Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s all I ask.” she said, and she gave me hand a squeeze, “Now, what’s this I hear about you cutting up that bitch’s face?”

  12.

  That night, while resting in my cabin, I watched a few of the videos that Max had sent me. They looked like they’d been prepared to education someone who was thinking about pursuing the technology, lots of statistics and warnings. There was one video talking about the kinds of augmentations that were needed to take advantage of NP, and what types of implants one could gain. Apparently, there were several different types of Nano-proliferation. This was news to me, I’d always assumed you either had NP or you didn’t. I suppose it makes sense, once I thought about it, most technology was the same. There were always different ways to achieve the same result.

  The most common type were referred to as Specialists. They picked a field of applications and modded themselves out to better apply those principles. For example, there were Specialists who focused on thermal applications. Their augmentations tended to grant them resistances to extreme temperature ranges. Movers, Specialists who worked with gravity effects, tended to sport lots of sensors for picking up gravity and support Augs that allowed them to carry extra mass. Analysts, who used their nanites for scanning and data collection, needed massive data storage potential and computational devices built into their Augs. There were literally dozens of Specialist types, and those who take on multiple specialties were called Hybrids.

  A minority of Nano-proliferation users were not outfitted for any specialty, usually those who came into the technology through necessity or who found they had Augs that would allow them to use NP with only minor alterations, such as in my case. In the growing subculture that was NP use, these types of users were called G-Types. This was slang for Generalists. They were by far the most versatile, but that lack of focus also meant they rarely gained enough skill in any one field to be considered a true virtuoso of the application. I got the feeling that these vids were aimed at Specialists, since that did seem to be to correct way to get into NP in the first place.

  Another thing that I learned was from a conference regarding the capture and subsequent execution of a criminal that used Nano-proliferation to perpetrate his crimes. I remembered something of this case from several years ago, and was one of the horror stories surrounding NP. He was dubbed The Reaper by popular tabloids at the time, because he left his victims devoid of flesh. He used the nanites in his body to eat the meat from his victim’s bones. The video I was watching asserted that the Reaper was an already unstable person, who had a hidden fetish for cruel and unusual torture. As a Corporate man, his access to such technology was unfettered. He already commanded vast resources and it was no difficulty for him to outfit himself in private with the accoutrements and augmentations required to excel at his twisted fantasy. They surmised that it wasn’t the Nano-proliferation that caused his psychosis, but merely an outlet for an already unhinged psyche.

  The rest of the same vid included several other documentaries of the same theme, showing how NP was not the cause of the horror, merely the tool used to express it. I wasn’t fully convinced, but I could at least see their point of view. If a deranged star ship captain launched a class 4 weapon strike against a populated habitat, I’m sure there would be plenty of people calling for their outlawing.

  This kind of debate occurred all throughout history. It argued that just because man could, should he? As technological advances were made, each new insight into the future became the topic of fierce philosophical deliberation and argument. Ethical reasons why an avenue of technology should not be pursued were weighed against their potential benefits to mankind. The myriad ways that such advances could go awry, or be used to great harm were major obstacles in developing dangerous sciences.

  War, however, always seemed to be the great reprieve. History is full of wars that were the driving force behind great leaps in understanding, in the creation of new and terrible ways to rend life from the living. Governments, pushing their scaremongering and fear into the masses, caused the common man to forgo caution in favour of pushing the technological envelope. No other motivator has had as much an influence as war, perhaps besides exploration.

  The third great motivator was death. Restoring health, alleviating pain and prolonging life were the great drive in medical sciences, and it was this last cause that bore fruit to Nano-proliferation. The first recorded use of nanites to heal the body was nearly two hundred years ago, although in those early days of Nano-technology the nanites were crude and much specialised compared to today’s devices. They could be used to convert sugars in the body into blood, or remove toxins and repair damage. They could be used to target cancerous cells and infected organs. Eventually, as with other technological discoveries, more uses were found for nanites. The more common use is in the form of Nano-packages; single use nanites that could be programed to perform a function and then burn out, such as the scanner nanites that Fel was preparing to use. Engineering applications began to benefit from nanites as well, all a builder had to do was provide raw materials and a design and the nanites did the rest.

  Programing nanites became a much sought after profession, and it remains one of the few technologies and commodities that the Corporations don’t have a monopoly on. Nano-proliferation, still in its infancy, has only been around for a few decades and its worth, or danger, to galactic society is still being debated.

  The last of the vids that I watched were demonstrations and instructions on manipulating the nanites themselves. There were many references and techniques that were unfamiliar to me and I didn’t, for the most part, find these useful.

  I slept that night and dreamt of clouds of uncontrolled nanoscopic robots tearing me apart from within, and my crew were there with me suffering the same fate. Only they were screaming at me to stop.

  In the morning, I was down on Deck 2 sipping a mug of coffee, when Artemis joined me. I let her know she wasn’t welcome by giving her my best sneer. She ignored it, of course, and sat down anyway. She splashed a little hot coffee from the mug she held onto her hand and she swore.

  “So you do feel pain?”

  “Despite what you may think of me, I am human.”

  “And you do bleed.”

  “How’s your arm, by the way? I didn’t cut you too deep?”

  “I didn’t know you cared.”

  “Of course I do. I want your crew to succeed. It may surprise you that I do consider myself on your side, you know.”

  “I wish I could say the feeling’s mutual, but it isn’t.”

  “You just haven’t warmed up to me just yet.”

  “Kind of hard when you’re as cold as ice.”

  “I have a warm, gooey centre. I could show you some time, if you’re game.”

  “I thought you told Max you wouldn’t try and seduce me?”

  “A little white lie. She’s not my mother, and she isn’t yours either. We’d just be two consenting adults.”

  “One consenting adult, you mean?”

  She made a clucking noise.

  “Aw, don’t tell me you don’t find me the least bit attractive?” I swallowed, hard. I could feel my face heating up. She must have seen my face go red, because she laughed. “A woman can tell, you know?”

  “Tell what?”

  “When a man finds her attractive.”

  “We don’t all think with our genitals.”

  “Ha-ha,” there was that musical laugh again, “now there’s a little white lie if ever I heard one.”

  Zoe chose that moment to walk into the mess room. She walked to the auto-chef and dialled in a steaming hot cup of tea. She walked over to our table and joined us.

  “I hope you two are not planning a rematch? I’ve had enough of sewing up wounds this week.”

  “No, we were just agreeing to disagree about something.” I diplomatically explained.

  “Anything I can weigh in on?” there was Zoe, trying to
be helpful.

  “Of course! Three is always better than two!” Artemis said and launched into a giggling fit. She took the queue when neither of us laughed with, and she stood up and left, trailing a few more drops of coffee.

  “What was that about?”

  “Nothing, Zoe, she was just trying to confuse me.”

  She stared at the hatch that Artemis just left through for a moment, then turned back to me sipping her tea. I could see it was one of those natural varieties, herbal something or other.

  “Is bunking with her giving you any trouble?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “No, she keeps to herself mostly. You seem to be the only person she talks with. It must be very lonely for her.”

  “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for her?”

  “Not sorry, per se, more like pity. Is that the same thing?”

  “I guess not. What have you got planned today?”

  “Eric is taking me through the engineering spaces this morning, but after that I was going to take a look at some research I’m conducting for my thesis.”

  “I was hoping to continue our conversation we had the other day regarding my…um…condition.”

  “Okay, I can ask Eric for a raincheck…”

  “No, your ship duties come first.”

  “How about after lunch then?”

  “Deal. I won’t keep you from your research for long.”

  “Take as much time as you need, my research can wait.”

  I thanked her and finished my coffee as Crege came in, ordering a large bowl of cereal from the auto-chef. He sat down as I stood up and began a conversation with Zoe, between beakfuls of milk and sugary grains. I could hear her laughing as I left the compartment.

  The next few days were rather uneventful. I started going to see Zoe regularly, for about an hour every day or two, not really talking about much, just working out different feelings. I never really told her my full story, but she never pressed it me for it either. The scanner Nano-package completed its job and Eric and Fel began working on a way to remove the bomb. I kept watching the vids that Max had given me and started to educate myself properly on Nano-proliferation.

  I stayed away from Artemis as much as I was able, but I couldn’t avoid her entirely. She came down to watch Crege and me sparring a couple of times, and eventually she must have decided to make it a regular thing. It made me uncomfortable for her to watch me while I trained, and Crege tool advantage of my distractions repeatedly, chiding me each time he tagged me.

  Mal stumbled across the third bomb by accident, when we were almost two days out from the Jump Gate. It was mounted below a pressure manifold on the main water tank. We worked out that the bomb could probably be removed by pressurising the bomb and freezing it with nanites. Only problem was we didn’t have that kind of package on board. Max decide to add a cryo-nanite package to our shopping list when we got to the Harakiwa System on the other side of the Jump Gate.

  13.

  The day after Mal found the third bomb we had trouble once more. I’d mentioned before that there were several different ways to conduct combat in space. When a ship was underway, and travelling at great speeds, there was really only one way to try and take out another ship. When ships were entering the final stages of braking before reaching their destinations they were vulnerable to another type of combat – drone warfare. Why risk your ship when you can have a remote controlled craft do it for you.

  The idea was that when you knew a ship was going to be at low speed and within the vicinity, you could leave a squadron of combat drones and program them to disable a target. They’re small, fast and extremely hard to shoot down with conventional ship weaponry. The best way to deal with a drone attack is to launch drones of your own and let them mete it out. The Dreaming ran into a cloud of these bastards, as they were lying in wait for us with minimal power. Going dark is a sure way to avoid being detected by ship sensors, as they will most often be classified as a navigational hazard and minute adjustments to our course can compensate for it. When a swarm of them powered up at close range and began an attack run, a ship-wide alert sounded.

  I was second person to get to the command module, and Hergo was giving Crege a hand over on what he saw – which wasn’t much – before he dashed off in a hurry to get to his station below deck. Max was close behind me and busied ourselves hurriedly configuring our consoles for combat.

  “Drones,” hissed Crege as he took the Dreaming through a neck bending series of turns, “Cowards weapon.”

  “I’m here.” Came Fell as he crashed into his seat, barely managing to strap himself in before Crege took us through another bend.

  “Status!” barked Max.

  “Shields at full power, nine fast contacts dead ahead. Time to intercept forty seven seconds!”

  “Crege! Give us five gee’s of acceleration and head north seventy five degrees!”

  “Aye aye, kitrak!”

  “All hands, brace for impact!”

  I’m not on station! Help! Came a frantic text from Zoe.

  Where are you?

  Mess deck!

  I checked my console and pinged the closest person to her.

  Artemis. I need you to unbuckle and go get Zoe, she’s in the mess hall. You have thirty seconds. Acknowledge.

  onit luverboi

  I blinked. Did I mention I was slow around women?

  “Seth, deploy interceptors, on my mark!”

  “Roger, drone controls online. Link up paired.”

  “Deploy!” I activated the drone control link and the ship jettisoned several defensive drones we use just for this purpose.

  Seth! Artemis has me!

  Yeah just get into your cabin and lock yourself down in your bunk.

  My overlay showed me several screens that contained visual and sensor data from the inteceptors. These drones were different to the ones that were attacking us. Offensive drones need stealth to be successful, and strong weapons. Defensive drones needed good sensors, and point defence weaponry. I initiated a wide defensive screen formation, giving overlapping fields of fire and making sure none of the offensive drones could pass by without coming into range of the interceptors.

  What about my station? Zoe was talking about the med lab.

  Don’t worry about it, just secure yourself down. Hurry!

  Z secured. We’re snuggling.

  Thanks, Art. What, I had a nickname for her now? I berated myself internally.

  The drones passed the interceptors and sensors picked up several successful hits. My drones gave chase as the remaining drones made their attack run on the Dreaming.

  “Six contacts survived! Weapons fire detected!” called Fel

  The Dreaming shuddered and I could hear a staccato of loud pops as the drones opened fire.

  “Shields down! Breach detected forward cargo hold deck.”

  “Damage control teams to forward cargo. Breach detected.” Commanded Max over the PA.

  “Interceptors engaging contacts!” I ordered my drones into a wedge formation and dove them into the dispersing cloud of attackers. At the last minute I split them into two groups to try and drive them apart. If any survived they’ll be forced to spread their attacks across different vectors and won’t be able to concentrate their fire on a single section.

  “Detonations detected! Four contacts survived!”

  “Drone signatures detected at red three zero, sixty degrees south!”

  “More of them?” asked Max through clenched teeth. G forces were taking their toll on our bodies. “How long til intercept?”

  “Fifty nine seconds!”

  One of my drone feeds went black as the enemy drones fought back. The initial drone swarm was a distraction to get our interceptors out of the way. Now the main attack was to begin.

  “Separation of drone signature. Reading ten contacts!” called Fel.

  Shit, I thought, ten more drones! Things were not looking good. I only had five more interceptors, and they were
all tied up taking apart the four remaining drones from the initial assault. I had an idea.

  “Crege, take us around and come in at green one two seven on the level!”

  “Near our drones?”

  “Yes!”

  “What are you thinking, Seth?” asked Max.

  “At the last minute I’ll disengage the interceptors and have them screen the Dreaming. The drones should all bunch up when they’re not dogfighting my interceptors, and they should even join the new swarm. I’ll charge the Beamer and see if we can score some cheap shots.”

  “Do it!”

  “Beamer charging. Won’t have time for a full charge shot, but doesn’t need to be max power to take these out.”

  Crege swung the ship around and headed for the drone dogfight I had my interceptors in. Another enemy drone was taken out by me, but so was one of the interceptors. I had four more left to take three plus a new swarm of ten.

  “Captain, one of the enemy contacts is operating with a different signature than the other drones. I believe it may be a ship, small but not a drone.” Said Fel.

  “Prioritise attacks on the incoming drones, we’ll worry about the mystery ship once we deal with these bastards.”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  “Calak ahead!” called Crege, as we entered the first wave of drones. One more of the drones was destroyed by the interceptors before I ordered them to break away and form another screen. Crege swung us around and manage to clip one of the enemy drones, sending it tumbling out of control.

  “Drones engaging! Beamer tracking under manual control!” I took control of the beamer and swept it in the direction of the oncoming swarm as the Dreaming corkscrewed into a tight turn. The G forces were immense. I hear Fel whimper behind me. When I saw the interceptors engage the drones, I fired the beamer and lanced it into the enemy swarm.

  “Fel! Drone status?” I called, when there was no reply Max looked behind her.