by Chris Hechtl
“As I said, classified. But well, she's been reinitialized by the Admiral, so we're getting to know one another. Mostly she sleeps a lot.”
“Like a baby,” the tech said. Jethro hit the guy's IFF. He was in his thirties, a tech named space apprentice Gerald Ford. “She's learning and growing. They do that, sleep a lot.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jethro said. He felt a warning text from Commodore Firefly, to not go into further detail. He frowned and then sighed. He hated the classified stuff sometimes. “I'm doing that a lot. So, what's going on with the fleet? What'd I miss?” he asked, picking up a drink and sipping at it.
The tech filled him in enthusiastically, going on about how they'd gotten the ships turned around and how they were splitting up in a couple days. Jethro nodded.
“Ah, here you are Jethro,” a familiar voice said. Jethro turned as the crew in the compartment stiffened. “Stay at ease people,” Major Pendeckle said, waving to the crew. He went over and got a tray of food and then came over to sit next to the panther. “I need to eat, and I needed to chat with you. I figured this kills two birds with one stone,” the Major said, smiling.
The tech and Marines quieted, poking at their meals. Jethro knew they were eavesdropping, but wasn't sure what to do about it. It was their off time, and they were in a public part of the ship.
“Yes, sir,” Jethro said. He felt Bast ping the Major's IFF. He thought it was rude, but then his eyes widened slightly as the rank registered. Apparently, Major Pendeckle was no longer just frocked to Major, the human was now a full Major. “Sir, congratulations on your promotion!” Jethro said.
“Ah, is that why you pinged me?” The Major asked mildly as he scooped his mash potatoes.
“I didn't, sir, um, my partner did.”
The human looked up to him briefly, frowned, and then shrugged. He went back to eating. “I see,” he said after a moment.
Jethro slowed his own eating to let the officer catch up. When the Major was mostly done eating he cocked his head. “So, son, I'm not sure what to do with you.”
“Sir?” Jethro asked, now confused.
“I'm having a hell of a time putting all the round pegs in the right holes. You apparently are one of them. I was going to transfer you to Maine to be with the Admiral...”
Jethro thought about that in a flash as his ears flattened. “What?” The Major asked.
“I...sir, I'd like to stay with my unit, sir,” Jethro said carefully. “I'd like to request to return to my unit actually,” he said.
“An official request?” The Major asked, eating some sort of replicated blueberry concoction. “Mm, good. My compliments,” the Major said, pitching his voice to the cook. The cook nodded, now embarrassed. He smiled.
Jethro noted the human's reaction and the Major's intentional change of subject to give him time to reconsider. But he'd made up his mind. “Sir, I'd like to stay or go to Oasis, wherever I'm needed.”
Major Pendeckle eyed him and then nodded. “Not yet though,” Firefly interjected. “You still have a ways to go before you are fully cleared, Gunny,” the AI said to them. Jethro sighed.
“Gotta listen to the doctors, or in this case the AI. They know more about what is going on than you or I. But if you are able, I'll put you on Oasis. But that had better be soon; we're shipping out shortly.”
“Aye aye, Sir. I'll do my best to be squared away by then,” Jethro vowed.
“Don't push it, Gunny, or her,” Firefly said. “But I think you'll be ready to go in another shift.”
“Good then. Get clearance and then you'll be back on duty. Until then, get cleaned up and do what they need you to do, Gunny,” the Major said, getting to his feet. Jethro and the other enlisted rose. “And on that note, back into the fray,” the Major said, nodding to them as he walked out. He policed his tray on the clean-up station by the hatch and then left without a backwards glance.
---( | ) --- ( | )---
“You sure he'll be all right?” the Major asked Firefly. “He's a bit out.”
“He's getting there. A lot of it is shifting now to Bast. She's still young, still growing and demanding attention. I've been feeding her information; that's helped them a bit. I've set up a link for her. She is accessing the historical archives now. I'm not certain if he knows or not.”
“I see. So, is he ready to return to active duty?” the Major asked. “I wasn't kidding; we need him back on the line.”
“But not if he's not ready, sir. And yes, he's getting there. I'd say light duty for at least a week, perhaps more. He seems to be handling the mood swings, but they will hit again when she goes through an upgrade and evolves.”
“Which will happen...”
“Hopefully, she'll let him or us know,” the ship AI replied. “Though there is no telling with that one,” Firefly sighed.
“I see.”
“You have the orders?”
“Yes. I'm wondering what Jersey will say when he sees them,” Major Pendeckle said with a small burble of anticipation and amusement in his voice. He was carrying orders to Major Forth including a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.
“I'm not sure. Judging from what I know of Major Forth, he'll probably turn the air blue for a bit, then accept the inevitable,” the AI said.
“Probably,” Pendeckle replied with a smile. He for one was glad they'd caught up with the Admiral, and even happier about the stuff the Admiral had passed on. Some of it, at least from the Marine view point seemed almost as an afterthought, but it was much appreciated at any rate.
Major Pendeckle also had implant codes for Marine keys updated. He could now access higher classified information so he knew peripherally about the Cadre armor. He also could now replicate some Marine hardware, all of it infantry since that was his MOS. He planned on putting that to use as soon as he could, and as soon as there was a replicator available.
---( | ) --- ( | )---
Jethro woke, ate again and then tried to stay awake long enough to read the files the Admiral had uploaded into his implants. He had a headache though after a time, reading papers was never his strong point, and the abstract was far over his head. Puzzling it out took time and energy, and he barely understood half of it. He set the information up as a sleep teach and then gave in and took another nap.
When he woke he wanted to talk to someone. He heard crying and investigated. Down the hall he found a hatch cracked open. The panther peeked inside with his implants and froze. There was a group there, a group of ten humans, most of them female. All were thin and looking uncomfortable as one cried softly.
He realized what he was seeing, possibly invading the privacy of a therapy session in progress. A woman noted his interest and got up to shut the hatch in his face quietly. He nodded politely and then moved on.
Everything was odd; his senses were even more acute than before. And his attention span wandered, which bothered him. He growled in frustration. “Awake again, Gunny?” Firefly asked.
“Yes, sir,” Jethro replied. “Sir, I'm feeling more alert now. I...I don't know what's going on. I'm...it bothers me. It's still hard to focus,” Jethro growled in frustration.
“Relax, Gunny,” Firefly replied. “It takes time.
A passing spacewoman looked up. “Congratulations, Captain, I mean, Commodore,” she said, saluting the camera.
“Thank you, Crewman Yates, as you were,” the AI said. The woman nodded, nodded again to Jethro and then moved on.
“Sir, um, sorry, sir, if I screwed your rank up,” Jethro said, now confused.
“Oh relax, Gunny, it's okay,” Firefly said.
“Congratulations as well, Captain, I mean, Commodore,” Jethro said, coming to attention.
The AI chuckled. “I suppose it was inevitable. We, the fleet and Marines, need to grow, which means we need to make room for those that will come along in our wake.”
“Yes, sir,” Jethro said, unsure.
“By the way, I told you about the promotion before. Apparently it didn't stick.
”
“Sorry, sir. I, well, I must have really been out of it.”
“Yes, yes you were,” the ship AI said. “You still are to a degree I see, but you seem more alert.”
“I am, sir,” Jethro said, aware of another watching and listening to the conversation. His eyes cut to the eyes on his HUD. “Can you talk?” he asked, directing the question to the suit AI. “I know you can.”
He realized Bast was awake and listening. She seemed jealous at first, then curious. She made a soft sound a fufufuf and then another chuffing sound.
“She's...different. Not like you at all, sir,” Jethro said, redirecting his attention to the ship AI.
“Yes, I know,” Firefly replied. He sent a ping to the suit. When there was no response he sent another. That got a meowed response from the other AI.
“I see. Well, she is vocalizing to a degree. Admiral Irons did warn there might be issues. She has had a rather hard time, and I know she's a copy of a copy of a copy.”
“I still don't fully understand that, sir,” Jethro said frowning thoughtfully. “I mean, I looked it up at the Anvil college, but it's one thing to read the abstract about this royal jelly, and quite another to...well, it's hard to believe.” He remembered his fights with the stubborn ship AI. Doctor Standish had poked and prodded him in a desire to reverse engineer his cloak and other abilities. That had sparked an interest in the panther, and the ship AI's insistence that he didn't have the right to know what was in his own body had pissed him off.
He'd threatened to resign, to find a civilian to find the answers he wanted. But he'd been redirected to research at the Anvil college. Most of the biology courses had been boring and not what he'd wanted. But a few dropped hints from Captain Pendeckle had pointed him in the right direction. It hadn't given him all the answers, but it had given him enough to satisfy his curiosity then.
Now he regretted that curiosity. He remembered the old line about cats and curiosity. He snorted softy. He felt Bast picking up his flashes of thoughts and storing them. She picked up on his emotions as well, but seemed to set them aside. Just another thing to get used to. Now he understood the whole, “don't ask a question you don't want an answer to,” though he wasn't sure yet if this would turn out into a bad thing or not.
Bast looked at him and sent a wave of love and purring his way. Despite himself he bobbed a nod, feeling her phantom caresses before he realized the ship AI was still talking. He forced himself to pay attention.
“The artificial DNA was kept more or less intact as your ancestors procreated and passed it down from one generation to the next,” Firefly said, “in the packets of tissue in your body.”
“I know, sir, I realized that in college but they were dormant until we restored the suit.”
“Yes, the two coming together reactivated the dormant cells and nanites. That, however, was a problem; they weren't initialized properly. There was no way to predict what would happen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think, I still don't have access to all the files, but I do know now, and I think you know that your cloak is far more than a skin reaction right?”
“I...think so, sir,” Jethro said, nodding slowly. He'd read something about that but it had confused him. Something about the nanites and the processors of the AI? Not only smart skin, but the nanites interacted to bend electromagnetic radiation around his form making him invisible. All this time he'd thought it had been his genetics alone.
That explained how he was the best at cloaking while others were only mediocre. He wondered if Letanga had the same nanites in his body. Since they were related, it was a possibility.
“I have some of the same ability in the ship's skin to a degree. Smart skin, which allows me to filter out incoming radiation and pass it through the ship as if the ship wasn't there. That way it's not deflected giving off a betraying signature, nor absorbed and creating a void.”
“I see, sir,” Jethro said, puzzling over the analogy before he caught on. “So, you’re saying Bast, in whatever dormant form she was before was doing this for me and my ancestors?” he asked. “She was, I don't know, when we went into cloak she did it for us?”
“You don't have the beginnings of the processing power to handle it, Gunny,” Firefly said in amusement. “Your organic minds only use a small percentage of your available processing power. Granted, you use a lot more, and yes, some of it for your cloak. But not all.”
“I see, sir.”
“Besides, if you were so focused on the cloak you wouldn't be able to function.”
“I understand, sir,” Jethro replied. He realized he did. He'd always had the ability to cloak but only for short times. He'd thought that when he'd joined the Marines his implants, and discipline and adult body had allowed him to extend his previous limits. He'd been able to move and do things he knew his late sire Jet had said was flat out impossible. Now he understood it hadn't been any of that, or at least not just that. Interfacing with the suit had activated Bast and gotten her to grow within him.
“Good. I wonder if your partner does?” Firefly sent her a data stream to the AI, this time with his own recordings of Jethro before she had come online. She received it but instead of saying anything she just purred. The ship AI was gratified by the reaction; it seemed the AI was intrigued by her host’s interactions. He played a few more, but she seemed to get bored of it easily. Then her eyes shifted about to other things around them.
“I see her attention span is still rather limited. Much like I was when I was...young.”
“You were like a cub when you were first created, sir?”
“No, not quite this level. She's a smart AI; I can see that. I was created as a dumb AI, but I had the programming modules to evolve over time. Commander Sprite activated them before she and the Admiral left Pyrax and updated me with several firmware adjustments. I never realized it until recently.”
“Oh.”
“It's a new experience Jethro, an adjustment for all. She will grow though.”
“Is she going to be like this all the time? I mean, sir, I've got duties...my squad...”
“Is learning to appreciate you. You'll have a bit of explaining to do, but keep it simple. The Admiral confirmed your promotion to Gunny by the way.”
“Sir!” Jethro protested, sitting up. He'd only made Staff a few months ago! He couldn't...it wasn't right...the protests formed but were cut off by the ship AI's chuckle.
“It's official so relax, Jethro. There are reasons the Admiral does things his way, and besides, he is the Admiral.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think, we're going to need your grit soon. Noncoms are few and far between, and those like you are even scarcer unfortunately. We're about to grow now that Antigua is coming into the fold. When things hit their stride we'll need you and others like you in place to lead. So buck up.”
“I'll...I'll try to live up to my full potential, sir.”
“You do that, Gunny,” the AI replied.
---( | ) --- ( | )---
The most damaged of the captured ships and all the salvaged or left over scrap was intended to go to Pyrax. Irons stuffed each of the ships with material, including newly built fighters and fighter parts. They would serve to fill the flight decks on two of the orbital forts and one of the escort carriers that was currently mothballed. Horatio and the Yard could at least get the platforms out into space. They would lack a hyperdrive, but at least they would be mobile enough for defensive actions.
The wounded Maine would lead the three destroyers, three corvettes and one frigate to Antigua, with stops along the way to pick up the ships in Hidoshi's World and Richalu. Coming along with them would be six of the freighters, the two tankers and the factory ship to Antigua. The liner stuffed with Horathian occupational soldiers was now a prison ship, with all their Horathian prisoners on board. A pair of Marine squads watched over the 492 prisoners warily. They would take the place of the 4,950 former slaves on the liner, which fortunately had
the facilities to handle prisoners. The Marines would guard the Horathians on their journey to Pyrax and an internment camp.
On second thought Xavier, the other Arboth and most wounded tin can, could return with Firefly, the Admiral thought. They had the yard to repair her and return her to service. That would leave Bounty and the Antelope rechristened the Mary Apple with the Maine.
The Admiral split the surviving two frigates down the middle, one each. That would make everyone happy. And of course since they had less distance to go Firefly could take the most damaged one.
Echo had been returned to service the night before. Sindri was still grump, but not quite up to the task of taking her through the jump on his own. He was tempted to task them to travel ahead to Richalu, but there were too many variables, too many unknowns between here and there. He didn't even know if Hoshi had actually stopped there, or if she had changed her mind and decided to run the Kathy's World gauntlet.
He had briefly toyed with the idea of sending a ship to Bek, but it was far too dangerous. They were green crews, going into a very dangerous route...no. He'd figure something else out there, later.
Once he was certain all the ships were ship shape and able to at least handle one jump the Admiral declared a day of rest. Ironically, it was on the Founding day of the Federation. Sprite arranged to have a party.
---( | ) --- ( | )---
Another day and Jethro dealt with a series of odd images. He wasn't sure what the AI was getting at, but he tried to be patient when he explained them. Something...some instinct told him to be patient, to treat her like a growing child. He remembered his own childhood.
His flashes of memory were immediately pounced upon by the AI. She picked them apart, seemingly intrigued by them. He saw small images dancing around her fascinated glowing eyes. He tried to ignore the distraction as he stretched.
He went to the mess and ate; then Jethro insisted on returning to work. His head was mostly cleared of the cobwebs. He still needed to sleep a lot more, but he could deal with that. He shot an e-mail to Valenko and the bear replied in minutes. The bear's answer was for the panther to get cleared by medical. Jethro frowned but complied. “Time to get poked and prodded,” he muttered.