Jethro Goes to War (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) (45 page)

“
Well some
did. Others were in ear shot of an AI when the offer went down and
had to be taken in hand,” Mayweather growled. She wasn't happy
about having to bust a newly minted chief down the ratings. She'd had
high hopes for him.

“
Yeah. That is
a problem,” Matilda said, eyes wide. “Poaching and
theft.. what's next?”

“
A not so
polite request from Pyrax governor Walker to turn over the corvette
and gunships to him for militia work,” Firefly replied. They
looked at the AI.

“
Why are we
just hearing about this?” Logan demanded.

“
Because it
just came in,” the AI reported. “Just now. For something
called the Pyrax high guard militia. They want the battleship Bismark
as well.”

“
Not going to
happen. Not after we invested into each of them,” Logan
snarled.

“
Technically
they can tie this up in court.”

“
They can try.
Fed trumps state every time. Every time. I'm not giving up those
ships without a fight,” Logan growled.

“
What about
manning other ships? New construction? Get them rolling then turn
over the dregs?” Mayweather asked.

“
What about
it? Prometheus is on hold as you know. We've got the escorts about
done, they are doing trials now. Hyper drives for the others are out.
Hecate fortunately has one, but she's the only one. But we can't do
much more until they get sorted out. Trials will take weeks or
months.”

“
Builders
trials for new ship classes usually do Commander,” Firefly
said.

“
Yeah, I know,
I remember,” Logan said shaking his head. “We can't build
anything else.”

“
I was
thinking about that,” Vargess said sitting back. “What
about sub-light ships? Escorts of course. We can leave out the parts
we can't make.”

“
Can't do
that,” Logan said shaking his head. “As much as I'd like
to. I thought about it, but we can't replicate the power supplies,
the weapons, shield systems, armor, classified sensors,
communications, AI cores, or the munitions.”

“
Yes but the
hull, life support and other things we can do right?” Vargess
asked. “What if we pulled what we can off other ships to use in
them?”

“
Or you could
build parts for existing ships. The parts can then be re-tasked for
overall fleet use,” Firefly responded.

“
You'd buy
that?” Mayweather asked surprised. According to her research AI
were usually sticklers for the rules. Though Firefly was a bit
flexible about some things lately.

“
Not normally,
but this is a far from normal situation. I think we can get away with
building spares for my fusion reactors or the reactor parts for the
Fuentes or Sun-Yat. You can't make the entire core, just the useable
parts under an emergency directive.”

“
Which this is
in a way,” Logan said nodding and embracing the legal fiction.
“You are saying do it piecemeal then splice the pieces
together. Could work. That won’t wash for the hyper drive or
munitions though,” he said, eyes moving back and forth as he
read the file the AI sent to him. He'd have to have JAG take a stab
at this, but he was pretty sure it would fly first go. The Admiral
certainly wouldn't have qualms about it.

“
No. But it is
a stop gap for now. It should keep the shipyard busy and building
platforms for training and defense is critical to our defined
mission,” Firefly responded. Right now most of the yard was
either winding down construction or slowing work on the expansion
projects. Projects like San Diego were at a virtual shut down.

“
All right. We
can give it a shot,” Logan said nodding. “Escorts?”
he asked.

“
That would be
the best platform. They are easy to make and we can build the missing
parts at a later date. We can also stockpile parts for a later
assembly run. We can also sell or trade nonmilitary parts as needed
if the tax issue is still a problem.”

“
Good,”
Mayweather said with a nod. “Works for me,” she smiled to
Logan.

...*...*...*...*...

Riley shot a look to
the Major as he came in. “Something you wanted to talk to me
about Sergeant?”

“
Yes sir.
Close the hatch please,” Riley finished polishing his spanner
and then set it down in it's spot. Every tool in it's place. He
turned as the Major dogged the hatch.

“
This get's
better and better. All cloak and dagger,” the Major joked.

“
Room secure,”
Firefly replied from the overhead. A hologram of the avatar was
projected near the sergeant. The lights dimmed to make it easier to
see.

“
Okay, what is
this about,” Major Forth asked. He pulled up a stool and sat
down.

“
That cadre
suit. It's got some classified materials,” Riley grimaced and
jerked a thumb to the AI. “I was shooting you an e-mail but I
guess that's not allowed.”

“
That is
correct. Technically the suit should have been destroyed. I for one
am grateful it was not,” Firefly responded.

“
Classified...”

“
We have
confirmed it is not a recon suit. It is an elite Cadre suit. First
class. Most of the classified systems were destroyed, but a few
remain.”

“
Such as?”
the Major asked, eyebrow raised.

“
Such as the
shield emitters and nanites,” Riley grimaced.

“
Nanites?”

“
Yeah. Two
sets. One in some reservoirs in the body, and others embedded in the
armor and outer layers of all exposed equipment.”

“
What do they
do?”

“
From what we
can tell, nothing at the moment,” Firefly replied. “They
are shut down and locked down. But upon external evaluation I have
determined that the inner nanites act in a self repair capacity.”

“
And the skin
ones?”

“
Some have the
same ability, but some have us stumped.”

“
Can they be
reactivated?”

“
No. I think
it would take a master key to unlock them. Which we don't have,”
Riley grimaced.

“
But the
Admiral does,” Firefly replied.

“
He does?”
Riley said blinking at the AI as he turned on it. “Oh yeah
right he does,” he sighed sitting back. “Fat load of good
it does us with him gone though.”

“
For now.”

“
Right,”
Riley shook his head. “The other piece of news is the shields.
We can get them online, but the suit definitely needs an AI.”

“
Ah,”
The Major nodded. “I thought that the techs Veber and that kid,
Bobby were working on a smart bot?”

“
Which is a
problem,” Riley grimaced, rubbing the back of his head. He
turned to the AI. “Your department, you tell him.”

“
In order to
balance the power demands, stealth, and shields an AI is needed.
Possibly not a smart AI, but a dedicated one. Class one or two at the
very least. There is unfortunately a problem however.”

“
I thought you
were going that route already?”

“
We need a
more sophisticated AI than we had planned. Way beyond what our people
can program.”

“
Which we
can't do with the lock out in place,” the Major grimaced.

“
We can't fit
the AI in the suit's electronic suite. Not with the tech we've got.
Won't handle the load. It doesn't have the processing power. We don't
have the room to shoehorn more processors in without taking stuff out
too. If we had access to an AI core that might be a different story
but we don't,” Riley grimaced, rubbing the back of his balding
head.

“
I was getting
to that,” Firefly sighed. “Which means the suit operator
has to have an imbedded AI.”

“
Imbedded as
in like Sprite?” the Major asked. “He has to be a
cyborg?”

“
He already
is, we all are.”

“
But... Like
the Admiral?”

“
Exactly. And
since that is also classified...”

“
We had to
brief you personally,” Firefly finished. “I have already
briefed Commander Logan about this situation.”

The Major looked
thoughtful for a moment, rubbing his chin then he slapped his legs as
he got up. “Anything else?”

“
The shield
and dampeners. The shield has a phase shift stealth ability we also
can't access. I think Bobby goofed and mentioned it already. The
rest, well... The usual tricks. There is a medical kit as well, but
it was cleaned out. No residue to work off. We're stocking it with
the basics until we can figure it out. The neat thing is it's got
some foam too. That I like.”

“
Biofoam or
firefighting?” the Major asked going to the door.

“
Both,”
Riley said getting up and walking to the door. “I'm headed to
dinner.”

“
Ah.”
The Major nodded. “Thank you for the brief gentlemen, it's
been... brief.” He nodded to the AI as it faded out. He turned
to the Sergeant.

“
I'll spot you
for darts after? Winner buys the beer?” the Major asked.

“
I wouldn't
want to take your money sir, it wouldn't feel right,” Riley
chuckled shaking his head.

 ...*...*...*...*...

Hurranna looked at
the port on her shoulder then at the rifle. “Ah, why do we have
this cable?” she asked the next morning.

“
Because...
hell didn't you read the manual?” Ox asked testy. He'd been
working on some finicky bits for hours on end the past three shifts
running and was more than a little short tempered. He looked up from
his own suit. “It's to link to your weapon.”

“
I thought it
was a diagnostic port.”

“
It's that
too. For both the suit and the weapon. But you hook your weapon to
the suit with a ODN universal cable,” Riley said handing her
one.

“
Why?”
she asked taking it and looking at it. “I can just link to it.”

“
Because on
the battlefield your Wi-Fi link can and will be disrupted. EMP,
jamming, nearby radio chatter.. it's a mess. It can also be detected.
So we link directly. That way you don't have to worry about an enemy
cyber taking control of your weapon.”

“
Why not in
the fingers or palm and the palm grip of the weapon?” she
asked.

“
Cause then
you'd have to redesign that into each weapon. And it'd get dirt and
crud into it. Or wear from the hand on the grip. Or slip or
something. Plug in is safe. KISS.”

“
Oh,”
she grimaced, plugging the cable into each port. “Good point.”

“
I thought
so,” Jethro said nodding as well.

“
Where is your
gun?” she asked. He bent his right wrist. She could just make
out the weapon barrel peeking out from a port.

“
Built in.
Limited mag capacity. It's cool though, it can fire different rounds.
I can plug into other weapons like you as well.”

“
But they
wouldn't be cloaked. Now I get it,” she nodded.

“
Right. I
could use a cloak bag over a weapon, but it's not quite up to this,”
he tapped his armored thigh. “I might end up doing it though if
a mission comes up. I'd rather do that than have only a couple shots
like these have. It sucks juice from the suit too,” he
grimaced. The armor wasn't living up to what he had hoped. Not quite.
It was getting there though.

“
Which sucks.
Yeah. Okay lets go play,” Hurranna grinned, hefting her rifle.

Jethro looked at the
XO and nodded to her. She nodded back and paused outside the wardroom
door. They'd drawn a duty shift to replace a pair off on shore leave.
He'd been looking forward to more training but since the coders
needed time he had to shut up and soldier.

“
Something
wrong ma'am?” he asked. Commander Logan looked troubled. She
didn't normally pace in front of them.

“
Everything is
wrong. Our building schedules are shot to hell,” she grimaced,
shaking her head. “There isn't a damn thing we can do about it
either.” She stared at the bulkhead for a moment.