I frowned, that was really specific.
“What data are you basing that on Al?”
Al replied, “The delay before the explosion because the sensors saw the ship’s drift rate, and the radiation indicating a nuclear reaction detected by the missiles’ scans, and the scan that detected the missiles EM shields holding back the explosion. I am also sure the EM field around Earth, or any life sustaining planet, could easily block that radiation. It was not that high a yield due to the materials involved.”
Kristi grunted, “Well, at least we won’t destroy any planets on accident. Note to self, don’t use plutonium for reactor containment.”
I snorted a laugh and nodded, “Also, unless there is catastrophic failure, and we have some warning that the singularity is failing, we can safely eject. I suspect catastrophic failure is only likely if our ship is being blown up, which kind of renders the point moot. What do you think?”
Kristi nodded, “I’d say patent your new converter and wormhole generator, and start the upgrade on our ship at least, for those two things and my plasma cannons, or do you not trust it enough to sit on one yet?”
I shrugged, “I think it should be fine. The nanites keep the gravity emitters in constant top condition, and we’d need to lose over half of the emitters before we were screwed. Since they’re powered from the black hole itself, and also have a very large and proven fusion reactor to get it started and as a backup in case the energy converter fails, I can’t see a reason to wait. Al, submit the patents and start all upgrades on this ship.”
Kristi grinned evilly, “Plus it will make your admirals jealous when you have twenty-four turrets, and wormholes, so they’ll help fight for the upgrade.”
I snorted, “That’s so wrong, but true. Even better, if I turn out to be wrong about it being safe, we’ll never know it. Unless of course, there’s an afterlife. Want to get some food? Not sure when Al will be done with calibrations.”
Kristi nodded and got up, “Explosions always make me hungry.”
As we walked out I asked, “Al, put my toys away please, from the shuttle test?”
Al replied, “Recalling shield missiles to lab ship.”
Kristi shook her head, “That’s uncanny.”
I nodded, “I’ve been challenging him, part of the test. It kind of proves he can figure out what I really mean, the old Al would have patiently said he didn’t understand the command. Understanding figurative speech is fairly impressive.”
Al interrupted Kristi’s response, “Started fabrication, and patents are pending. I’m not finished testing yet, but I have a few recommendations regarding the wormhole drive.”
I lifted an eyebrow, “What are they?”
Al replied, “There seems to be a point zero two percent variation so far. In other words, if we target something ten thousand light years away, the destination aperture could show up exactly at that point, or anywhere in a two light year spherical radius. Because of that, I suggest we never aim right at where we want to go, but at least two point five light years outside our target solar system for every ten thousand light years we attempt to travel. I suggest that feature be automatic. It shouldn’t have much impact, even if we come out four light years away, that’s less than a minute at full speed FTL.
“Secondly, I suggest each wormhole drive be calibrated independently, and at least every three months because of the minor variations in emitters and energy signatures even though each part is built exactly the same under tight tolerance.”
“Fair enough, I agree.”
Coming out inside a sun or other planetary body was less likely than winning the lottery, but why take the chance?
I waited a moment as we walked in the dining room. He didn’t have anything further to say so we grabbed some lunch…
Chapter 10
I looked down on a planet that wasn’t pretty, but was at the same time. The water was a deep blue that lightened slightly around the island chains. There were two tropical storms I could see from orbit and wondered if that would be a constant issue. We could build for them, but it would certainly make it harder to plant and farm.
About four fifths of the planet was covered in ocean, the atmosphere was breathable, a little lower in oxygen than ours, and higher in carbon dioxide, but not to toxic levels. I’d imagine some light terraforming, plant life, trees and the like, would change that. The atmospheric pressure was a little higher than Earth at sea level, and the gravity was one point one of Earth’s gravity.
The island chains seemed to be stable, and there was very little apparent volcanic activity. It actually made me wonder if the race that had apparently seeded the galaxy with humanoid life, hadn’t had a hand in the planets as well. Mostly, the life giving worlds we found were suitable for human habitation. No thicker atmospheres, or gravity we can’t live in, the list goes on.
I had no proof of course, but the coincidences associated with life in the Milky Way galaxy just never seemed to end. Even the axial tilt was similar to Earth, although a little smaller. It looked like this planet would wobble between eighteen and twenty degree tilt, opposed to the twenty-two to twenty-four degrees of Earth. That would, I believe, make the seasonal changes a little milder, but the North and South poles a little less livable than on Earth.
That was the limit of what our sensors could tell us, compositions, forces, and elements. Several shuttles with scientists were sent down for a survey, looking for any virus or bacteria that may be inimical to human life or the kind of life, such as animal and plant, that we needed to transport here to make it an independent colony.
The scientists of course would be wearing their skin suits sealed up, and go through decontamination protocols when returning to the ship. I was curious to go down there, but didn’t see the point if I couldn’t breathe the air, so I’d wait. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days I’d imagine.
If the planet did pan out, and so far we’d seen no indications it wouldn’t, the plans called for leaving behind twenty ships with a rear admiral lower, and moving twenty platforms and five thousand Shield missiles to the system. At that point… the civilians would get a shot at creating Earth’s first colony. I was kind of excited about it, but at the same time I knew I was getting ahead of myself, the planet needed to fully check out first.
It would be about twelve hours. The various groups would release a cloud of medical grade nanites to check for anything that might be poisonous and couldn’t be managed for humanity. Without the power of the human body, the nanites would run out of power in that time, but it was plenty long enough for them to dig into and sample everything they came across.
Al said, “You have a priority call coming in.”
Priority call? “Answer it, Hello? This is Admiral Jones.”
I was surprised by the voice of Vice President William Tanner. Although from the country where I was born, he wasn’t my favorite member of the board, and he wasn’t around very much. I could also tell by his voice he was very angry.
“You have a damned leak.”
My mind immediately jumped to my latest round of inventions, thanks to the power jump of dark energy. But I dismissed it after a moment as ridiculous. Kristi would never betray me, and Al was incapable of it. No one else even knew yet.
After a few seconds I answered, “Could you explain that sir, what was leaked?”
The VP said loudly, “The damned planet, what else would I be talking about?”
Huh, I was at a loss, “So, what happened exactly, and what do you want me to do about it?”
He growled, seriously. Growled at me. I rolled my eyes, but only because it was an audio only call.
“Someone leaked we found a planet we could colonize to the press. It all snowballed from there, all the governments in the USFS are being pressured by companies and individuals to allow them to go to the colony. All the board members are being pestered by calls to make sure that their country is the first to be able to reach out to the stars. It’s a damned ni
ghtmare!”
Oh. I was still waiting for him to tell me what he wanted me to do about it. I was in charge of space, by their authority, rules, and laws. What the hell did the problem have to do with me?
“So, what did you want me to do exactly? Sir.”
I frowned at the silence, wondering if he was having a heart attack or something. Finally, he spoke.
“Find the leak, throw them in the brig, or out a damned airlock. I don’t care which. We planned originally to have a lottery of sorts, with seven entries, to decide who gets to go first. I don’t think that’s going to be possible now.”
To be fair, I had no idea what political pressure he was under, but whatever was happening, he needed to get a grip.
“Alright, I’ll do my best to track it down. The problem is, I don’t think this information was classified at all. It came in as part of the scan data report, and I sent my admiral to handle it along with twenty other ships.”
It was probably my fault, since I didn’t tell Sergei it should be treated as sensitive. Who knew the world would go crazy over it? Then again, it probably would have happened anyway, it wasn’t like the information could have been hidden for long. But then, if who was going was announced with the information of the find, it probably would have cut most of it off before it built up so much momentum.
Yes, I was completely waffling back and forth in my mind, and arguing both sides.
He sounded a bit less mad, and tired, when he replied, “You do that, let us know what you find out.”
He disconnected the call.
“Al, contact the other ship AIs, find out who made personal calls right after I sent those orders out, and up to a half hour later please.”
Al replied, “On it.”
I grinned. Not only was Al understanding imprecise speech, he was using it. Granted, on it wasn’t a very obscure way to say acknowledged, but it was progress. I pondered the dilemma, there were a lot of large Island chains out there. Maybe… we should just share the first colony world.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Right, and then we could have a bonfire and sing songs together.
I spent a little time going through the news reports to see for myself. If anything the vice president was understating things a bit. There were a lot of commercial and private groups that actually had vessels built and ready to go, sitting on the ground on Earth and waiting for word to take off. Apparently they were waiting with baited breath. Even worse, nationalism was resurging, rather than coming together when there was an alien threat, the old competition to beat out and become the front leading country was resurging. Kind of like the race to the moon, everyone wanted to be the first to start a colony.
I’d say it was a human thing, but hadn’t I just raced out here to take my own look?
There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with that, competition is the reason we advance so quickly, as opposed to the more sedate races of humanoid live out in the galaxy. However, it could be a problem at this stage, we should be working together to reach out, and defend from other races, even if those other enemies were a little shadowy right now.
I wasn’t worried war would break out on Earth or anything, but I was worried the USFS could lose their mandate, if enough people demanded change things may break down again. The last thing Earth needed to do is have seven plus space navies roaming the stars, anything they did would be reflected back on Earth. It was the one place we had to present a united front, and I hoped I was worrying about nothing. Overreacting. I guess I’d find out.
The planet checked out. I also read the report I was about to submit, with Sergei’s report appended. It not only described the planet, it also had the information the VP had asked for. It turned out to be more than one person. At least three hundred people had called someone, family, friends, etc… None of them had called the press directly, so I didn’t append any of the names or arrest anyone. After having time to think about it, I realized it wasn’t their fault.
There was nothing from the board to say the scanning data was top secret, but then it probably should have been, which means it was down to a failure of communication, from the top. I couldn’t tell them it was their fault, and I would only admit to partial fault. I should have thought about it myself, but in truth, it never occurred to me. I did make some recommendations now, for them to send out official orders that discoveries through the stealth sensor net be classified until they could be reviewed.
I’d have been happy to do it myself, to my vice admirals on down, but it really needed to come from them. However, thanks to the VPs call, I did send out orders to classify any information gathered on the planet until it could be reviewed and disseminated by the board. Sure, it was closing the airlock after the air was gone, but it would prevent it from getting worse.
I sighed, wondering if I’d have a job this time tomorrow, because I was sure the board would never admit they’d messed up to the various world leaders, and that meant they needed a scapegoat. I ordered Al to send it anyway, what else could I do? The one thing I wouldn’t do is order any of my people locked up for violating orders that didn’t exist outside of the vice president’s imagination.
Strangely, the idea of upgrading shields popped into my mind. Maybe the board would say no to that one, or for all I knew all the upgrades Kristi and I had come up with would be shot down. But in a weird way, advancing science was what I lived for, and for me it was a lot like comfort food would be. Sure, I was a beautiful young woman, but I was undoubtedly a huge geek.
“Al, access the double shields file and implement two more levels on the test lab ship. I want to see what the gains are in shield strength with double and triple shielding.”
I shrugged to myself, even if the board wouldn’t buy it, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t put it on my personal ships. It might even improve things with the old fusion reactors powering it, although it would almost double the cost of each missile, even I flinched at that. Still, the ships that held actual people, it was hard to put a price tag on their safety…
I took one more look at the planet, and decided I needed to get back to Earth before the board called me down to yell at me, or shoot me. As long as I was in the doghouse, I compiled a presentation for possible upgrades. I knew we were at the point where my suggestions wouldn’t be so readily accepted, and they’d think about it for a while before deciding if they were necessary.
I put in that the dark energy reactor, and converter, were necessary to the other upgrades, but also included that shield strength and speed would double without changing anything else. Then I talked about the other upgrades separately that could be built upon those two initial upgrades. Wormhole drive, vastly more powerful plasma cannons, and newer shield configurations. I knew they would say no to that last one, but if we ever met an enemy we needed them for, I wanted the option already known and out there.
The old ships could take about ten missiles before failing, all at the same time. It would be more accurate to say they can take ten missiles a second, because the shield is constantly being maintained and regenerated. With the more powerful power source, they can take twenty in a second. I still had to verify it, but the math indicated it would take forty with dual layered shields, and sixty with triple layered shields. The shields were separate to a certain extent, but they were interdependent, the second would equalize with the first, and the third would equalize with the second, and they were all being constantly regenerated.
It also illustrates how strong the new plasma cannons were. What would in theory take sixty missiles, would be accomplished by three plasma shots within a second. Of course, none of it was necessary for today’s threats, the question was what would humanity run into tomorrow, as we continually mapped out the galaxy, and other races followed the path I was taking?
Chapter 11
The new shield system was in, it wasn’t a major change, and according to sensors I was right about the effects. The new triple shields were six times more powerful than the old ones. It
boggled my mind that it could take sixty missiles, and they had to hit all within a second, to destroy the ship. I enabled the change for the command ship as well and thought about bringing in the lab ship, we had nothing else in the works really, until the next time I got a new project.
Then I decided just to leave it there, it was a good platform for a highly hazardous lab out there in the void for next time, hopefully there would be a next time.
Strangely, with all that was happening that thought was extra depressing. I was back to just my admiral job, and keeping an eye on my company. Creating was a joy to me, and I had no idea when inspiration would strike, or even just interest in investigating something else.
“You look like someone shot your dog. Let’s go home tonight, relax, kick back. Have you talked to Nathan lately?”
I looked at Kristi in surprise. The idea of leaving the ship right now hadn’t even occurred to me with what was going on, but I supposed that was foolish, going home after my shift shouldn’t matter.
“I talked to him last night. He won’t be eligible for leave again for months, and he’s deployed right now. Best case scenario is I can visit him at the base when his current mission is completed.”
Kristi frowned, “That sucks. But still. Wine, hot tub, wine, dinner, wine, really bad sci-fi moves on Netflix… in the hot tub, and of course, wine. Should take care of everything.”
I smiled despite myself, “Fine, after you doctor Wilder.”
Kristi waved her arm, “No, after you doctor princess Jones.”
I snorted, she was right, I needed to wind down.
Alicia Jones 3: New Frontier Page 6
