Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane

by Chris Hechtl

  “Are you factoring in radial magnetic fields from, oh, for example a radio speaker transducer?”

  “That's what got us on this path Admiral. But this is a simulation. There is no guarantee it will work. It could even do damage to you.”

  “A possibility? To the nodes?”

  “To the nodes and to you if things don't work out. Which is why Defender has forbidden we attempt it.”

  “Hmm...” Irons grumbled. “So, could we replicate this outside of me? With nodes on a test jig?”

  “Possible, but not now. Not with current power reserves and not with possible field interactions with the ship.”

  The Admiral made a face. “All right,” he said, scrubbing his face with a napkin. “So, that's out. Nice diversion of time,” he exhaled noisily.

  “Not completely Admiral. The research has opened a few avenues to explore,” Sprite said, sounding excited.

  “You mean the lens effect?” the Admiral replied.

  Sprite opened her mouth and then closed it. “You would figure it out,” she grumbled.

  “I have my moments,” he replied.

  “Sometimes,” the AI teased. He snorted as he policed his dishes and then exited the room. His feet were nearly tangled by a purring bundle of fur. He paused long enough to scoop up the little monster. The cub settled in his arms, purring and nuzzling him.

  “I'm for bed you little monster. Tomorrow is another day. So, go play. I think Proteus and Sprite have some things to think about.”

  “Definitely,” Sprite replied with a nod.

  <----*----*----*---->

  The next morning the Admiral got his coffee and idly stroked a finger down a cub's spine while he read the shift report. Nothing had happened in his downtime, which was to be expected. What was of note was the AI were quiet. Usually Sprite would say good morning. Defender he could understand, that AI had never been one for small talk. Nor Proteus. But even Phoenix was quiet.

  He turned, resting his rump against the counter top and crossing his arms as he looked at the cubs. Blaze had given up getting tokens of affection from him in order to taunt and torment her sibling, who was sitting under the table. The little brat was looking up, ready to grab a dangling paw, but the sibling had the height advantage.

  “Better give it up,” the Admiral murmured. “She has the high ground.” He snorted when the little minx switched to attacking her sister's tail from below. That got Blaze to jerk and then twist around.

  “Actually, we found something. Several somethings,” Sprite replied.

  “You mean grav lens applications?” the Admiral queried with a slight smile.

  Sprite hesitated and then appeared on his HUD. “You figured it out?”

  “It was pretty obvious where you were going,” the Admiral retorted.

  “True, AI aren't well known for innovation,” Sprite said, sounding a bit snarky. “Proteus usually follows your lead.”

  “Someone has to do the grunt work. And I am well aware that there is a lot more work involved than in just dreaming something up. Realizing something is possible is nice, but others have to put the idea into practice, or cut it down to size.”

  “Amazing to hear someone admit that,” Sprite sighed. She waved a hand. “You are, however, correct. We have some grav lens applications. And no we didn't think of the possibilities for such applications ourselves, we went back through the library for ideas now that the possibility has presented itself.”

  “Ah?”

  “Ah indeed. How would you like oh, a force beam emitter?”

  “Tractor?”

  “Push or pull. We can already project a repulsion field with your antigrav. But Proteus modeled a linear emitter. Traveling down that avenue of thought, we looked up the specs of a typical force emitter weapon and then applied them.”

  “In theory,” the Admiral replied.

  “Of course,” the AI replied, pursing her virtual lips. “Right now, that's all we can do.”

  The Admiral nodded. “Understood. Continue.”

  “With the emitter in mind Proteus can use it to enhance your energy weapons as well.”

  “Energy weapons? So far I've relied exclusively on plasma weapons Sprite.”

  “And now you have more in your arsenal. A force beam emitter option,” Sprite projected an icon of a weapon on his HUD and then pushed it back to the background. “And a graser.”

  “Which begs the question, how the hell can you do that?” The Admiral demanded. “Energy weapons like grasers and lasers are affected by projector surface area. I don't have a hell of a lot here,” he said.

  “Grav lens,” Sprite replied smugly. “And it's not me, it's Proteus,” Sprite replied. “And no, you don't need a lot either. But having them available...”

  “Interesting,” the Admiral replied. “Continue.”

  “Both use a lot more energy than the plasma weapon, but they don't draw plasma directly from your power systems Admiral.”

  “Trade off? I'm still seeing a bit of red ink here,” the Admiral replied.

  “True.”

  “Okay... and where is Proteus during this presentation?” the Admiral asked and then took a sip of coffee.

  “Proteus is still modeling field interactions. Even though we've got the rough idea and form, it's going to take weeks to nail down the interactions and that is all in theory. Since we can't do a real world test to get data to plug in...”

  “There is only so far you can take it. Gotcha.”

  “The interesting side note to all this is that the blob of mercury has figured out how to improve your plasma weapon. And how to not only extend its range, but change the shape of the plasma munition.”

  “We could do that before,” Irons replied. His force emitters drew and shaped the plasma bolt, sending it down the barrel at mach three to the target.

  “Yes, but with manipulation of your nodes, or creating micro nodes at the tip of the barrel, Proteus can change the shape. We're still applying aerodynamic studies to get the proper shapes. I thought a teardrop dart would work, but apparently not.”

  “Okay,” Irons replied thoughtfully. He finished his coffee and put the cup in the dishwasher. He had almost enough for a full load. A good thing, since he was running low on clean dishes.

  “With the force emitter idea, we believe we can project tractors to control the plasma bolt, and possibly even redirect it.”

  The Admiral stopped what he was doing briefly. After a moment of thought he continued. “Okay, that's different,” he said.

  “Different? Is that all you can say about it?”

  “All I can say until we see it in action Commander,” Irons replied. “Right now this is all theory. Don't get too excited by theory, too much has not panned out over the years. Wild haired schemes tend to come to an abrupt halt when reality set in.”

  “True,” Sprite reluctantly admitted.

  “Can we do any real world studies?”

  “No,” Sprite said slowly. “I mean, we could in theory, maybe in the small cargo bay if we did this corner to corner, but fire the weapons? Not a chance.”

  “I thought so,” the Admiral replied.

  “You don't sound too disappointed,” Sprite said.

  “No, that's because reality smacked me in the face. I thought about what we were playing with when I went to sleep.”

  “Playing with fire?”

  “Yeah,” the Admiral drawled.

  “Hmmm.”

  “I'm wondering about other applications to force emitters though. Some we might be able to try. Small ones.”

  “Oh?”

  “Molecular blades?” The Admiral asked as he punched in a command for breakfast. The replicator lit as he turned away and crossed his arms once more. “What about that? There are all sorts of applications there, from small to large.”

  “You mean from a scalpel to a sawzall?” Sprite asked thoughtfully.

  “Or a blade for a weapon.”

  “Interesting.”

 
; “I can see all sorts of applications for this. Say, oh, cutting through decking or bulkheads to get to equipment in a hurry, or to get out of a bad situation. Or oh, medical yes, but also weapons... even a show of force.”

  “Hmmm,” Sprite replied.

  “You are sounding more human every day,” the Admiral teased.

  Sprite turned flashing eyes his way. “Bite your tongue!” she said. He chuckled, smiling. “That's not funny! You take that back!”

  “Sorry,” he chuckled, shaking his head. She looked like she was ready to say something else but then sighed.

  “I suppose you are ready for another round of growth,” the Admiral said.

  “Possible,” the AI replied. She had gone through several builds since they had awakened in Senka. She was overdue for a molt. But the downtime involved could be substantial. And there was no telling what level her sanity would be when she came out of it. If she came out of it. With the hole in her memory... anything was possible.

  “We can do this,” the Admiral said as his plate finished replicating. He had replicated scrambled eggs with a side of toast and bacon. He picked off some herbs and sprinkled them on top of the steaming food and then picked up a plastic fork. “Low power tests. Micro or nano amps if necessary.”

  “Drop the field and do it in zero G?” Sprite asked.

  “Can't,” the Admiral said as he picked at the eggs. “Inertial dampeners are tied into the gravitational field. So, no, that's out.”

  “Okay,” Sprite replied.

  “So, we'll have to take that into account,” Irons said, holding up his right arm and looking at it thoughtfully.

  <----*----*----*---->

  Exploring the force blades led to more thoughts on gravitational lenses. That led to speculation about a cloak. When they took the force blades as far as they could the AI switched to running simulations of possible cloaking methods.

  The Admiral's idea of using his shield emitters to bend light around him was one method, though it was energy intensive and difficult to maintain. Simulations found that there was a high load and strain on the system if he attempted to move while cloaked. It also gave away a massive gravitational and energy signature.

  “So, that's out,” the Admiral said. “Pity, I had this idea of projecting a field in front of me to hide myself or others.”

  “We could do that with a hologram. Which is another cloaking tech we can explore,” Sprite replied.

  “Holograms are only as good as the lighting and surrounding area. In broad daylight; Sunlight?” the Admiral asked, shaking his head.

  Sprite pursed her virtual lips and then put her hands on her hips. “You know, it's not nice of you to dangle something shiny in front of a lady and then snatch it away like that,” she mock pouted.

  The Admiral chuckled, doing that very thing with the cats. “Who said I had to be nice?” he retorted, jerking the string up out of the cat's reach. The little brat leapt for it, but missed.

  “True,” Sprite chortled. Clearly amused by his activity and how closely resembled their conversation. “And I think you'll find...” she paused, noting the other cat slowly creeping up on the Admiral's string. The cub dropped, clearly ready to pounce but waiting for the right opening.

  “What?”

  “That we women tend to get what we want anyway,” Sprite said triumphantly just as the cub wiggled and leapt. Irons was just looking up, distracted when the lean spotted monster got the string and yanked it out of his hands. She proudly made off with her prize, flirting her tail while her sibling chased the dangling end that dragged behind her. She growled when the string was jerked, and then turned to tussle with the interloper.

  The Admiral smiled ever so slightly as the two rolled, the string forgotten. “You were saying?”

  “She did get it though,” the AI, said, “You have to admit that.”

  “A distraction,” the Admiral said, looking at the AI with a slight twinkle. “Which you helped her with.”

  “Moi?” Sprite asked, hand to her chest. The Admiral exhaled noisily in response to her air of innocence. “Okay, maybe a little,” she said, measuring a centimeter between her fingers. The Admiral smiled once more.

  AI tended to ignore lower life forms because of their lack of sapience. But confined to the ship for months Sprite wasn't being so uppity. She was built for regular interaction, and took what she could. Besides, she had found that their youth and curiosity was fascinating as it was amusing to behold. A flicker of light attracted the cub's attention. Both stopped what they were doing to look. One licked the other, but their ears were perked. After a moment they couldn't resist the urge and padded off to investigate.

  The Admiral shook his head; glad they were entertained, but somehow resigned to whatever mischief they were about to get into. “Now that we have some free time...” he pulled out a tablet and scrolled through the cloaking tech files.

  Looking into the problem, the Admiral did a little research on cloaking technology. “It's not like we, we meaning the Navy, hadn't been researching it for oh, the past two thousand years and all,” he murmured.

  “True,” Sprite replied. One thing practically jumped out at her. “What about that? Smart skin?”

  “What?” the Admiral asked, pausing.

  “Yes! Couple that with your camera work, and it is possible. And this we already know how to do!” Sprite said growing excited once more. “It's been done for over a thousand years Admiral, nearly two thousand years!”

  “True,” the Admiral mused.

  “Let me see,” Sprite said. She opened up his file directory and rapidly scrolled through the list. She found what she was looking for, highlighted it too briefly for him to read, and then opened the file manager.

  His body was seeded with what he called Royal jelly; artificial DNA packets that was loaded with petabytes of data on every conceivable object of engineering. It was this that Sprite used to program replicators when he created one.

  The Admiral watched as she pulled up a file and it unfolded. Nanites scanned the relevant DNA strands and the information was then decrypted. He read the header, smart skin and then whistled as Sprite rapidly started scanning. He noticed additional activity; Proteus and Defender had both become involved in the project. The three of them exchanged information so rapidly he couldn't keep up.

  “Let me know if you get anywhere,” he said.

  “Oh, we will,” Sprite, said. He looked at his hand as he felt an itching sensation. Slowly it faded out.

  “Yeah, I'd say you are getting somewhere indeed,” the Admiral murmured. He held up his disembodied hand and could just pick out the outline of it. He flexed his fingers and barely saw the movement. “Fascinating,” he murmured.

  <----*----*----*---->

  “What are we going to do? This plan to go to Bek... it is suboptimal. We have little Intel on the area. It may be a wild goose chase,” Phoenix said to the other AIs as the Admiral slept.

  “It does have a many negatives,” Proteus replied. “But it isn't our place to judge or interfere.”

  “True,” Defender replied.

  “Bushwa,” Sprite replied. “That's bull pucky and you know it. We are all officers here; we all swore an oath. You're hiding behind duty and that's wrong. Our duty like his is to the Federation. He needs a straight answer; talk. We can't sugar coat the truth. He's put blinders on, banking on Bek. He keeps running from political conflict.”

  “Again, not our problem,” Defender replied.

  “I say it is. As his Chief of staff it's my duty to give him a swift kick in the ass when he needs to see reality and refuses to do so,” Sprite retorted.

  “So, what do you intend to do Commander?” Proteus asked.

  “I don't know. The problem is a direct approach is out; he'll just shut down and ignore what I have to say. So I need to sneak it in.”

  “Illustrate it for him,” Phoenix said. “The Admiral works best from illustrations, he is a hands on person. Abstracts will confuse the issue
and not drive the point home.”

  “He does have a point however. Military personnel, especially active duty personnel have no place in politics.”

  “Which he's tried to refrain from. But he has taken the classes; he knows that's not entirely possible. And remember, he was system Governor for a time in Pyrax. He resigned in favor of the duly elected Governor, but then was forced out of the system due to short sighted politics.”

  “True. He should not have given in to terrorist demands,” Defender replied. “I have noted it in the log.”

  “Fine, nice of you to do so,” Sprite replied in disgust. “And again, he did intervene in politics in Briev, but that was self defense.”

  “He also intervened in Agnosta, getting the political discussion back on track,” Defender reminded her.

  “True,” Sprite acknowledged. “But he kept it to a minimum. He mostly worked behind the scenes whenever possible.”

  “True. And he did keep a mostly hands off approach in Antigua,” Phoenix reminded Defender. “Though I was not fully aware of all that happened at the time,” he admitted.

  Sprite shot him an abstract, including dialog of various discussions and events. She also sent the other AI the Admiral's speech at the Antigua Prime reception.

  “Oh, I like that,” Phoenix said. “I'm glad he can stand up for himself.”

  “Yes. He needs to return to Pyrax or Antigua. Both have what he needs, what we and the people need to fend off the Horathians and rebuild the Federation.”

  “But he won't.”

  “Not unless we can convince him,” Sprite replied.

  “Where should we tell him to go?”

  “We don't. He is the commanding officer,” Defender reminded them coldly.

  “That is true,” Sprite replied with a nod. "It is up to him. Both have pros and cons. I'd recommend Pyrax, but it is as Defender said, his call.”

  “True,” Defender replied.

  “So Bek is out?”

  “Let's see what he says after he and I have a chat.”

  “No,” Defender replied. Proteus pulsed but didn't reply. “You should stay out of it Commander.”