Olympus (Rise of the Empire Book 1)

by Ivan Kal

  Adrian opened his mouth and then closed it when nothing came out, his mind drew a blank. “But your voice doesn’t sound female,” he said stupidly.

  “I can change it if it bothers you; there are many available sound packs included in my matrix. The voice I now use is generic. But I would like to make my own voice. If you allow me access to a few samples of female voices, I can synthesize my own unique one,” the AI, or rather Iris, said.

  “Um…well sure,” Adrian said. He accessed his music data from his datapad, since he’d forgotten to transfer it last night. He chose a few female singers and sent it to Iris; then he found a few interviews of his favorite actresses and sent those as well.

  “Is that okay?” Adrian asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said. Adrian could hear a slight difference in the way she talked compared to last night. She seemed more conscious of the conversation between them, her answers less mechanic.

  “You speak differently than you did last night,” Adrian said.

  “The books you provided had many examples of human-to-human interaction. I am incorporating that knowledge into my speech patterns. Do you wish for me to stop?” Iris asked.

  “Not at all, this is a lot better. I’m sure that you will learn much more as you see me interact with other people.”

  “I am still processing the information you provided. And I will only learn from your interactions if I am left in active mode.”

  Adrian remembered that the AI had a passive mode where they couldn’t monitor anything that happened outside of their own datacore. He thought about it and made a snap decision.

  “You don’t need to worry; I won’t put you in passive mode unless I really require privacy. You will learn faster if you are learning alongside me,” Adrian said.

  “Thank you,” Iris said.

  Adrian went to breakfast and then to work. Iris remained silent for that time. His work was basically being Laura Reiss’s assistant. He followed her around the station, and sat in the meetings she and her team had to discuss the Fleet organization. The team basically reviewed proposals submitted by other teams and decided which were to be implemented. Besides listening in and giving his opinion when Laura asked, Adrian didn’t have much to do. So he focused on learning as much as he could. And now that he had an implant, he would be able to spend his free time in the simulators, which were a bigger version of the Fleet Commander game he used to play. The entirety of the game was in fact the same as it was in real life; it was a perfect simulation.

  Though none of the players really knew that. From the game, he learned most everything he needed to know about commanding a ship and a fleet. The game was made in such a way that winning the scenarios awarded points, which the player then spent on first improving his ship and later buying new ships, until he had enough to create a fleet of ships. The scenarios varied from simple transport missions, escort, and pirate hunting to major fleet actions against other fleets or stations. There were many customization options; players were able to buy different components and implement them on their ships or design new ones from available technology. Laura told Adrian that every piece of technology in the game was in fact within their capability to manufacture, and that they incorporated many ideas that the players had implemented in the game in real-life application. The simulator that Adrian would now use was far more advanced than his simple datapad game.

  The simulator interacted with the user’s implant in order to create a believable virtual reality. He would be able to walk through the ship inside the simulation and command a ship from the bridge. There were also devices that enabled the users without implants to enter the simulation. But Adrian would not need to use them now. He was told that since there had never been anything close to the kind of fleet they were trying to create, and as no one had any experience with commanding spaceships, they would all be scored based on their achievements in the simulators, and after a certain period be given a rank in the new fleet and a position that best suited them based on the simulations. The simulations would include many different scenarios. Some would put a person in command of a warship, others in command of a merchant vessel. Some simulations would be entirely populated with computer-generated people, while others were populated with other people who were running their own simulations.

  Sometimes they would be put in teams where they would rotate on the ship’s posts and be scored on their performance on each. Adrian knew that the simulators would be coming online within the next few days and that the other recruits for the fleet would be arriving then as well. He would also be joining them. Laura told him that most of them would be at least five years older than him, and some more. They were recruiting from all graduates of Olympus, even from those that went to military school and hoped to later go to the army. Adrian was a special case, being that he had been raised by Olympus. He was the only one that was invited from the younger population of Olympus, those that hadn’t yet graduated from higher schooling, as the Fleet didn’t accept applications. Membership was through invitation only. Hell, most people didn’t even know about the Fleet.

  Adrian reached the meeting room and entered. The meeting already started, so Adrian made way towards his place at Laura’s side and sat down.

  “So, we are in agreement about the ranking systems?” Oswald Mein asked the room. Before being recruited to fleet, he had been in charge of the cargo ships, and later in charge of the few military ships that Olympus had. Adrian had only found out that they even existed just recently.

  There were nods and affirmative answers around the room. He then looked at the ranking system on his datapad and nodded to himself.

  “Very well.” He sighed, “I must admit that the rank names sound strange to me. But I guess that the rankings we are familiar with now sounded strange when they were implemented. And I can see the need to separate us from the others.” He smiled, and looked at the room for any objections. It had taken them a couple of months to agree on every rank. Some wanted to transfer the Navy ranks from the countries on Earth, while others wanted Army or even Air Force ranks. They’d spent many meetings arguing until finally Laura had had enough and ordered new ranks invented. After no one spoke up, Oswald sat down. And Laura spoke.

  “Thank you, Oswald. Now, since we agree on this—and in the nick of time, as the first recruits are almost here—we need to discuss the plans for our shipyards.” She raised her datapad, tapped it a few times, and brought up the information she needed. It baffled Adrian why she didn’t just call for the information on her implant. And then realized that she, like most everyone in Olympus, was much older. Some even from the time before, when implants weren’t commonplace. He deduced that it must have been habit.

  “Alright, currently Olympus has three shipyards operational, with another one coming online in a month or so orbiting Jupiter. Now, we have thirty-seven ships given to us by Tomas—twenty cargo and transport ships, thirteen mining ships currently in the belt, and four warships also in the asteroid belt.” She looked at around the table for a moment, tapping her fingers on the table.

  “We have seven hundred recruits incoming, and not enough ships for them to use. Of course, they won’t be allowed on the ships for at least three years while they go through the training. But it still leaves us with a task of deciding how many ships we build and for what purpose. That leaves us with thirty-seven ships we already have. Their crew will be rotated with our more promising recruits, and they will attend the fleet academy for at least a year; since they already have experience, some will stay on to teach a few classes before returning to their posts. But the new recruits will need new ships.

  “Tomas gave us complete control over two of the shipyards to be used for the fleet, and he gave us the green light to build a maximum of ten new warships. It seems that the League and Concordis have started construction on their own warships. They are, of course, keeping it a secret.” She smirked, and the rest of the room chuckled. “With our technology and resources, we could buil
d twelve warships in three years, or sixteen of any other class. Now bear in mind that Tomas plans to cut us off in four years from his supply lines, and he allows us only ten warships; he wants us to be self-sufficient, meaning we will need to increase the number of our own mining ships and cargo/supply ships. But until then, we can rely on Olympus supplies. Any thoughts?”

  The rest of the room then discussed the pros and cons of various combinations, ranging from building all warships to all mining and cargo. The discussion continued until Oswald spoke up.

  “Do we have any information on the League’s and Concordis’s intentions?”

  “Our sources tell us that they sold it to their leaders as a precaution, and that they have no intention of starting any conflict. Though we did notice a slight increase in their military activity on the ground, but that doesn’t really impact anything in space,” Laura said.

  Oswald nodded. “And how much do we know about their ships’ capabilities? How many are they building, and how do they fare against ours?”

  “We have acquired all of their designs. Their ships have heavier armor, but are smaller. Ours are each a hundred meters long, theirs around eighty. Theirs use rocket propulsion, while our tech in that regard is much superior—our variation on VASIMR drives gives us much greater speed, and our ships are better armed.” Laura sighed. “We didn’t put any of our more advanced weapons on the ships. Tomas didn’t see the need, and he still hesitates with the more advanced tech.,” she shook her head. “He really doesn’t want to antagonize Earth.” she said in a way that clearly conveyed that she disagreed with that decision.

  “And also, he didn’t want to antagonize the Earth governments even more than we already have, in case they found out about the ships. So we have basic kinetic weapons, rail guns that fire metal slugs at a fraction of the speed of light. They might be crude and hard to aim at moving targets, but they’re still very effective when they hit. And missiles. We also have small laser emitters used for clearing debris or anything else that might endanger the ship, but they are low power. The designs that we have acquired show that their ships will be armed with missiles only, though of a slightly greater payload. And they will have a greater number of missiles on board. Concordis has started building two ships, while the League has three under construction. If everything goes right, they will be operational within two years.”

  The room discussed the information for the next two hours until finally deciding that they would commission four additional warships, bringing their “Security” forces up to eight, and three more transports and three mining ships, after which they would build one additional warship per two years with the rest being mining and transport ships. Olympus itself had more ships, which Tomas used to ship materials mined in the asteroid belt and on the Moon and Mars. The one shipyard still under his command was dedicated to expanding Olympus mining and transport capabilities; the greatest problems they faced were with the transport of goods.

  Olympus operations in the belt produced more than they were able to ship back to the Moon, but Tomas still insisted that the operations keep working at 100% capability, with the materials being stored on the mining sites waiting for transport. In fact, Olympus produced much more than it used, and most of the excess materials were sold to countries on Earth. Probably one of the reasons why they didn’t push harder to shut down Olympus, at least until they could get their own mining operations up and running. But for now they were content to buy materials from Olympus and expand their influence inside the Earth’s orbit. Their colonization attempts on the Moon had been small to date, with just a few recon bases and no settlements.

  With the goal of the meeting accomplished, Laura dismissed the room. Adrian stayed behind with Laura like he always did after a meeting. Laura usually discussed the meetings with Adrian, and asked him for his opinions on the topics.

  “So, what do you think? Is it smart of us to increase our military capabilities in space?”

  Adrian was familiar with most everything on the topics, learning things by attending the meetings and basically shadowing Laura everywhere. He had no doubt that that had always been her intention; he realized quickly that he was being groomed for command, though of what he still wasn’t sure. He attended classified meetings with Laura, and in his spare time he studied on technology that was used on Olympus ships, from military vessels to transport and cargo. He studied regulations, and continued with his martial arts training. From watching Laura, he learned about command and the logistics of space colonization.

  “Yes, we have a lot of assets in space already. Much more than the Earth countries combined. Their plans to build military spaceships in secret implies an agenda other than defense, but then again, we did build ships capable of war in secret as well. But their intentions don’t really matter; we need to be able to defend our assets in space much more than they do. Our entire economy is based in space. Since leaving Earth, we have shut down, sold, or transferred most of our Earth enterprises to space. Any loss will impact us much more because of it,” Adrian said, trying to use a more professional tone, like the one he often heard various Olympus personnel using when reporting to Laura.

  Laura smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, you are right. Though Tomas still wants our military capabilities to remain a secret,” she said. She looked at Adrian for a moment and then asked, “Did the integration with your implant go well?”

  “Yes, there were no problems,” Adrian answered.

  “And the AI?”

  “There were no problems with her as well.”

  “Her?” Laura asked raising her eyebrow.

  Adrian felt a blush coming over his face and answered quickly.

  “She said she would prefer it if I referred to her as a female. I mean, after she chose a female name.”

  “You didn’t name the AI yourself?” she asked, surprised.

  “Ah, well, it didn’t seem right. I asked if she wanted to choose her own name and she said she did. I provided her with some of the books from my collection and she chose a name from them. Then when I told her that the name is female, she said that it didn’t really matter if it was male or female, as she had no gender, but that if it made me feel better I could refer to her as a female,” he said in a single breath.

  Laura looked at him approvingly. “Really? From the reports I read, all the AIs of this type were named by their users. And every male user gave his AI a male name, and every female a female one. Hmm…you need to send the data from your implant to the research department as soon as you can. They would be very interested in it. But let’s move on to other things. You will be attending the fleet academy soon with other recruits. I have no doubt that you will graduate with highest marks. But nevertheless, I want you to focus solely on the classes. And of course you are not to speak anything of what you heard during our meetings. You have high clearance, but your classmates will not.”

  She looked expectantly at Adrian until he said that he understood.

  “Good. After you graduate, we’ll see about the continuation of your career.” She narrowed her eyes at him and continued. “I have no doubt that you have already figured out that your educational path is different, and that we have other things in store for you.” When he tried to feign surprise, she scowled at him. “Oh, wipe that expression off your face, I have no delusions about your intellect. My superiors and I know very well that you are unique. And as I said, we have plans for you. But you do need to keep your focus and surmount all the obstacles we put before you.”

  Now there was no need for Adrian to feign surprise, as he was genuinely surprised. He’d assumed that he had caught Laura’s eye and that she was grooming him for a command position within the fleet. But now he knew that even her superiors had taken notice, which scared him. As far as he knew, Laura’s only superiors were Elias Bakas, who commanded the Olympus army—which in fact now made him the same rank as Laura—and then Tomas Klein himself. And the thought that Tomas Klein was interested in him was
frightening.

  “Attending the academy will be one of those obstacles,” she continued, seemingly unaware of Adrian’s thoughts. “The academy will put you amongst other recruits, most of whom will be older than you. You will need to not only pass, but also make them recognize you as their equal. Your intellect has always put you ahead of those your own age, but being intelligent is not the same thing as being smart. Now you will be in a situation where everyone around you will have more experience than you. We are hoping to level the playing field for you a bit.” She smirked. “Do you think you are up to the task?”

  Adrian swallowed hard as he looked at Laura and realized that even with his smarts, he was still far behind those older than him. He thought himself smarter than anyone else, and even though he realized that they had plans for him, he still failed to see the scope of those plans.

  “Yes,” Adrian answered, but he wasn’t really sure whether he truly was up to the task.

  Laura looked at him, her eyes searching something in his. Then she finally nodded.

  “Good.” She then stood up and left the room, leaving Adrian alone with his thoughts.

  Later that evening, Adrian sat in his room thinking about his future. He still struggled with the notion that someone had plans for his future; he feared that his life would not be his own, that he would be limited by the path set before him, like when he was in the orphanage. But then again, this was an opportunity. He knew that everyone in Olympus was free to choose his or her own path. It was he who had chosen to go to the military and then to go to the fleet when the opportunity presented itself. He could have refused and continued on to the military school. And he knew that he had been given many more opportunities than anyone else.

  What he’d learned over his life in Olympus was that here, skill was valued over anything else—age and experience did factor in, but skill was paramount. That skill usually came with age, and experience did make things different in Olympus, where most left school well past the age people on Earth did. And they could afford it; people lived longer now than in the past and had more time to study and get experience before choosing what they wanted to do. Adrian was the exception; he was given the chance because of his intelligence. He had no doubt that he needed to confirm their trust in him, but he was also a bit scared to have them trust him that much. He kept thinking it over before finally deciding that he would continue to give his best, and hope that he lived up to the expectations they had of him. He lost himself in his thoughts until a soft female voice interrupted his musings.