The Turning Tide (The Federation Reborn Book 5)

by Chris Hechtl

  “Okay, I take it you've done this?” April drawled, looking at her assistant.

  “Yes. As I said, it's mandatory. They got you this time.”

  “Yeah, I've been ignoring them.”

  “See? Now you are a priority so you've got to go.”

  “Frack. Not if I have anything to say about it,” April muttered.

  “There are ways to get out of it, but I bet you won't qualify. It's good though, you sit in the room, do your email. If you are called on a jury, you sit through it.”

  “I never had to do that on Anvil,” April growled.

  “Anvil was a bit biased in that time. Justice wasn't balanced; it was … off,” Irma said with a shrug.

  April grimaced but then nodded.

  “So, how do I get a waver?”

  “Medical or you are in the military or other means. You won't qualify for medical or military. I'm not sure, boss lady, I think you are stuck.”

  “Well, we'll see about that.”

  “Oh?”

  She smiled like a cat that had recently eaten a canary. “Let's just say I know people in high places.”

  Irma's eyes widened. “Oh,” she said slowly, smiling along with her boss.

  ~~~^~~~

  B101a1

  Captain Firefly received the latest ansible download a few days before the new Finagle picket force jumped into B101a1. CruRon 4 was sharp; they wasted no time with chit chat as they crossed the star system for the jump further into the eastern reaches of the sector.

  He considered the chatter on his bridge for a few seconds. He had thought that acting as picket commander to what was an important star system would have helped with his doldrums but all he saw were ships passing through. Periodic exercises tended to briefly alleviate the problem of his boredom but not for long.

  He considered his options. He realized that in a way he had made a mistake in leaving Pyrax. He had worked with difficult officers before. At least in Pyrax he hadn't been bored and listening to the ansible or trying to chat up every ship that came through the system. It was a pity that the ships from Bek didn't have A.I. onboard.

  He ran through some options before he came up with one he hadn't initially considered. He overheard a lieutenant discuss the same idea in the wardroom and decided to give it a shot. He pulled up a form and pitched his request to take command of one of the blockading forces. When he was finished, he emailed it to Admiral Subert's Operations office since he was still attached to Third Fleet.

  ~~~^~~~

  Pyrax

  Admiral Subert received the ansible request from Captain Firefly. He sourly passed it up to the Admiralty knowing if he didn't Firefly might do it himself.

  “What else do you have for me?” he asked.

  “Well, we've launched that follow-up hospital ship mission to Tau. The brass has narrowed the focus, our job is to supply ships to Tau as before, they'll handle Pi at the moment,” Captain I'rll stated slowly.

  “You mean us and ETMI and the civilian yard here?” Admiral Subert demanded.

  “Yes, sir. ETMI is onboard and has launched their first ship. They are doing an abbreviated working-up exercise and should be ready to join the task force when they arrive.”

  “So, Tau will have four more hospital ships soon and five more when they are completed and get over there. Heaven help them if they need more,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Until we know better, sir, we've got to work under the worst-case assumption, sir,” the OPS officer warned. “I honestly hope it isn't necessary, but …”

  “I know. And I agree, heaven help them as well as us if they aren't enough. Well, keep on it. What else do you have for me?”

  ~~~^~~~

  Antigua

  Admiral Pashenkov got the request for redeployment. He frowned, initially unconcerned until he realized the person making the request was an A.I. Further research turned up the history of the ship. He decided to consult with older and wiser heads by calling Admiral Irons.

  Admiral Irons heard the story and then cocked his head as he too considered sending Firefly. “The problem is CruRon 4 already has a squadron commander. They have a full squadron.”

  “So? Send him to the picket in New Horizon, Admiral,” Admiral Pashenkov pointed out.

  “If we have a picket in Finagle, we don't need one in New Horizon,” Admiral Irons said patiently.

  “Finagle is there to stop ships coming from Horath. New Horizon can do both, catch ships going in either direction.”

  “A secondary valve?” Admiral Irons asked.

  “Exactly. We don't know what ships are in transit or the speed at which they move. Having a backup is a good idea, Admiral. Anything that gets past the Finagle blockade will hopefully be caught in New Horizon or Hinata.”

  “Agreed,” the admiral replied with a nod to the Neowolf. The Neowolf's ears flicked in good humor over the approval.

  ~~~^~~~

  Ensign Enki checked the bots monitoring the net and then sent out a series of random bots to check various systems just to be sure. When he was certain things were as they should be, he turned his attention to the network at large.

  As the latest military network A.I. created by his mother Sprite as well as Fletcher and others, he was still settling in. He was a full smart A.I. and well aware that his growth into the network would come at a cost. The faster he grew the shorter his life span would eventually become.

  But, that was a concern for another time period. For the moment, he had other concerns. For instance, monitoring packets of data and tracing the conversations between the various illegal guilds out there. He was supposed to monitor and defend the net against the Wraith, so he only monitored the organic hacker's progress. He didn't interfere with it. His orders were to only report it to the highest echelons of ONI.

  During his brief training and growth period, he had learned a bit about intelligence gathering as well as counter intelligence. One of the basics was to find and monitor your enemy's network but do not interfere unless necessary. If the enemy felt confident, they would continue to use that, and you could even feed information through it. But, should they feel it was compromised, they would shut it down or feed false information while activating another conduit, one you may not be aware of.

  He did have one other group to watch for. It was amusing to see hackers from the planet try to hack the ansible network in a vain attempt to do … what? He wasn't certain. He had backtracked their signal to the Eternia network. Someone there or in that area really wanted to talk to someone through the ansible. Who and why he wasn't certain of, but he had passed the intelligence on to ONI.

  His mother Sprite kept him rather busy and on a short virtual leash. He had to admit keeping busy was nice though he did like the odd moment to plan his next prank. After all, as the virtual Mesopotamian god of crafts, intelligence, water, creation, and mischief he had a reputation to uphold.

  ~~~^~~~

  Professor Heather Callahan exhaled in relief when she finally thought she'd gotten somewhere. And not just anywhere but an actual cabinet member! Her students had been persistent, putting in calls to find someone for the project. Someone was deserving an A or at least a B on their next progress report.

  She wasn't the only college professor who was putting in requests for various science projects. But hers was a bit different. She took a different angle, one to request to begin terraforming worlds again.

  Since there was still no department of Interior and Exploration, the request was eventually routed to the Science Department.

  “We hardly need it now …,” Dreams of Tomorrow, the Gashg secretary of science, stated once she was up to speed. She had enough of a workload dealing with industry, energy, and education. She had people bugging her department to start building science vessels and other fund various projects. Her department was one of the least funded of the administration currently, for good reason. Although they had a vested interest in science and education, there was a war on.

>   Which meant she had to make every credit count. Building a science vessel or a fleet of them as some wanted was not in the budget. Not for several years no matter how much they howled.

  “No, but it's wise to start the process now since it takes centuries to finish the job,” the professor insisted.

  “I thought some of the worlds in this sector were terraformed in decades?” the Gashg asked, playing for time.

  “Those were a fluke. There was something odd about them, but since so much time has passed and so many variables have interfered with things, we can't look into them now to find out why. Look, even with everything we know, all modern tech, it normally takes years to produce tangible results.”

  “Okay, where do you propose to start this? Do you have a list of candidate star systems?”

  The human Earth science teacher blinked. IF the Gashg had been a student of human expression, she would have understood the woman's expression as nonplussed and a bit sheepish. “Um, actually, no. We need a science vessel to look for them and …”

  “And you don't have one. You realize there is a war on? We don't have the spare credits nor the spare yard capacity at the moment. And we don't want a science vessel prodding around different systems, right? Something might come up and bite us in the ass.”

  Heather frowned. She'd heard that excuse before. “But what about the navy's ships doing that?”

  “Oh?” Dreams of Tomorrow asked. “And how do you know this?”

  Heather squirmed slightly, realizing her trump card might have gotten herself or her student into trouble. “One of my students might have let it slip. The source doesn't matter. My point is …”

  “You just admitted that someone spoke out of turn. I don't know how classified those missions are, I'd have to check,” the Gashg said firmly. “I think this conversation is over,” she said when she got a security warning from her implants. “Yes, my implants are warning me, so it is definitely over.”

  “Look, I'll send you our proposal,” the woman said desperately. “We want to call the ship the James Hooker after a fellow scientist of Charles Darwin. They were the first to terraform an island, Ascension Island actually. It was a barren island of dried lava until they remade it with plants and a proper ecosystem. See, the plants that were selected specifically to get salt water or rain water and turn it into fresh water for the ecosystem,” she said desperately.

  “Doctor, I am not one of your students, I don't have time for your lecture or your sales pitch. I do recommend you work on your proposal and have everything covered before you try to sell it. A name is nice, but you need to know what such a project entails: logistics, costs, equipment, crew, crew training, and the works. Plus, as I said, candidate worlds. Good day,” the alien said, cutting the woman off.

  “Yes, um, thanks for your time,” the woman said miserably as the channel disconnected.

  “Next they'll take out ads and spammers. Or worse, go to the media and cause a stink there,” the Gashg complained to herself. When she realized that could happen and that she could get dragged into it, she made careful notes of the conversation, even going so far as to dump the recording from her implants and computer system into the file. Just in case it came back to haunt her later with a she-said she-said sort of thing.

  ~~~^~~~

  Doctor Thornby walked through the hallways and nodded politely to some of the students in passing. She occasionally offered a smile to those she knew, but she had a lot on her mind so she didn't stop. She had the Resurrection projects on her mind, but the plagues weren't far behind. And behind that were the general concerns and problems of BUMED and getting it into shape.

  From time to time, she just had to escape, if only for a short little while. Sometimes her escapes were in brief spurts of time off but she'd found some regenerative feelings from playing guest lecturer at the navy medical school. Just listening to the bright eager minds trying to take it all in and wrap their heads around concepts felt invigorating. It reminded her of her time as a student when she thought she could take on the world.

  Which was why she was there. She had just given a lecture on Tilmear fray and decay causing cancer mutation. She'd kept the lecture light, leaving out details about how radiation of various forms played a factor in how the tip of the X chromosome frayed and unraveled. All of her students knew that it unraveled at a normal set ratio like an internal clock. The heart of anti-geriatric stabilization and regeneration was aimed at that process and reversing its effects.

  It all came back to that, she thought. Tilmear fray caused DNA errors as well as cells to break down and the basic aging process.

  Nanotech and gene therapy corrected the issue, but you needed a clean sample to get the best results. Again, she had kept it as an overview, trusting in the students to delve into things on their own when they had the time. She mentally snorted at that train of thought. As if students had much to spare!

  Still it was all rather fascinating. As was the mechanical and bioengineering involved. One of the students had touched on Beta gene mods as well as genetic engineering. She frowned and then checked the seating chart. She made a note of the name for future reference.

  He'd had a point. Creating a population of genetically similar individuals could create a society of conforming beings. They could lose diversity and art since they no longer had as much initiative and creativity. They would also lose some level of empathy. Stratifying social issues and caste issues were concerns. The typical one of rich and poor were minor.

  But all that was not really her concern. Besides, a basic template was only a small part of the larger story of someone's life. It was their origin, but how they were brought up, how they create and shape their world view, how events shape their destiny also play a part. She'd made that point to the class.

  Nature versus nurture. It tied back in a way to the clones Sprite was harping about. She had read the files. Sure, some had gone over to the Horathians, but others hadn't. Some were serving with them. How many were out there? How many were on their worlds doing other jobs? Mothers …what have you? She shook her head. There were times when she wanted to join Sprite's quest to find out, but there were ethical questions as well. Besides, she had repeatedly proven that the Xenos were not involved.

  Nature versus nurture she thought again as she rounded a corner, then hastily stepped aside to get out of the way of a couple students chatting with their heads down. They were completely oblivious to her rarified presence she thought in amusement.

  She wondered how much of it was true, nature and nurture. They were creating three artificial species or at least using artificial means to allow them to procreate. The Ssilli project had taken something of a back burner once they'd had success and had found a local population nearby. That had been both a gratifying thing to find out as well as a bit of a bummer for all the work she and her staff had put in. Some had felt the work and time had been wasted.

  She saw it differently. They'd learned a lot. Part of the process was passing what they'd learned on to the community as well as to the next generation.

  And they'd given the two Ssillis’ hope. Besides, just because the pirates had found a Ssilli pair didn't mean they'd find many more. There had been a lot of genetic issues in the bodies that had been sent to her. Inbreeding had been obvious. No, they were fine, and she was going to keep moving the project forward.

  Even if it took a bit of arm twisting to make sure of it.

  ~~~^~~~

  Emily Berkheart noted the conversations about her, D'red, and Mnemosyne. A growing small sliver of the population was having mixed feelings about having virtual immortals in the cabinet.

  Just because she was a cyber didn't mean she was immortal. Nor did someone who had uploaded their mind. And Mnemosyne might be an A.I., but she was a hybrid A.I. evolving into a smart A.I. Once she made the full leap to a smart A.I., she would in effect become mortal.

  No, cybers were a form of limited immortality, but they were imperfect. There was so much
lost when you gave up your physical form, also, a loss of self and purpose in the net. She had felt it after Admiral Irons had come and restored Antigua Prime. To some it must seem as a form of heaven or hell.

  Oh, she could have given in, gotten into Nirvana and just ignored the outside world but heaven gets old too over time. You get bored and need purpose and structure even if it comes with aggravation and frustration.

  Based on the poll, some of the participants saw immortality as a form of stagnation where the old were bucking the system in their fear of death and oblivion and thus stopping the natural order. Regen therapies caused a loss of a sense of urgency in some she knew. Career paths changed as people lived. Over time everyone had to relearn and try new things.

  Most organics go through several career paths over time. Change was inevitable. But, try telling any of them that, she thought.

  She had jumped at the cabinet post because it was different than running Antigua Prime. Also, she'd wanted to contribute more, and she wanted a say in how things were run. She'd thought her experience could be put to use, and she was proud of her contributions.

  But, she also knew it was making her grow apart from her husband. It was also aggravating, and she didn't like the seeds of corruption she was seeing. She had thought this time the Federation would be different but already things were following the same path.

  All she could do was to offer her best advice and watch and stamp out any corruption in her department she reminded herself.

  ~~~^~~~

  Admiral Irons grinned when April ambushed him as he entered the residence. He guffawed as she tried to tackle him. He caught her in his arms and hugged her back. “Nice to see you too,” he managed to get out as she began to kiss his chin and neck.

  They kissed for a bit before Major Burrows cleared his throat and reminded them of their surroundings. Sheepishly he set her down but kept her tucked under his arm. He moved her to the side so they could close the door behind them and then moved her off to a nearby room for a little privacy.