by R. M. Miller
“Senior Support Technician? Monitor this one closely, also upload the program I will send you shortly. This ship-mind has been designated for an experimental class of ship, given its strength we need to be extra careful with it.” Senior Technician commanded stripping the sterile gloves from her hands.
“As you wish Senior Technician.” The drone in charge of the support technicians replied bowing low.
Harvest Command Ship, Ship Nursery, 2915 A.D
“Harvest Master, I regret to inform you that a quarter of the integration's have failed. As you know with a new species there are always chances for issues with either programming or biological rejection. It was unexpected when after numerous successful integration operations we began to have issues, we have never seen anything like it in our entire history. Apparently the new species is highly dependent upon external stimuli, with out it they seem to develop mental degradation rapidly. A solution has been found and we do not expect to lose any more ship-minds to this problem.” the Processing Master was once again grovelling at the Harvest Master's feet this time nearly prostrate on the floor obviously hoping to placate him.
“Tell me again exactly how many have we lost to this issue?” Harvest Master demanded, his claws clicking together rapidly as he glared down at the unfortunate male.
“The entire first batch that was processed on all of the ships, since this problem only became apparent after a set period of time, we were able to salvage the second batch with minimum damage. A quarter of all the proto ship-minds have been damaged beyond repair, Harvest Master.” the Processing Master was showing every sign of submission. Fury suffused Harvest Master as he realized that the harvest hgh command was expecting would be far smaller than he had originally reported, his claws sink into the back of Processing Master's neck ripping a section of the fools spine out.
“Get this cleaned up and inform the new Processing Master of its good fortune, ensure it knows why its predecessor was removed.” He growled to his aide, it nodded rapidly as it grabbed the corpses feet and fled his presence leaving a trail of smeared blood in its wake.
******
“Was the ship-mind damaged?” Senior Technician demanded barging into the monitoring station.
“Which ship-mind, Senior Technician?” the lesser support technician on duty inquired as she adjusted a minute variance on one of the monitors.
“Ship-mind seven one seven two”
“No, Senior Technician, we were monitoring that ship-mind closely as instructed and noticed the issue immediately. The Senior Support Technician initiated a full biological check, once the brain received input the abnormalities stabilized. We checked all of the other ship-minds and instituted similar stimuli, unfortunately we lost quiet a few before we could intervene.”
“Prepare ship-mind seven one seven two for transport, it is the first installation on the schedule.” Senior Technician murmured, technically it wasn't but she had the discretion to choose which ship she would install first on her shift. So the new species required physical stimulation in order to survive, she could program the interfaces in order for the ship-minds to receive that directly from the ships nervous system. She would have to create a whole new program in order for the information to be transferred, normally the ship-minds had no direct input from the ships themselves, the normal connectors should be able to function as a two way interface although they normally only transferred from the ship-mind to the ship. Senior Technician had only become aware of the technical issue that shift, she had been busy with her own work monitoring the processing of the remainder of the ship-minds. It was only due to the fact that her senior, the Master Technician for the ship, realized that even after installation the new ship-minds would require physical stimuli input that she had been assigned to fix the issue.
******
Tara was dreaming, she had always been a lucid dreamer as most Felden were. Her dream had started off as a black nothingness, an emptiness beyond anything she had ever experienced. There was nothing, no touch, no sound, no thought, no emotion but her own. It was horrible, she had no idea how long it had lasted but once it ended she knew she would do anything to keep it from happening again. The dream that followed was different, she had strings attached to her and randomly they would tug in different directions as if a giant puppeteer was attempting to control her. She tried to climb the strings but kept ending up right where she began, she felt her wrist carefully where the string attached. It was embedded into her flesh, she tugged on it trying to pull it from her wrist and for the first time since she began to dream felt something! Pain, awful terrible pain, like a white hot poker driven deep into her head. She stopped tugging, obviously tugging on the strings was a bad idea, where did they go once they were inside her? Delicately she traced the string using her telekinesis, not outward but inward to see where it ended, the string traveled up her arm into her chest then up her neck to her head. All of the other strings were also embedded into her brain, it seemed that her puppeteer was in control of her brain and not just her body. The dream changed again, the strings were no longer solid but made up of light. They pulsed in an oddly familiar pattern, it was soothing to watch as they transitioned from color to color almost hypnotic in fact. The dream scape shifted slightly, more lines of light came into being, they encircled her meshed and wove until she was looking out at the darkness from a cage of light. The darkness wasn't just darkness anymore it held glimpses of brilliant light like lightning flashing in the distance, leaving after images of familiar unknown script dancing in her eyes long after they were gone. Tara was content to sit and watch the lights dancing in the distance, strangely she felt if only she could understand those symbols everything would make sense. Of course dreams rarely made sense, but if she was dreaming it didn't matter since none of it was real anyhow so she might as well enjoy the pretty lights.
Experimental Ship 'Star Eater', Ship Nursery, 2915 A.D
Senior Technician carefully checked the reprogrammed neural cables ensuring there was input as well as output, her scanner read green across the board, good she was ready to finish the install. Carefully so as not to disturb the connections that had already been made she attached the neural cables one by one, with the final connection the pod retracted fully into its cradle and the surface became transparent.
“Any time you are ready Pilot.” She called looking towards the neuter drone sitting in the pilots chair, obviously it was unsure if it wanted to be the first pilot to fully connect to one of the new ship-minds after installation. “That was not a request!”
“Yes, Senior Technician. I understand. Connecting now.” It leans back until the up-link locks into its jack, the artificial gravity engages slowly until it reaches full power. No engines spin up since the ship was still to immature to be fully online, other than that all systems appeared to be in running order.
“Pilot do you have a firm feel of the ship-mind?” it was an idle question as she checked her instrumentation for any flaws in the installation, data scrolled across her screen in precise configuration.
“The ship-mind is very odd, and strong. I can feel it waiting for orders, the response time is very quick, better than any of the other ship-minds I have connected to.” now the pilot sounded excited.
“Good, thank you Pilot that will be all for today. I understand you have been assigned to this ship on a permanent basis?” She looked up at the drone, her instruments data stream momentarily forgotten.
“Yes Senior Technician.”
“Then you should be able to up-link at regular intervals, that is good since it will give us the perfect chance to document the ship and mind bonding. You will bring a support technician every time you access the up-link, a full system diagnostic will be run while you are jacked in.” She nods happily thinking of the massive amounts of data that would soon be available to prove or disprove the early installation theory, at least for this species.
******
Tara noticed as the symbols flashing in the distance ch
anged, instead of unknown yet vaguely familiar symbols they became numbers. Soon the numbers became equations, it started off simple basic mathematics but soon they became the hardest formulas she had ever seen. She tried saying the answers but only gibberish came out so she began to write the answers in glowing light, it was fun she had always enjoyed the purity of mathematics how everything had its place. It sadly lasted for only a few moments in her dream time, then the lights slowed coming farther apart almost like a standby signal. Oh well the lights were still pretty and Tara had nothing better to do so she might as well sit there and watch them as they danced across the darkness. As dreams went it was peaceful and it was to be preferred to the nightmares that could have been raging through her mind.
******
“Are you prepared to run the diagnostic lesser support technician?” Pilot asks as it prepares to engage the up-link, it was unhappy about the current assignment but unfortunately Pilot knew that it didn't matter how it felt about its place in life. As a member of the lowest caste, it did what it was told, no questions and especially no arguments would be tolerated.
“Yes, complete the up-link Pilot. I wish to finish this and return to the station facilities.” the lesser support technician was huddled around her instruments obviously as unhappy as it was. Pilot hesitated a brief moment before engaging the up-link, once again its outer senses were dimmed to almost nothing as it started to receive information from the computer systems. The start-up sequence finished smoothly, everything was proceeding in a normal manner as the computer moved from standby to fully operational. As the computer brought the ship-mind into the linkage Pilot once again noticed the responsiveness and power of its new ship-mind. It had only linked with three others in its career, two Vree'na and a Tri'Let. The Tri'Let was an ancient ship-mind, having been in service for nearly two thousand years, it was the last Tri'Let still in service and was used exclusively as a training ship. All of them had been slightly different in feel, the Vree'na had been sharp and acidic, the Tri'Let had a slow methodical feel almost as if it knew how old it was. It wondered how long it would be before this ship-mind developed into its full potential, already it could feel a difference between this up-link and its last. The computer indicated that all systems were online, Pilot initiated the hyperspace practice program to check how it and the ship-mind functioned as a unit while dealing with the chaos of hyperspace. This was its favorite part, its one enjoyment of being in the pilot caste, Pilot subordinates the ship-mind to itself using both of their processing power in addition to the computer support systems to dance through the danger filled environment. Finally Pilot ended the program and placed all systems into standby, navigating hyperspace with a practice program was nothing compared to the reality but it was all that was available for the moment since the ship was still immature. Eventually it would be cut free but until it reached that stage the ship was locked into its growth pod, developing the proper control runs for the engines that had already been installed. One last check of the systems and Pilot disengages the up-link returning to the limited senses of its body, the lesser support technician was still examining her instruments.
“Do you require additional time lesser support technician?” Pilot inquires softly, hopefully not, up-linking to a young ship-mind was more exhausting than it had expected.
“No Pilot that will be all for this session, I need to finish collecting the data on new neural growth by the ship. It seems the new ship-minds requirement for stimulation has spurred a growth of new neural transmitters and new data collectors, the data collectors seem to be spreading into the entire outer skin in fact. The increased data collectors on the skin seem to be focused on radiation detection, a few seem to be more inclined to receiving visible light. This is amazing, we have never seen a ship respond so quickly to bond with its mind!” She was still monitoring her instruments as Pilot moved towards her position, the artificial gravity was once again off leaving them both floating.
“Will this cause a problem?” It reached a well placed grab which allowed it to view the instruments screens itself.
“Unknown. I will have to relay the finished reports to a Senior Technician, possibly even a Master Technician, before we could know that. I am not qualified to understand what is going on with the ship side of things, I only have training to deal with known ship-mind species so even the data in regards to the ship-mind will have to be forwarded for more experienced evaluation.” Lesser Support Technician was obviously not pleased with those facts. Pilot was not sure if further inquiry would cause the female to become confrontational, better to be on the safe side though. It turned slightly away from the excited and frustrated Lesser Support Technician to peer into the ship-mind cradle, a dark furred shape floats attached to the various support lines that kept it alive. Idly it wondered what the alien would feel if it knew what was going on, if it knew that it was chained to a ship that was going to be used to cast an entire species into extinction. Pilot shuddered slightly as a chill crept up its spine, alien feelings danced up through it's head and it wished it could escape the silent dimly lit ship for the warmth and light of the station.
“We are leaving now Pilot, come.” Lesser Support Technician had obviously finished her diagnostics and packed the instruments into their transportation cases while it was observing the ship-mind.
“Yes Lesser Support Technician, right away.” Pilot has to scramble to find purchase in order to catch up to the Lesser Support Technician, it was a struggle to not feel as if it was running away from the dark form of the ship-mind. Unfortunately it was unsuccessful, it knew that rationally there was nothing to fear from a ship-mind but still that chill hand seemed to caress its spine as it followed the female towards the brightly lit haven of the main station.
******
Tara wasn't sure when the light cage around her started changing but it seemed to change more after the times when the dancing lights in the distance started asking math questions. The light contracted around her but she didn't feel confined, the lights traced over her fur in convoluted patterns always changing and shifting in color and strength. In fact as she glanced down at her body as it glimmered floating in the darkness it reminded her of a transformation scene in one of the ancient Japanese cartoons, any minute the light would solidify into a suit of armor or something similar. The light blazed brighter for a split second then darkness swallowed her, her hands reached for her face and encountered something solid she couldn't feel what it was since her hands were enclosed in something as well. It took her a second but then she realized her idle thought had turned the light into armor, in the shows she had watched a heads up display showing everything going on outside of the armor would appear as soon as the armor was on. A flashing red light in the corner of her vision caught her attention, the moment she focused on it a lurid crimson message flashed onto the heads up.
“A translation error?” she murmured to herself, the display flashed a second message.
“Voice recognition, nifty. Display raw data stream.” Tara was confounded when the data started to scroll across her screen, it wasn't in standard but oddly familiar alien script. She must have watched it for hours before something finally clicked, the aliens memories were filled with the same script and what he knew she had access to.
“I need access to an input device.” almost before she was done speaking a new message appeared.
Tara grinned as her fingers flew across the imaginary keyboard, now her dream was finally following a more normal line. Code she wrote tore into the alien script pulling it apart and reformatting it into standard script, she finished the last line with a flourish. The various lines of code changed into a box labeled 'Translation Device' the alien script flowed in one side but standard script flowed out of the other.
“Display incoming data stream.”
“Turn off incoming data!” She swallowed driving the incipient nausea down. “Obviously the translator is working but the data needs to be filtered. Okay what if I do this...”
Experimental Ship 'Star Eater', Ship Nursery, 2920 A.D
“Pilot, are you ready for the extraction?” Ship Master, an individual that Pilot personally thought was a throw back to earlier more aggressive warrior male, demanded.
“Engaging up-link now Ship Master.” Pilot leaned back to allow the up-link to socket into its jack, the real world faded replaced by a sight it had become very familiar with. Its previous up-links to other ships had allowed it to access all of the ships sensors as if they were its own senses, while the ship was still enclosed by the pod all the sensors could read was nothingness but soon that would change. It felt the power of the ship-mind echoing over the linkage, there was a sense of anticipation, an edge of excitement to that echo. Pilot had noticed an increased amount of emotional flavor to the linkage, at first it had assumed the emotions were feed back from itself but recently it doubted that theory the emotions were too alien to be an echo from him. It had not told any of the support technicians about the growing sense of other in the up-link, it was not sure why it had not done so but it felt like the right thing to do.
Even the way the computer relayed information had become odd, the word choice unusual for the controlling computer system. Different yes, the programming was obviously modified but as an experimental ship the support technicians had obviously assumed that any modifications they noticed had been an authorized change. Pilot was sure that the changes had originated from a source that was impossible, at least according to all data it had been able to access, somehow the ship-mind was altering the ship and the programming. It was not sure how the ship-mind was doing this, but since it knew none of the support technicians had changed the basic programs nor had they mentioned an automatic update the ship-mind was the only possibility left. Rumors of Pilots going insane while up-linked to the Treden ship-minds had run rampant through the naval service for the last solar cycle, other rumors had whispered through the ranks of the pilots for even longer. Pilots had always known that their ships developed personalities as the ship-mind tied itself to its ship with more and more data transmitters, the new species of ship-mind had developed personalities with far less data transmitters. The 'Star Eater' had almost three times the normal data transmitters, in fact it had more data receptors than most scouts leaving it as the most sensitive ship currently in service. Until the final test flight it did not own the title of most deadly; once the main weapon system was tested successfully, if it was successful of course, that title would also belong to her.