Archaea 2: Janis (8 page)

“Nothing tracking us Yak, I think they're friendly... well, they are as friendly as people who just threw themselves on their faces in the dirt. Come to think of it, they may not be very friendly anymore.”

As I spoke, I was pulling a high bank turn, dropping velocity and approaching the camp at a much more sedate speed. They were all up and out of their tents now, and looking up at us. As no one shot at us, I kept bringing her around even tighter, to the very center of the camp and burned retros until we were parked on lifters. I brought her down and dropped the turbines into idle while Yak stepped out and made some new friends.

*****

As I exited the lock I was keenly aware of how completely outnumbered I was by the people gathering around the gig. I watched hands and feet, trying to build a threat list, to prioritize targets in case things didn't stay mellow. One fellow, a head taller than the rest had a rifle of some sort slung across his back, the rest looked unarmed. I was very careful to keep an eye on people moving around in my peripherals.

“Hello folks... my name is Yak Onebull, from the independent frigate Archaea.” I smiled, keeping my barrel pointed down and my hands well away from the trigger.

“Hello Mr. Onebull, if I said 'Mallory Lights' would that mean anything to you?” a man said, stepping forward.

“Half a moment sir.” I said, and asked the captain on comms, “Sir, is there a password for Mallory Lights?”

“Yep, son. Tell him 'No one navigates the lights'. I'll be right out, just need to cool these jets. Try not to shoot anyone before I get a chance to meet them!”

I looked back at the man, waiting patiently.

“Sir, no one navigates the lights.” I said, securing my weapon.

He smiled, and started walking towards us as the crowd of onlookers continued to grow.

“Hello Mr. Onebull, my name is Cal Emerson. I represent the Solis Liberation Front. Are you here to take delivery of our shipment?”

“Yes sir. I can help your men get it loaded, we will want to move out as soon as possible.”

“Absolutely. After the howler blew over and you didn't arrive, we tried contacting you but there was no response. We weren't sure what happened. Did you run into any problems at the waterfront?”

“You could say that, sir... whoever I was supposed to meet with at the waterfront had been replaced by a whole bunch of really determined mercs. It's a long story, but I walked into a trap and was taken off-world in their custody.”

“How is it you happened to be here now?” he asked, eyes narrowing as he started to think about what that might mean. He was probably starting to think I was a decoy for an incoming drop of mercs, or a merc myself. The gig looked glommy for sure, as new as it was.

“Our captain tracked their launch, and rescued me. No one knows we're here, that I am aware of. The mercs that nabbed me are currently adrift near the orbit of Vega 5, and will be for a few more weeks.”

He looked thoughtfully at his men for a moment, then fixed me in the eye.

“So how did you know where we were?”

I met his gaze as calmly as if he had just asked me if I liked loud music or beer. “Sir, we pulled the coordinates for this location from a security block on their ship's core. Our technologist analyzed the data and thought this was a likely place to check, as they had it flagged for investigation as a possible location for insurgents.”

“So AV knows we're here?” he asked, a rising tone of alarm in his voice.

I spoke as calmly as I could, sensing that the wrong tone here might result in unnecessary drama. “Well, we don't know, and can't know. All I know is at least one team of AV mercs that was on New Turiana is now adrift with no way to communicate or signal their location. It's possible they had another team, but I don't think it's likely, or they'd be here by now.”

“How do we know you're not AV?”

He had a good point, I guess. It's not like we can prove who we are.

Luckily, at that moment Captain Smith stepped out of the hatch and as usual, saved the day with an eyebrow at full attention, a brilliant smile, and a solid handshake.

“Hello Mr. Emerson, pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Captain Dak Smith of the Archaea, here to take delivery of medical supplies bound for Solis. Sorry I had to buzz you guys into the ground, I had to make sure you weren't hostile.”

As he spoke, I could sense everyone coming to attention, without even thinking about it. As I was pretty much always at attention, I guess I never noticed before what sort of affect he had on people.

“Certainly Captain Smith, no harm done sir. It sounds like you folks have had some adventures getting here”, Cal said, blinking as he stared straight into the blinding light of the captain's overwhelming personality.

“You don't know the half of it, mister.” Captain Smith looked grim and set. “Let me tell you, I wouldn't ever recommend trying to fly a frigate through downtown in a howler. Not unless, of course, you had to do it, and had me at the helm!” He laughed, adding with an impossibly serious face, “Did Yak mention I am the best pilot in the galaxy?”

I nodded, as he laughed out loud. He really was the best captain I've ever known and then some. He deserves the respect he gets, but he pays dearly for it as well.

He might be a guy that can sell you some pants to replace the ones he just bought off you, but you'd still name your child after him. Of course, it really didn't hurt that he's about the best person you'd ever hope to meet. You can tell he's cut from the old cloth of legends, a real captain among men.

“Mr. Emerson, I'd say it was more challenging by far, just making the time to get my coffee cup hot. Compared to that, collecting my crew from those thugs was hardly a challenge at all... speaking of which... anyone here drink coffee?” he asked hopefully, but was met with blank stares.

“Ah well, it's really been one of those days.” he laughed. “Well Mr. Emerson, let's get this bird loaded up so you folks can make yourselves scarce. Did Yak mention that AV knows about this camp?” He tossed a wink in my direction that I dodged with a smile.

  They walked off, talking about Solis, while a handful of men who looked like they'd been sleeping in the dust for a while started loading plastiform stacking crates up to the gig. I went inside and palmed the drop gate so they could walk it up into the interior, and directed the loading from the stern forward, allowing a small walkway to either side so we could attach tiedowns.

“What was it like out here when the howler hit?” I asked a man that was helping me connect the cable ties.

“We don't get them way out here... it's always windy, but nothing like those howlers. It's just dusty, dry and hot. Nothing is out here, except us.” He laughed, but it was the type of laugh I'd heard many times, the laugh that says there may be sand down my pants and in my ears, but it's better than the alternative. Any soldier knows the feeling. I can't say as I've ever deployed to a location with redeeming qualities – though Vega 6 was by far the most bleak, desolate, forsaken and barren landscapes I've ever seen.

“So do you guys tunnel out here? What do you do when it snows?”

“We're planning on only being here long enough to finish landing supplies for Solis. We will be heading back as soon as possible, I hope!”

“I hear that. This is certainly not where I'd want to live.” I said with a smile.

The insurgents were all very polite, and we loaded the hold pretty quickly. Before I knew it, the deed was done, the ramp was hatched, and the turbines were winding up. I couldn't help but feel bad for them way out here in the dusty heat.

They all had the look about them of indenture, one of the worst ways our modern civilization can treat people. Some are born into it, born for the purpose of working for the glom that controls their destiny. Some system indentures might last many generations, as the colony works off the investment of it's foundation while the glom exploits every last drop of money they can drain out.

It's the way things were, too large to change.

*****

I pointed and cursed a lot with Yak and Pauli while we wrestled around pallets of crates in the hold, dancing around Gene and the captain as they fretted and fussed over loading the gig up to the racks. Of course, the Captain had put some sort of microscopic blemish on a fairing, and Gene was having kittens about it. It felt good to have work to do, and as hard as it was, we laughed as we clamped down stacks of crates in the hold.

Luckily Pauli and Gene had already cleared the grounder out of the hold, I could die happy never seeing it again. Even without the mangled grounder on the deck, the hold had awakened fresh memories of seeing Gene and Pauli blurry and white from the dust covering my eyes. I briefly remembered the burning fire when I tried to open my eyelids, the feel of the cold deck as they laid me down, the roaring shriek of the wind heard through ears packed solid with dust...the relief that I was standing here was still almost too overwhelming to acknowledge.

“Shorty, are you feeling okay?” Yak asked with concern.

“Oh, sure Yak, good to go!” I said as happily as I could. I was happy, too. These fine people, these friends, of mine. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be standing here right now, sweating and cursing these stiff hoist buttons while Yak and Pauli stand around with pallet loads waiting for me to tell them where to put them.

“Shorty, are you guys almost done?” Captain Dak said, with fresh coffee in one hand and the catwalk rail in the other. “I know we're not really doing this for the money, but for the sheer joy of being nice we should still move as if the biggest bonus of our lives was waiting for us.”

“We can lift in moments sir, I'm just waiting for Yak and Pauli.” I said, smirking down at them from the hoist controls.

He had a good point. We had more than enough money. With the gold bullion we recovered from the Mantis stored in the holds, money wasn't really an issue for any of us, at least not until the Captain lets me go shopping. There are just so many unbelievably expensive things I want to get.

Our main gun, a nova class beam weapon originally from a capital ship, was last overhauled about a hundred years ago, and while I had it maintained to a glittering gleam, we didn't have any credits to spare when we were getting the Archaea operational. I would love to overhaul it with new focal rings, stepper pumps, arc windings – even if we only bought new-tech focal rings, that would increase our output at least 10 percent.

Of course, thoughts of money, spent or unspent, that's what keeps a girl warm. With the whine of the cargo ramp closing, I head on up through the gun deck, and climb to my station to check my screens,

Unfortunately, my screens weren't that soothing green I would prefer, they had too many orange and red bits with the turrets still not operational.

Yak and captain hadn't been gone long enough for Gene and I to do much more than get the cooling system connected. We pulled an insulated liquid helium line through the access tunnel along the top of the ship, and plumbed in a connection to the turret's cooling harness. I don't know what the big deal is, Gene hates working in the access spaces on this ship, but they seem big enough to me.

Gene did a pretty good job on the parts he built for the loading rails, considering it's not the type of work he does for a living. He had machined pretty much the same parts as I would, a spring gate and rails, but the race plates he built were too flat, they weren't allowing the rounds to skip and roll as they loaded, he was trying to slide them from the ovens to the breech. What he needed was some inner camber, but that won't be too hard to add.

As I was starting to daydream a bit, thinking about my guns, our captain came on the 1MC with the 10 count, and up we went.

Chapter 8

I think Dak may have actually become addicted to risk. Free from the leadership of the Admiralty, free from external influence, free from oversight of any kind – I think he's decided that freedom means freedom to give his old buddy Gene an ulcer.

Despite my strongest, and mostly unspoken objections – despite my most epic scowl... he has us plotted for an out-system slipspace jump practically right from orbit. Despite the fact that this is terrifying, incredibly dangerous, and foolhardy, the second he slips, the whole galaxy will be talking about the Archaea.

For all I know, they are already.

“All hands, prepare for freefall and immediate slip out-system. Everything shipshape in their slipspace places?”

Great bloody hell, who let him drive this thing?

I checked status and reported greens, and after a short wait, felt the drag of acceleration drop and fought my lunch, as usual. That, and an increased hum as the tokamak took the load of the slipspace generators the only indication that we were moving at all.

“Gene, how are we doing back there? Did you pick out names for them yet?”

“Names?”

“Yes sir, for the kittens you're having!”

I laughed out loud, despite myself.

“Dak, do you know what doing something like this makes me feel like?”

“A hero?”

“I wish! No, I feel like I am strapped to a com drone, hauling the mail.”

“Oh, we're definitely hauling the mail, you have that right, mister!” He paused for a moment. “Gene, let me ask you something. What if I told you, right to your face, that you weren't good enough to fix something, or that you weren't smart enough. Or even worse... that you didn't have the right tools for the job. That would be just about the worst thing I could say to you, right?”

“Well of course, Dak... but--”

“Gene, for the last time, I don't want to hear about butts. Vulgarity will not be tolerated aboard this vessel!” he chortled a bit before continuing, “In all seriousness, you know as well as I do that Janis is not a machine. She is not a tool. She is a member of this crew, and I'll be damned before I stand in the way of one of my crew members doing something smart and effective, something that makes us better, faster, tougher, more powerful – and yes, even more heroic. What are we doing this for, if not for the pure joy of adventure?”

Despite the sinking pit of fear in my stomach and the lump in my throat at the thought of slipping through the mass of a planetary system, he was completely right. Janis was more than a machine, more than a helpful program. She was crew, and possibly the most important member we had. Certainly, without a doubt, she was the most capable.

“Dak, as much as it might hurt me to admit, you are right. Janis can do damn near anything.”

“Gene, I'll let you in on a little secret. When we came around and held station over Shorty... did you know Janis had the helm?”

“She did?”

“Yep. She had the conn. I was along for the ride. I did okay at first... I got us through downtown, though for a while she was helping me with nulling out our roll and yaw – but as we were preparing to make the final approach from the lee of that arco, I knew I couldn't do it, that it was beyond my abilities. The moment I realized it, literally the very same moment, she offered to take the helm.”

I sat there silently, dumbstruck.

“Gene, at that moment I realized that what Janis is, what she truly is, is everything we want, and everything we need. She knew, Gene. She knew she could make it, but more importantly – she knew that I couldn't.”

I sat a few moments longer, watching my screens, losing myself in pressures, flow rates and voltages while I let Dak's words sink in.

“Dak, this is hard to accept. How can we just place all of our trust in her? How can we in good conscience risk our very existence over a hunch that it will all be okay?”

“We do it all the time, mister. You do it all the time, you're doing it right now. You are just used to it, and it seems normal. Right now you're sitting there, doing whatever it is you do back there besides taking naps, surrounded by technology and machinery, trusting it to run perfectly, to keep you alive. You put total trust in it, this ironmongery. I am telling you, this too shall become easy, Janis will become as easy for us to accept as the deck under our feet.”

“How can you be so confident, Dak?”

“Gene, it's my job, it's just what I do best. Someone aboard has to do it, right? Let me ask you a more serious question. Do you know what my eyebrow is doing right now?”

“Which one, damn you.” I laughed.

“Either one, Gene. It depends on the proper lighting of course.”

“Lighting?”

“Well, sure. I can't send one up on a mission for inspiration, only to have it lost in shadow. Pretty basic day-one captain stuff you know.”

“Captain, don't you think we should get back to work?” I asked, hopefully.

“Of course Gene – that's what I am getting at, if you'll let me talk. What I really wanted to talk about are those turrets, and getting those nasty reds and oranges off my caution-and-warning screens. You know those aren't good, right?”

“With all due respect, sir, I am not really thinking too much right now about those turrets. I have my hands pretty full at the moment keeping the tokamak pumping.”

“So how hard can it be? It's just fusar stuff. Don't you valve-turners use buttons for that sort of thing now?”

I stared at a sensor and willed it to go critical so I could legitimately swear at something. It was starting to look like I was just going to have to give up. The captain had my ear, and the only thing I could do was somehow weather this storm and hope I stay moored to the task at hand.

“Well sir, the last I heard, Shorty seemed to like most of the work I did, and is working on dialing in a few of the parts I built. She is just down to a few remaining plates in the loading rails.”

“What else is needed?”

“Dak, do you really need every last detail? If I told you the phased charge skip flopper needs to be counter punched before the hopper feed will close correctly, what would you say?”

“I'd say you sound like a bad science fiction novel, Gene. I read enough to know it when I hear it. In any case, you're right. I don't need to know every last bit of detail here. What I need is a birds-eye view of the process, some sort of rough idea how much longer we might have to wait before we can defend ourselves.”

“Fair enough Dak. Once she's done with parts and the loader assembly, the guns will need calibration, to be zeroed out so they aim accurately. This isn't something she can rush, the accuracy will need to be bang on.”

“Are you saying you can't do it, Gene?”

“Yes sir. That is exactly what I am saying. This is definitely a job for Shorty, I don't know the first thing about it. Furthermore, I am way too busy at the moment to learn the first thing about it.”

“Well, how long will it take her to do?”

I counted to ten, in standard wrench sizes.

“I haven't the foggiest Dak. Why not ask her?”

“Well I would Gene, but she's busy.”

I learned that I needed a sturdy grip on the grabbers before I could effectively beat my head against my console in null-g.

“Gene, I know you're busy, but I want you to be thinking of ways you might be able to help Shorty get the job done faster. You're the best, Gene. Shorty may know guns, but you know everything else. I need those guns... at these speeds, even a tiny rock could do a lot of damage. Those turrets come in mighty handy out here.”

At these speeds?

“Dak, how fast are we going at the moment?”

“You don't want to know, Gene, heck I don't even want to know – but that's the other thing I wanted to bring up. Janis has found a way we can go even faster!”

“Dak, I don't see any way I can take on another project right now. Did I mention that I am busy back here?”

“Well of course you are, Gene. You are busy working with Janis on making us go faster. If you're done talking at me, that is...” he trailed off, waiting to see if I was going to rise to the bait.

*****

The moment we dropped acceleration, I was up the ladder to the turret compartment, slapping every other rung as I pulled myself along, running through the list.

Lists define me, they define my day, they define everything. Why just this morning, I made a list to wake up, brush my teeth, get a bite to eat in the galley, then get to work on the turrets. On a day like today, there are occasionally some items that sneak onto my agenda, like getting trapped in a howler... but those are just distractions, not really important to put on a list.

My list right now is pretty long, but if I focus on each task without worrying too much about the next, before I know it the day will be done, and I will be in my flannel jammies, curled up in my sleep sack, and dreaming of weapons. I am a simple girl, with simple needs.

First on the list for right now, is finishing the rail assemblies. Gene just didn't have the time, and was working under an enormous amount of pressure, trying to cobble this together while we were being fired on. All things considered, he did pretty good work.

What we need though, isn't pretty good work, we need perfection. In the heat of a battle, the last think we need is for me to be up here clearing jams, when I am needed at my station firing our cannon. Luckily, perfection is the only way I work.

I used my handset to shoot high resolution holo-v of the railers. Once the parts were scanned in, and a good heightfield map was built, I could then tweak and map the necessary changes into the milling machine.

As I kicked my way back down to the machine shop in ring three, the thought occurred to me that Janis could probably take the models and build a simulation to help me test my changes. I needed it done right, and she doesn't know how to do things any other way. She's my kind of gal.

It took me a little while to get the loading plates cambered on my handset holo – it is always challenging working from a reference shot, but I am patient. This sort of work fills out the corners of a long day, and makes it worth living. I could spend hours on end, working on a millimeter of metal, trying to make it correct and true.

I didn't have hours, though.

“Janis, could you please help me simulate some parts I have been working on in an overlay with a reference shot I took in holo-v of the loading mechanism?”

“Certainly Jane. I have loaded a holo-v simulation to your handset. Please note there is an animation control, you may cycle the mechanism at any speed.”

“Thank you Janis, that was quick!”

“No problem at all, Jane... Jane, do you mind if I say something?”

The way she said it caught me off guard. “Of course not, Janis.”

“Thank you Jane. I wanted to say that I am very impressed with the topology you have produced for these parts. I have simulated a loading run of ten billion rounds at speeds up to 70% over the turret maximum and noted only a .0032% failure rate.”

“Janis, that is impressive, but I have to say that I am not happy with those results. I would prefer they were flawless.”

“As would I Jane. Simulating the same run, allowing slight variations in the topology of the kinetic rounds and variations in material expansion from heat, I am afraid the failure rate climbs to a .013% rate over 10 billion rounds.”

“Well, that is still very impressive, but even so...”

I chewed my lip a little as I rotated the plates at maximum resolution, searching for a flaw.

“Janis, do you see where these plates are flawed? I just can't see it.”

“Jane, they are not flawed. Your tolerances are perfect. I am not able to recommend any corrections to the topology of these parts.”

“Do you have any other suggestions? Maybe the rails are out of alignment...”

“Jane, I have just performed a 100 billion round simulation on spec for the turret, and isolated each loading failure to a new report. It's possible you may identify conditions in these failures I am not able to quantify, though it appears likely that vibration may contribute to a chaotic state in the component that may result in failure.”

It took a handful of failure simulations before I confirmed the smoking gun, so to speak. The plates had enough clearance, but they lacked flexibility and didn't absorb vibration. I tooled on the plates a bit on my handset until they had a series of longitudinal grooves in their outer faces, and hoped that would be enough to absorb vibration. It looked like it would also help shed heat, and that is always a good thing.

“Janis, I have modified the plates to attempt to reduce their ability to vibrate and retain heat. Could you please simulate to failure, and let me know how many rounds it will take?”

“I would be glad to Jane. Would you like to set an upper limit to this simulation, or should I continue to run it indefinitely?”

I started to smile. “Janis, I am afraid I am not sure how fast you are able to process these sorts of requests. Your response time appears to be instant. Is this a challenging simulation to run for you?”