Subject: Captain Wong

Species: Human

Description: Mammalian humanoid, no tail. 6'2" (1.87 m) avg height. 185 lbs (84 kg) avg weight. 170 year life expectancy.

Ship: USSS Valor

Location: Sol

It had been a close call. After we had dispatched the enemy combatants we received a hail we assumed was survivors offering surrender. Instead, we got a bunch of garbled static and lost control of most of our systems. Thankfully we had Tim.

"The virus is officially scrubbed clean and there are no further signs of infection, sir. I took the liberty of checking Lieutenant Babanin's suit to make certain he wasn't infected as well," Tim informed me over the comm.

"Thank you Tim, that will be all," I replied.

"Well, not quite, sir. Admiral Heckett and Captain Reynolds want a debrief of the aliens ASAP."

I nearly rolled my eyes. Can't get a moment of peace these days. Potential AI is a pretty big red flag when it comes to combatants, so their rush is understandable. We all had a pretty close brush with death and the poor aliens must be swimming in fear chemicals right now, though. Still, better to get it over with and let them relax than to drag it out any longer. We also had to get med data for them and that was likely to be unpleasant. Especially with Doc Zickler.

"Did they provide a list of must-asks?" I asked.

"Of course. It's on your tablet. Shall I send for ship-head Uleena?"

"Yes. Clear a conference room and set up an audio call with Admiral Heckett and Captain Reynolds. Since they're so damned curious they can take part themselves," I said with no lack of venom in my words.

"Alrighty," Tim said with an enthusiasm he knew was annoying.

I grabbed my tablet and headed to the conference room. I sat in my favorite chair and began looking over the battle data. The Omni-Union was pathetic. Their shields were similar to what we use for our infantry and their missiles were hardly space-worthy. Not much more advanced than their foes. If it weren't for the synchronous movements and confirmation from the reptile captain I would doubt they were AI at all. A "real" AI was a much, much more dangerous foe. There was a knock at the door and Lieutenant Babanin entered with Ship-head Uleena in tow.

"Captain Wong, sir, this is Ship-head Uleena of the RSV Lowelana. Ship-head Uleena, this is Captain Wong of the USSS Valor. Please have a seat," Babanin said as he gestured to one of the many chairs in the room.

"Thank you for your assistance, Captain Wong," Uleena said as they sat down.

I put on my best Captain face and said, "I only wish we could have done more, ship-head. My apologies for conducting this debrief so soon after what must have been a traumatic incident, but we have certain policies in place that demand haste when it comes to hostile AI."

"After fighting the OU for so many years, I completely understand."

I smiled and continued, "Good. This is a formal debrief under United Systems military law. You currently have the rights afforded to you as a first-contact refugee. You may request accommodations if you find the debriefing conditions unsuitable to your needs. You may request medical attention as well as food and water. You may refuse to answer any question that pertains to information that your governing entity considers classified. Any violent actions on your part will result in a revocation of these rights and will be met with extreme force."

Uleena swallowed nervously, but I continued, "Refusal to participate in this debrief will result in your classification changing to potential combatant and you will be detained and confined to quarters, as will any uninjured members of your crew. I am required to inform you that this debrief is being recorded as well as monitored live by Admiral Heckett and Captain Reynolds. They will not be speaking."

I added a bit of emphasis on my last sentence to show my contempt for their micromanagement. The poor reptile looked like his head was swimming.

"Do you understand these disclosures as they've been read to you?" I finished.

"Yes..." Uleena said slowly. "Yes I think I do."

"Excellent. First question, what is your rank, governing entity, species, and sex please."

The ship-head blinked and said, "I am a Ship-Head, which is a commander of a ship in the Republic fleet. The Republic is my governing entity, and I am a male Urakari."

"Thank you," I said. "Now for the tough questions. What were you doing before you were attacked?"

Uleena seemed unsure whether he should answer, "We were sent to scout out warp fluctuations that seemed unnatural and were ambushed by the Omni-Union immediately upon our arrival. Our shields hadn't had a chance to reengage so we performed a blind warp jump to escape. Then we wound up here."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Thank you," I said. "That answered the next question as well. Moving on, who are the Omni-Union and what is your relation to them?"

"The Omni-Union are a conglomeration of Artificial Intelligences that are seeking expansion. We aren't sure where they originate from, but they began assaulting Republic forces thirty years ago. We have been in open war with them ever since."

A popup appeared on my tablet from Admiral Heckett, demanding a follow-up question. One which I was going to ask anyway.

"How many AI do you estimate there are?" I asked.

"We don't know for certain," Uleena looked at the floor, "but our experts believe there are at least one hundred trillion."

Despite myself, I was stunned into silence for a few moments.

"I'm sorry, I may have misheard. Did you say one hundred trillion?" I clarified.

"Yes."

Impossible. Just flat out impossible. Their experts were wrong. There's no way that they could have survived being assaulted by one hundred trillion AI. That kind of computing power would lead to an unstoppable singularity. Judging by how easily their forces were dispatched and how close the OU's tech was to the Republic's, these supposed AI were imitative rather than inventive. What the hell is going on here?

A message pinged in from Captain Reynolds. 'Probably not AI, might be a gestalt VI. Ask Tim?' It wasn't long before a reply from Admiral Heckett came in. 'Yes.'

I thought for a moment how to breach this subject and finally said, "Uleena, I think there's been a miscommunication. Your definition of artificial intelligence and ours seems to differ somewhat. I'd like to introduce you to an AI and ask their opinion on the matter."

Uleena's eyes widened with a shock that I knew would come. AI is taboo in a lot of cultures for good reasons. Eventually, though, Uleena nodded his consent.

"Tim?" I asked seemingly to empty air.

"Yes, sir?" that empty air responded.

"You seem to be a necessary presence in this debrief. Catch yourself up and then introduce yourself to our guest."

"Understood, working... caught up. Hello ship-head Uleena of the Republic Space Vessel Lowelana," Tim said with far too much cheer, "I am the artificial intelligence known as Tim. It's short for Timothy but I prefer to pretend that it's an acronym for Totally Impressive Machine."

Uleena now looked as if he had seen a ghost. He managed to stutter, "Hello T-Tim, pleasure to m-meet you."

"Tim, what's your take?" I asked.

"I don't have one yet. I have some questions that need answering first, if you two don't mind?"

"Go ahead," I replied tersely.

"Ship-head Uleena, to your knowledge have you ever been able to communicate with the OU?" Tim asked.

Uleena thought for a moment and said, "Kind of? When they attack a system they broadcast who they are and state their intentions, but they don't respond to any communications we send."

"Okay, and do you know why your experts believe there are around one hundred trillion of them?"

"Um... something to do with leftover code found in what debris we were able to obtain from our ships that were taken over."

Tim paused for a moment and then said, "Yeah, I don't think the OU are AI as we define it. I think they're rogue VI."

"The only problem with that theory is that we don't know what could be directing the VI," I said.

Uleena looked confused before asking, "What's VI? How's it differ from an AI?"

Tim laughed and said, "A VI is a virtual intelligence. It imitates rather than innovates. A VI would watch a sapient solve 2+2 with four and would be able to answer 2+2 with four. An AI would be able to determine that if 2+2=4 than given any two polyhedra of equal volume, it is not always possible to cut..."

"Yeah, we get it. You're smart and stuff. Move on please," I interjected before Tim could finish disproving Hilbert's third problem.

"Right," Tim continued, "When we were hacked it was by virtual intelligences, not artificial intelligences. About four hundred thousand of them."

I stared at Uleena for a moment before saying, "We only answered the hail of one of the ships. If these experts believe there are one hundred trillion of them based off of four hundred thousand VIs, then that means they estimate that the OU has..."

"Two hundred and fifty million ships," Tim cut me off.

I glared at the speaker that Tim was talking out of. It may seem futile to anyone watching, but Tim knew what I meant and that was all that mattered. Two hundred and fifty million ships was a staggering number, though.

Uleena looked at me and said, "Yes. At least."

"How can you be sure of that?" I asked.

"Our scout ships. We periodically check in on the systems they've expanded into that we know of. Two hundred and fifty million was our latest ship-count."

"How have you not been overrun? How many ships does the Republic have?"

"I can't tell you exactly how many, but I can say that we have a near equivalent number," Uleena looked back toward the ground. "We're not winning the war, though."

"Don't be so downtrodden, Ship-head. It's difficult to win a war against an enemy that can mimic your every maneuver in perfect detail," Tim said in an empathetic voice.

Tim's attempt at cheering up Uleena didn't appear to have worked. I checked the tablet to see that Admiral Heckett and Captain Reynolds were talking back and forth. 'Two hundred and fifty million might be a problem.' 'Outnumbered five to one, it's almost a fair fight.' 'No, Reynolds. That's orbital kamikaze numbers. And they likely already know where Sol is.' 'Then should we bring the fight to them?' 'I don't know.'

"Well, that concludes the debriefing. You look a bit down. Follow me to the bridge, I think I know something that will cheer you up," I said to Uleena as I rose from my seat.

The ship-head followed me to the bridge where he stopped, wide-eyed. I looked around and realized that the tech he was seeing was probably pretty impressive by his standards. He hadn't seen anything yet, though. I gestured for him to approach a view-screen highlighting the debris field left by the OU ships.

"We can't just leave this here, and we also don't want to risk losing resources trying to clean it up," I said while allowing a grin to appear.

"What will you do?" Uleena asked.

"I think an A2 warhead will do the trick quite nicely, don't you Tim?"

"And that's why I like humans," Tim responded, "Always finding ingenious uses for weapons of mass destruction. Prepping the red matter warhead now."

"Red matter? What's that?" Uleena asked.

"One of the deadlier weapons in our arsenal. We aren't permitted to use it in standard warfare, but I already got clearance to use it to clean up this mess. Just watch."

"Missile ready," Tim said.

"Fire."

We both watched the viewscreen as the A2's symbol approached the debris field. Once it was within range, it detonated and all of the debris was sucked into a singular point in space. There were several flashes of nuclear fire that nearly escaped the temporary black hole before being consumed. I guess those must have been the mines that the lieutenant reported. I turned to see Uleena's expression. I was satisfied to see his mouth gaping and his eyes wide. Being a Captain in the United Systems has its perks.