But for anything out of the city or taking unexpected paths, the AI is at best a warning system. When a hawk dives on your herbicide spreader out in the field, you have at most half a second to evade, or you’ll lose your expensive drone. And don’t get me started on how many times a tree branch has nearly KO’d my surveillance gear when a connection drops.
Onboard processing is limited by weight and power consumption. Most of the heavy lifting of AI is being done back in data centers, which causes both lag times and dropout problems.
So yeah, if you really want the footage, then you really need a person, what we’re calling a dronist, at the controls.
--post on “High in the Sky,” a Drone enthusiast blog, 2052
***
“There’s the captain of the force, which is made up of half of 63Alpha Recon.”
He pointed to a tall man standing at the focus point of two of the floods. The troopers around him listened respectfully while he finished up a motivational speech. He ended with, “...and where is that Samurai we’re supposed to have?”
“That’s me, sir.” I said, stepping up.
He scanned me over, head to foot, while I stood in the Krieg lights. “Well, at least you wore appropriate shoes.”
Considering that the weather forecast was for showers on and off, I’d dug deep into my closet to find a pair of old hiking boots to go with my long-sleeved shirt and denim pants. At my feet sat a large, closed duffle, filled with seven Chibats and a Carrier Pigeon drone. With my helmet retracted and weapons stored, I must have looked like an office worker out for his weekend hike.
“Do you understand the chain of command and your place in it?” he asked abruptly.
“Outside, but equal. Any orders I need to issue will be to the head of command. The rank is only effective when we are engaged with the antithesis,” I quoted the manual while quickly reading his rank insignia.
I stuck out my hand politely. “Xenovir, ready to hunt. I’m not familiar with the new protocols for address, though. Do I address you as centurion or captain?” I remembered my father ranting a few months back about a revision to the rank system but hadn’t picked up on some of the subtleties of it.
He stiffened a moment, glaring and leaving me with my hand out awkwardly. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “You may address me as Captain Carlson. You address the position when in the theater of battle. I don’t know, nor do I care, what toys you carry. Just make sure that they stay pointed towards the antithesis. I don’t want any splashover risking my troops.”
Over his shoulder I noticed a man with a decurion’s insignia about to interrupt. I spoke before the decurion could and withdrew my hand. “I’ll do my best, captain, but I’m new at this Samurai business. I’d appreciate any guidance you can provide for working with the military.” The subordinate cocked an eyebrow at me, then shook his head and instead muttered to another officer with decurions’ tabs.
“The best thing you can do is keep up and be ready to kill antithesis when we find them. Our mission is to track the enemy’s forward group. That might change. It probably will once the brass get this clusterfisk rolling.” He gestured to indicate the whole base. “Hang out here while I get the company organized, and then I’ll figure out how to fit you in.”
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While the officers and troopers picked up their gear and weapons, I opened up the drone bag. First to lift off was the Carrier Pigeon, followed by the Chibats. [“How long are the batteries good for?”] I asked in the private conference.
[“A couple hours flight time for the Chibats.”] Tara said. [“They each had a full charge as of last night, and they can extend that by gliding and perching. The Carrier Pigeon is about double without the savings. We’ll need to upgrade these soon.”]
The captain returned at this point and paused when he saw the drones about me. “You won’t need those. We’ll have our usual shell of drones deployed.”
“Never hurts to have more eyes watching, and practice is always valuable, right?” I stared him in the eye.
He chewed on the reply a minute before growling. “As long as you don’t go showboating or distracting my men with interviews, I can’t prohibit it. But they better stay out of the way of our net and let them do the real work.
“I’m going to put you towards the front where there won’t be as many between you and the antithesis. I’d put you on point, but you’d probably be talking to the camera when an M-3 pounces past you.”
It was clear to me that any answer I gave would be taken in the worst way, so I shrugged and bit my tongue.
[“Wow, he really doesn’t like you, does he?”] Kaitlyn said, to which I shrugged again. I hadn’t expected the leader to be this hostile and didn’t want him to get on my case for having an external comms open, nor to have to explain how it wasn’t a security breach.
“When should we start seeing the antithesis?” I asked as he escorted me to the front quarter of the troops.
“See the perimeter? We go hot there. We’ve killed aliens right up on the forest’s edge.” He led me to the man giving orders near the front. “This is Leiu…” he cut off, grimaced, and continued. “This is Decurion Martin of first platoon. He’s all yours, Decurion. Try not to let him kill too many of us.” With that, he moved further back in the column.
“I don’t think he knows who you are.” Martin had an easy smile and offered his hand. “I don’t know if you remember me. You were our instructor when we rotated through Threat Dynamic’s advanced assault course. Why’d you stop me from telling him your motto?”
“Some people need to learn for themselves.” Something about his voice teased me with a sense of familiarity, and I poked at it as I shook his hand. “Wait, Decurion Martin? Marty Mart? Congratulations on the promotion.”
Now that I had context, I also recognized several other troopers. With classes lasting anywhere between a couple weeks to one day, it was easy for the students to blend together unless they repeated or stood out in some way. I’d been impressed by how well Martin and his classmates took to my precisionist philosophy.
He looked both pleased at the recognition and annoyed at the nickname. “Please don’t use that. The last thing I need is for the troops to pick it up again. I didn’t know you were a Samurai.”
“I was chosen this week, and I’m still figuring things out, so I’ll take any advice. Starting with a better mission prep.” While he gave me a better idea of the mission, I had a quick, slightly alarmed discussion with Corie.
--For all your weapons and harness, normally, that could take a minute or two. Just the rifle or a pistol would take less than a second. But you’ve moved a lot already today, and their transfer capacity maxed out mid-train ride.
--Yes, there’s several presets for the armor and harness in an app in your hind-brain. Fortunately, the shirt is collarless, or it might get damaged. Also, we should look into some way to protect your clothing if you intend to wear it in danger zones. Or are you embarrassed by the cut of the armor? We can change that.
--The harness needs continuity with the armor. If you had a high collar, it might get crushed by the connection point.
I returned my attention and replayed what Martin had been saying. During my distraction, he’d paused while an updated mission profile had been uploaded. “Change of plan. We’re on a hold and watch mission. We’ll go forward to a designated spot and hold it until the main force can relieve us. We’ll be hoofing it, since the main army needs as many rigs as it can get. If we have time, we want to put in some defenses in place, ready for the main force to use.”
By that time we’d reached the forest, and I noticed the troopers peering deep into the shadowed woods. With the sun just peeking over the horizon, deep shadow still ruled back under the canopy. We began on a dirt road that followed the ridgeline. The land was covered in dense forest, though the undergrowth was still thinner than the movies had led me to expect.