Star Strike

“Recruit Kenyon is correct,” a voice whispered in his mind.

Garroway looked up, startled. “Achilles?”

“What?” Sandre asked. Garroway hadn’t realized he’d spoken the name aloud. He waved his hand back and forth, requesting her silence.

“Affirmative,” the voice continued. “Think of me as a part of yourself not as a spy for your superiors.”

But you do report to the DI shack, don’t you? This time, Garroway thought the question silently, employing the mindspeak he’d always used with Aide.

“Technically, yes, but only in matters involving gross negligence of duty. In any case, Marines are supposed to be of superior moral character. By this point in your training, those with serious moral flaws have already been weeded out.”

“Oh …”

Company 4102 had dwindled a lot in the past few weeks, it was true. Only forty-five recruits remained out of the over one hundred who’d originally mustered at Noctis Labyrinthus. But he’d assumed the DORs—the Drop Out Requests—had quit because they couldn’t get along without their headware.

“That is a large part of it,” Achilles agreed. “One aspect of moral character is the ability to rely on yourself rather than on technology.”

Carefully, Garroway took another bite of faux steak and chewed, thoughtful. Achilles seemed to be a bit more dominant than Aide had been. And the damned thing was reading his thoughts, rather than waiting for him to encode them as mindspeak.

“You will simply have to learn to trust me, Garroway,” Achilles told him. “Trust that I am not sharing your thoughts with others.”

“Unless I deserve it.”

“Do you always talk to yourself?” Sandre asked him.

Achilles, tell her I’m holding a conversation with you.

A moment later, Sandre’s eyes grew very large. “Did you send that?”

He nodded. “Pretty slick, huh?”

“Damn it, Garroway!” she snapped. “Get out of my head!” Abruptly, she stood, picked up her tray, and walked away. Garroway considered calling to her, but decided that using telepathy would just make matters worse.

They were all going to have to work with the new technology for a bit, in order to get used to it.

Exactly, Achilles told him. He could have sworn the AI sounded smug.

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