"Cryopods and red lights with sodium-chloride suspended in H2O mist in the hallways and rooms during transit, secure DS and VI shielded cores, shielded mainfras the size of a grav-lifter, that's how we do it.
"Lots of people need lots of things. It's up to the junker and trader's guilds to handle it.
"Sure, there aren't any more liners, no more ships with tens of thousands of people awake during transit, but at least we still sowhat have trade and migration. Cryopods can be difficult, Digital Omnissian and Kalki's goat Dancer know that my tail aches for like four days after I get out of the freezer pop.
"But we've got it again.
"We move mail. We move data. We move people. We move goods.
"The Great Reboot as the Lankies call it? It ssed things up here and there, but you know what? I don't have to worry about landing on so planet and getting sward by shades.
"I just have to watch for them in jumpspace and hyperspace.
"Now, says on my manifest that you bought twenty-five tonnes of Goody Yum Yum Cookie Dough Snacks. I can have those unloaded by nightfall. Sign here." - Pextent, Telkan Trader, mber of the Traders Union in Good Standing.
The door shut behind him as Daxin sat back down, leaning over to punch Mattie in the shoulder. Mattie tensed up, took it on the muscle, then laughed when Daxin shook his cybernetic hand out in mock pain, his youthful face losing its worries and cares for a mont.
Pete turned and glanced at the two, then went back to staring at the screen in front of him, his hands moving through the holographic keyboard/pointer-clicker thingy system. He looked up several tis, opening different screens and checking the data.
Mattie reached over with one foot and hit the lever on the column of the chair Daxin sat in. The chair went down with a hiss, folding Daxin's legs up and almost dumping the big man on the floor.
"Stop," nhit said, her voice full of amusent. "Before this escalates into you two wrestling around. This room is full of important equipnt."
"Aw, but Mom..." Mattie gave a fake whine.
Daxin snorted.
"What did I say?" nhit asked, raising one eyebrow as she drew her buba tighter around her and straightened up, giving both n a stern look.
"Fine," Daxin grumbled.
"Better," nhit said, turning back to Peter. "What is the progress?"
Daxin reached over and slamd his fist into Mattie's leg.
nhit looked over suspiciously but both n gave her innocent smiles, which made nhit give them both a sideways look.
"Well, Operational Director nhit the Singer," Peter said.
nhit smiled.
"Every stellar mass in the entire region, we're talking millions of stellar masses through the galactic arm spur, were seeded during the war against the Atrekna via so type of Confederate military project and then by our project," Peter said. "The mat-trans proved invaluable for that, although it looks like its back to hating us again and ignoring everything we request outside of the automated systems."
"I'm telling you, she's alive," Mattie said.
"We don't care," Daxin said.
"But... she could be so much help," Mattie protested.
"She's evil," one of the workers said. "A primitive barbaric woman who did nothing but spread pain and misery from what we saw."
Daxin turned around and pointed at the speaker. "You don't get to say anything. None of you saw her in person, she was dead before you got reskinned, and you're sitting in the middle of sothing she helped create," Daxin growled. "Na one scientific advancent you've made. Just one. You do that, and I'll let you criticize her."
"I devised the code for a more efficient table weighting system," she said.
"Did you invent the new code or just figure out how to arrange the commands better for more streamlined and accurate sorting of data other people put a bias weight on?" Daxin asked.
The worker looked surprised that Daxin knew what it ant. "I used existing commands to create the sorting system."
"Then shut the fuck up. You're sitting inside of sothing she helped developed when science was done on blackboards by hand by people who still rode horses, fought vampires, and fought wars with steam powered chs," Daxin snarled.
Peter didn't look over. "Anyway!" he snapped. "With the stellar mass regulators and stabilizers in place, it was just a matter of programming the system for chronotron and phasic energy bursts. The phason -basically the phasic energy equivalent of a photon- emitters had to be reprogramd, but the ti dilation in here was a big help," Peter said. "The files that SAM-UL left behind on the phasic gaussing system as well as the data from its use gave us the right wavelengths to hamr."
"And?" Daxin asked.
"Well, it looks like all of the stellar mass stabilizers did their uploaded commands in the correct order," Peter said. He cracked open a beer and took a swig off of it, ignoring the disapproving sigh of a few of the other staff.
Soone had blocked over the "PLEASE NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THIS AREA" with stickers with various sayings on them.
Daxin leaned back. "Where's Dhruv? We can get him to take a look at the outside world, tell us if it worked."
Peter shrugged. "Don't know. He said he had sothing important to do."
"I'm right here," Legion said, raising a hand from where he was at the back of the workers. He was in his slim and bald persona, wearing a jumpsuit with "SCRUFFY" embroidered on the left breast, a toolbelt with a hardhat hanging from it, a backwards cap on his bald head, and leaning on a broom.
"What are you doing?" Daxin asked.
Dhruv smiled. "Seeing if this and a maintenance fob is more effective at getting into high security places than a high security ID badge Pete ran off for ."
"And?" Daxin asked. "You look like a fool."
Dhruv's smile got wider. "I've been able to get into so amazing places. Doors just open, I don't even have to put in any codes or anything," he gave a chuckle. "Right now, I've got two of those massive killbots trying to help move boxes while I sit on a box drinking fizzybrew and give them orders. It's kind of amazing."
"Sotis I hate you," Daxin said, turning and looking at Peter. "Do you think it worked?"
Peter nodded. "It should have. So of the phasic particles have excellent penetration, so they'll be able to reach shades even if their inside of underground facilities wrapped in warsteel."
"OK, now what did it do to everyone else?" Dhruv asked.
"Well, according to the data, nothing. They shouldn't have even noticed. We did a couple of tests on the Gamma Layer using the fusion reactor stellar mass emulators," Peter said. "Well, there was a small effect. Degredation of molycircs in a few spots."
Peter suddenly turned, his face going slightly fearful. "Few spots? So of those molycircs lted down when the chronotrons hit the electron wiring."
Peter shook his head, going back to looking tired .He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry."
"The Darsh Chasu Igwe overlay?" nhit asked, reaching out and rubbing Pete's shoulder.
Peter nodded. "Yeah. I'm stressed and there's still bits and pieces of that overlay in my brain."
nhit just smiled softly and rubbed Pete's shoulder.
"Feel Marco surging up more and more too," Peter said.
"It's who you were before you were nad Peter," nhit soothed her brother.
"Centuries gone by," Peter said. He sat down and nhit moved around behind him, shifting to squeezing the muscles of his shoulders and rubbing her thumbs up and down the muscles on the back of his neck.
"So, degradation of molycircs?" nhit asked, shooting Daxin and Mattie a 'keep quiet you two clowns' look.
Peter nodded. "Nothing major. The standard nanite repair systems should work to repair it."
"Anything else?" nhit asked.
Peter shuddered and his voice was quieter. "I still believe that testing them in a fusion reactor instead of a stellar mass did not give accurate data," he shuddered again and his voice was stronger, even if it sounded more tired. "The fusion reactors shut off, but a star is different."
"Tell we didn't just novabomb the entire galactic arm spur," Daxin groaned.
"No, no, should be fine. That was the molycirc damage," Peter said. He sighed and leaned his head back, resting the back of his head against nhit's stomach. nhit reached down and put her interlaced fingers on Peter's forehead. Peter closed his eyes and sighted again. "There's no damage to living beings or Digital Sentiences, that's the big thing."
nhit shifted her hands to rub Pete's temples with her strong fingers.
"I want you to go to bed. You've been up over a hundred hours and even with cyberwear and bioware you've reached the point where the fatigue toxin buildups will effect your intellectual performance," nhit said. She looked down. "Leave the observation crew here, put everyone off for a few days."
"But we have so much to do," Peter sighed, his eyes closed.
"The ti dilation ans that only a couple of minutes, hours at the most, will pass while you get so sleep," Dhruv said.
"Co on, brother, let's get you in bed," nhit said. She reached down and took Pete's hands, pulling him gently up. "Co on, sleepy head."
Dhruv looked at the gathered scientists, more than a few of whom looked on with disapproval. "You heard. Log out and go do sothing other than pass judgent on your betters."
One drew up. "Excuse , all people are equal."
Legion stepped from the shadows, dressed in Confederate standard issue softplate. "Can you do what I just did?"
The scientists shook his head.
"Then I'm better than you. Shut up and log out. Go do relaxation activities or whatever," Dhruv said as nhit chivvied Pete out the door.
There was grumbling as the scientists and workers left, Matthias getting up to join Dhruv for a rematch at a video ga.
Only Daxin was left in the command center, the computers quietly whirring and beeping to themselves.
Daxin sighed, looking around. "Great. Where's my dog?"
-----
Buried deep within the stellar masses of every stellar system that was mathematically possible for shades to have invested, vast chanisms moved into position. Many of them had been places during the Big-C3, the more heavy-duty models having been placed into position during the Atrekna-Conflict, specifically, Operation Iron Piglet. Millions of the systems had been placed in systems that had not even been examined or surveyed, just sent on a one-way system to drop the system into the stellar mass.
Emitters were adjusted, wavelength stabilizers were set, particle smoothers were prepared.
As one, the devices went off, buried deep within the stars.
Phasic energy ignored the light speed barrier in the sa way that a high speed mag-lev train ignored a pedestrian.
The pattern, set off in a carefully planned sequence, caused the effect to be the sa across the galactic arm spur. Roughly at the sa ti, with stellar distances making it so that so effects happened before the stellar stabilization equipnt activated under the uncaring directions of the pre-programming.
Most of it was invisible. A phasic resonance cascade that went on for almost a full three seconds. The charge flipping back and forth slowly, nearly a hundredth of a second, then faster and faster, until it was pulsing out opposing polarities hundreds of thousands of tis a second.
That was only visible as a bright white light.
The entire affected area shivered, dark matter and superstrings vibrating in ti with the pulsings.
That was felt as an enormously loud sound.
What wasn't felt was the effect that started before the stabilizers went off.
Negatively charged positive polarity phasic particles slamd into molecular circuitry AKA electronics that were built smaller than a molecule, solid state electronics the size of atoms, built using subatomic particles.
Where literal cubic miles of wire and ceramic and glass 'circuitry' was reduced to small enough to be held by drunken angels dancing on the head of a pin.
It wasn't much. Just a few spots here and there the minute subatomic phasic particles hit the molycircs.
The other effect was bigger.
Peter and the others had seen it happen but had not thought through the ramifications.
The fusion generators that emulated suns in the great layered onion of the SUDS had shut off.
Peter had been right. The fusion didn't stop in the stars. Stars were too massive.
He had been wrong about why fusion stopped in those generators.
Fusion didn't stop.
The molecular circuitry proved more vulnerable as it was at ground center zero for the tsunami of particles.
Fusion generators across the galactic arm spur pulsed in sympathy with millions of stars.
Pulsing out the particles.
Which shredded their molycircs.
Even ships in hyperspace or jumpspace felt it. Were affected by it.
Everyone felt it.
THWUMM-BWOOOIIING!
-----
On the beach seagulls fought and swirled over a pack of greasy french fries from a vending machine.
A black warsteel head, blocky and fierce, peeked over a piece of driftwood.
With a barking roar the black warsteel body of a Goodboi combat chassis leaped over the driftwood log, sprinting toward the gulls, barking madly.
The gulls all scattered squawking indignately.
FIDO sat next to the fries, tongue out, huffing laughter.
After a minute he trotted over and crouched down behind the driftwood log.
The seagulls circles for a few minutes, consulted each other, and ca to a conclusion.
Sure this ti, the great black tal canine would not be hiding behind the driftwood log.
They settled down, pecking at the fries.
FIDO peeked over the top of the driftwood log.
And life went on.
Reviews
All reviews (0)