Free Tactics of Conquest (Stellar Conquest) by David VanDyke Page A

Odyssey’?”
    “Of course. I’ve watched thousands of mankind’s movies and read all the stories, as well as those of the Ryss and Sekoi. But your name’s not ‘Dave.’” Her cheek twitched.
    “Funny. Then you have some idea of what we fear, and why we never built AIs to control our ships, no matter how efficient they might be.”
    Michelle sighed. “I get it, I do. All I can say is, you’ll have to decide how much to trust me, and how much to hook me up to. I can be an advisor, or a manager, with everything routed through officers, but that would not be a good use of your tools.”
    Absen laughed. “You’ve been studying me too, it seems.”
    “Of course.”
    “So tell me…why ‘Michelle’?”
    “Because ‘Michael’ isn’t a girl’s name?”
    Absen thought furiously for a moment. “As in, the archangel? Heaven’s commanding general?”
    “Correct, Captain my Captain. Will you allow me to be connected to the holoprojectors?”
    Absen turned to Doctor Egolu. “Are they isolated?”
    “Yes, sir,” the chief scientist replied. “This room is shielded from everything else on the ship, unless we connect it. We are even running off a separate fuel cell.”
    “Then go ahead.” He gestured at the fiber-optics.
    Two of the white coats eagerly fitted a cable into a socket, and the tech at the console tapped his controls. The projectors lit up as power flowed to them, then a dome of light and a test pattern appeared for a moment before fading, leaving a figure standing on the deck.
    Demure instead of terrifying, nevertheless the construct of light standing before him radiated a kind of subdued majesty, a magnetism as undeniable as it was ephemeral. Absen had expected something like Raphaela, the Blend that he had left behind in Earth’s system. Despite the shape of a woman, instead of sophistication, this one gave off warmth. Where Rae had been stunning and intimidating and heartrendingly attractive, Michelle seemed welcoming, matter-of-fact, sisterly.
    Absen wondered how much was artifice and how much was…could one say ‘natural’?
    Dressed not in an angel’s toga, rather she wore an EarthFleet naval warrant officer’s uniform, with a cuirass of body armor, a sidearm and a dagger.
    And wings. Mustn’t forget the wings, Absen marveled, watching them flutter behind her head. Like huge smooth swan’s pinions, they loomed white and pure, with golden highlights.
    The lab rats smiled knowingly at his reaction. Obviously they had seen this before. He forced a smile onto his face, made himself not be irritated with them for their little surprise.
    “Warrant Officer First Michelle Conquest reports for duty, sir,” she said, folding the wings and snapping off a precise salute.
    Absen gravely returned it. “Glad to have you. Might want to lose the wings and dagger, though. Shall we say, formal occasions only?”
    “Yes, sir. As you wish, sir.” The wings and knife faded from view, leaving a rather ordinary-looking WO1.
    Absen thought her choice, or perhaps the choice of the team that prepped her, was clever. A warrant would be nominally subordinate to all officers, but outrank all of the enlisted. Warrants were normally technical experts, their license to command limited to their specialties, usually small teams. Yet they were highly respected, often promoted from among the brightest of the rank and file and given special training. They occupied a neither-fish-nor-fowl niche that gave them flexibility and the respect of all.
    “How do you feel?” he asked.
    The question seemed to give Michelle pause, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m not a Vulcan, sir.”
    “Glad you got the reference. But you are a machine.”
    Michelle’s lower lip quivered slightly and her eyes glistened with tears. At that moment she seemed pitifully young, despite the appearance of a woman of twenty, and Absen had to remind himself of what he’d been told – that this being, this intelligence , all of perhaps two months old,