-----
Chips and Spook were now one and the same. Chips was easy to apply, with a simple phrase, Spook, your name is now Chips. You will respond to Chips, Spook or System.”
“Thank you, Commander. I am now Chips.” He seemed proud. Maybe he knew who Chips really was...
So, now it reacted just as swiftly to Chips or System, even Spook, when someone forgot, and that swiftness was easily five times faster than the old Spook. But, she had not lost a friend, she had gained one seriously bulked up, efficient one, a machine that could think, and be very, very effective. Almost… sentient. Almost… and it worried her, just a little. After all, this had started with sentient computers… Cyborgs.
But, she found Chips easily controlled. If she had to, she could pull the master switch, a mechanical process, out of the computer’s control. In fact, in nineteen selected and well-hidden spots any one of those switches in the ship would kill the system immediately. There were none of those switches in any schematic, in the system or on paper.
Man had learned that one cannot let the computers evolve into tyranny. It was all a matter of just in case. And, to prevent Chips from digitally going around the switches, they were mechanical, a pull mechanism.
From Chips’ point of view, all power came from a node point at his mainframe, and though there were three backups, he would have no idea that they were all controlled by the switches. Those units were not on any schematics available.
-----
Now, the Resolute was attempting to trace back the months and weeks of travel in from their last contact with the Tal’Ken. Whether right side up or sideways, they had no clue, only as to where the bow was pointed. In their time with Renewal, everything moved, and looking back did not help. It did not match up. No one cared. They were on their way… to whom and what, they were not sure.
Only now, it was five point two times the speed of light, their own speed, and coming in, it had been seven times light speed. So, the trip might exceed one year, depending on who they found first, Zephroan or Tal’Ken…
CHAPTER 3
“You realize you are taking us into a hornet’s nest,” High Council Rollander growled from his spot in the middle of the raised dais. He was frowning down at Captain Angela Washington, this during a touch up meeting. Ones she usually ignored.
She stood her ground. “The Zephroan are held in check by the Tal’Ken. They will help us evolve a new defense and myriad things we cannot do, yet. And they know of way more than one planetary system. On the other hand, if we go off blindly in the other direction, we may run into something a hundred times worse. Let’s face it, we really did not expect aliens at all. Now that we know they are out here, we need to know more about them. All that we may meet.”
Two of the Council murmured assent. Since Angela had cowed the High Council, they were not afraid to take on Rollander, who had somehow become full of himself, now that he had claimed and clung to the top spot on the council.
Rollander subsided. “As you wish, Captain. Just keep us out of trouble!”
“This is an exploratory mission. No one can keep us out of trouble, High Council. The best we can do is to try to keep us alive and find a home.”
“Thank you, Captain. You are dismissed,” Rollander said with a wave of his hand. He liked Angela, always had, but she had gotten a taste of battle, and she might well be leading them all to destruction. Frankly, he would be just as happy to live out his years as top of the food chain, right here and never see land-side again.
But too many had felt that sunshine and gentle breeze on their faces, and they longed to be there, again. Over half the near hundred thousand people on board were returnees. Maybe much more. He was not sure. But they could sure as hell pull him off his pedestal if he got too cocky.
-----
Jack and Angela started their day the right way. Both had found a wonderful, almost new hobby, and they found that once that train was started, there was no stopping it. Finally, winded, they relaxed under the ‘gift’ sheet, and whispered love to one another.
Then, after a few minutes of bliss, Angela popped him on his bare butt and told him, “Get moving, you! You have that meeting with the engineers. Today is your ‘laying of the keel’ day, right?”
“Thought I was… wasn’t I?” he grumbled as he got out bed. But he grinned. Frankly, he would rather stay right here and sample her charms all over again. But then, he was not twenty something, anymore, and it would take its toll.
As he swung his feet to the floor, slipping into magnetic slippers, he began to recall that, yes, today was a giant step in the right direction. The first keel of a newly designed and approved spaceship. Like all vessels, that was the beginning, and done right, they could be delivering a complete, new fighter in less than a year.
He turned and looked at her, laying a warm hand on her upraised hip, saying, softly, “I sure do love you, baby. I never thought that I could do it. You know, fall in love. I did not even know what it was… you know?”
“You keep up this foreplay and we will be back at it again. Go, you have a meeting.”
He sighed. “Yes, but you know, I have a single fear in the bottom of my gut.”
“What, about us?”
“No, silly,” he said, patting her hip, tracing to her warm bottom. A lovely bottom… then he focused. “I need you to slow the race down, headed this way. Buy me a year or two to get two or more wings up and through their trials. In fact, we would be in a hell of a lot better position if we had three to four wings of four confronting however many Zephroan come to the party. We proved we can kill on a one loss to ten kill cycle. Even twelve of us up will keep almost anything down. I hope.”
She sat up, unmindful of the sheet falling off her upper body. He had seen it, up close and personal. He apparently still enjoyed the view. She grinned as he eyed her hungrily.
She looked thoughtful. “You know, you are right. It would be foolish to race into a war without the right equipment. Let’s see, we are only a few weeks in… I can buy you two more years, easy. Total time would be nearly six. Time to finish refurbishing your third construction deck, and time to get more fighters out.”
“See, this is why I love you. As high as you are, you will not pretend to be unreachable.”
“Well, you reached… well, never mind! Okay, you got it. Now, go to your meeting, get the first four fighters started. I love the design, the apparent functionality. Now go prove them!”
Smiling as if a heavy weight was off his heart, he hurried to the shower. Loving eyes watched the play of every muscle…
-----
The lead engineer, Michael Applewhite, was supervising a crew of fifty men and women, all pouring over pages and pages of specs for the new fighters on Plant One. This section took up nearly a quarter of a mile, or twelve hundred and sixty-nine feet, of bare decking along the hull, near the last third of Resolute, yet just ahead of the engine room. The engine room took up the last portion, top to bottom, side to side, and was sacrosanct. No borrowing space there. The newly redesigned ships, almost five hundred feet long, would take up nearly half during construction, and later, when the process was automated, they could build two on each deck, in one plant. For now, one at a time per plant would do. But they were still long, just nowhere near as wide.
Between that deck and Plant Two, on the opposite side, was the storage for materials and supplies to build these things. These spaces had once been habitats for the overfull Resolute. No longer needed, for now, they became serviceable storerooms and tool rooms.
Down below them, one deck, was a larger space, a manufacturing plant, taking leftover titanium scrap from anything they could find, and turning it into fighter parts. Much of this came from the asteroid hit on their way in.
One deck up, and a big up it was, two hundred yards, a similar busy hive was at work on two more fighters. A matching set up for warehousing was between them, and it, too, was designed for efficiency.
The third deck above was
in the refurbishing and build out stage, and would not be ready to construct fighters for another four months. Still, it was a great plan, completely approved, and all under Captain Calmone’s control.
Angela had opted to take her partner’s last name, as in the ancient tradition. There were plenty of Washingtons, as well as Morgans on board.
Jack, in Navy regulation fatigues, carrying his Captain bars on his epaulets, walked over to talk to Michael. “Any snags? I see you have the tapes laid out. Compared to the Resolute, it seems small, but that is only because our monsters were air and space oriented and had way too much wing weight in them. These will be low wing surface and much, much sleeker.”
“Yeah, they are still five times the length of the space fighters of the twenty second century. Even so, you cannot expect to live through a direct hit.”
“Barely lived through a near miss as it was in my thousand footer. None of them can take a direct hit. We cannot change that. We can hope that these fast movers can be damned hard to find, though!”
“Yeah, maybe like big darts. You are right. Okay, watch a while, I will get the boy and girls hustling.”
But Jack was restless. He went through Plant Two, then up to the next deck to see the same schedule in place for Three and Four, blue tape on the floor to mark the centerline of the keels, and a lot of people scurrying around, looking busy.
As a test pilot, aside from his authority, he had little to do down here. He headed for his office, a reasonable two hundred fifty square foot space at the back of deck two, checking one more time on how to improve any part of the design. Or, failing that, how they could speed up the process.
Four at a time, almost three quarters of a year in production, a half year in testing, while four more were in the plants. Well, if the third deck got running, they would have a slightly staggered output of six a year. At the one year mark, well… certainly not enough, too tedious. Too slow. They would still be in Zephroan territory too soon. Two years, even three was better. Six total. He could almost hear the clock ticking.
He’d felt the shift in the Resolute as Angela had decelerated by half over an hour. Not so rough as an emergency stop, but noticeable. Then minutes later, another shift. Now they probably had those five or six years.
The one aspect that most humans enjoyed is the process of becoming familiar with some task. The more you do, the better you get sort of thing. Within reason. There are personalities who lose attention on repetitive tasks to the point they can make serious mistakes, but that is a different problem.
With several hundred people building the first four, the next set or two might actually take half the time.
He just hoped he could keep it rolling along quickly… More, he hoped the Resolute survived to birth is new babies… as many as possible.
CHAPTER 4
Time rolls by in space travel, and people live their lives, one day at a time, as always. And when nothing untoward happens, why, that is okay, too. It did not, however, breed complacency. All of the crew, all of the population knew they were headed into the lion’s den, and they were always on the lookout for the nearest safety seat. There would be little warning.
And, of course, Angela ran her tight ship, now at half the speed of light, and tried to be patient with the slow process of making fighters. The only comfort she had at this speed was now the little amount of time it took to go to full speed. Much better than plodding along during a chase or a fight.
Frankly, traveling at five times light speed and less than one was not much different inside Resolute. Other than that they had time to recognized and dodge natural obstacles with ease.
-----
Eventually, the year had slipped by and the first four were rolling off the line, so to speak, in the coming month. In and out, testing every phase. Minor stumbles, sure to not be repeated in the next round, had delayed the delivery by nearly three months. That was fine because it brought out six, for the third deck was finished and functioning. Those mistakes were not repeated in the newly furbished deck.
No matter, for Jack was practically beside himself in eagerness to fly one.
Running her fingers down his muscled chest, the magic sheet down over their waists, holding them as close as two people can get in the bed, she said, “It has been hard on you, waiting. Struggling with the cautious engineers, but, you know, you are out of practice in space travel. Nothing happens in a hurry. Except space battles.”
“I know, honey. Careful, baby, or I won’t be able to make it up the stairs!” he kidded her. “But, honestly, this is like fighter jockeys in any millennia have discovered, hours upon hours of boring tedium, and suddenly moments of sheer terror.”
“Well, it still scares me to death to have you in such a fragile little fighter.”
“It is almost half the size of the Accoster, but sleeker and much faster. As in super-fast, like a long, sleek dart. I am ready. My eleven pilots have aced the simulators. I have done everything I could. That third deck helped, so we will roll out a third pair, pending the trials, maybe next month. Old trainees are recruiting new ones, and I will have a minimum of ten more in three months. It is actually going faster, now that we have something to show.”
“You are going to fly beside us, around us, but will you come home at night? I have kinda gotten used to it, you know?” she asked, softly. She had not given up her clasp on him. She moved, experimentally, drawing a groan of appreciation from him. Interesting how a tough, take no prisoners Captain can go soft in persuading her man…
“With the precision of the teleporters, now, we can transfer a pilot out, and new one in, in half a second. I think we can keep the fighters up, full time, just swap out the crews on a flyby, a few hundred miles out. One at a time. They all have three man crews… and women. Yeah, I felt that tug!” He grinned.
“The first several months will be twelve hour shifts, then when the next batch of trainees are out, we can go to eight hours. Maybe six if we keep this up.”
The smaller fighters did not have galleys, or meeting rooms, no Captain’s table, they were utilitarian in that respect, all effort and money going into offense and defense. Nicely designed by a man who knew the requirements perfectly. No more high cost to human life, either. Only a pair of pilot and copilot, then a navigator, everything else was run by Chips in case the humans got in over their heads. The pilots were the oldest trainees, the co-pilots the newest. The navigators were pilots who did not make the grade. Still happy to fly, but in a lesser role.
“Chips is not going to be a problem, right?”
“No. Full service. Auto reaction for defense, somewhat under pilot control for offense. Computers are rarely sneaky. They can save your life, but they suck at offense. However, with the flip of a switch, Chips can do it all. The crew can just go along for the ride, at least at that point. He can dodge trouble faster than the human mind can even recognize it.”
“The techies are working on that sneaky thing. I would be happier if they flew their missions with no pilots at all. I need you here with me, not flamed out in some overloaded blue flash! Oooo, look what I made!” She tightened on him, showing him muscles he had not known a woman could control.
He caressed a readily reachable breast and smiled. “Yes, you are a regular engineer! Baby, you got me, good! And I am damned hard to kill. We will get through the trials and see what happens. I hate to turn my baby over to someone else, but it could be done. Oooo, I love that look…”
And so, Captain Washington was late to the floor of the bridge… again. No one cared. They applauded the new Angela, a softer, warmer woman who still got things done, right and on time. But with a better approach…
-----
Resolute soon had three decks worth of doors installed on both sides of the ship, to cover all three assembly decks. The six hundred foot doors required the appropriate decks sealed to the interior, all air exhausted, before the launch could begin.
On the target date, all internal checks finished and repaired
as needed, the huge doors, individual to each deck, pushed out from the starboard side of Resolute and then lifted up on hydraulic levers until the doorways were clear of any obstruction. In this assembly, the bottom one could cover the second one up. The second one could not be opened at the same time. The third one could open with the first, but not the second.
This prevented dumb humans from simply launching a flock of planes that were not yet in control, and far too close to one another.
Of course, other than moving the mass, the matter of weight was not an issue. Since they were going half the speed of light, already, all it took was a sideways push to propel the fighter out of the dock into space, where it, too, would be going half-light speed. Even with no propulsion at all.
Huge hydraulic thrusters pushed from within the deck, propelling the units on slippery glides. The fighters went right out the door, ‘flying’ level and parallel to Resolute. Plant One, first, then, shortly after rearranging the doors, Plant Three. The process was repeated on the other side with Plant Two and Plant Four. Now, they were neatly arrayed, one above the other, four deadly killers waiting to come to life.
The bottom unit from Deck One held Jack at the controls, all by himself, except for Chips, and the top one held Lena Washington, a very capable pilot who, though she had never flown a plane in her life, had aced everything in the sims they threw at her.
A Renewal distant cousin of Angela, and yes, it was in her DNA. It netted her the second’s position, calling the shots behind Jack, even though it was as much her maiden voyage as the plane’s. But, as test pilots, they worked alone. They would crew up when the units were proven.
Two other pilots manned the other units, and reported ready. All four were sailing in weightless space at half the speed of light, almost like they were stuck to Resolute.
“Ignition, wing,” called Jack, his thumb over the big red start button. “Mark!” and he pushed it.
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