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

by Hechtl, Chris

  “Yes sir. We actually haven't gotten to the shield yet sir. We've been working on one system at a time,” Jethro said with a shrug.

  “If you get stuck, move to another and do what you can. Try to get as much going as possible. How are the others doing by the way?” He turned to Riley.

  “We've got the humans, chimp, and other two cats outfitted. Ox is overseeing it now. He's good. Reliable,” Riley said.

  “I think we found you an apprentice,” the Major said with a smile.

  “Maybe. But he doesn't want to be nailed down to one specialty. Wants to see and experience a lot more engineering. Can't say I blame the kid,” Riley grimaced. “We were all young once.”

  “True,” the gunny said with a snort.

  “He's the last. Him and the Veraxin. I'm about half done building their suits. I'm doing one side, having them test it out, and then mirroring the other side. The good news is now we've got templates for others of their species for later.”

  “Good,” the Major nodded. “Carry on.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “I never got to thank you for saving my brother,” Bobby said as they trooped through the corridors to the college.

  “Glad we're doing this in the night shift,” Riley muttered shooting glances around, sure they were going to be busted at any moment. Jethro tried hard not to laugh. Riley didn't realize that a group of marines, one in power armor was one thing no one, not even station security was going to fool with.

  “What were you saying?” Jethro said as the lift door closed. He flexed his fingers. The claws came out and then went back in. Everything moved nicely. Smooth like glass, no snick or click like there was when they first got them running. Perfect. Nothing to give away that they were coming out until they tore into someone's flesh. He checked the sensors. It was wild, he could see a full 360 degree bubble around his body. Windows popped up in his mind when he focused on both front and rear. Sometimes it felt like he was floating out of his body. Above or around it. He could switch different views, different sensors, overlay things. It was an incredibly heady experience.

  “I ah, wanted to thank you for saving Danny. On the asteroid.”

  “Alpha platoon? What about it? Oh you mean he was with Rigatoni's team?” Jethro asked returning his attention to the programmer.

  “Yeah. He said he was stuck in a crack. Literally. Hurt, broken, and out of air and just about out of hope. You guys saved his ass.”

  “Actually that was Hurranna and Senjix the cheetah. I just did the grunt work. They went down after them risking life and limb.”

  “Oh. I'll have to thank them as well.” They felt a jolt and then heard a warning ding of approaching destination.

  “Okay, let’s see how many people we piss off when we do this. Ready?” Jethro smiled as he nodded politely to the slack jawed guard as the lift doors opened. “Training exercise. Get used to it.” He said moving off with the armorer and programmer in tow. Both men were looking down at tablets in their hands, checking the software as it began to cloak.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “I'm getting a peculiar rant from college security.” Matilda said with a perplexed grimace. “Care to tell me what happened?”

  “We couldn't get time in the other parks so I sent the recon suit to your area for a quick stroll. No harm no foul,” the Major replied spreading his hands apart.

  “Next time keep me in the loop,” Matilda said shaking her head. “You've got quite a few guys and gals trying to figure out that thing.”

  “Oh? Can you send me their report and copy of the video footage? I'd like to have the Intel shop have a go at it as well,” Logan said nodding to them. “I'd like to see how this suit handles security.”

  “It's giving Enrique the mother of all migraines,” Matilda snorted. “Which is good. Don't let that thing off Firefly though.”

  “Oh?”

  “I've gotten some scuttlebutt that some of the people in the latest crop of ROTC grads are being picked over for some militia group someone is putting together,” Matilda said frowning. “A few have dropped out when they were promised an instant rank of commander or above. Stupid fools. Surprised you didn't hear about it.”

  “I've been getting hints here and there. Someone dropped a couple hints to some of our supply clerks to lose equipment. They reported it to their chain of command.”

  “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.

  Chapter 17

  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.

  “Ma'am?” Jethro asked concerned. He shot a glance at his partner then returned his attention to the officer.

  “With the Admiral gone we can't build anything from the restricted list,” she said after a moment.<
br />
  “I heard that ma'am. I was wondering why we couldn't get into San Diego,” he replied cautiously. She nodded. San Diego was a micro Dyson sphere, really a Bernall sphere the Navy was working on as a base. Take an asteroid of the right material, pack it's core with ice volatiles, like say from a comet, then seal them in and superheat the entire thing and when the outside turned molten the inside would superheat into gas and inflate it.

  Which was San Diego in a nutshell. Or in this case a kilometer thick shell of a sphere about thirty kilometers in diameter. The station to be had finished cooling, they had cut the door with Firefly's weapons, but then work had stopped when the Admiral had departed the system. That had pretty much been the story for the entire system as one by one projects were slowed or stopped by his absence.

  Word was little or nothing was getting done in the yard. Work across the system had fallen behind, slowed, or completely stopped. Just when things were looking up they get a kick in the teeth and are back to the dark ages. Or backsliding that way.

  “The problem with San Diego is that there is something restricted? Her replicators Ma'am?” he asked when she didn't say anything.

  “No. But that's part of her problem. No the real problem is we don't have her power plants.”

  “Oh.”

  “And unless you can see an alternative... maybe dig some up under a rock somewhere...” she grimaced, lips puckering in a sour frown. Shelby wasn't sure why she was dumping this on a jarhead.

  Jethro thought hard. She put her hand on the hatch control. “Ma'am um...”

  “Spit it out marine,” she looked at him.

  “Uh, What about... those panel things?” he asked feeling lame.

  “What panel things?” she asked coolly, pausing and cocking an eyebrow up at him.

  “The ones that turn light to energy. Couldn't we use them?” he asked, feeling lame.

  She blinked at him in disbelief for a moment. “You are talking about... Solar panels?”

  “Yes, them ma'am,” he nodded, glad she understood him.