Interstellar Incident: An Alicia Jones Novel 02

by D. L. Harrison

  I grinned, “So the world went on without me the last twenty-four hours? I wasn’t sure. Okay, I’ll look at all that and send out messages and schedule a few interviews. How’s Joe?”

  Kristi smiled and launched into describing her night last night. I was pleasantly surprised by the changes in Joe, he’d always seemed wishy washy to me, hot and cold. Joe and Kristi were often on for a few days and then off again. But things had been going strong for them for a while now, I hoped the trend continued for her sake. It was late when we both finally turned in for the night.

  By Wednesday morning General Denton had already gotten back to me, and said he’d have some time tomorrow. I figured I’d get to work on hiring an office manager all around assistant type person, and brought up a generated computer screen on my overlay, and started to thumb through the applications, and send messages to the ones I wanted to interview.

  I jumped in the shower before heading up there, and took a tour around the building before my interviewing started for the day. The building looked really good, and it made me want to go check out the house, but that would have to wait.

  I interviewed five people, the job required someone to keep track of scientists and run payroll, as well as being available to answer questions. The A.I. would help with most of that, but it all required human eyes as well.

  Two of them weren’t interested when they learned how much work it was, and I wound up picking the one I believed was most qualified out of the remaining three. Karen Shultz was in her mid-thirties, and seemed perfect for the job. She had experience in all aspects of the business, and was confident she wouldn’t have a problem keeping up with just a handful of employees without assistance.

  I set up her authorizations with the building A.I. for everything she needed to do, save the labs she had access to pretty much everything and would start tomorrow getting everything set up.

  I took the shuttle up to the house and did a walk through while the shuttle went up to the ship to return the four small fabricators before coming back to me. The house was beautiful, and it made me wish Nathan was with me so we could share the view out back. Kristi and I could move in at any time, we just had to find the time to pack.

  I had a few more hours to kill, so I sent a message to a Caroline Steadman who had a grant request out that looked interesting. She was doing some cutting edge research on nanites, although the application wasn’t very forthcoming with facts. I got that, she didn’t want anyone stealing her idea. She had a master’s degree, and was out of school about a year now and had been trying to get an independent grant, but was having trouble for some reason.

  Al said, literally in my ear, “Caroline Steadman is calling you.”

  Huh, that was fast. She must have her A.I. monitoring for grant related messages.

  “Put her on Al… Caroline Steadman?”

  She asked, “Yes, you messaged me about the grant request?”

  I replied, “Yes, do you have some time to speak about it?”

  She replied, “I’m on Long Island right now, visiting family. I should be back in Colorado Springs in a few days.”

  I thought for a moment, “Well I have a few hours now, maybe I could meet you somewhere?”

  She snorted, “You’re joking, you’re going to fly out here just to have a conversation that could wait?”

  I shrugged even if she couldn’t see it, “I have a shuttle that can get me there very fast, it’s not that big a deal. Unless waiting has more to do with your family than the distance, I can respect that and wait.”

  She sounded a little dubious, but said to drop in on her if I wanted. She was at her sister’s house and could spare a little time, and then she sent me the address and GPS coordinates. I grinned as I fed it to Al, and the shuttle shot up into space, reoriented, and was parked on the street in front of her yard before we’d even finished saying goodbye thirty seconds later. I laughed a little, a part of me was looking forward to the shock on her face.

  So… maybe I’m a little bit evil.

  I got off the shuttle as soon as we hung up, and was ringing the doorbell ten seconds later.

  A woman in her early thirties answered the door and looked at me shocked for a second, must be the alien thing again. I was getting used to it, very few people were ever disgusted, or looked angry. But shock at my appearance was as common as grains of sand on a beach.

  I smiled politely, “You must be Lia? Caroline’s sister? She told me I could drop by to discuss her grant?”

  Lia opened the door, “Come on in, she’s in the kitchen,” she said weakly.

  When we got to the kitchen, Caroline looked at me suspiciously, “Were you outside the whole time, how did you…”

  I shook my head, “No, my shuttle is just that fast, maybe I could show you later? Anyway, I was here to make you an offer, but I’d like to know a little more about what you’re doing first.”

  She looked at me a moment longer, “Take a seat.”

  Lia asked, “Something to drink? Tea, or we have coffee.”

  I nodded, “Thanks, coffee works, cream and sugar?”

  She asked, “Offer?”

  I shrugged, “I’d like to be more proactive than simply handing you money as an investment. The standard grant would give me forty percent control over your I.P. and any money earned from resulting patents. I’m thinking in addition to that, I’d like you to work in my building, and draw a decent salary.”

  She asked, “What’s the catch, same percentage, and you want to pay me on top of that?”

  I nodded, “It would keep costs down, I have my own fabricators and infrastructure, so even with the salary and lab space it would be cheaper for me than paying out the grant amount. The only other consideration I would ask for is first rights to manufacture, and if I did manufacture directly instead of us selling the rights, you would get fifty percent profit sharing.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it. I knew that was an unheard of generous amount. Fifty percent of the profits would be much more money than a mere sixty percent of the three to six percent per unit she’d get otherwise.

  She tilted her head, “Why?”

  I grinned, “I’m obsessed with tech, and finding new things to do with it, I already have money. My percentage will more than cover operating costs, and beyond. So it’s worth it, also, it will mean that most likely your next idea would be done as part of my company as well, because you’d have a stake in the profits. I’m looking for inventors, and scientists who create. I expect when your first idea is developed, you’ll stay with us when your next idea comes up. I suppose the only risk is if you retire, but I’ll take that chance. So tell me what you’re doing with nanites, all this may be moot anyway.”

  She frowned, and then nodded, “That sounds like a great deal, alright. It’s ironic you said fabrication, because I’m working on the next generation of fabrication. No large machines, just a swarm of nanites. There’s also a maintenance and repair version, where they would monitor for any wear or breakage, and automatically fix it. No need to take the car back to the dealer and run it through fabricator repair any longer.

  “The problem of course, is power. Medical nanites are feasible because they take the energy from the body’s electrical field, but taking raw material and building a… house for instance, takes a lot of energy. Fabricators are big and use fusion generators, but nanites are too small for that. Still, if I work out that issue the advantages are obvious, they build on the molecular level, so materials could be anything on hand, including dirt…”

  I nodded, “It seems like no matter what, that you’d need some kind of base station. Something that transmitted a high frequency low voltage electrical field they could feed off of.”

  She narrowed her eyes and seemed to reassess me, maybe she’d thought I was just a pretty face for recruitment?

  “That’s what I’m working on actually, the repair versions should be easier, like for the car or house they could pull of ambient energy from all the electrical
systems. The nanites have systems for induction and heat energy transfer as well. But to build a house in the middle of nowhere… I was thinking a satellite system.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it. That… was actually really clever. A very high frequency electrical field could be propagated for hundreds of miles without much energy loss. Simply point the satellite at an area, and blanket it in energy for the nanites to soak up. It would even work through most materials for nanites inside a structure.

  I nodded, “Okay, I’m sending a contract your A.I., if you’re interested, sign off on it and I’ll see you in the office in a few days. Take your time to read it over. Since Kristi, my partner, and I will have a vested interest in your success, feel free to use us as a sounding board if you run into any dead ends.”

  She thanked me, and watched as I got in my shuttle parked out front. I hoped she would sign on, and if I could add a couple of more people to get things started, I’d be satisfied for a while. I didn’t want to grow too big, I wanted to work with the best. Money was secondary at this point in my life. I also thought once a few inventions came out, there might be some symmetry we could find between them.

  There were a few other people around from the surrounding houses as well, looking at me and the shuttle as I took a seat, and I waved to Kristi before I had Al take us up, practically instantly moving a thousand feet per second straight up. We moved way too fast for human perception, I imagine it looked a lot like we simply disappeared.

  Maybe I still needed to grow up a little more, because I was grinning about it wishing I could see their reactions…

  Chapter 6

  Kristi was home when I arrived, done with class for the day. She grinned at me when I came in.

  “Guess what, my professor agreed I should submit my dissertation as completed.”

  I hugged her and said teasingly, “So I guess you don’t want to pack tonight then?”

  She sighed, and just looked at me and shook her head sadly, before she said, “I had so much hope for you.”

  I snorted a laugh, “We can move this weekend, or something, I’m just excited because I saw the finished house today. Forget that. Where are we going to celebrate, or are you going out with Joe?”

  She grinned like a proud parent, “Aww, little one, I knew you had it in you.”

  I glared at her and she held up her hands defensively.

  “Okay, I’ll behave,” somehow I doubted her veracity, “Joe is working, I don’t know, dancing?”

  “Did you want to wait?”

  She gave me another sharp look as if I was dense, “Nope, we can just celebrate twice after all.”

  I laughed, typical Kristi, “Alright… fine, club attire?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me know when you get a date for the dissertation defense.”

  She grinned, “Fine, of course I’ll tell you when and where my dissertation will be defended. We can celebrate that twice too.”

  I nodded, just giving up.

  It was still early, so we made dinner together and chatted. I filled her in on my day, both hiring the office manager and our first scientist if she accepted.

  She shrugged, “Is there a real advantage to that, we have portable fabricators after all.”

  I nodded, “The building part is only a small edge, I think the repair thing will be bigger. But picture dropping off a handful of nanites along with a mini-fusion reactor that creates a weak generalized electrical field. They could replicate more nanites, and then start building whatever they needed to build. Fabricators take more time and resources to create. With nanites we could seed hundreds of asteroids a day to build defenses for our solar system against enemy FTL ships and weapons. I suppose in the long run it’s just faster and a little more versatile.

  “The real breakthrough in it, is the self-repairing concept. Cars that never break down, buildings that don’t need maintenance, and other things like that. Even little stuff, picture going out to eat, and you spill food on your expensive dress, or rip it. Just hang it back in the closet to find it cleaned and repaired the next time you want to wear it.”

  She sighed, “I see it now. It won’t make the fabricator people happy though, especially the large businesses, like the one that built your ship.”

  I sighed, “Agreed, but advancement always makes waves in society. Life is change, and we can’t hold back, at least not until we’re safe from the Knomen.”

  We chatted a bit more over dinner, and then got ready. I obviously wasn’t in the market any longer, and I didn’t mess around on boyfriends, even if I wouldn’t see him for a long time. Dating one at a time was enough for me, and I didn’t do one night stands at all… ever. The three date rule was my gospel. Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t let down my hair and have fun dancing in a club.

  I put on a red strapless tube dress that hugged every curve, barely reached my mid-thigh, and showed plenty of cleavage. Last but not least I slipped on a pair of four inch heels, and put up part of my hair but left some down, I thought I looked great. I just wished Nathan could have seen me wearing this, we wouldn’t have made it to the door. The dress would have been scandalous anywhere except a club of course.

  Kristi was similarly dressed but in black, and she looked breathtaking. We were sure to leave a lot of disappointed men behind tonight. She wasn’t looking either since she had Joe, so most of the night we just danced with each other, but we didn’t turn down random dance partners either, we just didn’t let them buy us drinks, or dance with us for too long.

  As far as having purple eyes and spots? It just wasn’t a problem, apparently the kind of people that were anti-alien didn’t do dance clubs. If anything it seemed to make me more attractive to the men there, I got more attention that night than I ever had in the past. Perhaps it made me… more exotic? I did my best to be gracious in my refusals, and there weren’t any serious problems. Most of them just shrugged and went to find another woman to hit on, so we definitely had a blast.

  The next morning Kristi and I, not so bright eyed and bushy tailed, managed to get to the general’s office for our morning appointment. Oh, I was fine, I could live off a few hours’ sleep a night and did, but Kristi looked half asleep since we’d been out until about two thirty in the morning last night, or actually this morning. He was in there with someone else, and we had to wait about ten minutes before the lieutenant let us through to his office.

  “Good morning general Denton,” I said with a small smile.

  He raised his eyebrow, “What trouble have you brought me today? I got a lot of push back on the last round of upgrades.”

  I grinned unrepentantly, “Then you’re going to hate me sir,” I put a small metallic tube on his desk, about the size of a travel coffee mug. Yes, I know I’m obsessed with coffee, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it for the first time.

  He frowned and looked at it, “What’s this?”

  I said thoughtfully, “What’s that army saying general? One shot, one kill? That’s the magic FTL bullet. Just one will destroy any ship or missile traveling at FTL. It’s not perfect for what I had in mind in denying FTL ability, but it will have to do. It would force any enemies to fight below FTL speeds, or highly regret not doing so, and gives us an advantage I think. There are two other upgrades as well, thanks to Kristi. The anti-mass particle weapon got a plasma upgrade since its current form is now obsolete, so it does actual damage instead of field destabilization. The second one is just a software patch to make the missiles work below FTL speeds.”

  The General looked thoughtful for a moment, “I get the last two easy enough, but how does this thing work,” and he tapped the cylinder.

  “It has its own FTL drive and shielding. It’s just as fast as our other missiles in this size, but it has a much smaller reactor, so it can only go full speed for two days. In a battle that’s practically forever, so I thought the smaller the better. It will also be much harder to detect with a smaller power source. What makes it
so deadly, is when it gets in range of the target ship, it will create a gravity spike of two hundred gravities for a few milliseconds along the hull of an enemy ship.”

  He nodded and still looked uninformed, so I explained the science a little better.

  “The anti-mass particle weapons destabilized a ships anti-mass field by overloading one section with more anti-mass. This will do the opposite, anti-mass and gravity don’t mix. As soon as the gravity field hits the anti-mass field it will strip away all anti-mass particles for the part of the anti-mass field it intersects with.”

  He looked thoughtful and grunted, “Okay, that makes sense… sort of. But if that happens why does the anti-mass field work on Earth?”

  I grinned, “Good question. Because it’s only one gravity, and the field is constantly generating and stabilizing itself. Also gravity is uniform on Earth, so it’s effecting the whole field at the same time. But two hundred gravities, and only along a small portion of the overall field, will strip it long enough to expose the mass beneath the field to universal laws. It will simply turn to energy. The best part is the missiles fly next to the target ship and passes it head on, like two cars passing on a two lane highway. When the target ship turns to energy, the gravity missile will be moving in the opposite direction.

  “In theory the gravity missile can fly back to the originating ship when it’s done, and can even be refueled with hydrogen. So they won’t have to be replaced very often.

  “So picture five new very small landing bays, the size of a small closet, with a thousand of these things piled in each one, just like Shield it’s designed to self-propel itself via A.I. control, so… we don’t even need to use launchers. If we had these a couple of weeks ago, we could have destroyed all the Seltan ships with one craft, over a day away from their fleet in FTL. As long as they were in FTL I mean, if they just sat there… like I said, it isn’t perfect, but it should make battles more one sided, and even manage our enemies into sub-light.”