“You must carry stillness like a weapon. Movement is optional; Control is NOT”

  Old Drexari proverb

  They walked the pirates back to their ship, which was surprisingly close to the ambush point. Feebee allowed them a couple of the feedstock bricks. That way they didn’t leave entirely empty clawed.

  She then got directions from Kirr to get back to her room and fell into bed.

  Before she could fall asleep, she got a gentle nudge from the AI.

  ‘We have an AAR to attend. Standard procedure after an incident. Now.’

  ‘I wanna sleep.’

  ‘Later,’ was all Kirr said. The lights came on.

  She dressed in her service uniform and noted a new merit badge. It was small, smaller than the others and a dull blue colour. Hardly visible. It was square with a diagonal stripe through a crate icon. She touched it and a dialogue opened in her overlays.

  Material Denial Commendation.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No. A line was added to your file in the citation section.’

  ‘You gonna tell me?’

  ‘For effective action in the preservation of strategic assets during hostile incursion.’

  ‘Wow’

  Kirr wasn’t sure if Feebee was impressed or being sarcastic. She let it go.

  As they left, Feebee asked Kirr, ‘Where’s the After Action Review?’

  ‘In the rest area.’

  Feebee was tired but walked straight and tall. She was the boss, had to behave like the boss. The route took her past the armoury.

  Peas sat at a bench. In front of her was a rifle, broken down. She was cleaning the parts. Seeing Feebee she jumped up and saluted.

  ‘I’ll be along to the AAR in a minute. Almost done.’

  In the rest room, the two coffee boys sat with Sparky. Their cups full and some biscuits were on a plate in the middle. Bench press and Spotter were already back in their corner pressing weights and spotting.

  Feebee crossed and joined the coffee gang. Peas arrived and sat down. The gym junkies ambled over making the team complete.

  Feebee started. “I don’t want this to be long and drawn out.” She looked around, the others nodded.

  “We had three objectives. Preserve the Seed-arc. Prevent the pirates from stealing our stuff and neutralise the pirates. And, do it without destroying the ship. Anything else?”

  “That’s four.” Sparky smiled as he said it.

  Feebee shook her head. “Anyway, we achieved all four objectives with no fatalities or injuries. Good job. I want you to think on lessons learnt and send them to me. Any questions before we wrap-up?”

  Sparky spoke, “Why did you let them live. It was a risk to safety. We could have easily killed them.”

  “They stopped. Killing wasn’t required.”

  She was about to end the AAR, if you could call it that, but wanted to add more.

  “Our use of drones was effective for both recon and shaping. Our fire discipline was excellent. When we needed to shoot, we did so highly effectively. When we exercised stillness and restraint we did so with discipline and precision. Well done team. Dismissed.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  They all stood and saluted her, “Ma’am.”

  Her schedule popped up. The AI’s way of reminding her she had to earn her keep.

  16:00 REPORT TO: SSOCOM Engineering.

  Sparky got up at the same time as Feebee. As she started walking to Engineering, he was behind her, like a shadow.

  She spun round, “What? You following me?”

  “Yes, No. I mean Yes, Ma’am. Engineering. I’m there too.”

  “Oh. OK. Good.”

  They walked to Engineering, neither speaking. It was an uneasy quiet. They tried once but both started talking at the same time. Awkward.

  “We’re here.”

  “Yes. Do you know who’s taking this session?”

  Sparky laughed, “I am.”

  “Oh. OK. Good.”

  “This is a cyber course. Practical Cyber Security.”

  Sparky sat at a terminal; a single cable led from it into the wall.

  ‘Surely that’s not really, just for show?’

  ‘Hard to tell.’ Was Kirr’s response.

  ‘I can hear you.’

  It was Sparky and that shocked Feebee. How was he doing it.

  ‘I can also read your thoughts.’

  Feebee had never felt like this before. Violated. Sullied.

  ‘This is part of today’s lesson.’

  It didn’t make Feebee feel any better. This isn’t fair. If he can do that, can others? Am I an open book?

  ‘Good questions. Now stop me. Push back. We'll start with...’

  Before he’d even finished she cut across him. ‘I don’t know how.’

  Sparky smiled, but ignored them, “Ok, let’s try this a different way. Lesson One – Think of your body as a network. Imagine a battle space with attack surfaces. Find the systems, their controls. Find points of interaction.”

  Feebee stood up, overwhelmed.

  Sparky continued, “Any way an attacker can get at you, interact with you, is an attack surface.”

  They were alone in the rest room. Everyone else gone. Petulance was replaced with a stubborn resolve.

  She sat down, cross legged on the floor and closed her eyes.

  Thought of inputs came to her, “Do you mean the eleven senses?” she asked Sparky.

  “That’s one dimension but others include your nanites, neural links, enhanced reflex loops. Then there’s consciousness and trust. You must think beyond your base senses.”

  “How?”

  Sparky smiled, “I look at the world differently. I see three broad attack surfaces. Consciousness is one. Then there’s convenience and trust. Think on these and the vulnerabilities they open up.”

  He paused.

  Then continued, “Search within. Find noise.”

  Feebee remembered the chatter of systems from her early memories. She reached deep down inside, listening.

  At first, all she heard was her heart hammering. Fast, almost out of control.

  Then she started feeling at a lower level, on the smallest of scales.

  Slowly chatter returned.

  Not the prattle she’d heard from the ship’s systems and processes. These were short sharp bursts of information. Directional, local. They talked of position, of task status, of error states and vibrated through her bones and muscle.

  Realisation dawned. It’s my nanites.

  ‘Yes.’ It was Sparky, he’d been listening. She didn’t mind anymore.

  There were millions of them, each reporting its status, each responding to damage, growth and the environment. Inside Feebee but outside too.

  It sounded like the buzzing of bees. Old memories told her this. Her nanites were ‘thrashing’ in response to her state.

  ‘Nanites are optimisation machines.’ It was Sparky again. ‘They reduce entropy. Reduce waste. Reduce conflict and redundant effort.’

  Feebee understood, intuitively but then she began to feel it. She was agitated, hyper-up and mentally scattered. Her nanites were trying to optimise her state. Signals spiked, corrections multiplied and feedback loops that should have dampened, intensified.

  Kirr then ‘spoke’, her voice distinct from Sparky’s.

  ‘Remember. Stillness is the only weapon that never misses.’

  Feebee then focused on the noise within. Calmed herself. Brought an inner stillness to her state. Her breathing slowed and she found she could read her nanites.

  Not at an individual level but their intent.

  She began to sing to them, and the gentle rhythm of the tune helped her control her beathing; brought peace. Feebee was able to set her tune to a rhythm and tone that resonated with her body, with her bones.

  Then, without thinking she shifted to a Stylorian sequence that calmed her further, brought calm, induced stillness. The guttural clicks and hisses were elements of their language. Ancient memories were released and made available to her. One saw a man with long white fingers singing on a mountain top. He held back the forces of nature with notes so pure they froze in the air. Another saw angry seas calmed, coaxed by tunes so filled with stillness that they became mirror smooth.

  If I remember doing it, then I have done it. It was a mantra that helped her unravel the complexity of her memories and what was, was not.

  And as these memories resolved the buzzing from her nanites reduced. Separating into three layers each with its own tone. The layers focused on a different aspect of her being, or so it seemed.

  She stopped singing and Sparky explained, “Thinking of your nanites in layers is a good framework. Like a hierarchy, each with different objectives. The Body layer heals you without being told. The Pulse layer ‘twitches’ when somethings wrong and The Silent layer waits and listens, doing nothing but can deliver deadly intent.”

  Kirr explained it differently.

  ‘Some keep you alive; life continuing. Some keep you safe; life defending. Then there are a few that are life deciding. They wait to be used and must be given permission, never hurry these.’

  Feebee heard what they said but didn’t really understand. What she knew was that when she sang, she was able to reach inside. Deep inside and talk to her inner selves. She thought of them as echo-selves. She talked in song, in resonance and connected. Connected to her nanites that sometimes responded through chatter or it’s absence; to a bright echo-self that talked of righteous paths and the moral good. And somethings there was a connection to a dark echo of herself that challenged her natural path.

  What were they expecting of her?

  Sparky heard all of this inner monologue and smiled; she was ready.

  “Let’s start.”