by Chris Hechtl
“That isn't possible. If it cannot be fixed, then it needs to be replaced,” the thinker replied.
“And if you have no replacement part available?” Dreamer persisted. The thinker scowled blackly. “We make do. We find a way to fix what is broken, if only to get us that much further to where we need to be.”
“That seems a problem for logistics. And if the alien hardware is prone to breaking down …”
“No, our hardware breaks. All hardware does over time!” Dreamer persisted. “Nothing lasts forever! Friction wears down parts even with lubrication. Parts wear out. Threads wear, parts sheer off. It is the nature of using made things. You should know this. And you should know ships do not have the ability to have every part available, so we must find a fix!”
“That remains to be seen,” the thinker said with as much dignity as he could.
“It is how things have been done on ships for ages,” Dreamer ground out, gnashing his teeth again as his nostrils dilated. “Now, do you wish to look at the next thing? We are working on interfacing the alien machine shops to our computers so we can control them. We can then add that much more factory space to the war effort,” Dreamer said.
“I'd like to see that,” a younger thinker said, raising a hand. All eyes turned to him. “We toured the machinery areas but I hadn't thought to interface into their hardware.”
“It is interesting. Our people are translating the directions on the machines, and of course the captives have been telling us how to maintain and use them. With them, we can add a small but important addition to our support. I'd like to learn from that experience as quickly,” he turned to the eldest tinker, “As we can.”
“Show us what you mean,” the tinker said with a wave of his hand. “I promise nothing.”
“An open mind and a willingness to do something is all any of the herd ask,” Dreamer said, throwing one of the pet phrases back into the tinkers’ faces as he led them out of the compartment. He hoped that the changes to the industry on the planet was better organized and making his new designs.
(@)()(@)
The Alpha bull agreed to the changes Dreamer proposed to the machine shops and factories despite the dark foreboding missives from the thinkers and tinkers. For too long their people had worked at a slow pace of one part at a time in a form of cottage industry. Yes, it was better quality control, but it was glacial compared to the Terrans manufacturing processes. In order to keep up with the demand of the war, they would need to change and improve themselves.
He hadn't liked interfacing and using the alien equipment until he had seen them in action. Not only was the alien machinery faster than his own people's, but they were far more precise. And he had realized that any additional amount of engineering was necessary if he was going to successfully defend the colony and herd.
He had authorized Dreamer's request to break out and use the colony equipment in the colony ship's holds as well. He also agreed to pressing the captives into service to man the equipment his people could not use. He put out an order to the colonists below to capture more of the Terrans for such work.
He was gratified an eight of days later when the first shipment of eight robotic craft came up for the fleet to use in its defense. He also received the report of the beginnings of a production line to build the converted shuttles based on Dreamer's revised design had started up. It would take time to get the line fully operational, but his hopes were rising that they might be better off sooner than expected.
(@)()(@)
Captain Kendrick grimaced at the uptick in net use. Bob had managed to get them into the network through their implants. She regretted that her Wi-Fi set up was so short-ranged; she'd been afraid of the machines taking her over through them like she'd heard of during the A.I. War. The surviving prisoners had managed to cobble up a repeater node and had installed it in the corridor outside their prison, but with the network being heavily used, she wasn't certain if it wise or safe to get in too deeply.
They couldn't take control of the ship's systems through their implants, it was just one thing that the company had installed as a security provision that she had come to hate. But Bob had figured out how to get into some of the files. He promised he could write a script bot to interface with their implants and make the computer think they were commands coming from a keyboard or station input, if he got the computer time. Unsupervised of course.
Until then they could only watch and wait.
(@)()(@)
Since they were under the gaze of the Alpha bull, the Tauren thinkers and tinkers were forced to go back to work on the captured alien ship. Many had hated the strange confining place. They resented Dreamer's elevation to their lofty ranks.
The head healer did his best to ignore such grumblings. He had been infected with curiosity of his own, one that threatened to rival Dreamer's. He did his best to delve into the alien's healer records. The partial translations were maddeningly vague to him to the point of near uselessness.
It had taken him many of eight days to prove that the various different beings were definitely different species but not all. He was still confused by some that were mostly the same. In order to help their research, he had called one of the security members to interpret for them.
“I do not understand,” he rumbled as he stared at the sleeping female with backward curving antlers and soft yellow fur. “What is this one?”
“It is a chimera,” the Tauren guard Broken Jaw interpreted for him. “A human who has changed herself into something else. At least, that is what the leader of the Terrans told us.”
“A human? I know of that species. I know they come in a variety of sizes and colors, but … this strikes me as outside those sets,” the healer replied.
“That is because this one has modified itself,” Broken Jaw replied. The healer looked even more confused. “I don't pretend to understand it either.
The healer turned to argue the point with the other healers.
“Then how do you explain this?” the healer said as he pointed to a Neobear. “This one is a different species according to their computer records, correct?”
“Yes,” Broken Jaw replied slowly. He shrugged indifferently.
“Are they a servant class?”
“We do not know. I don't know much about the machine beings either.”
“Machine … beings? You mean robots?”
“I mean robots that live within their computers. According to some of the conversations I've had and some of what I have read, they have them. Their most recent war was fought on their home world between the machines and the organics,” Broken Jaw explained, glad he'd taken to reading some of the Terran historical translations out of boredom.
“The Forerunners forbade such things,” a healer whispered.
There was a long silence as they digested that. “Indeed,” the lead healer said after he shook himself.
“Someone should tell them. Would they help us?” another healer ventured.
“We cannot consider the aide of an alien race!” another healer thundered. The two began to argue the point, almost to the point where Broken Jaw was afraid he'd have to intervene. It was fascinating to see such learned individuals arguing to the point of blows. He hadn't thought they were that passionate about such things.
He wondered what else he was going to experience on the wretched vessel before he was allowed to escape it once and for all.
ACT III
Chapter 27
December 2240
Sol
With the population finally on the rebound and in order to help pay for the war, the Confederation government authorized the terraforming of three planets in the Transit-1 star system thirty-nine light years away. Two of the planets had liquid water but a poisonous atmosphere and no life. There was concern that the short year, measured in days, coupled with the radiation from the parent star was too much for life to be sustained.
Bidding for the planets was fierce despite the burden of taxes for t
he war effort. It slowed when one of the bidders used a viral campaign to call into question how defensible the star system was and if it was even safe to go there. Millions of requests for clarification flooded Congress and the administration forcing the press secretary to wade into the question.
“After consulting with the Navy, they have pointed out that they will picket each and every colony from here on out. The burnt hand teaches best ladies and gentlemen,” the press secretary stated. “So, to put an end to the nonsense, a ship or ships will be there to defend the colony.”
After that live press conference, the bidding picked up and then doubled overnight.
(@)()(@)
Yorrick Lagroose cracked his knuckles and sat back, propping his feet up on the desk and tucking his hands behind his head as he looked up to the ceiling. It felt good, really good. Everything was falling into line despite his sister's antics.
He looked at his right hand as his feet hit the floor. Padme had finally agreed to marry him, and he'd kept his word and kept it as a small intimate ceremony … even though he'd wanted to throw her an outlandish ceremony of the ages. She'd deserved it, but he'd gotten her instead, and his memory of their wedding night was a fair consolation prize.
He smiled lovingly as he played with his old-fashioned gold wedding band and then turned to the window.
His eyes scanned what Rick called battleship row with pleasure. Lagroose Industries had built all ten of the battleships and had the first three of four dreadnoughts under construction. The first dreadnought Texas was far from completion but steadily getting there through persistent hard work. There was a saying being brooded about already, “everything is bigger in Texas.” It was not quite fitting, but it was catchy he had to admit.
She had moved into the grand block construction bay the day before after Abraham Lincoln, the first super carrier, had been launched to clear the space for her. His people were pushing to set new records in construction. A grand block a day going into her was an achievement in anyone's book. The ship was made up of 123 of them though, so it would take time.
The second super carrier, Queen Elizabeth, would launch in thirty-five days he thought, checking the calendar. They were pushing to get her done by the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's death. The woman had been the first President of the Federation and a wartime-sitting president, who had navigated them through the latter stages of the A.I. War; she deserved to be honored.
The carriers were easier to build than the battleships; they lacked the thick armor and weapons of the battleships. But they had their own sets of challenges in the elevators, magazines, launch systems, and other things. She wore half of her armor on the inside like the other carriers to protect against a deck strike tearing a ship apart from the inside out.
Lagroose Industries had a lock on capital ship production for the time being. Radick's yard was turning out destroyers, support vessels, and even escort carriers, but they couldn't keep up with his yard. Not by a long shot.
The Solarian Home Fleet was growing into a powerful force and he was proud of his part in helping to defend civilization.
(@)()(@)
Admiral Lewis watched the work on the fleet with a sense of pride and satisfaction. Their latest exercise had concluded well. He was still as tough as ever; he didn't believe in gimme exercises and made damn well sure his people knew that. They couldn't afford to get complacent, least of all now.
He and Jan were no longer the only flag officers in the navy; he'd promoted a set of flag officers through the ranks. Some would say they were rising too fast, but they had to do that. They needed flag officers.
Still, he didn't like that some of the other flag officers only had a short time in a captain's chair, but they had to grow. He could see arguments between the battle line and carrier supporters brewing slowly. Despite that, he was proud of how things were going and all that they had achieved.
Now, they needed to win the war and hopefully not let the damn politicians sell them off or cut their throats by dismantling the navy during the peace.
He frowned as he looked out at the battleship Guan Ju, the current flagship of the Terran Confederation Navy now that the politicians had gotten their way. The massive ship had been designed to go toe-to-toe with her Tauren opponents and win. She was named after the Chinese god of war. Her division mate Yinlong was named after another Chinese myth, a dragon of rain.
Each of the massive ships borrowed some of the Tauren traits in using sloping armor and even some of their composite material. But that and their size was where their similarities ended. They hadn't been able to replicate the Tauren battleship's energy weapon so they had focused on missile combat instead. It was better anyway, he thought as he studied the ships. By focusing on missile combat, it kept the enemy at bay and out of range of their main guns. At least, that was the theory at any rate.
Each ship had strong shields with a lot of redundancy in case they sustained damage. They were faster both in hyperspace and subspace compared to the enemy ships. One of the hardest engineering problems had been wrapping their heads around the life support requirements for the various species onboard. Each battleship had a cetacean navigational and helm team as well as a full A.I. The A.I. needed its own power supply and massive electronic banks. The cetaceans needed their own habitat.
As usual Lagroose Industries engineering had come to the rescue. They had plenty of experience with building for cetaceans. The quarters were a little tighter than what the dolphins wanted, but they worked. With the swim pool, they could get plenty of exercise, and the VR set up would allow them to experience any ocean they wanted to explore in their off time.
Besides, they were running a navy not a club med he thought sourly.
The massive ships sat there passively before his massive window, running lights blinking green as personnel moved through tubes connected to their flanks. He hated that they were anchored to the Sol star system, but he understood why.
They had a solid core of battleships now; enough that he'd finally gotten congress to authorize a stronger follow-up to Jan Kepler's Second Fleet expeditionary force. Two dozen warships were en route to Rho to give Jan the ability to really go on the offensive and push the bull bastards even further back.
Now, if they could just keep the damn war profiteers at bay, they might be able to keep winning and not go bankrupt in the process, he mused darkly as he turned away from the view to bleakly look at the budget spreadsheet once more.
(@)()(@)
Wendy looked at the production rates and then to what they had stockpiled and then finally the operational costs. She didn't like that they were only making a 300 percent profit on the antimatter. She ran the numbers again on how much it had cost to keep the antimatter up until it was needed. She frowned, then factored that into the new costs and then kept the bar up to 300 percent.
She grinned as the price ran up. It was a new market; the company had it under lock and could dictate the price. She intended to milk it for what she could. After all, they needed to make up for the lean years.
She sent the email to the rest of the board in an encrypted self-erasing file and then turned to the company blog. Her eyes lit on her brother's image and froze instantly as she read the byline. When she scanned it again, her mouth writhed in a snarl. So, the little hussy had gotten herself knocked up, eh? She scowled, good mood suddenly souring at that news.
(@)()(@)
Admiral Lewis scowled when he got the latest cost increase from Lagroose Industries. Antimatter production was holding steady, there were no changes, yet costs were soaring out of control. There was no reason for it other than gouging and war profiteering.
Wendy’s antics may force a confrontation sooner rather than later. She had no cause to charge them additional storage fees. He frowned and then began typing. “Lieutenant Nelson,” he said out loud in an aside as his fingers flew.
“Sir?” the A.I. asked, accessing the admiral's camera and holographic projector.
“I need to have JAG and the Department of Justice run a black research project,” he said.
“Accessing files. I have some of the legal files on hand, but I am not a legal expert,” the A.I. replied.
“Which is why I said I want JAG and Justice to do the spade work. I want them to look into eminent domain and seizure of assets precedents. Also, how to deal with war profiteering. This Lagroose issue just got out of hand, and we need to deal with it.”
The A.I. nodded slowly. “Understood, sir.”
“I'll need to let the administration know before we get in too deep. But I am classifying this. Anyone who speaks out of turn to the public or especially Lagroose before we're ready to move, I'll land on them full force,” Admiral Lewis growled.
“Understood, Admiral. I think having the public on our side would be a good thing in this instance. There is a growing concern that Lagroose Industries has gotten too much of the lion's share of the war effort's funding. Harnessing that resentment would help.”
“Probably it would. I just don't want them to get wind too early and spin it against us.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
“Check with legal. And put a request in for another legal A.I. to help JAG and the DOJ,” the admiral replied.
“Aye aye, sir. Will there be anything else?”
“I want us to hold off on the next antimatter purchase. The cost increase isn't in the budget, so it will make it clear to them that we're balking though. Ideas on how to stall without looking like we're stalling?”
“The next shipment isn't due for another twenty-six days, sir. I suggest we don't make a payment until delivery. That should give us plenty of time to get your spadework done as you said.”