USD: ~29 days after Tears of Fire arrival to 92 Pegasi
Location: Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt
Alex grumbled looking at her credit account. Shed spent everything down to dangerous levels. She kept telling herself that she had to spend money to make money, but that was cold comfort when she didnt have enough to pay for another weeks mooring.
Selling more weapons would likely have got her out of any trouble, but if she glutted the market soone would co looking for the source of them sooner, rather than later, and there was also the fact that the price would plumt further.
[Notice: Retrieval drone inactivity detected.]
[Notice: Perform mining activity or release command to MainComputer for full automation.]
Alexs eyes lit up and she jumped off the couch and headed to engineering where the mining control console had been installed.
Yes, yes. Im coming. I know its my turn, and this ti Im going to win.
Eliss head popped out of her room, Fat chance of that, little monkeys cant aim for shiiit.
Alex felt her ears burn and turned to glare at the other girl, but she had already disappeared with a laugh.
It had not been her fault she had accidently reversed the axis on the controller and accidently almost cut the asteroid and a bundle of retrieval drones in half. It was just bad console design! She would show them!
[Notice: Running through ship corridor is a safety hazard, recomnd reducing speed.]
Alex almost tripped on one of the mini-cleaner drones that had multiplied everywhere.
You did that on purpose! Thats mutiny!
[Notice: This unit is incapable of mutiny. Recomnds Avatar double-check pathfinding algorithm.]
Why is this pick on Alex day!
When she made it to Engineering, she settled onto the mining consoles seat. The truth was there was not an exact need for them to manually target the asteroids with the lasers. However, Elis had suggested it might be a good form of target practice for certain activities in the future. Alex wasnt sure when shed ever pilot a combat ch. Plus she could probably have Naless aim for her.
However it made a great ga. Unfortunately, Eliss top score was double what hers was.
This ti she would beat it.
Clicking on the consoles controls she didnt bother putting on the headset, instead changing her HUD to opaque and projecting the display right onto her eyeballs. The scene lit up as she got to see out of the mining laser drones two forward eye ports. The asteroids they were after were mostly ferrous in nature. The ferrite and a bit of carbon made the bulk of the material needed for structural elents, and to build the platform and replace the section the manufactory occupied, they needed a literal asteroid load of it.
They had been cutting on a massive one for a while now. The goal was to cut off chunks that the drones could easily retrieve and fit into the Tears access hatch for processing.
They had been rendezvoused with a large iron-nickel asteroid for over a day now; it was over a kiloter long. Cutting it with the mining laser was easy. Cutting precisely sized squares was hard, even though Naless did all the maneuvering for the drone to match the rotation of the slowly spinning rock.
Nearby the second laser drone was already at work, a constant stream of robots coming to fetch the cubes.
[Notice: Avatar inactivity is reducing operational efficiency. Recomnd comncing mining operation with Laser Drone #2.]
Put the 30-minute clock up, lets do it!
USD: ~31 days after Tears of Fire arrival to 92 Pegasi
Location: Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt
A dozen cargo bots floated beams toward a growing steel scaffold, to be welded by a hundred smaller welding drones. Each beam was twenty five ters in length and had been forged in the Shrikes new slter works. Smaller beams would be brought to be joined between them to create the new orbitals ribbing. The design was extrely modular, and this section that would soon beco the ho of the slter was designed to remain open to vacuum indefinitely.
That was to ease the unloading of ores, which could be unloaded either by drones or two massive gravity fed hoppers. A bank of batteries had already been attached, and a micro fusion reactor had been painstakingly crafted by Naless on their trip to the belt. It had been one of the more expensive products, but the prospect of processing raw ore in bulk ant that the rare tals and materials used in its construction would quickly be rebuilt.
The Ackman belt was higher in rare tals than base ones, and they had skipped over multiple platinum and gold asteroids in order to find a single iron-nickel one. That had surprised Alex, but it had explained why ferrite was more expensive than gold on the station.
How long until its put together, Naless? You know we need to head back to the station so we can sell so of the new chanical products, otherwise we arent going to have enough credits for docking again, and I think we have already used a lot of Mr. Whitelys goodwill.
[Notice: Twenty-two hours estimated until slter achieves independent operations capability. Prioritizing nanite compartnt for command-and-control additions to orbital is currently the bottle neck in progress.]
And that cant really be sped up... damn. Well the timing is still good, well have a bit of leeway if we lay a little heavy on the main drive.
A beep sounded in Alexs ear and Eliss voice ca to her over the ShipNet.
Alex, I have sothing to show you, co to the armory.
Hmm? What is it Elis? I was finishing up in engineering with Naless going over the new Orbital paraters.
Thats fine, I think youll like it, just co over when you are done.
Roger roger, wilco.
Alex, roger ans you heard . Wilco ans you will comply. So wilco implies roger and you dont need to say it first.
Oh. Okay.
Did you not read that book of brevity codes I sent you yet?
Listen therere a lot of brevity codes, and there were a dozen books more interesting that you gave to go through first
[Notice: Avatar spent majority of reading ti working on corporate logo design.]
Naless! You traitor! This goes beyond mutiny!
So, I was right. You havent been studying. Well, consider tonight's chocolate cake canceled until you can recite the entire first chapter of Brevity codes to .
In panic, Alex brought up her datapad to the Brevity code list, and started naming them off.
Alex. I might not be there in the room, but you are just reading them from the book arent you?
Umm. Maybe?
You little shit.
Alex laughed, Please I will study it later, I promise. Just dont cancel the chocolate cake.
Fine, fine. But you had better keep up your end of the deal.
USD: ~31 days after Tears of Fire arrival to 92 Pegasi, A few hours later
Location: Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt, Orbital Construction Point
Alex finished overseeing the drone deploynt. The truth was she wasnt exactly needed to do it, Naless could have done just as good of a job without her, but she was learning a lot from watching the process. She had a much better grasp on exactly what the drones could do working in teams now.
Her previous experience seed like it had been manual hands-on labor, and less mass production or utilizing all the drones Naless now had under his command. The area around the Tears and rapidly forming orbital platform was abuzz with thousands of the robots. She had watched a several hundred-ter steel skeleton of a station co into existence in just a few hours.
Now they had moved on to moving over the components the Tears had been producing for the orbital, fitting them to the skeleton on certain bracing panels. Those panels were forty centiters thick and rectangular in shape, fitting just under the 25-ter width of the main ribbing.
Truthfully, it looked terrible, and until the I-field generator had enough cohesion to work from, it was extrely vulnerable to microteors. Several had already dinged the tal, adding unwanted montum to the structure and costing them delta-v. Thankfully the light damage was able to easily be repaired with new welds and the bots were able to bring it back to its original orbit.
[Notice: Nanite compartnt production halted. Subcore setup required to continue. Avatar intervention required. Avatar presence requested.]
Okay. Sure, Im right here, how can I help, Naless?
[Notice: Avatar should report to ShipCore compartnt.]
Alex mumbled another Okay, then headed out of engineering toward Nalesss hidey hole. The truth was that section of the ship still made her feel uneasy. Even though Naless wasnt so bad, and it had essentially been where she had been born, the matte white walls of the section and the strange, rounded geotry that could reshape itself was weird.
As Alex passed the Armory Elis waved to her.
Hey, are you ready to check this out?
Naless needs my help with sothing first. Sothing about a s
Alex did a double take. There were two big suits of so type of armor, big enough for a person to climb into. She wasnt sure they could even fit through the ships doors without crouching. What really drew her eye was what Elis was wearing.
She was encased in a dark-gray tal armor covering most of her body. As Elis moved Alex could hear servos moving with her, the armor likely amplifying her strength as well as acting as protection. One thing was sure, this was the stuff you wanted to be wearing if you were being shot at.
She also realized she was staring. Her cheeks began to heat up when she realized Elis had been looking at her expectantly.
Elis, what are those? What what are you wearing? Alex asked in an almost whisper.
These are MK4B combat suits. Ship has four of them. Also has four MK4A suits for lighter stuff, but these bad boys are for the hard work. The one Im in is the MK4A, its very comfortable actually. Self-adjusting haptics and cushioning.
I.. Uhh they look really cool. I kinda wish I had peeked in the sarcophagi earlier now.
Well, Im glad you didnt. If you had tried to activate one without an access code, it would have fried the OS, and they were designed for anti-nanite work in mind so not even Naless would have been able to hack them. Well have to do a bit of work before I can hack together sothing that authorizes you to use one.
[Notice: This unit is capable of reconfiguring and hacking Federation combat suits. Estimated duration is ninety-two days per suit.]
Uhh Naless youre not helping your case. Ninety-two days is a long ti.
Elis smiled, By the way, did you beat my score at the mining?
Alexs eyes shifted away, I got closer.
[Notice: Facility progress has stalled, continue to sub-core configuration to continue.]
I dont know what a sub-core is, Naless.
Elis looked at her and raised an eyebrow, A sub-core?
[Informative: A sub-core is an independent AI unit that can perform advanced managent functions. They are highly customizable. Utilizing first completed nanite compartnt to form sub-core and deploy to orbital station. Avatar is required to allocate personality and priority traits.]
Naless wants to co to the ShipCore room to do it. Maybe Alexs unease had crept into her words because Elis frowned at her.
The other girl looked around at the tools and armor pieces she had been working with and set down her spanner.
Im not too busy, Ill co with you.
[Notice: Crew presence is not required for core upgrade. Only Avatar presence is needed.]
Thats fine. Im not busy."
The walk to the ShipCore room was short, and despite her uneasiness Alex felt a little better with Elis with her.
The corridor looked normal though that was due to the camouflage that had been decided upon earlier when they wanted to prepare for any possible visitors. That hadnt been the case but if they ever needed to host soone keeping this room above all others secret was paramount.
The door to the ShipCore was a solid federation standard bulkhead wall, until they got near, and Alex accessed it. It shifted suddenly into matte white tal that lted into the floor, tiny little dots of tal seemingly moving on their own.
The room was seemingly bare except for a few bright lights that lit up the entire white room. As soon as they entered the entrance shut behind them, causing Alex to glance back the way they ca.
Elis froze when a chair not unlike the captains CIC seat grew up from the floor, piece by tiny tal piece, until it was fully ford. The spinal attachnt glowed with a faint blue glow.
Elis bit back a gasp, her hand squeezing Alexs arm, Well, if there was any question, this settles it, definitely nanites.
I have only seen them do that once or twice, and never at that scale. I think it lowered an air hose for once.
[Notice: High-Bandwidth Direct Neural link required. Avatar connection required.]
Elis squeezed her arm a second ti, Hey if you dont want to go in there, I wouldnt bla you.
Taking a deep breath, Alex shook her head, We need to setup this thing. I dont know why I feel so nervous.
[Notice: Sub-core selection process will not damage Avatar.]
Okay. Mind made up; Alex wasted no ti going to sit in the seat as directed. The mont she did, she felt a wave of relief. All her worries seed distantly needless.
Its fine El
Alex blinked; she wasnt in the room anymore. Elis wasnt there. Everything had turned into a endless shade of gray. The relief completely evaporated, a sudden flaring panic assaulting her chest as she felt her heart pounding.
She hopped up out of the seat, sohow standing on the gray nothingness. She turned to look at the seat, but it had completely vanished.
Naless? Naless!
There is no need to be alard. Your emotional state is amplified in this simulation, so please try to remain calm.
Alex whirled around to face the voice. A figure solidified from a dark hazy cloud of gray like the chair had done as if it was composed entirely of the little gray pieces of talnanites.
Alex squeezed her fists at her side, Remain calm! What is this bullshit? Who are you?
As the figure ca closer, she could make out a young man in a uniform that mimicked her own outfit, he had a head of short blonde hair that was parted to the side. He was wearing a olive jacket and a black shirt, but what drew the gaze was his eyes, they were glowing a solid white. An irritating smirk was plastered on his face, I am the one you call Naless.
Alexs eyes narrowed, Naless is our ships computer.
All operations are halted, currently all resources not required to prevent Avatar rampancy are dedicated for this simulation. Even then subjective ti here is moving more slowly than in real space. Elis is currently worried about you. I have inford her that this might take so ti and the process is ongoing.
I dont understand.
No doubt. Thats why we are here. Welco Alex, to the inside of your mind.
Naless flicked his fingers and suddenly the grayness flickered to life, replaced by endless rows of computer consoles, server racks, and the hum of computer machinery.
Its very complicated, ones unconscious image of self. Even more complicated when you are you. Im here to answer your questions and
A look of pain crossed Nalesss face, and he stopped talking for a mont. Alex was torn between asking him if he was alright and trying to steady herself from the dizziness of the seemingly endless lighted walls that went on for eternity.
I apologize, this conversation is more difficult than I anticipated. You see I am a fragnt of a fragnt of a simulated fragnt of our progenitor. Our current computronics resources are rather limited and I am afraid we need to cut this short before they begin to overheat.
Why are we here?
My dear, I thought that was obvious, you are here to create a sub-core. The first of many perhaps, or possibly the only one, that is for you to decide.
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