Awakening sf-2

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Without a space superiority deck crew, or fighter compliment or pilots her full company comes out to just under twenty eight hundred.”

  Ramirez sat down.

  Captain Valance went on. “This ship is made to carry one hundred twenty six fighters, thirty drop craft, five gunships and mission vessels with pilots. If we can get the manufacturing grade materializer running we could actually build a fighter in about twenty days. Using raw heavy metals during the construction process would cut that time by three quarters or more. Finding pilots and a maintenance crew who knows how to work with the technology is a completely different problem. This is a multi-role close combat carrier that was built to patrol outside the Sol system and carry out deep space missions. Wheeler stole it while it was in drydock undergoing repair almost forty years ago. According to what he tells me we were both put into stasis by the same people at the same time.”

  “Was he part of your crew sir?” Stephanie asked.

  “No, we were each in command of our own ships, each with a skeleton crew on some suicide mission. That's all I can get out of him aside from his command codes and a few insults. I'm going to keep him in the brig in that secure containment cell. I don't think he's finished telling us everything we want to know. Cynthia has been trying to find a security wall anywhere in the system and aside from a couple small files, no part of the ship is locked out. It looks like Wheeler had to disable all the internal security to get the automation working right.”

  “How many people can crew the ship with the automation systems running do you think?”

  “We could do it with what we have and get eight of the rail cannons working. Automation is down on a dozen cannons and sixty four more don't have any automation connected.”

  “With that much firepower we'd be able to stand toe to toe with most destroyer classes without fighters.”

  “We would, but getting those cannons running would take a full gunnery crew. With maintenance, commanders, gunners, and loaders we'd be looking over three hundred people. The only one we have that's been anywhere near a gunnery crew is Frost.”

  The door opened to admit Shamus Frost, just in time for him to hear his name. “Talkin' 'bout me behind my back?” he said with a grin.

  “Feeling better?” Captain Valance asked.

  “Aye, that medic is as much a doctor as I've ever met. Had to solve a few word puzzles before she let me go, wanted to be sure my head was right. Not that I minded, she's all woman, that one.”

  “That'll never happen,” Stephanie teased.

  “She's already agreed to havin' rations with me later, thank you,” Frost told her, pleased with himself.

  “One miracle after another,” Ramirez said with a wry grin.

  Frost just closed his eyes and shook his head for a moment. “With friends like these,” he whispered. “So what're you gettin' my name mixed in with this time sir?”

  “Captain was just saying you've been on a gunnery team.” Stephanie restated.

  “Aye, third generation. I've seen the nasty side of ships this size before, but none this modern, mind ye. Spent most of my military career on the gunnery decks, got sucked out of a breach once too.”

  “Have you looked at the cannons on this ship yet?”

  “Didn't even get a chance to look from the outside. I was too busy hangin' on for dear life in that undercarriage compartment.”

  Captain Valance brought up a holographic image of one of the rail cannon turrets. It was a four barrelled system that had room for two loading compartments and one gunner.

  “Oy, that's fifty years more modern n' anything I've ever worked with.” He moved closer to the image hovering over the desk and rotated it slowly. “One hundred eighty millimetre single fire barrels made for variable load. With the right ammo you could punch through just 'bout anythin'.”

  “The ammunition comes from materializers. There's one for every three turrets,” Captain Valance added. “The gunner and maintenance crews have bunk rooms near the gunnery posts so they can be there in a few seconds after the ship goes on alert.”

  Frost sat down and whistled his appreciation as an image of the ship layout came up, the emergency bunks and materializers were highlighted. “This ship was designed by people who knew what she was for, that's for sure. You couldn't tell just glancin' at her halls though, she's a beauty. I've never seen a Sol ship before.”

  “No one out here has. Earth is months away on the fastest ship, and they slag or capture anything that comes anywhere near the Kuiper belt,” Ramirez said.

  “How much damage did the Big Surprise do?” Asked Frost.

  Captain Valance sat down and turned the small holoprojector off. “It was contained to the hangars and workshops. From what Douglas tells me most of the systems down there are fine after a reset. He checked it out before hitting his rack.”

  “He's sleeping on the Samson?” Asked Ramirez

  “That's what he said.”

  “Why does that not surprise me. What will you do with her?”

  “It would take weeks to repair her. Most of the fine circuitry will have to be replaced.” The Captain sighed. “I'm thinking storage until we can spare the people to work on her. There's enough room in the hangars.”

  “So we're going to have a go at making this ship home?” Frost asked.

  Captain Valance looked at the three faces in front of him. “I want you three with me on this. The rest of the seasoned Samson crew as well. I need people I trust to stay on as core crew.”

  “Aye, I'm with you sir,” Frost said with a grin. “Besides, I owe you a few credits.”

  “Where else would I go? Besides, I can't wait to see what the First Officer's quarters look like,” Stephanie said.

  “I'll go wherever you tell me sir,” Ramirez agreed.

  Captain Valance smiled back at them. “Well, you're taking care of tactical Frost, start learning about the systems and try to tell me what we need to get things running properly.” He looked to Stephanie and nodded. “I think you should go find your quarters, get some rack time before we arrive at Enreega.”

  “Aye sir,” she replied with a smile.

  “And Ramirez, you're in charge of ship security. Take two people you trust and start exploring compartments. When you've swept an area send in a couple Aucharian newbies to collect and inventory anything of use.”

  “Aye, this should be interesting.”

  “But first, escort the former Captain and put him in the brig. Leave a man to watch him. I need someone from the Samson crew on shift at all times. If there's a way out of his brig, he'll know it, so we can't leave him alone. I'll take the first bridge watch.”

  “Are you sure Captain? You've been up for at least thirty hours.” Stephanie asked.

  “I couldn't sleep if I tried.”

  Loose Ends

  The holographic full length mirror stood in the middle of the room looking back at Alice. It was really a projection of what the six sensors in the cabin picked up so she could see herself in full scale moving exactly as she moved. She turned it so she could see the side profile, then from behind and shook her head. “This vacsuit's too thin.”

  “You said the last two were too thick and 'made you look puffy' yet there is only one point five millimetres difference. In the very few instances I've seen the two of you together he didn't focus on your physical appearance as though he were looking to pursue any kind of romantic entanglement. His cursory inspections of you indicate curiosity, and he seems far more interested in what you have to say.”

  “That doesn't mean I shouldn't pay attention to my appearance. I want to make the right impression.”

  “If you insist. He has been awake for over an hour.”

  Alice adjusted the colour of her vacsuit to a powder blue instead of the near white and nodded to herself. “That's better. What has he been doing?”

  “Looking through the Hart News archives, reviewing information on The First Light of which there isn't much, and clips on Jake
Valance.”

  Alice froze. She had been so elated at finding him that she had nearly forgotten that there was someone else with his face. The one she had gone to great lengths to rescue out there. “How is he?”

  “It's difficult to tell. He has been watching most of the footage without comment in the common room.”

  Alice picked up the arm control unit she had set out and left her quarters. He was watching a playback of one of Jake Valance's successful bounty hunts. The scratchy holographic footage was from some security sensor system and depicted Jake disabling and drugging a much larger man into unconsciousness. It took mere seconds even though the act was performed in zero gravity from in front of the target. He couldn't help but admire how Jake used the larger fellow's momentum against him.

  Alice took a seat across the wood textured round table from him. She always liked the common room, it had a pair of materializers intended for food and drink, a transparent ceiling, a long sofa along one wall, a holoprojector hidden in the center and eight comfortable chairs. Like everything else on the Clever Dream it wasn't large, but it was made to be very comfortable with subdued colouring, round corners, padded walls and dim lighting.

  Jonas looked around the hologram, leaning to one side, and smiled at her for a moment. She moved to sit beside him, giving him an uneasy look. “This didn't come up last night, but I'm sorry I didn't find you. I thought I did when I released him, if I had known you were-”

  “It's all right, there's no way you could have known,” he reassured.

  Alice persisted. “If I had known you were still in storage somewhere I would have kept looking.”

  “It's all right. I'm fine. I feel like Rip Van Winkle, missing about eight years but I'm okay. Besides, it looks like I've been busy in a way,” he said as he brought up Jake Valance's most recent public appearance. He was shaking hands with a public official, who it was was uncertain since the hologram was muted. “It's like watching your own shadow do some of the things you wish you could and other things you never would. I can't believe what he's accomplished.”

  “He's also done a lot I wouldn't,” Alice said quietly. “Still, before I knew he was a fake I saw him as my father.”

  “I wouldn't call him a fake. He knows everything I do, only he wiped himself out or suppressed the memories, I'm not sure which.”

  Alice looked to the hologram then back to Jonas. “He did it to himself?”

  Jonas nodded, his expression was sullen. “They introduced us and we realized that we had the same memories, the same need to make all the work they were doing meaningless. I think he's a framework, made of a new kind of skeleton with nanobot and materializer technology built in. There are also several digital storage devices built in and after we had a short conversation he decided that the only way they would stop trying to duplicate or control me was if he made himself non-viable. As far as he was concerned, he was me. He remembered everything I did, but at the same time he was aware that he couldn't be, he knew he was the copy. The last thing he wanted to do was erase his memory but he did.”

  “The information we found with him did say that his memories had been wiped,” Alice agreed. “When I saw him identified as Jacob Valance, I thought they had just renamed you. All your things were with him as well.”

  “My point is, in the first few days of his life he made a sacrifice I don't know I would if it were possible. After that incident they put me back under, not that they ever let me wake up completely. I was so drugged up when they took me out of the tube that it's all a sort of haze even during the few hours I spent with him. Looking into your own eyes and hearing your own voice come out of another body is hard to forget. I'm glad you got him out. He should be as free as I am.”

  “We're going to meet him. I didn't know where else to set course for. I was on my way there when Gabriel came after me.”

  Jonas laughed and nodded. “Gabriel woke me up a couple months ago. I didn't see the outside of that suite you found me in after that. I didn't even know I was in a ship until I saw the effects of a wormhole through the window. I was supposed to be a surprise gift for you. He never explained that you had downloaded yourself into human body so I thought you were still running amok in some computer system somewhere.”

  Alice couldn't help but laugh uproariously. “He's a little strange, way too obsessed with me. Bernice used to call him my interstellar stalker.”

  “That fits. I got access to a lot of the entertainment networks, he gave me reference information on neural technology, a couple of computing tools so I could keep myself busy.”

  “Speaking of computing tools,” Alice said as she put the three quarter length arm control and command unit on the table in front of him. “I materialized one just in case I ever found you again. It has the improvements I made to my own.”

  It looked a bit like his old one, but as he picked it up he realized it was lighter, only two millimetres thick, and perfectly flexible. The display was tuned to activate when his hand touched it and the operating system interface looked the same as his old one. “There's a materializer in here?”

  “Yup, four times as powerful as the one you used to use and its power cell is based on the newer ones Freegrounders use. The entire vacsuit is an eight fold energy collector.”

  “Eight fold, they used to be four.”

  “Now Freeground vacsuits and the control systems collect energy from motion, heat, light, any magnetism, waste electricity, pressure exerted from either side of the suit, friction and body waste if you just have no where else to go. The vacsuits also have cleaning and skin maintenance systems built in now.” She raised her hand up to show that it looked like she wasn't wearing gloves. “You can also make any part of it transparent.”

  “That must have been fun in testing,” Jonas said with a chuckle. “Thank you, I missed this.” He put the unit around his left forearm and it self sealed. The control interface came to life, presenting status information and pointing out where different devices were located, such as the emergency injector for treating injury and an up link wire for interfacing with other computers without using wireless communications. He looked at Alice then with a smile she had never seen before. “This is pretty unbelievable.” It came almost as a whisper. “I can't believe I'm sitting beside a woman who was once my artificial intelligence. Not only that, but you saved me from some crazed maniac who crossed the galaxy to get to you.”

  Alice was at a loss. She just didn't know what to say, it was like she was on display. She never felt so naked but coming from him it wasn't offensive. “You're welcome.”

  “I never said it, but after having you around for so long you were like the sister I never had. You knew me better than anyone.”

  “I always thought of you as my father,” she said quietly.

  “I think I'm still a little young to be your father, but I'd be proud to take the role,” Jonas said, taking her hand.

  A tear rolled down her cheek and she leaned towards him. He put his arms around her and let her cry. “I came into this body and there was nothing but fragments of her life left. They were all painful, disjointed, lonely memories and I was starting to think I was just continuing where she left off. I thought I was ready to be on my own when Bernice got married and stayed behind, and Lewis helps, but I've missed you s-so much.” She tried to take a deep breath but it was broken by involuntary shudders.

  Jonas comforted her, stroking her back and holding her close. “You're a gift. I am amazed at you, and not because you're some new technological feat, but because you're a being I thought I would never, could never meet like this and there were days I wished I could meet people and introduce you like the person you were to me. After you left I never took on another AI with a personality.”

  She held fast to him, quieting a little.

  “I had lost my best friend, and now here she is.” He pulled away from her just enough to look at her face and wipe away her tears. “I can't wait to introduce you to Ayan and Oz.”

&n
bsp; “I'm only what you made me,” she said quietly with a small smile.

  His reaction was a surprised one. “Maybe at first, but oh my God you've done so much since! I don't know who Bernice is, but I doubt she bought you this ship and let you run off, and you rescued me instead of being captured yourself. I saw that ship, spent two months locked in a room, a nice room, but still locked away. I tried to escape and couldn't. You're so much more than I can take credit for.” He paused for a moment then smiled, raising his eyebrows. “But can I take some credit? This would look pretty good on a resume.”

  She laughed and nodded, her chin still quivering. “Just keep me strapped to your arm whenever you can.”

  “Ayan might have a problem with that,” Jonas said quietly. It took a moment, but the reality of being away for so long sunk in and he buried the dark thoughts that threatened to overtake him. “You're important to me. More important than anyone, you're family.” He kissed her on the forehead and held her.

  She wept in relief and joy. It wasn't the hardened, dark Jake Valance who was accepting her, it was the one she had always known, the one she remembered and loved. “Thank you,” came her whisper. “Thank you.”

  Jonas patiently comforted her for several minutes before she sniffled and pulled away slowly. She pulled a napkin from a table drawer and blew her nose. “Feel better?” he asked gently.

  She nodded. “Uh-huh. Thanks.”

  “You have to stop thanking me. You saved my butt remember?”

  “Yup, and I'll get you home too. Too bad the ship will get there faster than any transmission, they won't have any warning.”

  “You always did like surprises.”

  “I guess I did,” she said with a far away look. “I remember a lot of things from before, but it's more like a dream.” Alice looked at him and put a hand on his shoulder. “It must feel like you're in a different universe. You must have a million questions and I'm falling apart on you.”

  “While I was sleeping you were having a life out here, pretty much alone from what I'm hearing, so I understand. Do you know anything about how Ayan is though? I couldn't find much.”