He had been allowed to pick his team with few exceptions. The ships architect had been dejected he thought. Mina the uppity biogenetic specialist was not his choice and he avoided her when possible. They usually communicated with text through the network to avoid the uncomfortable interaction. She had been responsible for the computer and armor fitting since she had perfected the systems and made them work in tandem well. He wanted to slap that permanent smile off her face when he had the unpleasantness of actually being in her presence. Who was he kidding, even her communiques made him want to slap the smile from her words. He hoped is assessment of the captain was off, he really didn’t want to deal with a pigheaded—. He let the thought trail off.
“I apologize for my tardiness, there was a problem charging the water tanks aboard the Relentless. I am Chief Engineer Galloway, I am the one responsible for operations here. I will be briefing you on the capabilities of the ship as you get settled in and assisting with space trials once she ready to get underway. I imagine you are excited to see your ship. Come with me,” he said excitedly gesturing towards the door.
A small shuttle entered orbit around the small moon with Galloway at the helm. The stardock grew quickly in the windscreen. Sean felt the drag on his body against the invisible restraints when they slowed abruptly as the shuttle approached the stardock. The stardock was a spider looking structure, a large flat round space station with eight legs wrapping under and cradling the ship. Galloway slowed even more as he piloted the shuttle in a long arc to allow Connor a good look at the ship in its cradle. The cloud of water crystals was still floating next to the starboard hydro coupling, and starting to trail off against the orbit, Galloway frowned.
The Relentless was small by warship standards, about one hundred eighty meters across the main body. The seams in the armor made her resemble a mechanical sea ray with smooth dark skin he thought. The oversized engine pods extended on spars from each side of the ray. Sean noticed that each engine pod was half as large as large as the main body of the ship and of a design he was unfamiliar with. No windows were visible and the absence of light spilling through portals reminded Sean of a derelict craft.
“No windows?” Sean asked.
“The armor covers them unless viewing is required.”
“What kind of subluminal drive does she use?”
“Quantum vacuum drive with vectored exhaust. She can accelerate and brake faster than her inertial dampers can compensate for. She can also out maneuver anything in the fleet her size.”
As they rounded the front of the ship the captain could see torpedo launchers on the edge on each side of the main airlock. The aft section of the ship jutted out from the edge to form a landing pad and housed a small hangar bay, not large enough for a fighter contingent but she could carry small assault shuttles or fighters. Two, maybe three he guessed. Smaller, redundant EM propulsion units were nestled in the hull on either side of the hangar bay.
“How many torpedo launchers?” Sean asked as they passed one of the large round opening in the aft.
“She has four in all, two forward and two aft. The primary torpedoes are fully guided with antimatter warheads. She can also fire plasma charged slugs with no guidance only giving you a ninety degree firing arc cone, all forward momentum is supplied by the launch tube. Before they are fired, one meter tungsten alloy slugs are encased in plasma which is held in place by a weak containment field powered by a capacitor in the sabot itself. The range is less than that of traditional torpedoes but the damage they inflict toe to toe is well worth the tradeoff. She has kinetic orbital bombardment capabilities as well. Around the hull are twelve plasma cannon arrays, four dorsal, four ventral, two forward and aft. Eight plasma-charged quad rail guns which can be automated or controlled by a gunner manually, they fire tungsten alloy rounds.”
“Relentless shuttle you are on final approach, auto landing sequence engaged,” a voice said over the radio.
A flash appeared on the control panel.
“This is Relentless shuttle. Acknowledge, auto landing sequence confirmed.”
The shuttle slowed as the autopilot piloted the shuttle into the hangar, the plasma window flickered and danced around the skin of the shuttle. It settled down next to another shuttle and another familiar ship, Connor’s Raptor. He could identify it by its markings and his call sign “Scorch” next to the cockpit. How did it get here? he wondered as the shuttle touched down.
“Magnetic locks engaged,” a female computer voice said as the engines powered down and their hum dissipated. The hatch hissed open and the two exited the craft.
The shuttle bay was not big, two shuttles and his Raptor filled the bay. The familiar odor of ionized air from the plasma window was present in the air. There was a three meter wide set of blast doors transversely from the hangar doors and there was a row of windows above that, no doubt a control room. In front of the windows was a catwalk with stair down both sides and a door led to the control room to the left of the windows.
They exited the shuttle bay through the bottom door. It opened into a wide hallway. Galloway spoke as they walked.
“This corridor leads directly to engineering. The doors on the sides here are cargo bays.”
They reached another blast door, this one was convex. It opened as they approached. The room was round with a domed ceiling it was lined with consoles and displays. In the center was a globe shaped device with long cylinders protruding from two sides extending past the walls into narrow openings. Stairs went up and over the cylinders so one could get from one side of the room to the other. He could see a hole behind the guard rail that encircled the machine, only half of the device was on this level.
“And this magnificent device is the vacuum energy generator, collector, and power distribution node. The globe in the center is the collector, the cylinders are the generators themselves and down those corridors at the end of the generators are attached hyperdrive generators. The hyperdrive generators use so much power we tied them directly to the vacuum energy generators. We have a standard gravity drive as well, its containment field is tied directly to the collector too. It’s underneath us.” Galloway pointed down. “With every system operating at one hundred percent load, the VEGA is still not used to full capacity.”
Galloway walked over to a display screen with a schematic of the ship as he spoke, “The enhanced hull plating is a low density, low mass, ceramic composite that absorbs and dissipates heat and various types of electromagnetic radiation which makes it difficult to detect. It protects against heat and radiation based weapons such as plasma and particle beams. The material is nonmagnetic, it’s not electrically conductive and non-reactant to most chemicals. It is designed to defend against solid projectiles from micrometeoroids to space borne artillery. The latter may cause significant damage depending on mass and payload if any. The inherit heat resistant design also makes the hull capable of atmospheric reentry. Sensors placed in layers throughout the plating relay multiple types of readings including temperature, radiation type and strength, depth of penetration from projectiles. She has a thick bionanotech ablating armor over the enhanced hull plating which is capable of repairing damaged areas.
The ships computer is biotech, it’s an organic neural network similar to a human brain but capable of storing and accessing its collective memory way more efficiently than we ever could. It dramatically reduced the size of the standard computer. Everything in this ship is new technology with multiple redundancies, except the jump drive. No other ship in the fleet comes close to her capabilities.”
“Galloway?” A female voice interrupted over the commlink in his ear.
“Yes, go ahead.”
“We need your assistance in systems integration.”
It was Mina. Galloway sighed visibly.
“On my way,” Galloway replied agitated.
He hated dealing with her.
“I’m sure you have lots of questions but I do not have time to answer them all right now. Your quarters
are here,” Galloway said as he pointed to a location on the schematic. “Your bags are there. I’ll come retrieve you in the morning. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go babysit.”
Connor paused to reflect a moment, he tried to remember if Galloway had caught his breath during his monologue. After playing it over again in his mind he did not believe so.
After Galloway made his exit, Captain Connor decided to walk around the ship. He made himself familiar with the layout in engineering. Every system on the ship had a console here, the circumference of the room was workstation after workstation. There was even a helm control here allowing the engine room to be used as a bridge as well if the need arose. At any one time during normal operation you may not have someone at each console but a pull out stool of sorts was tucked underneath each one so a person could sit and work. The Vacuum Energy Generator Assembly or VEGA, as he saw on some terminals as an acronym, was beautiful to watch operate. Swirling clouds of angry energy like a lightning charged nebula filled the cylinders on both sides of the collector.
He grabbed a tablet from a holder on the wall and played with it a moment. People discovered no matter how small or thin you could make a device there was only so small it could be and remain functional. This one was smoke colored, thin with a large screen, eight by ten. He waved the tablet next to the VEGA console. The screen flickered to life as it loaded information from the terminal to the tablet. He pulled up ship schematics on the tablet so he had a map of the ship in hand for his wandering.
He left engineering heading towards one of the torpedo loader/charger assemblies. He was curious to see how they charged the slugs with plasma before they were fired. Normally torpedoes were metal hulls with a propulsion system, guidance and a warhead of antimatter. Plasma charging, Galloway said, aided in shield penetration and would easily penetrate hull plating no doubt. The storage bays for torpedoes in older warships had been buried deep in the hull to avoid secondary explosions from antimatter warheads. Today’s warships could place them close to launch tubes and fill the warhead with antimatter for yield per torpedo. The antimatter storage would be close to the core of the ship but his interest was in the plasma casing that made these unique.
The door to the launcher was locked, it required hand scan and code verification like main computer access. A Union officer’s code was unique and would usually work anywhere. He was unsure if his would work but he tried it anyway placing his hand on the panel and typing his code. His name appeared on screen with his rank and the door slid open. The room contained two consoles and several monitors. A large window on the opposite wall separated the actual machinery from the technicians. An access door to the left of the window would allow technicians to enter to perform maintenance. He decided to just look through the window for now. Inside was a large spherical metallic object with large hoses attached. From the bottom a large tube protruded and disappeared into the floor. All of that was contained in several arching beams of some sort maybe for magnetic containment.
He left the torpedo room and headed for the bridge, no doubt he would spend the bulk of his time there. On his way he passed a few technicians working on various things or walking down corridors. Every ten meters of corridor had bulkheads that could extend to create choke points against boarders. Sean had seen a lot of ships and none had that feature, most simply had bulk head doors to compartmentalize the ship but this architect went a step farther. He made his way to the bridge. The door to the bridge was a thick bulkhead door with similar security measures as the torpedo room. He opened the door and entered.
The bridge was a large roughly oval space. Dominating the front wall was a large viewscreen. In front of the viewscreen were two pod looking seats, helm control he figured. Behind those set a little ways back were three seats, the captain’s chair in the center and two others. Set behind and off to each side next to the wall were two work stations. All of the seats formed a triangle and the floor was gently sloped around the command chairs down to the helm.
He walked down the ramp and sat down in his command chair for the first time. He liked the way it felt, the chair wrapped around his body comfortably. The chair had controls for virtually everything, he could control most of the ship from here if need be. He played with some of the chair functions, it could adjust up and down and back and forth. It had foldout controls to fly the ship manually, he guessed a captain could be a one man show. He laughed to himself. This most remarkable piece of hardware was his, he was proud of himself and excited about this ship.
Sean felt like a kid again pilfering around a new starship. The lights were low level simulating night and it reminded him of when he used to explore the ship his adopted father captained. He would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and walk the corridors and go places he normally wasn’t allowed to go. He hopped from his command chair and practically skipped the short distance to the helm.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said to himself as he sat down at the controls.
The seat itself was contained inside an elongated almost egg shape with open sides. Inside was a comfortable reclined chair with controls that shared similarities with a fighter, two joysticks and foot pedals, display screens and HUD. Both joysticks rotated up for entrance and exit and they also appeared to have some weapons controls. Awesome. This ship was amazing. He might have to take captains prerogative and pilot the ship out of stardock himself.
Captain Connor was excited about commanding this ship. He was interested to see the rest of the ship and he planned on spending a lot of time exploring the ship. He felt it was important for a captain to know every corner of his ship. Jennings also mentioned he should see the ships avatar today as well so he decided the computer interface room would be his next stop.
Captain Connor made his way to the computer interface room. He felt like a kid again. Something about a new ship and the low light triggered memories from his time aboard his adopted father’s ship. Thoughts of the attack that killed his parents crept into his mind. He was young when the Telarians attacked his home world, Nova. He and his sister Monique had been playing in their living quarters while their parents cooked dinner. The initial attack had hit the building and destroyed the kitchen area collapsing the ceiling. After discovering his parents had been killed he grabbed his sister’s hand and they ran through the complex which by this time was badly damaged and littered with debris and bodies. They tried to make their way to where his father told him to hide if this ever happened, a small bunker outside the living quarters. Explosions rocked the ground, the air was thick with smoke and dust. He couldn’t find the bunker. He didn’t know where else to go so he decided to run away from the complex into the wilderness. They had little time to think about their parents whose bodies would be found crumpled underneath tons of debris from the ceiling. They only had time to run as explosions rocked the world around them. In hindsight leaving saved their lives, the bunker his father told them to hide in was pummeled into dust along with the rest of the outpost. The Telarians left no survivors. As he reached the door to the computer interface room he shook those hurtful memories from his head.
He opened the door to interface room. The lights inside blinked to life and the familiar octagonal pattern appeared on the walls as he entered. The avatar materialized in a strange humanoid form with no discernable facial features. The appearance was somewhat sickening and disturbing.
“Welcome Captain Connor,” it spoke in a monotone female voice.
“Is there something wrong in the interface?” Every avatar was modeled after an architect. He doubted the architect was a featureless humanoid, “Your avatar is appearing without features.”
“The interface is functioning properly Captain.” She responded. “I am a new generation of synthetic intelligence unlike any you have had experience with. My avatar will not be my architect’s persona. My likeness will be a female form generated by my neural network as I come online.”
“If you have not been given an avatar why not a male?”
he asked perplexed.
“The architect that my neural network is constructed from was female. It was decided that a male likeness would cause conflicts of undetermined origin,” she responded in a more natural female voice. “My avatar is already adapting to my neural patterns. It will be just a minute.”
Thin, brown almond eyes began to form. Long, deep brown hair, almost black with a hint of blue began to grow. It draped over her shoulders in long, curls, face length bangs framed her face. She was just over one and half meters tall, shorter than himself and wearing a nanosuit with the Relentless shoulder patch. She had the figure of a well-proportioned Bvaltari woman, young and energetic looking. Her nanosuit hugged her curves like it was painted on. She adjusted her suit by stretching her arms up then running her hands down her sides to her hips.
He felt a stir.
“This will be my physical appearance for the duration of my service.”
He liked the voice as well.
“Relentless—?” He started a question but she cut him short.
“You can choose a name other than Relentless if you prefer.” She responded politely. “The copy of the architect’s neural network and the fusion with this technology leaves me with no memories of the individual. In essence I am a blank slate. I have no recollection of name or appearance. It was important that I remain unseeing as well. From the moment I was brought online I have lived in the dark, unable to open my eyes.” The last part of her statement took on a somber tone. “It was important that I also not have an avatar until full integration of ship systems was ready to begin. It would have created a conflict of undetermined origin. Until today I have existed floating in darkness.”
Relentless: Book One of the Union Warship Saga Page 7
