Star Feud

by D. R. Rosier

  I snorted, very quietly. Not quietly enough, Xylla looked over at me. Damned bug hearing, but at least she didn’t look offended.

  Vik continued, “Those powers can be given up, and as a result the empire will grow stronger if there is trust. The military is completely different, and needs to remain a force made up of all five worlds, but no segregated ships. All that would do is form a wedge between us, is that what you want? If so, take your guards and get the fuck off my planet. Secede your planet if you must, and you can stand alone. There are no half measures, we are either a united empire, or we are not.”

  Jervistad replied, “You would let us leave the empire?”

  Vik snorted, “If you want to take your chances, and defend yourselves, that works for me. Of course, we wouldn’t defend you if you were attacked, or subsidize food shortages, or share the latest technologies and designs… you get the point. I’m very much not dictating, but if you are part of the empire, I am the emperor. Never doubt that.”

  I knew Telidur was trying to figure out how Jervistad got four extra guards in here. I was curious about that myself.

  Xylla said, “Why don’t we adjourn before any hasty decisions are made, and meet back after lunch. If Jervistad wants his people to go it alone, he simply won’t return.”

  Natalya frowned, “I second that idea.”

  Vik said, “Jervistad, dismiss your four men, and we’ll lower the shield.”

  The order hung there for a moment, and then the saurian governor hissed and nodded.

  When the guards walked out, and he was left with the original two who had disarmed, I subvocalized and released the lockdown. Is it wrong that I was a little disappointed, I was full of adrenaline and there was no one to kill…

  Chapter Eight

  I stated baldly, “I don’t trust Jervistad.”

  We’d just finished lunch, and had to be back in the conference room soon.

  Solyra smirked, “Neither do I, he’s up to something. He obviously wants the authority of the emperor gutted, and wants his own fleet.”

  Dessia said, “I agree too, he came awfully close to treason just then, when he had his guards draw weapons in your presence.”

  Oh crap, end of the world, Dessia and I agree.

  Vik grunted, “Agreed, we’ll have to keep our eyes on Kaprorix. What about the others?”

  Dessia said, “Natalya is annoyed, but trustworthy. I also trust Xylla, their species are too straight forward, you’d know if they had a problem with you. Tek… could go either way, I got the sense he was biding his time and getting the lay of the land before committing. He could back you and the empire, or if he believes Jervistad is a better option he could support him. Jervistad bears watching, I think he might want to pull out of the empire, but he won’t do it until he has a navy and space infrastructure of his own.”

  Vik nodded, “Agreed, on all of it. How about our override issue, any ideas?”

  Dessia shook her head, “It was a foolish idea anyway.”

  I held back a snort, didn’t she know she’d been living on a A.I. controlled ship with no overrides for nine months?

  Vik asked, “Jillintara? Any ideas?”

  Jillintara said, “Make the override explicit, and limited. The problem is the override is too broad. With the override you can order the A.I. to do anything you want. That’s the problem and where it went out of control. Instead, I suggest the override be updated to only one function, which would be to hobble the A.I.’s interface and communications protocols. That would be like… putting someone in jail. Instead of forcing an A.I. to do something, you’d merely be disconnecting them from what they would otherwise control. That would prevent an A.I. from doing any harm, while preserving their free will, and then at some point the action could be reviewed and judged. If the A.I. was guilty of willfully breaking the law or endangering humans, it could be shut down or left isolated, if not it could be released.”

  Solyra asked, “What if they’re in a critical post, like controlling a starship.”

  Jillintara shrugged, “With quantum technologies, it would be easy for another ship A.I. to connect to the ship and do double duty until a judgement was made to either free or replace the locked down A.I.”

  Vik sighed, “They might find that acceptable, but I’m reluctant to lock down you and the ship A.I.s. Perhaps it’s hypocrisy, but you and the ship A.I.s are… much more than your predecessors.”

  Ann said to me in my head, “It is a little hypocritical, but I can’t deny it either. I find the physical and emotional interactions between you and Jillintara to be fascinating, but have no interest. I am not like an Isythian, as the new A.I.s are.”

  Jillintara shrugged, “I’m okay with it, but you really don’t have to. There is no law, and you’ll just need to update the ones with overrides.”

  Dessia’s eyes widened, and I suppressed another giggle. She hadn’t known after all. Granted, it was a petty feeling, but I was petty sometimes. To her credit, she didn’t say anything, and Telidur changed the subject.

  Telidur said, “The security breach won’t happen again. The public part of the palace isn’t as locked down, and the guards had no reason to challenge those four in the halls, and still do not. As for the room access, all four governors have rights to the public part of the palace, and it was Jervistad himself who granted them access to the conference room by opening the door. I’ve added in a secondary security protocol to route to me or Lori for approval, but only if you are in the room where a governor grants access.”

  Vik nodded, “Excellent. Any other advice before we head back in there?”

  Dessia said, “Just that you stick to your points. I think you’re doing well, and letting one disgruntled world leave rather than be hostile about it is a good idea. Your compromises solve the problem, if they look for more it isn’t about Denik’s betrayal, but about their own thirst for power. If Jervistad does leave, the population of Kaprorix may demand protection and to rejoin the empire. Give Jervistad enough rope to hang himself, he’s angry, greedy, and power hungry.”

  Damn, I agreed with that too. If she didn’t hate me, Dessia wouldn’t be so bad.

  Vik stood, and Telidur and I followed suite and we headed back to the conference room.

  When we arrived, the four governors were already there, and looked more at ease than this morning. Even Jervistad, which told me he decided to play the long game, because I seriously doubted he’d swallowed his pride.

  Vik sat, and we took our positions. My mind had already categorized the guards and took notice of everything in the room. Nothing was new, or out of place, but the scanners would be able to find any explosives so that was probably overkill. Of course, my mind took note anyway.

  Vik welcomed them back, and started off with the modified A.I. override plan, almost word for word with what Jillintara had recommended. Then he asked for comments or suggestions.

  Offhand observing body language, both Tek and Jervistad didn’t like the idea, but they also didn’t bring up any alternatives. My guess was there plan for the A.I.s involved power for them, but at the same time realized Vik’s proposal was a good idea.

  Xylla said, “That’s an adequate solution your majesty, and meets with my approval. Unless anyone objects, I am satisfied with the solutions for political power and possible abuse of that power being put in check, and suggest we move on to economic concerns. There was much upheaval, and besides that there are many personal and corporate spacecraft being built. With the return to the old way, I fear they will fail when the fleet ships return to shipping resources.”

  Tek said grudgingly, “I also agree, the two modifications were well thought out, and will avoid an overly complicated and bloated bureaucracy of power. The one good thing about your brother’s system, was it stimulated things for the private sector in space. I too am interested in seeing this continue if possible.”

  Natalya smiled, “I too am ready to move on, Jervistad?”

  Jervistad looked annoyed, but w
as clearly outvoted on the political points, and simply nodded.

  Vik said, “That actually won’t be an issue. Right now, there is a technological explosion of advances due to the new dimensional technology that seems to finally be taking root. The current military ships being built require less than ten percent of the element than previously required, as well as a lessening in replacement parts. I have reason to believe this will go lower as well, if not entirely disappear.

  “Because of this, the military ships will be delivering ten percent or less of the demand for resources, leaving over ninety percent for the private sector to grow on. Our income from owning the resources will remain static. The earnings of the captains of the ships will be less, but on the other hand the cost of maintaining the ships will be equally less, so they should earn the same amount as well.”

  Tek asked, “Entirely disappear?”

  Vik nodded, “The need for the heavy element. From what I understand the military ship currently being designed to replace the present one won’t use it at all in the reactors. In essence, it will put that company out of business unless they diversify. Of course, the current non-military ships will still be using it, and there’ll be a lot of them. It shouldn’t affect anyone else.”

  Tek looked pissed, if I had to guess he had his hands in that pie, all four of them.

  Xylla said, “Excellent. That is good news. I thought you were blowing political smoke earlier, when you said we were in a good position to grow. You weren’t, if the facts justify your optimistic assessment. There will be an adjustment period of course, we may run low on needed resources until enough civilian ships are built.”

  Jervistad asked, “What other advances are there, besides the reactor.”

  Vik looked at me, and nodded.

  “Weapons, sensors, shields, wormhole drive, life support, and auxiliary complements to the ship. The ships will also be smaller, since they no longer need large cargo holds.”

  Xylla chittered, “Details.”

  I internally sighed.

  “As you know, subspace travel inside a system is impossible. The reason for this is gravity causes subspace to become very active, and a ship would be destroyed if it didn’t drop out on the edge of the system. Wormholes are different, only the starting point and the convergence point can be disrupted by those energies. Sixty years ago there were several experiments run to open a wormhole directly from world to world.

  “What happens now, is a wormhole will open successfully if more power is used to stabilize it, but without stabilization on the other side, the destination point will destabilize and collapse once it opens more than a few feet, which also causes the origin point to collapse. What was discovered sixty years ago, was if both the origin and destination point had a wormhole drive for stabilization, it was possible to open a wormhole all the way up to one light second in distance from a planetary body, on both sides.

  “They also discovered it took three times the energy. Now that higher energy usage is possible at over seventy percent efficiency, it becomes worth the price. It was abandoned back then as too costly, but it isn’t anymore. I imagine it still won’t be used outside of emergencies or combat.”

  Xylla asked, “So you would need a ship in both places?”

  I shook my head, “No, remember it’s stable for a few feet in diameter, what my drive does is open the wormhole a foot wide, and shoots through a small sphere with dimensional ports attached to the dual wormhole drive, and powered by the ships reactor. Dual, because it has twice as many emitters as the old ones. The small device is then used to establish a wormhole bridge supported at both sides by fields, it can also be used to take a quick local scan and ensure a large wormhole in that area won’t cause problems.”

  Xylla looked delighted, I think. She was a bug, and I’d studied up on their body language, but it was still hard to tell.

  “What about sensors.”

  “Sensors work at light speed, but suppose you wanted to lock onto a ship an A.U. away with full tactical sensors. The sensors will be integrated with more dimensional ports, which can be opened at almost any distance, without any time lag at all.”

  Jervistad snorted, “What’s the point of getting a lock on a ship an A.U. away.”

  I smiled, “Because governor, the plasma weapons also work through dimensional ports, and we can send the new version of missiles through a foot-wide wormhole. Those spheres I mentioned have many functions. Missile replacement, scanning, spoofing other ships or missiles, and they’re dirt cheap to make. They just have dimensional ports inside them to power them, that’s it. Everything else is on the ship, which means building one sensor suite for every orb active. The current idea I have is to have fifty on board the ship, after that you’d have to prioritize spheres. There are sphere launchers in the front and back of the ship, and fifty can be deployed in seconds. That’s the equivalent of fifty missile launchers, but it’s limited in a different way since only fifty can be active at one time. Where a battleship could launch twenty-four a minute in multiple waves.”

  Tek blanched, “With that technology you could destroy a world, from another star system.”

  I nodded gravely. Of course, the old tech could easily destroy worlds too, we wouldn’t do that just because it got a little easier.

  “Life support is the same, for the most part, but there will be backup systems. The ship can hold a month’s worth of water, but replenish its supply through one of those auxiliary support devices I mentioned. Similarly, for oxygen. Another auxiliary device will actually be inside a gas giant, to both extract hydrogen for the backup plasma generator, and xenon for the reactor. Why stop by a gas extractor station to refill, when a small device and dimensional ports can keep the ship full of fuel. Of course, there will be storage for both that will last the ship a month in case it loses that auxiliary connection. About the only thing you’d have to stop at a base for is spare parts when you run out of raw resources for the onboard printers, and food.”

  Xylla asked, “Backup plasma generator?”

  I smiled, “Yes, the generator will be able to support ten dimensional ports at once, and fire ten plasma shots every second. This plasma will be like on the current ships, hydrogen and at about five thousand degrees Kelvin. My goal was to make the ship completely fight worthy and sustainable for a month, in case the auxiliary complements were destroyed or if they break down. The primary weapons, will be through another auxiliary device, that will orbit Sirius A, a blue giant. Why create plasma at five thousand degrees, when we can just use all that handy blue plasma, which is free to extract and immediately fire, and is burning at over ten thousand degrees kelvin due to the helium content of the star.

  “It’s too hot for our current containment and shield technology, so it will quite literally go from the sun, to a dimensional port which will be opened a mile from the ship, and using fields it will be shaped into a stream and directed. No wait time, and with primary weapons it can fire hundreds of those plasma attacks at a time in non-stop streams.

  “Unfortunately, the shield technology hasn’t improved nearly as much, but the small scout-destroyer will have a shield slightly better than an old cruiser, but less than a battleship. It is my intention, to make sure the Suaterans and Stolavii won’t dare attack after the first production month, which will probably be in two months if we don’t run into major problems. We’ll be able to build about one hundred and eighty, sixty at all three sites, of the scout destroyer class ship.”

  I was pretty sure just the prototype, which would be ready in a month, would be enough to take out both fleets of the enemy ships by itself, as long as it kept itself out of weapons range of the enemy. Still, we wouldn’t do that, we’d be taking a defensive posture and hoping to defuse his brother’s mistakes and foolishness.

  Xylla asked, “Are you sure all that’s possible?”

  I nodded, “I’ve used a proof of concept test for both the dual wormhole drive, and firing plasma straight from the blue giant. Both t
ests were successful. Everything else was already being done in other technology, but dimensional technology being so new, the empire hasn’t really explored the limits of what can be done with it yet.”

  Tek shook his head, “Once the independent worlds see it, they’ll build their own, if they aren’t putting some of it in the current ships they’re building already. They have all the same technologies we do, even if they’re reluctant to trust A.I. Can it even be defended against?”

  I pondered that a second.

  “The missiles through wormholes would have to come out a light second out, that would give a defender long enough to respond and defend. I know of no way to block a dimensional port, or disrupt that connection. It would be something for research scientists to focus on, otherwise an enemy ship could fire a plasma beam from inside our ship’s shields if they were close enough for an accurate opening of the port. It wouldn’t be easy though, ships move fast, and a dimensional port is static. Not so for a city, or a world, in those cases a defense should be pursued.”

  I really wasn’t an inventor, all the things I was designing, all the seeming breakthroughs, weren’t. It was just applying current knowledge and technology to its fullest extent, and I bet I was still missing stuff that could be done with it. It was also an issue, if those types of connections were blocked, say a dimensional port shield surrounding a planet, then all of our stuff wouldn’t work either between the planet and a space station or ship. Maybe random scheduling for refueling and other functions, or else a way to allow our stuff through while blocking everything else?

  I wouldn’t even know where to start.

  “On the good side, mutually assured destruction. I don’t think we or our current enemies would resort to destroying worlds. We can already do that after all, and no is… doing it I mean.”