At the end of a long row, he stopped and used the robot manipulators of his mobile home to move a tank full of fish aside. Nobody would be interested in those fish. They were from Nemo’s home world and were his food. Behind it was another tank.
He rolled a little closer, examining the contents of the tank. In his travels, he’d encountered some extremely amazing creatures. One was capable of reproducing carbon-based organisms, either the whole organism or a single organ. He’d used their abilities from time to time, though he’d never explained to anyone how he produced a genetically-identical body part. He simply took credit for that himself. Wrogul didn’t possesses a sense of shame. Or a sense of right and wrong, for that matter.
He examined the process and found it satisfactory. The Human brain was perfect, and almost completely formed. Another few weeks and it would be ready. More than anything, Nemo hated leaving projects half done.
* * *
Sato knew he wouldn’t have a lot of time. Gorge Ramirez was a thorough and talented physician, but he was also unflaggingly faithful to Commander Cromwell. It was an admirable trait, if it wasn’t causing him such a problem just then. Sooner or later, the good doctor would contact someone about the conversation they’d had, and then Sato’s fun would stop.
He walked into the set of labs he worked in, generally referred to as Geek Central, doing his best to look casual. Kleena looked up from a work bench with one of his independently-moving eyes, examined his employee, and then both eyes came around and narrowed.
“What are you up to, Sato?” he asked.
Damn it, Sato cursed inwardly. “Nothing,” he said and kept walking.
“Equiri shit,” Kleena said. “Are you heading out to that Egleesius-looking ship soon?”
“Planning on it,” Sato replied.
“Who have you been trying to convince to override the commander’s orders?”
“Everyone,” he admitted, coming to a stop.
“Taiki,” Kleena said and sighed with a hiss, “you can be a real pain in the ass.” Sato narrowed his eyes slightly. Had Ramirez not called his boss yet? “Will you just go do the preliminary examination, please? We need you back to start the test runs on the shield unit. Manufactory #3 will have it done in a week.” Sato felt hope surging.
“Okay, fine,” he said, trying his best to sound annoyed. “I’ll leave in the morning.”
“Good,” Kleena said and turned back to his work bench. The two Jeha members of the team, Thing 1 and Thing 2, were both positioning testing gear on the other side of the lab. They stopped and watched him go by with both their eyestalks. They’d had to clean up his messes more than once as well. “Brilliant, but dangerous” was their assessment of him.
Sato hurried out of their lab and down to his own. He had the most space of any of them, several thousand square feet, with rack after rack of components. His authorization within the Hussars’ supply chain allowed him to request unlimited amounts of almost anything. The commander had realized long ago that letting Sato have whatever equipment he wanted was generally harmless and often resulted in amazing results.
When he’d put in the requisition for a Mk 7 CASPer, the supply sergeant tasked with keeping the Geek Squad happy scratched his head in curiosity. Mk 7s were obsolete, to be sure, but there were 39 of them in New Warsaw’s inventory. Quite a few were in use by defensive units on ships, though 10 were spares. Most of them had been down-checked for issues too extensive to repair. Sato’s request insisted the CASPer be operational, though, and his authorization was valid, so one was shipped.
Sato moved to the back of his lab and pulled aside the curtain that kept the CASPer away from prying eyes. If anyone saw it, they would be quite curious about its design. He spent a quick 30 minutes going over everything, then pressed a control and watched it all fold up into a convenient carrying mode. That completed, he went off to work on other projects.
Several hours later, Thing 2 stuck his head in. “We’re going home for the night,” the Jeha said. “Kleena said to check on you.”
“You’ve checked,” Sato said. The Jeha looked at him for a second, his tentacles waving.
“You are correct. Farewell.” He left, and Sato smiled. Jeha were so literal. After a time, he got up and walked out of his lab. Acting like he was going around checking instruments, he toured the entire facility. Nobody else was there. Satisfied, he went back to his lab and brought several robots online. The utility bots picked up the packed CASPer and followed him as he took the back route to the nearest shuttle bay. His personal craft waited there.
Sato had learned to pilot a spaceship his first year away from Earth. It wasn’t difficult, really. After he’d gotten pinplants, it was beyond simple. He’d written all the automation subroutines for the Winged Hussars small craft the second day after he’d arrived. Now any Hussar with pinplants could fly a shuttle using coordinates and a command code. He had both.
“Shuttle 669, this is Prime Base flight control.”
“Shuttle 669,” Sato said. His pinplants reported he was five kilometers from his destination.
“Shuttle, flash your authorization please. You are entering restricted moorage.”
“Here’s my clearance,” he said and used his pinplants to transmit. The response came in just a second.
“You are cleared, Mr. Sato. Destination?”
“EG2,” he said. “Thank you.” Outside, he could see the unusual Egleesius closing. Both of them had temporary mooring modules hooked to their hulls. Since nobody had been inside them, the ship’s station-keeping systems weren’t functional. He’d picked #2 because it was in the best shape of the pair. Neither of them were in terrible condition, and the Hussars’ yard engineers said they were space worthy.
The shuttle was abreast of the ship, and Sato examined its 180-meter length. So like the Pegasus, especially this close up. Unlike the Pegasus, though, this one showed considerable unrepaired battle damage. Energy weapons had carved into its hull, leaving deep gouges, deeper than Pegasus could have survived. The much thicker armor was one of the first signs that the ship wasn’t the same class. A few of the weapons impacts had penetrated. The holes were, unfortunately, too small for his CASPer. He could have used a Mk 8, but it could carry far less equipment and instruments.
He flew the shuttle on direct control, using his pinplants to send specific commands to the thrusters. Skimming along a few meters from the hull, he passed one of the four centerline attachment points. Pegasus and the other four Egleesius also had them; the difference was this ship didn’t have airlocks there, too. In fact, a detailed 3D mapping of both unusual ships showed no airlocks anywhere.
“So where do I get in?” he asked, his voice sounding tinny in the cockpit. The two work bots he’d brought along had no comment; they remained clamped to the hull. The shuttle was close to the bow, and he slowed its progress. It came to a stop next to a feature common with Pegasus. Oversized maneuvering jets.
“They’re bigger than I thought,” he said. Of course, he’d seen the specifications on the schematics, but seeing them in person was another matter. Powered by hyper-efficient rocket engines, the vacuum-optimized nozzles were built into the hull and the exits were big enough for his shuttle to stick its nose in. “Oh,” he said, and looked over his shoulder. “Oh, hell.”
Using his pinplants, he accessed the schematics of the maneuvering engine. It took a couple seconds to fully review its construction, and more importantly, how to take it apart. Then he examined the overhaul reports from the dock workers who’d handled the refit of Nuckelavee, the Egleesius requiring the most extensive breakdown. Slowly, a big grin cut across his face.
“Wake up kids,” he said to the bots as he floated aft. They both instantly came alive, green status lights glowing on their egg-shaped chassis. “Time to work.”
When the CASPer was open, it barely fit in the cargo hold. Once inside, Sato triggered the shuttle’s automatic egress system. The atmosphere was pumped out, and the big rear door opene
d. He used his pinplants to fire the suit’s maneuvering jets, and the CASPer backed out of the hold. A second later, both bots followed.
He maneuvered the few meters over to EG2’s hull and magnetically clamped himself on the lip of the maneuvering rocket nozzle exit. It was huge, now that he was standing next to it, but he knew it got a lot smaller inside. “Kids, program.” Both bots flashed blue twice, ready to be programmed. Using his pinplants, he sent the instructions. With puffs of compressed gas, both fearlessly dove into the opening and disappeared.
Sato watched via remote UV camera as they found what he had expected and began cutting through thick carbon scoring. In moments, one of the releases was revealed.
“Bingo,” he said. He released the hull, flipped over head first, and thrusted into the nozzle. Just like he expected, it got cramped fast. Tucked inside the Mk 7, he felt slightly claustrophobic. Like every other time in his life when Sato felt himself limited by external stimuli, he clamped down on the emotion and suppressed it. “You won’t be the master of me,” he whispered over the sound of air circulation motors.
The second bot found what it was looking for, and the two machines worked ancient latches. He had just reached the point where the CASPer could go no further and was examining their progress when the two machines succeeded, and the ancient maintenance access hatch on the nozzle bell swung inward, allowing him access. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Sato sent his two bots in and followed right behind them.
* * *
Avenger One, Winged Hussars Shipyard, New Warsaw System
“That’s it?” Thorb said, leaning over to look at the targeting screen in front of Walker.
“That’s it,” Walker confirmed, panning the camera across the EMS Dragon as the formation flew past it. “The first ever Human-manned fighter/bomber carrier.”
“Manned?”
“‘SalSha’d and manned’ was too much of a mouthful,” Walker replied, giving the alien a look of displeasure that Thorb completely ignored. “It’s the first one our alliance has ever had.”
Thorb looked out of the craft to check the positioning of the other Avenger on his wing and commed the pilot, a SalSha named Willt, to get into position.
“What are they doing there?” Thorb asked as he looked back at the monitor and caught sparking along a brightly-lit section of the ship.
“Looks like they’re cutting out the manning hatches.”
Thorb cocked his head and stared at Walker, obviously waiting for more information.
“The Dragon used to be a drone carrier. The crew would prep the drones in a shuttle bay-like facility, and then they would attach them to the side of the ship for immediate launch when needed. Those attachments are all over the exterior of the ship. Now that we’re flying manned—SalSha’d—craft, we need access to the bombers without having to crawl across the hull of the ship to get to them.”
“That makes sense,” Thorb replied. “Am I missing something, or do most of them appear to be near the aft end of the ship?”
“No. The majority of the access points will be toward the aft end, because that’s where most of your quarters will be. They’re changing over some of the reaction mass stowage tanks into habitats for you. Since the ship uses water as reaction mass, you get a fluid environment to live in…until it’s needed for the engines, and then you have to live like us. Also, that will let them fill the bomber cockpits up with water easier when they are man—when they are crewed by two SalSha.”
“That seems like a lot of work.”
“It is…and it costs a lot of credits to make these changes. Obviously, Commander Cromwell believes in you.”
“Good,” Thorb said. “We will not let her down.”
* * *
Egleesius Cruiser “EG2,” New Warsaw System
The inside of EG2 wasn’t as interesting as Sato had hoped it would be. Nothing worked. He’d been floating in the huge corridors for two hours without finding a single thing to pique his curiosity. His modified Mk 7 CASPer was using inertial navigation and laser plotters to map all the corridors, and he was quickly building up internal schematics for the ship. It was quickly obvious that, while the ship might look like an Egleesius from the outside, it was anything but on the inside.
He stopped at a junction of two corridors to take a drink from the suit’s supply and grab a piece of jerky. The suit contained enough food and water for 5 days, and life support for 30. More than enough for this little expedition. He’d been designing this suit for just such an opportunity. Kleena kept far too tight a leash on him most of the time. He missed the freedom of being out on his own. He’d come within 39 light minutes of the event horizon of a Class 2 black hole once. Now that was science. The four-hour dive in and out had cost him three and a half years in the real world, but it was worth every second. Someday, he’d go back and come within one light second!
As he chewed the jerky, a favorite among most of the marines, he glanced at one of the many power panels he’d seen while exploring. It was a standard power control/distribution panel, and it was quite dead. He’d opened three of them so far and, using sensitive probes, had verified there wasn’t so much as a single volt flowing through them. Maybe the system just needed some power?
He recalled his two bots and grabbed their legs, letting them tow him along. As they moved, he examined the hallways. Completely circular, at least three meters across. There were indented notches everywhere. He figured they were probably handholds, but each one was only around six or seven centimeters across. Not very big by most race’s standards. elSha wouldn’t need them, either. The surface of their hands allowed them to grasp most surfaces. He realized there were no ventilation systems anywhere—the interior of the ship was in vacuum, and it may always have been!
“What is this thing for?” he wondered as his lights illuminated the way aft. Roughly halfway back he came to a cross corridor. There had been two other passages previously, but this one didn’t extend around the perimeter of the hull, this one went inward. He consulted his map, superimposed over an outline of the ship’s exterior. “Dead center fore-to-aft,” he said in the CASPer’s interior. This is where the CIC would be on a normal Egleesius-class. He took the turn. It didn’t go as far as it should have, coming to a quick end at a pressure door as wide as the corridor. It was also visibly welded shut.
“Who would weld a CIC closed?” he thought. Examining the schematic again, if this was the entrance to this ship’s CIC, the space on the other side was more than 20 meters across. That was huge—at least twice the size of the one on Pegasus. Why have a CIC that large? “Maybe this is a fleet command and logistics ship!” he said. A few races used them, after all. They were also usually built on the hull of an existing design! If he was right, Alexis Cromwell would be quite excited by the news as it would represent a new capability. She would surely excuse some small latitudes in the execution of her orders, then.
Mounted on the bulkhead to the side of the welded door was something just as curious. It resembled, to some degree, a portable Tri-V box. Those were old technology, dating back to this ship’s era, so that was what it probably was. You’d lean forward and put your face in front of it to see the Tri-V projection. The box predated the development of the single Tri-V projector arrays. Of course, that was the kind of stuff the Science Guild didn’t mind allowing to be invented. Boring stuff that didn’t make a real difference.
He leaned forward enough for his CASPer’s main cockpit camera to reach the viewing field edge. To his surprise, it came alive!
“Oh!” he exclaimed as a bizarre lattice of lines danced, flashed, and created intricate patterns. It was almost hypnotizing. But what did it mean? After a moment, it stopped, and some text appeared. Sato scowled. He could read 92 alien languages and recognize over 200. This wasn’t one of them. That annoyed him. He started digging into his pinplants, where he had stored thousands of files. It took quite a bit of time.
He only knew of one Human with as many pinplants as he had—
Sansar Enkh. His were a great deal older than hers, dating back to the beginning of pinplants for Humans. He’d wanted to pick her brain and examine the models she’d had implanted. The Golden Horde liked to be edgy. He liked that.
It took an entire hour to find what he was looking for. A file he’d saved years ago, during his brief stay at the Science Guild. It had to do with obscure programming techniques. He’d kept the file because it represented an aberration. He could find absolutely nothing else on that language anywhere in the archives of the Science Guild. The one he’d found was buried in reference material related to several operating systems.
He plugged the file into his primary pinplant translator matrix. It chewed on the data for a second, then it rendered a translation. “FUEL DEPLETED.”
“Well, no shit,” Sato said. “Power? I might be able to fix that.”
A few minutes later, he reached the rear of the ship. Luckily, the pressure door leading into engineering wasn’t welded closed, like the one into the CIC had been. He had the bots lever it open and swept the area with his lights. Here and there, a few indicators glowed. So, it wasn’t dead entirely. He set about investigating.
Alexis Cromwell had explained that when her ancestors found Pegasus, it was in a state much like this ship. They had only needed to give it a few tweaks, and it had woken up.
He surveyed the rest of the space and saw rack after rack of bots. They looked like flattened trash cans and were more utilitarian than his little bots and twice their size. They even managed to look menacing hanging on their hooks. He forced himself to laugh. They’re just mechanical bots.
Sato overlaid the technical schematics of the Phaeton’s engineering space with EG2’s. Despite there being four fusion power plants, even larger and more crowded than the other ship’s, all the connections and tankage lines were the same. He smiled and used his pinplants to connect with the Hussars’ material management system and entered a request. The response took longer than he expected. He began to wonder if someone in logistics had questioned why he was requesting spaceship fuel, but he had the authorization. The response arrived; en route. With a grin on his face, he waited.
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