodded as she looked up the class. The Hawks were relatively old ships, but there were a lot of up to date variants. Moreover, the fact that they could serve as a gate ship, interplanetary transport and shuttle all in one made them extremely popular on the Fringe, where worlds didn't necessarily have the infrastructure to unload more traditional, purely spaceborne freighters. And those that did have them either heavily monitored them or they were strictly limited in capacity. It made sense, what with the mission imperative of keeping a low profile if possible.

"Any weaponry ?"

"As I said, modified. One very good railgun, spinal mount, guided and self propelled ammunition, the works. Two laser emitters on the wings, pretty good but not terrific. The drone launch bays double as missile launchers, but they only have kinetic warheads. Plus a couple of point defence turrets, above and below the main fuselage. That's about it."

Amita whistled softly. Hawks were 25 kiloton vessels, the tonnage calculated by their volume, one ton equals one cubic meter, as that was what gate jump fees were calculated from. Sixty meters long, twenty wide, plus the wings. Basically the size of the early space shuttles, back when humanity still used chemical rockets and mars was the new frontier.

"That's not a modified transport, it's a fucking Q-ship !"

"As I said, the clients are paying very well." Valmira shrugged. "You'll have some significant cargo capacity, although I'd recommend still leaving some open, just in case. I'd like you to have your package prepared by tomorrow evening. Then we'll ship you out to the starport and get you to meet with the VIP while your stuff is loaded, and you'll be off."

"They don't waste any time."

"They're a megacorp who's had two of their investigators killed, alongside a full squad of their own security guys, all on one of their dirty, black radioactives mine. What did you expect ?"

"Fair enough." Amita sighed. "Alright, I'll get to work." She looked at the neatly arranged weapons and vehicles in the armory. "If nothing else, it'll be a bit of a challenge."

"Good, then I'll leave you to it." Valmira turned around and walked away, before stopping. "Oh, and Amita ?"

"Yeah ?"

"If the investigator dies, the clients want you to bring whoever killed them alive. For…questioning. It's not in the contract, and we never had this conversation, got it ?"

Amita swallowed, which was a completely superfluous gesture for her, and nodded. The subtext was clear : whoever she brought back would die, and die very slowly.

"Yes ma'am."

"Excellent."