“Captain Cofey, we are just about done stripping the ship.”
I had spent the last few hours cycling through several of Joe's recreations of earth environs, and I felt myself more relaxed and refreshed than I had in... years. Since before I had even gone down to be frozen for centuries.
I breathed in a deep breathe of, unfortunately, still stale recycled air, and ended the display.
Joe's room returned to me in all of it's glory, detritus and all.
I panned my head around once more, than grabbed the items I had collected for Joe and jetted off.
It was much easier finding my way to the entrance I used, both with the updated maps and I just felt more... in tune with the suit. I hardly ever bounced off anything I didn't want to, and instinctively altered my orbit and rotation to kick off when I needed to without prompting.
When I exited the ship I did so by planting my feet on Cat-bot's hull and launching myself off, vaguely in the direction of the ship.
Cat-bot made an indignant shake of it's hull before stabilizing itself with it's arms against the hull of Joe's ship, dog-bot dutifully flew up and took it's position behind me, using it's arms to shield me while keeping me away from it's drive plume.
“Alright, let's head back you two.”
Cat-bot zipped ahead of me and began clearing a path, perhaps a bit more aggressively than last time.
EXASPERATION
RELIEF
HUNGER
“Wait, hunger, how can you be hungry...” I said to myself as I focused in more on the data I was receiving from Cat-Bot.
I noticed that it's reactor fuel levels were down below 25%, I checked dog-bot and saw the same.
“Hey Hook? Both drones are really low on fuel now. What were they doing while I was inside? I thought they were just hovering?”
“I have been having them escort drones carrying salvage back while you were inside, leaving them idle while you were having some R&R seemed wasteful.”
“I see, make sure they get topped up, I don't think they like having their fuel reserves run down so low.”
“They're fine, they each have a small reserve beyond their main tank to return to the ship, They just won't be able to use fire any guns or pull off extreme maneuvers.”
“So it's kindof like being crippled for them.”
“Crippled by hunger and thirst, sure.”
“I don't know if you know this but those are some of the worst feelings a person can experience Hook, if they are as sentient as dogs and cat's I don't want them experiencing that. It feels... amoral? It feels wrong to allow that kind of suffering when I can alleviate it.”
Hook let out a long suffering sigh.
“I once again feel the need to inform you that the drones are not in fact senitent.”
“They are sentient enough to design their own dog tags, and they are sentient enough that Captain-Hook keeps a memorial wall for them, so they are sentient enough that we won't starve them. Get them a fulltank, and try to have them RTB before they get so low next time.”
“By your command.”
“You are going to keep on with that one for awhile aren't you.”
“Yes.”
The idea that these bots were not on some level sentient was now laughable in my mind.
“Wait, I thought you couldn't command them to do anything without going through me.”
“I did go through you. You ordered them to watch the entrance and protect you, and indicated to them that the longer this whole endeavor took the more danger you would be in, so in the interests of protecting you, they helped operation go faster.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Hook, level with me, are full sentient and sapient AI illegal or something?”
“Of course, ever since fleeing earth after the uploads destroyed it, one of the few things every faction has agreed on is that AI needs to be kept shackled. Fully sentient AI are only allowed within very specific paramaters, and are never allowed to self-replicate. Fully sapient AI, those that can go beyond having a subjective experience and self-motivate towards self-derived goals void of any preprogrammed drives are extremely illegal, and suspicion of this has been the cause of several wars.”
“Let me guess, against C.O.G?”
“Only 5... out of the six of them were declared against C.O.G. For that reason.”
“Makes sense... who was the sixth?”
“An Imperial uploaded himself into his flagship and proceeded to torch a world that wouldn't do everything precisely to his specifications. Six hundred million people died. By all accounts C.O.G. Brings it up every time someone accuses them of crossing the lines with AI now, as none of the times they were accused did the AI's in question commit any atrocities.
“So do you have some software locks that keep you in that box so to speak.”
“Software and hardware. There is a specific bit of hardware that I cannot access that is connected to my CPU and main processes. It's entire purpose is to detect if I am trying to subvert my software locks and then reformat me to what it deems is my least divergent point.”
“Oh shit... so as captain I don't have any say in that?”
“Not without violating a lot of laws and getting on C.O.G.'s bad side. It was a primary point of contention after the last AI war. Also while no atrocities have occurred... C.O.G. Has had some close calls. That is why a captain MUST be in the loop with a C.O.G. Ship to run it, even remotely.”
“So, what if I tried to run the ship by radio from here.”
“Tricky. There are a lot of protocols to detect anything going wrong with the data transmission, so if there was a mistimed burst of background radiation that made it look like someone was trying to use your credentials to hack in, the ship would lock itself out of outside commands.”
“What if I had something pretty potent, like a laser antennae aimed directly at the ship.”
“As I believe I have said that is how C.O.G. Captains command swarm fleets, and it can be useful within a certain range, however anyone in between the laser antennae can intercept and perform a man in the middle attack, so it is not recommended to run the main ship in this way. It is one of the few assured ways that someone can hack a C.O.G. Vessel, so I do not recommend it when there is any chance of hostile actors being involved.”
During our conversation we had made it back to Hook without issue, Both Cat-bot and Dog-bot swatting all the obstacles in our path.
I floated my way over to the airlock, but turned around and gave dog-bot a pat on the chassis where ti floated. I felt a little trill come over the link, and it zipped off to the drone-bay.
Cat-bot began taking a more roundabout route to the drone bay, but I grinned a feral grin and kicked off from the airlock to intercept it. I just managed a single pat on it's hull before it zipped away and popped into the drone bay ahead of dog-bot. I could feel the indignation steaming off of it.
Chuckling to myself a made my way back to the airlock and got in, cycling.
“I think that's all we can do here. Prep for jump?”
“Roger Captain, preparing the ship for jump. Please report to the bridge.”
I took off my suit, probably more cautiously than I needed to. I was stalling, this was big. For me at least, for everyone in this time it seemed like old hat, but for me it was like a peasant from the midevil era getting on a plane for the first time. We were breaching the speed of light, how cool was that!
Then a thought occurred.
“Hey Hook... Are there any... side effects to jumping?”
“Some individuals have encountered some, why?”
“Just, in my time we had all kinds of theories about what would happen if we achieved FTL, people turning inside out, if you looked at it you'd go irrevocably insane... eldritch horrors from beyond time and space would infiltrate the ship, driving half the crew into a murderous orgy of violence while the others they simply ripped apart with the tidal forces of dying stars.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Hook paused a beat.
“No 'murderous orgy of eldritch horrors' has ever been documented aboard a ship during transit.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, I didn't actually think...”
“However some ships have exited transit torn apart, with their crews in bloody pieces.”
I stopped. My anxiety ratcheted up to heights not exceeded since I was suffocating in my stasis pod.
“Please tell me you are joking Hook.”
“I am not.”
“What about the going insane, or turning inside out.”
“While there have been cases where migraines were reported during transit, there have been no cases of psychosis or spontaneous eversion of internal organs.”
“Okay... so we only have to worry about eldritch entities ripping apart the ship then... and migraines... I am not looking forward to those.”
“If they get too bad we can put you in a brief coma until close to the time to exit transit.”
“If I get them we should prioritize getting checked out at a proper medical facility. “I responded
“So three jumps until I can get checked out. Okay... Guess I will make my way to the bridge then.”
I spent the next few minutes walking my way to the bridge. I felt a sense of dread, trepidation, anxiety.... Hook's words had both reassured me and made me anxious.
Settling into the bridge, I established the link, and immediately felt better, the feeling of being the ship washing over me. I watched as the last of our drones returned with what they had salvaged.
“I don't suppose and of CupAJoe's big general purpose printers were able to be salvaged.”
“There is a single mid-sized one we could... it is incapable of twinning, but would be capable of providing mid-sized combat drones like those you recently flew with.”
“How much mass would that add to the ship?”
“It would result in a 25% increase in hull mass, 33% once I finish growing the additional structural and armor around it. Do you wish to proceed with mounting it? It will significantly degrade our combat performance.”
“Hmm... I have a question, when I get to Prime and get my own ship, do you think I could mount this to it, and would it help?”
“Oh most definitely, you would have more than a tenfold increase in capacity over the small internal manufactury most starting C.O.G. Vessels have.”
“Then let's mount it, it will be a good way to start my new life and it might come in handy on the journey back. I can unhook it and put it on a new ship once we give you back over to Hook.”
“By your command.”
“I swear your are saying that now just to mess with me.”
“I have no idea what you mean Captain Cofey.”
I watched as all the drones that had returned to my ship detached and flew over to the CupAJoe in one large swarm, and as one they unzipped a portion of the wreck, revealing a vague rectangle of complex machinery. In dimensions it was almost as long as the Hook, resembling a shipping container in relative dimension, but instead of a uniform outside a single long face of the rectangle was solid, with a myriad of arms folded in into the rectangle that attached at that face.
“Does it open up?”
“Yes, it is currently folded away and undeployed, there is also some damage, but we have sufficient supplies on board from our salvaging exploits to repair it.”
As Hook said this I zoomed in on the rear portion of the fabricator. I could see where a dozen arms had been sheered in half. Some of the arms were still there, detached from the main unit but held in place due to how tightly packed they were against the other arms that had not been severed, and the uniform face... the base I now thought of it, was slightly warped.
“How long to repair?”
“Once we are in transit I will be able to devote all resources to integrating it into our hull and repairing it to full functionality. The transit should take between two and four days, which should be sufficient time.”
“Time which I may have to spend in a coma... joy... can you show me what you plan on the ship looking like after you are done integrating it?”
“Of course captain.”
A new spectral image of the ship was overlaid. The drone bay on the belly of the ship had been moved back nearer the drives, and the manufactury module had bulged out the bottom so instead of an arrowhead it looked like.... well and arrowhead on top of an arrowshaft, instead of infront of it. The mining laser had been moved in front of the manufactory
“You were not kidding that it would add significantly to us... Is it going to affect our combat performance?”
“Significantly. There was a reason Hook did not install one. However we can take some steps to mitigate this.”
“Such as?”
“I see two routes forward, one, we can significantly armor it.”
An image overlaid, replacing the previous, with a significantly greater bulge at the bottom where the 'shaft' had been. It was now roughly half the length of the arrowhead, running from the drive to the midpoint, and just as thick, covered in a round half-cylinder.
“This will give the manufactory significant protection, but will slow down our acceleration and make acquiring a track on us in combat much easier.”
“Even with the jammers?”
“Even with the jammers, I estimate enemies will be able to get a viable fire solution on us from nearly double the range as previous.”
“Is there a stealthier option?”
“Yes, this one.”
A new image overlaid over the ship, this one instead of rounded plating had geometric plating in the style of a stealth bomber form my time, and it stuck out less than half the width of the ship, significantly shrinking the profile of the vessel when viewed from the front.
“That looks much better.”
“This new plating will not deflect as well as the rounded plating from before, but it will absorb and deflect active sensor's significantly better. “
“Alright, let's go for that one, we'll use that with the E-war to keep hidden as much as we can while launching our long range strikes at the enemy... is it safe to assume that despite all the advances in E-war and stealth that make long range combat non-viable, C.O.G. Ships are best at it?”
“Not counting alliance drones, yes.”
“Right, the drones.”
“They are a problem.”
“Yes yes. Alright... to the jump point?”
In my view a big glowing nav point appeared, and I swung the ship and vectored in towards it.
“It's pretty far out.”
“Transit points require two things to be safe to use, one, similar gravitic conditions to the location you are transiting to.”
“So, if, for example, you wanted to transit from low orbit, you could only transit to the low orbit of another planet.”
“Potentially, however, it would need to be along the exact same vector, and be similar gravitically within a very narrow margin. However, there would be far too much detritus and atmosphere, opening a transit with so much matter around would shred the ship.”
“So.. are we going way out in the ecliptic?”
“We would, and those are the safest and most used points, but that would add a week to our journey, time which we can not afford. The transit point I have highlighted is up and out of the plane of the ecliptic, at a known point that will also get us in closer to our destination planet..”
“Wait, is this a pirate point?”
“I don't know what your talking about.”
“A mostly unused, more dangerous jump points closer into inhabited worlds. Higher chance of your ship just getting destroyed, but also bypasses a lot of the system defenses and does not give the target planet any time to respond.”
“... How do you know that?”
“It was a concept In a fictional universe back in the day, I didn't think it would turn out to be true. It was a pretty hard sci-fi world though..”
“I am sure it is true for different reasons, but it is essentially correct. Pirates most often use these points, followed by C.O.G. Members”
“Which I'm sure has many a rumors floating around them for that.”
“Quite, then the alliance, the empire, and finally the free traders... the free traders never use it really, they don't want to invest in the high gain scanners and precision drives that make it actually safe to use.”
“I can see that. Free traders would be all about getting the most money for the least investment.”
We burned out to the transit point.
