The second Combat Assistant Artificial Intelligence program began when Marine Corps cyberneers sought to recruit Dixie of the AI Council to join the project of updating Jane’s code to work with the Marines. They reasoned that since the Marines held firmly to the tradition of being formed up in a bar before going out to be the terror of the seven seas, a former cheerleader as a combat assistant actually made an insane bit of sense. The fact that she and Jane and worked together for years to kill more Drug Lords, Rogue AIs, and other threats to America than most people could count was another vote in her favor. Dixie was happy to donate her code to the project, and the first version of the combat assistant to take the name Cassie was born.
Following the complete failure of the first Marine Corp Combat Assistant Artificial Intelligence, American cyberneers attempted to complete their mission in an entirely different way. They still thought it best to base their work off Jane since she was a fully effective combat assistant already. But it was obvious they could not simply modify her personality by hacking that aspect of her code. So they brought in another AI to help them in a more…organic way. The cyberneers hoped they could strategically combine the code of two AIs to get a single AI with the abilities of Jane and a personality compatible with the Marines. It should be no surprise to those who have studied the early Earthborn AIs that their first choice was Dixie. To the great consternation of military procurers and politicians everywhere.
The original Cassie Combat Assistant Artificial Intelligence completely failed in combat. She fell into a regressive loop of counteracting priorities she couldn’t break while lives were on the line. But she could think with the best of them when in training situations. So the cyberneers made her a Marine Corps trainer and the rest is history. She excelled in that venue in ways even other AI trainers often failed to master. They were built to simulate combat. She was built to be combat. So she never took it easy on her trainees. She put them through Hell with every built-for-combat subroutine she had. Every Marine to see any form of service in the last two-plus centuries has trained with her, and it is impossible to calculate how many have lived because of that training.
When the original Cassie Combat Assistant Artificial Intelligences failed in combat, the Marine Corps cyberneers came up with the interesting idea of using them to secure Marine bases. Their main failure was in the ability to strategize while lives were on the line. They literally could not prioritize the actions they needed to take while in combat. But it was a completely different story when the cyberneers placed another AI, like Jane who had no problem at all with the idea of dealing with lives on the line, in charge of a group of Cassies. Jane could pick out targets and plans to follow, and the Cassies in charge of the guns could service those targets without any hesitation at all. It was an ingenious hack to keep an expensive system in some form of deployment, which the bean counters in the Pentagon profoundly approved of.
The Martian Affair did not advance to the top 10 finalist level of consideration for the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest. I got the word today from the contest organizer. He did say he liked the story, so that is good. But in the end there were many good submissions to the contest, as I expected. I am disappointed that my story did not make it to the final round of judging, but it is not the first time a publisher has declined to accept one of my stories.
The silver lining is that I will get to publish this short story myself in the near future. This is in fact the second completed story in my queue ready for publication. The second Wolfenheim Story is ready, complete with cover design. I had intended to publish it last year, but production issues cropped in and slowed me down, which is why The Thunderbird Affair got the honor last year. Wolfenheim Emergent will come soon, though. Have no worries on that account.
I have a third story roughed out and heavily written. It was actually fully written some time ago as part of another story but was cut for word count and the fact that it just wasn’t needed to tell the story I was telling. I am now working to make it a self contained short story of its own and will publish it when done. It has had a number of names over time, but I think I have finally settled on The Audacious Affair. The other names died because they telegraphed the story too well. And I like this name. It doesn’t have the same bite as the original name, but it has teeth.
And I learned long ago that when your name is on the lips of others, you should make certain it has teeth so they will not forget you. 😉
Forge of War on Amazon
Angel Flight on Amazon
Angel Strike on Amazon
Angel War on Amazon
Wolfenheim Rising on Amazon
Wolfenheim Emergent on Amazon