Call to Arms

Lieutenant Kath'ryn Kass was slowly adjusting to life back on Mars. For the past three years, she, and over seven hundred other humans, had been part of an experiment for the Terran Task Force. Kept in cryo-stasis, they had lived deep inside a simulated universe created and managed by seven specially created AI's.These Artificial Minds had manipulated every aspect of their lives during this three-year period. The scenario had been so convincing and so well controlled, that even her own, previously private, memories had been manipulated. Entering the simulation, they had their memories wiped so that within the artificial world, she had lived another life. One of despair and regret. She was led to believe that she had lost her mother whilst submitting to having a Smart Mind artificially grown by the TTF inside her brain for the purpose of testing a new approach to improving reaction times for combat pilots in the war with the Flexani.Then Kass and the other participants had been awakened from their induced cryo-sleep to find that the past three years had been all an illusion, designed to test scenarios and to create new weapons in the perceived inevitable real war with the Flexani. She had been shocked to learn that she had actually volunteered, along with all the other human participants, but her memory of this act had been wiped. She now struggles to come to terms with the actual present. In the simulation Kath'ryn had believed she had been cashiered out of the service for unruly behaviour and had gained herself a reputation for being a maverick. So Kath'ryn was left to believe that her life was broken but after her record had been cleared, she became the Captain of a freight mining ship - The Intrepid Star. Unfortunately, the Intrepid Star had been attacked, her crew killed, and she only just escaped death herself by taking refuge in a Stasis Pod, falling to the planet surface below, only to be followed by an alien Flexani Watcher called Gen6aC who was intent on killing her. Kath'ryn and Gen6aC had formed an unusual alliance after a fleeing the Dall's lair. Kath'ryn saved the life of the alien and he became indebted to her for this kind act. During his recovery from injury, conversations with the human Kath'ryn caused Watcher Gen6aC to start to question his Caste leadership - the Council of JurTan - and he was horrified to discover that both sides, human and Flexani were preparing for war once again. He was ostracised from his race and all his possessions taken, never to be allowed to swim in the oceans of his homeworld again.Kath'ryn now needs to understand what is truth and where would she start to rebuild her life...