Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  Irons nodded. "Yes that is a problem." He rubbed his chin. "Anyone have any ideas on how to minimize it?" he asked.

  "I don't see a solution Admiral," Vulcan shook his head. As the newest AI Vulcan was still feeling out his job and responsibilities, as well as his interactions with his crew. Usually a ship was given trial runs to do that. Unfortunately they didn't have that kind of luxury.

  "I have one. At least for ship based AI sir." Irons turned to Fuentes. "We are periodically down for maintenance and upgrades. If we scheduled the reboot during one of those periods then we could get around the problem. The ship's systems could be monitored by the crew or support techs, or even a caretaker AI," Fuentes shrugged. Sprite nodded.

  "And the budding issue?" Irons asked.

  "That is a much more... thorny issue," Firefly responded. "I can see growing AI to replace or rebuild things, and even in new construction, but there should be an upper limit. One smart AI per facility or ship data net I would think." Fuentes and some of the other AI nodded. Sprite was the only hold out.

  Firefly turned on her. "Although some sort of... accommodation should be allowed for transient AI." Sprite's eyes flashed fire then cooled.

  "That would be easier. But each of you have a specialized function. Only Sprite has the coding ability." He looked over to her. She smiled.

  "Always a bridesmaid never a bride. Now a mother too?" she asked. Irons chuckled.

  "So as it stands, in order to make a fresh AI we have to either do a slow grow, or copy neural network buds from parent AI as seed code?" Irons looked over to Sprite who nodded.

  "And I am the key to it," she shrugged. "Lucky me." She grimaced, then it turned into a small devilish smile. "That means the rest of you will be nice to me right?" she asked. Smithy snorted. Firefly chuckled.

  "I thought not."

  Irons looked up from his report to the AI on his HUD. "Something wrong you three?" he asked the next morning.

  "Admiral we're scheduled to lecture at the AI conference," Sprite responded looking a little nervous. Irons raised an eyebrow.

  "Conference? I thought we just had one, remember?" he asked turning to the shipboard holo projector. Firefly's avatar was there.

  "It is more of a computer class then a conference Admiral. For fleshies. Commander Harris and Commander Shelby organized it. It's in the college atrium. We've been asked to attend to field questions on AI," Firefly reported. Irons nodded.

  "Problems?" he asked picking up his tablet.

  "Well, we're going to be busy during the conference," Sprite dead panned. Irons chuckled.

  "Anything else?" he asked. Proteus undulated nearby. The AI core hadn't been happy that Sprite had taken it offline to copy it's kernel coding to the core of the growing shipyard facility. She'd copied his database as well. Unfortunately the kernel hadn't responded to the wake up so she'd been forced to order a new core personality grown from a copy of the kernel. It was still baking in the oven as she liked to call it.

  "What is the policy on secrecy?" Defender asked.

  "Classified is classified for the most part," Irons shrugged. "But you three are an open secret to most military and some station personnel now. I believe you can handle it. If matters stray into sensitive areas either steer them away to safer general topics or stonewall."

  "In other words, be your usual charming self and you'll do fine," Sprite answered looking at the other AI. Irons chuckled.

  "Go on, have fun. You've got some people to impress and some to teach. Enjoy." He waved.

  "Admiral I need you to jack in for authorization for parts..." Proteus responded. Irons frowned but then nodded.

  "I'm reading reports for the next two hours. Go for it." He extended his right hand to allow his middle finger to morph and then plug into the universal port on the desk edge. "Happy now?" Irons teased. He felt the AI tap his coding database then withdraw.

  "Thank you Admiral," Proteus responded.

  “We've got a couple hours then I want to check out how Sergio and the pilots are doing.”

  Sergio pulled up around the piece of debris and then cut his engine. He looked around. He was still getting used to his neural feeds so he was a second behind catching the rear feed. Two shots was all it took to drop him out of the sim.

  He grimaced as the sim cleared and his pod opened. He tried not to hide his hurt as he took off the helmet and ran his hand through his hair. He was getting trounced on a regular basis now. It wasn't fair. He was good, he had played all the flight sims he could before the admiral had come along and mastered them. The other pilots had years of experience with neural feeds though. He was still learning them and his reflexes using them were obviously subpar. He unbuckled the tractor harness then climbed out and made his way to the pilot's ready room and his usual drubbing.

  The sim complex was growing. It was a can habitat, docked for now with the station. Newly built, it had all the equipment the new pilots needed to train with until they could get more fighters into production.

  The Admiral had decided to hold off on building the emergency fighters the Navy had desperately resorted to in the final stages of the war. Sergio couldn't blame him really, they were little more than a command pod, engine, power plant, and civilian grade sensors. The one Firefly had was pathetic compared to the fighters in the database he now knew.

  Once the growing yard got the ships squared away the Admiral had promised him a short production run of fighters. So until then he and the other potential fighter pilots were getting as much stick time in the work pods and shuttles and in the sims as they could. For now though he had to get his game face on and take his medicine he thought with another grimace.

  "Cock a doodle do from me to you!" the green haired buzz cut youth howled snidely pointing both index fingers like gun barrels to Sergio. Sergio blushed red. Irons grimaced and headed over.

  "Admiral on the deck!" one of the ROTC... former ROTC now, ensigns said snapping to attention. The others in the pilots' wardroom hastily followed suit. Sergio was last. That ingrained habit had yet to fully mature in him. Irons wondered if it ever would.

  "Having fun are we?" he asked quietly looking around. Their eyes darted back and forth but they didn't move their heads. "Sim practice I assume?" he asked.

  "Yes sir Admiral sir," one of the lieutenants, a buzz cut young man with a whip cord body said. "Rooster was just schooling the Lt. here." He nodded to Sergio who's ear tips went even brighter red.

  Irons nodded. "You've had a lot of practice Rooster?" Irons turned to the young man.

  He gulped and then nodded. "Aye sir."

  Irons smile turned into a feral grin. "Care for a match?" he asked. The Lt. looked

  a bit scared.

  "Ah sir, um ah..."

  Irons face smoothed into a knowing smile. "Some other time then," he shrugged as some of the others snickered. "All of you are now learning there is someone else out there better than you." He looked around. "It is a good lesson, sometimes you learn it the hard way. Briefly," he paused.

  "Fighter ops are not for the faint of heart." He turned on the Lieutenant. "Or the reckless." He turned pacing back and forth, arms behind his back. "Remember to cover your wingman and keep a cool head. Someday you'll need him to scratch the fleas off your back." He looked over to Sergio's wingman who blushed.

  "Sorry sir," she said quietly. "I dropped the ball. Won’t happen again," she said.

  "It'd better not. Sergio may not have the experience you lot have, but he's also your senior officer. Therefore HE writes your performance reviews." He looked around as several blanched at this. He smiled. "Then again, I review them and I take a dim view

  on anyone who sucks up to people or doesn't give their all, sim or not. The best way to train is balls to the wall. All or nothing. Otherwise you're just playing." He looked around. "That clear?" he asked.

  "Clear sir!" they answered in unison. He smiled.

  "Good. Carry on." He walked off.

  "Sir." He turned the corner an
d slowed to allow Sergio to catch up. "Sir, I'd like to thank you for intervening but I need to handle it on my own." Irons turned, eyebrow cocked.

  "You're right, you do need to handle it. But you need to develop your discipline and toughen up a bit. And improve in the skills department," he said softly. Sergio looked away then nodded.

  "I'll do better Admiral," he said after a moment. Irons nodded.

  "I know you will Sergio. You’re doing good. I know you’re feeling your way out day to day. Take a couple days and watch the command staff. Check out the discipline tutorials in the database. Military deportment ones too for that matter." Sergio nodded miserably.

  “While you're at it, try a couple of the simpler games. The ones that help you hone your implant use and reflexes. Try... lets see Tetris 3D might work. It's got some good basic spatial relationships you can focus on. Or one of the other puzzle games. Simple things mind you, not a piloting game. Piloting skills you've got.” Sergio nodded, still looking down at the deck.

  "Don't let it get to you son, you know you’re just starting out. Keep a cool head no matter what happens in the cockpit or in the locker room. Keep practicing." Irons patted his shoulder. "But," he held up a finger in warning.

  "But?" Sergio asked.

  "If you think any of them slack off and let you win, come down on them like a ton of bricks. You need the maximum training just as much as they do. I wasn't kidding about there being few second chances in combat," Irons responded. Sergio's eyes widened. "That's what I meant about suck ups. You need to learn to kick ass in and out of the cockpit," he nodded. Sergio smiled and came to attention.

  "Thank you Admiral, I'll do better," he said saluting.

  Irons returned the salute. "You'd better or your ass is grass," Irons replied. "Dismissed." He watched as Sergio turned and left.

  "Sprite remind me to have the Major run a deportment and discipline class. Also some team building exercises. Something short for our mustangs to get into the swing of things. Short sweet and nasty," he smiled grimly.

  The AI chuckled evilly. "I like it. Nasty. Putting a marine major or better yet the gunny in charge of prospective navy officers and enlisted. Ewe. That's cruel even from you," she chuckled. "I love it," she said.

  "Getting flack from the newbies?" Irons asked.

  "They can be a pain in the virtual posterior. There is one that is a hacker, I haven't figured out which it is yet. I've got my eyes on a couple likely suspects though."

  Irons grimaced. "Figure it out then put them to work with more... constructive endeavors," he said. The AI laughed again.

  "With you, that's taking on a whole new meaning," Sprite said. Irons chuckled as he moved off.

  Irons studied the report the next morning and nodded. The pilots were coming along well. Cycling them through a carousel of job duties kept them on their toes. Throwing different opponents at them in the sims did as well. He smiled a bit.

  “I know that smile. You're thinking about messing with someone,” Logan said chuckling. Irons looked up and his smile grew into a grin.

  “Just thinking about life's little pleasures. And keeping people on their toes.”

  “The pilots?” Logan asked. Irons cocked an eyebrow at him. “Heard you had a chat in the pilot's ready room.”

  Irons shook his head. As usual scuttlebutt was incredibly fast. “Yeah. I was thinking about tossing them a few extra challenges. Just to keep them from getting stale.”

  “Stale. Sure...” Logan chuckled. “Xenos?” he asked. Irons shrugged a little, sitting back. “Sure you are,” he said studying the Admiral.

  “It'll teach them teamwork and thinking outside the box.” He indicated a nearby chair.

  “Yeah, true. And that they can't rely on a frontal attack,” Logan said shaking his head and sitting down. Xeno fighters, at least their main battle line fighters relied on a reactionless drive that was the exception to the mass rule.

  Normally a ship using a reactionless drive needed another mass to push against. However if you put enough emitters in the bow of a ship they could generate a massive mass shadow, one large enough to pull the ship. Of course there were always tradeoffs.

  For one thing the Xeno fighters were not very maneuverable. That massive black hole in front of them preferred to go in a straight line whenever possible. Second, to generate the black hole they had to beef up the ships structure and quadruple the dark matter antimatter power plant.

  That came at a cost. To shoehorn the massive power plant into the reinforced frame they had been forced to delete the entire reactionary drive. That however let them delete most of the fuel needed as well.

  And of course with a massive black hole in front of them they had tactical tradeoffs as well. Mass shadow sucked up anything shot at it. The fighters were practically invulnerable to a frontal attack.

  However they also couldn't fire that way either. Energy weapons attenuated when they hit the edge of the mass shadow. For that matter sensors did as well. However the Xeno's had built compensation software into their sensor suites to handle that part.

  It also prevented the fighters from firing any missiles, mass driver rounds, or torpedoes forward. Consequentially they would either drop the objects or fire them out on a divergent arch around the mass shadow.

  This increased the time it took to get a missile out to a target, but the target would be attacked from a vector it wasn't expecting. Misdirection, just like what the Xeno's had been famous for.

  One of the last tradeoffs was the energy flare. To use the mass shadow drive was to let everyone in the system with a mass spectrometer or a mass detector know you are there. It also sucked in materials, like say interstellar hydrogen and the compacting forces created quiet an energy flare... not exactly stealthy. Something that wasn't usually in the Xeno handbook. Which was why the fighters were battle line units and not stealth units.

  “...I still think we should do up some of the emergency fighters just in case Admiral.”

  Irons grimaced. He'd been woolgathering about the damn Xeno fighters instead of paying attention to business. He grunted, getting his mental faculties back on track. “Yes but they are death traps. I'd rather build the core around something reliable.”

  “True,” Logan said nodding. “The E-frames are pretty crude. But if it works...”

  “That's the other thing though,” Irons waved. “We don't have a carrier for them. Yet.”

  “I thought we were going off the cruisers and other ships?” Logan asked.

  “For now. We'll bring them up to full squadrons as time allows, but a fighter wing is best when it's together in one block. Dispersed in penny packets means they aren't nearly as effective a weapon as they should be.”

  “The old penny packet versus concentrated routine Admiral?” Sprite asked. “That's not like you. You're normally a redundancy kind of guy.”

  Logan cocked his head but didn't comment. The Admiral pursed his lips for a moment. “You've got me there,” he admitted reluctantly after a moment.

  “Besides, having them on other platforms would allow us to station them as force multipliers near the jump points. That way they could patrol them and be on hand as quick reaction forces,” Sprite commented.

  “But dispersing them in penny packets would require each squadron having additional logistics and maintenance personnel beyond what is currently feasible,” Firefly replied.

  “True,” Irons grimaced. “I was planning on a light escort carrier design. Something rugged, easy to build, and quick to put into action.”

  “Victory ships,” Logan said nodding.

  “Exactly,” Irons said nodding in return.

  Firefly turned to the Commander then back to the Admiral. “Admiral. With all due respect. We don't have the blueprints.” Irons smiled. “Or do we?” the AI asked suddenly, turning his attention to Sprite's avatar. “Just what is in that database you've got on the Admiral's launch?” Sprite nodded. “From the repair tender's database. Interesting. I didn't know it didn't
erase it.”

  “Nope. What was erased we filled in the blanks or sketched out the basics for later review. It's a cornucopia of material. All compressed of course. I'll get you the unclassified index,” Sprite said waving a hand airily.

  Firefly's eyes flashed a dark red. “You'll...”

  “Softly,” Irons said nodding. Firefly turned to him. Irons turned to Sprite. “Give them both access to the material they are cleared for. In fact... while you’re at it.” He turned to Logan. “I want another database made. At least two. Dispersed of course,” he shrugged. “Just in case.”

  “Back to the redundant thing?” Sprite asked snorting. “There is a copy in the shipyard already.”

  “You know me so well,” he smiled.

  "Are you sure this is necessary?" Dan asked looking at the faces around the table.

  "You know it is. He's got to go. One way or another," the chairwoman said steepling her fingers. "He's an obstacle."

  "Yeah, but we need him. He's the one who put this all together. Without him we'd be food for the pirates," Dan said looking uncomfortable.

  "Precisely why we're just going to run him out of the system and not kill him," the chairwoman said. Dan looked surprised then grimaced.

  "I know he's a prig but why?" he looked at them in confusion. "I know he can be a prig. I know that, I've worked with the man. But we're going to need them if Horath sends that dreadnought." He looked around to each of them.

  "With you and our other noble defenders?" she asked.

  "Against a dreadnaught? Get real,” he snorted. “We can't do it all. He's got a lifetime of experience and the access codes. We only have the codes up to commanders rank," he grimaced.

  "Precisely. He's holding you down. Once he's gone we'll promote you to the rank you truly deserve," the chairwoman's voice was silky smooth.

  Dan chuckled nervously. "All right, but if this blows back, you’re in serious trouble." He looked around. "He's not the Port Admiral, he's a hero and he could use that against you."

  "Not if we find... let’s say the right way to encourage him to leave," a governor said smiling. Dan looked at the fat man then shook his head.