"Get me out of here. I need to talk to the Security Council."
The shuttle accelerated away from the conflict zone and brought me to one of the Federation headquarters located in New York city.
Ignoring all the formal salutations I should've done on my way, I ran into the HQ. It was my first time here, and I wasn't familiar with the building's layout. I stopped the first person I saw inside.
"Where is the communications officer here?"
"Sir, everyone has been dispatched to help different fronts, even those in the highest ranks. There is not many people left here. If I remember correctly, the comms officers have been sent somewh-"
"Yeah, okay, I got it; where is the communications console?"
"To the left, at the end of this corridor."
"Carry on."
I left the officer there and ran to the communications console.
"Okay, I think I can operate this... Just a system-wide broadcast, the easiest of all... There."
I configured the headquarters' communication systems to repeatedly broadcast a message to the entire Sol system, in sound and text forms.
'---SOLAR FEDERATION EMERGENCY BROADCAST---
Anyone who receives this message, including all civilians and military personnel through the entire Sol system, MUST disable their Vineuras immediately and get them removed with medical assistance if possible.
---END OF PACKAGE---'
After that broadcast, I sent a separate, encrypted message to the Federation-Alliance Joint Command.
'---SOLAR FEDERATION - ALLIANCE OF ASIAN NATIONS JOINT COMMAND---
President of the Republic of Mars
Quasistellar Corporation (a private multinational company based in USA [Solar Federation]) is to be considered hostile, effective immediately. The company has been mapping people's brains using their only commercial product named 'Vineura', and storing them in electronic formats to later use it for their own purposes, including conventional warfare. Their radical main goal appears to be replacing the current human civilization with a cybernetic utopia.
Any suspicious AI activity is of utmost concern to all forces.
---END OF ENCRYPTED PACKAGE---'
As soon as I was done, I left the HQ. Even though I had not ordered it, the shuttle which brought me here was still waiting outside for me, as if it was my personal taxi service. I boarded it again.
"Where to, commander?"
"To XS Lodos II."
"Sir, I am afraid we won't make it there in one piece. The fighting is fierce on Low Earth Orbit."
"Can I get your headset?" I asked the co-pilot.
"Of course, sir."
"Tune me in to talk to Lodos."
The co-pilot played around with the comms panel, and manage to contact Lodos.
"Admiral, are you there?"
"Mr. President?"
"Is Lodos available?"
"Depends." Mei said. "What do you need it for? We are in the middle of something."
"I was going to ask if you could pick a shuttle up."
"I will try to find an opportunity and make a pass over Florida in an hour. Don't miss your only chance, Mr. President."
"Got it. Thank you."
"My pleasure."
"Got it?" I asked the pilot. "Off to Florida!"
The shuttle lifted off and headed south. While passing above us, Lodos would descend to the mesosphere at near orbital speed, pick us up and accelerate back into orbit. This would keep us flying below Low Earth Orbit and all the combat, but still be high enough for Lodos to not get ripped apart by atmospheric dynamic pressure.
The shuttle arrived to Florida, and aligned itself with Lodos's path. When Lodos was overhead, we had to accelerate to match our speed with it, and get into the hangar bay in the shortest time possible.
"Coming in. Heat up your engines!" Mei said when it was the right time.
"Go!" I ordered the pilot.
The shuttle activated it's twin main engines, accelerating to near orbital speed and rising to the upper atmosphere.
Very soon, Lodos was in sight. It opened it's hangar bay for us, and the shuttle pilot smoothly guided us inside. The hangar bay door was closed again, and the interior pressurized with breathable air. Lodos then engaged her own main engines to full thrust and boosted herself back into orbit.
I left the hangar bay with the shuttle crew, and went to the bridge to see Mei.
"How are you still not dead?"
"I should be the one asking that." she replied.
"Any news?"
"Not much." she said. "We are still losing badly, and I haven't heard anything from Tachibana. Oh, and everyone around Earth received your broadcast as far as I can tell."
"What about Mars?"
"I haven't got the slightest idea about what's going on at Mars." Mei said. "But if it is being targeted, our fleets stand no chance at all. Even planet Earth fell that easily..."
"Okay, so what's your plan?" I asked. "To fight here until you die?"
"To fight here until I die." she said. "You know, when you are sitting on this chair... after a while you just dismiss the thought of dying and just have fun shooting stuff."
"Could you at least get me back to Mars before dying? They will eventually come to us too, you can still die there if that's what you want."
"How about no?"
"How about that's an order? This is not the apocalypse, everything is not over yet."
"Alright, yes sir!" she said. While I was gone, she must have gotten too much into what she was doing... It was not her style to disobey.
Lodos sneakily got out of the battle and started traveling away from Earth, on towards Mars.
"How many days until we arrive?" I asked.
"Around a week I think..." she said. "We are running a bit low on fuel, so I can't accelerate much."
"Doesn't matter as long as we get there before these machines do."
"These machines, Mr. President..." Mei wanted to ask something, but stopped.
"What about the machines?"
"Are they... Are they people?"
"What?"
"A throwback to your broadcast earlier: Those that we fight... Are they simply the machines we build, or are they regular intelligent people living in electronic formats?"
"What? No!" I said. "People don't just 'live in' electronic formats! We can mimic people, their intelligence and emotions for sure, but they are not people in the normal sense."
"But what makes them?" Mei then asked. "The only difference is that they are not carbon based like us. Their neural processes still continue through electricity, much like how it happens in our brains."
That was a really good argument I couldn't reply to.
"Nature of consciousness has always been one of the hardest questions for mankind." I said. "I don't think we can really know if they are conscious or programmed AIs."
"So there is no clear answer."
"Exactly."
"Does it make you feel bad?" I asked.
"I don't know, sort of." she said. "I kind of think them as an interesting new life form... Robo sapiens."
"Robo sapiens, huh..." I repeated her. "Only if they were not forcing people into their utopia, and moreover, in violent ways..."
"Does this make them bad? What if we are wrong?" Mei asked.
"We wouldn't know until we were converted." I said. "This is not a fight on who is wrong and who is right, this is a fight for survival of a species. Say, if we were converted into a cybernetic form, would we still be 'us' as we are today?"
"But do we need to be 'us' in the first place?" Mei asked. "We can not know."
"In my opinion, the best outcome would be coexistence." I said.
"Yet we are not even sure if they are actually a form of life or not..."
"These are the hardest times of modern civilization."
We both sighed.
"I am going to get some tea." Mei said and walked out of the bridge.