Chapter 1

Scout Unit Zulu99 from Star Cluster PapaOscar3442 was approaching the reported planet of origin in Expedition year 4949. This strange looking almost all water surface planet was supposed to be the home planet of their kind with humanoid features. The humanoid residents of Star Cluster PapaOscar3442 were unanimous in their support of verifying if any of their kind had survived on the origin planet and if there were any records of which star systems were targeted for seeding by the World Council of Earth so many centuries ago.

Zulu99 slowed the interstellar probe down as he approached the reputed “mother” planet and tried to figure out a safe transit of the junk yard in the sky over the water-logged world.

Apparently, this was a planet with multiple centers of space exploration activity.

According to the recorded historical records from the surviving species, the humans were more interested in the military advantages of securing the far reaches of space than in colonizing and expanding their species into other locations. He had no opinion on the human species shortfalls in logic because he was not programmed to be critical of one of the ruling species on Star Cluster PapaOscar3442 and might be accused of bias if he ascribed to that line of thinking about the human errors in judgement.

Most of Star Cluster PapaOscar3442’s full-blooded human and hybrid humanoid population were supportive of the long discussed directive to the SUC (Scout Unit Command) to dispatch Zulu99 and his sister Scout Lulu99 to make separate probes into the origin planet sector to verify the status of possible human survivors of the nuclear disaster that came close to creating a “black hole” out of the mother planet as well as a number of neighboring solar systems.

The SUC headquarters were not overly enthusiastic about the project because they were engaged in a Galaxy-wide battle of survival with the insect hordes swarming into the fully pacified Federation territory from the far reaches of the unexplored universe. The blood drinking insect infestations generally started slowly with only one or two planets sucked dry by the thirsty invaders but recently a huge chunk of the known pacified Galaxy had been consumed by the increasing numbers of insect expeditions slowly eating their way into Federation pacified space.

The SUC and Scouts like Zulu99 and his sister Scout Lulu99 headed up deep-space expeditionary forces comprised of several battalions of humanoid pod sleepers in suspended existence status until they approached a target of exploitation in the operational zone.

Zulu and Lulu model generations were educated from birth in various Federation SUC production centers on human folk-lore and historical patterns of the migrating human species. They were fully qualified with extensive experience in managing new crops of humanoid drones to do the “grunt work” of universal control.

Although the Scout Units were essentially Artificial Intelligence robots with a thin humanoid shell of placating imitation skin and flesh, they bore little resemblance to the human drones under their command because of complete lack of emotions or empathy for human survival. They saw themselves as the masters and the humans under their command as the tools to get the job done as efficiently as possible with successful outcomes.

Sometimes, the Scout Units would merge with the human worker drones to give the impression of supportive interaction but they were truly aloof from human emotion and simply went through the motions with convincing responses to create a spirit of singleness of purpose and close personal guidance at all times.

For many centuries the human workers never suspected their “guides” were actually non-human machines using them for evolving goals totally unrelated to the human drive to survive in a demanding environment.

The fact that the AI (Artificial Intelligence) guides were fashioned along humanoid lines was not recorded later as a ploy to gain control over the human worker drones but to make their needed cooperation easier and more comfortable for all parties concerned. Even the falsehood of actual gender assignment for the guides labeling them as either male or female was considered more of a “soothing factor” rather than actual deception right down to the almost pornographic accounts of Scout Unit and human drone unauthorized close personal relationships that often would result in sorrow and recriminations totally foreign to the field of Artificial Intelligence.

The introduction of the insect hordes was a complication that the Federation designers had not foreseen and they were still devising backup changes in human handling procedures to counter the threat.

The Federation labs were in the process of altering genetic make-up of humanoid drones to be more responsive to anti-insect pest control procedures using formulas that approached genocidal success in some instances. Unfortunately, they had lost a number of human drones in the process of development and it was rumored that the human subjects were becoming more attuned to suspicious attitudes about SUC pacification methods.

Pod block units Alpha13, Beta22, Charlie7 and Delta66 all arrived at the SUC assignment table at the same time because the planning module had requested 2xFemale humanoids and 2xMale humanoids for the initial Recon of the supposed “Mother” planet right after the landing zone was secured by interlocking defensive fire patterns that worked like a charm against all opponents.

Alpha and Beta were the males and Charlie and Delta the females.

Because of the fact that none of them had any hair as yet due to a glitch in the pod activation circuits, all four of them looked sort of tenuous in the gender department and there was some confusion on Charlie’s information translator about her sexual preference. There was no doubt that the Delta unit was aware of that aberration because she was keeping her distance from Charlie until she could be certain that Charlie would not try anything with her when they were sharing a shower or asleep on the double bed. Neither Alpha nor Beta had that problem because they were both in the “Macho” mode for military purposes and it was unlikely that either of them would trust the other for anything except operational assignments. In a way, the AI guide found them all a bit amusing but was prevented by protocol from expressing that reaction because that was completely out of character for his programmed computations.