Destiny Rising - A Hard Military Space Opera Epic: The Intrepid Saga - Books 1 & 2
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Wrapped around everything was a series of gossamer arcs. These arcs connected the rear of the ship to the front, and, while they could have been simply utilitarian, someone had gone to great pains to make them very beautiful. They reminded her of a spider’s web, gracefully spread between the engines and the rest of the ship, reflecting light almost as though they were speckled with dew.
“Still even has that effect on me too,” said a voice behind her.
She turned to see a man of that indeterminate middling age. A quick query of public data informed her that this was Dr. Earnest Redding, the man essentially responsible for the creation of the Intrepid.
“Dr. Redding,” she stammered, unsure of why he was present, or if she was in the right place. Perhaps the corporal thought she was someone else and took her somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. “I’m honored, but honestly a little confused.”
He smiled. It was a kind smile, and honestly appeared quite genuine. “I would guess that you are somewhat confused, but Abby and I knew we would have to meet you for ourselves, and since the preliminary interviews are complete it is time to get down to brass tacks.”
“Preliminary? I haven’t had any interviews yet. I only just decided to apply for a position a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, yes, of course you did.” He smiled again. “However, we have interviewed you. Your last three interviews to be precise. Those were our people, and they were seeing if you had what it takes.”
Amanda was stunned. How had they interviewed her for a position she didn’t even know she was going to apply for. And for that matter, how had they faked those interviews and job offers?
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions.” Dr Redding said. “Come, let’s have a seat and I’ll explain it all. My wife should be along shortly and then we can get fully underway.”
He led her through the doors at the other end of the lobby into a conference room. Taking a seat across the table from her, he folded his hands.
“You see, we needed to find a very particular candidate for a very special position on our ship. We put out a number of job applications across the Sol system with particular companies that agreed to go along with us and let our people perform the interviews. You did quite well, so we decided to bring you along for the next stage.”
“Exactly what do you mean by ‘next stage’ and what is the actual job itself anyway?”
“All in good time,” Earnest smiled again. “I can’t jump the gun until…” he was interrupted by the door opening and a woman stepping in. She wore a serious expression; her gaze focused roughly a foot in front of herself, most likely focused on personal holo projections. The public net informed her that this was Dr. Abby Redding, the woman responsible for the actual construction of the Intrepid. She couldn’t imagine what job they would have in mind for her, especially one that required an interview with these two.
Arriving at the table, she sat down beside her husband and looked up almost as though she had been waiting for them and not the other way around. “Have you begun?”
“We’ve only just sat down; she has yet to learn of the actual position.”
“Very well. I’ll allow you to proceed.”
Earnest focused on Amanda. “I assume that you have some knowledge of the Intrepid, that you have done your homework and understand the nature of what we are building. This ship is designed to last for millennia, and so its central AI has the ability to live that long and remain sane and solid. This ship is also the largest vessel ever built by raw tonnage, bar some ore freighters when they are fully loaded, and even then they don’t have the computational power across their whole ship that the Intrepid has in a single processing center.” He gestured around him as he said this. “Because of this, Intrepid is a very advanced AI, perhaps the most advanced ever created. He was raised by a team of AI who specialize in shaping long-term construct intelligences, and has exceeded even their wildest expectations. And in doing so we have encountered an issue that we had anticipated, and for which we have mapped out an ambitious solution.”
“You see,” Abby said, smoothly picking up from her husband. “Intrepid is getting too far advanced to easily communicate with us on a regular basis. Dumbing down its thought processes to our level is more of a chore than the thought process itself. Certainly it can communicate with a few of us with ease, but there are over ten thousand souls aboard now, and they all need information all the time. Not to mention Intrepid’s actual job of running the ship.”
Amanda’s eyes grew wide. “That’s the job? You’re looking for someone to become the voice for the ship, to handle that interface and maintain a human connection both for the ship and for the crew.”
“She’s not stupid, I’ll grant her that,” Abby said to Earnest.
“To have made it this far, she couldn’t be,” Earnest nodded his agreement.
“You don’t seem appalled by the notion.” Abby said. “We weren’t entirely certain about you as a candidate—you’ve never had an internal AI, the only one of our interviewees who hasn’t had one for that matter. It’s either going to be something that would make the job harder, or a lot easier. We’re not certain.”
“To be honest,” Amanda said. “I really enjoy running my systems manually, or at least writing and managing the routines that do so for me. The thought of using another being to manage my mind would be a lot like one of you being required to serve lunch in the mess hall—a tremendous waste of resources.”
“She thinks like you along that line,” Earnest smiled at his wife.
“That she does. I find the logic impeccable.”
“I’m brimming with questions,” Amanda said. “How would it work? What would it be like? What if I didn’t like it?”
“I’d say you are brimming, yes,” Earnest said. “It’s important to note that a core facet of this project is to present a human element to the crew. To that end you would take up a position in the lobby outside the bridge, where you would manage the systems under your purview and also facilitate a physical presence. Exactly how you handled your interface would be specific to you and tailored to the maximum efficiency. There would, of course, be significant physical modifications—even by your standards.”
“As to what it would be like, no one can really say. I imagine it would be something like having your mind expanded—finally being able to grasp all of those concepts that you know are right on the edge of your current ability. I imagine it would be very eye opening,” Abby said with less emotion than Amanda would have expected to hear, given the pronouncements she made—though she was beginning to see that emotion was not Abby’s strong suit.
“If you didn’t like it, you could terminate your contract, there is a trial period both ways. We don’t want someone who hates being the representative of the ship’s AI,” the chief engineer continued.
“And there is, of course, the matter of whether or not you and the Intrepid can mesh,” Earnest added.
Intrepid said to all three.
“You do understand the timeframe of this journey right? Over three hundred years of relative time will pass.”
“That is fine by me.” Amanda replied. “I have few attachments, and…I mean, I like people, I’ve always moved around a lot, looking for something, I guess.”
“Well, I suppose that something has found you,” Abby said.
SETTING THE MEET
STELLAR DATE: 3227179 / 08.14.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Mars Outer Shipyards (MOS)
REGION: Mars Protectorate, Sol Space Federation
“Major Richards!” Terry Chang called out as Tanis entered the SOC.
“Miss Chang, I’m guessing
you’ve word regarding our uninvited visitors.” Tanis walked up to the woman, who was clutching a sheet of plas tightly.
“Do I ever! I traced the mercs’ organization and located the person in their organization who brokers the deals. The name is Daiki Tanaka; he or she operates out of Cruithne Station. There’s a drop on a regional Mars surface net if you want to make contact with them. I’ve forwarded the protocols to your personal net.”
Tanis reviewed the information. “Excellent. Good work, Miss Chang; we’ll get somewhere with this yet.”
“Yes, sir.” Terry smiled and turned back toward the entrance to her labs.
Tanis found it amusing how the civilians had started calling her sir; it didn’t take long for the military way of things to take over.
Tanis chuckled.
Commander Evans poked his head into Tanis’s office. “Major, not sure if this is your cup of tea or not, but one of my pilots has a few spare tickets to the InnerSol championship game between High Terra and Mars 1.”
Tanis looked up at Evans. “Championship game for what?”
The commander sputtered for a moment. “The uh…you really don’t know?”
“Sorry, sports aren’t really my cup of tea.”
“Uh…I see.” He gave her a look like she had two heads. “It’s only the first time in over a hundred years that High Terra has made it into the InnerSol finals. It’s only going to be the most amazing football game ever.”
Tanis shook her head. “Not my idea of a great time, but I do have something for you to do while you’re down there.”
Commander Evans’ look was completely unreadable.
INTERLUDE
STELLAR DATE: 3227182 / 08.17.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Mars Outer Shipyards (MOS)
REGION: Mars Protectorate, Sol Space Federation
“We’ve got the response.” Ouri sat down across from Tanis’s desk and dropped a secure sheet of hyfilm in front of the major.
“Positive I hope.” Tanis passed a token over the SOC net to the hyfilm. Its contents were scrambled and took a moment to render before Tanis’s eyes.
“We’ve got a meeting at a bar on Cruithne Station called ‘The Human Condition’,” Ouri summarized.
“Odd name...”
Ouri shrugged. “I guess so. So, who are you sending out there?”
“Sending?” Tanis asked. “I’m more interested in going.”
“Going? You can’t be serious… Sir.” Ouri tacked on the honorific after catching a raised eyebrow from Tanis.
“I am indeed serious. Things are quiet at the moment and I intend to take advantage of that. I’ll never be more than a few light minutes away. I’ll be certain to keep a laser comm trained on the Intrepid.”
“The admiral will never clear you for it.”
Tanis smiled and Ouri knew she wasn’t going to like the response.
“The admiral never has to know.”
CRUITHNE
STELLAR DATE: 3227185 / 08.20.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Cruithne Station
REGION: InnerSol, Sol Space Federation
Tanis looked out the porthole at Cruithne Station as the transport matched velocities with the asteroid habitat. There wasn’t much asteroid visible anymore, though here and there a bit of raw rock did show between spurs and domes. Originally merely an aggregation of ice and iron no more than five kilometers across, the station had expanded far beyond those bounds into a sprawling structure over one hundred kilometers long. Her access to the structural design showed that none of the original asteroid remained.
Normally, once the resources from such a body were exhausted, there would be no further reason for mankind to remain, but Cruithne orbited the sun in resonance with Earth, always on the same side of Sol. Depending on where it was in its year, it was either accelerating away from earth or Earth was accelerating toward it. The result was a very useful location for transporting shipments in and out of InnerSol. In addition, Cruithne also crossed the orbit of Venus and Mars from time to time, further adding to its list of useful locations.
This was one of those times when Cruithne would come very close to Mars and the trip only took two days, something Tanis was grateful for as the transport she was on wasn’t at all passenger-friendly. The crew was even less so. They were either ignoring her or coming on to her. Tanis had gained a great familiarity with the walls of her berth.
When the shipnet announced a seal and equalization, Tanis was moving down the corridor before the station rules finished posting. She wasn’t terribly worried about them—other than the fact she was certain to break some.
Cruithne fell under the jurisdiction of the InnerSol portion of the stellar federation, but only nominally. It was owned and run by an old family of traders, and had been for as long as anyone could remember. They were wealthy and not overly concerned about scruples. The combination made for a station that looked like it was out of the vids from the early third millennium. It was readily apparent that one of the reasons the family was so wealthy was that they didn’t bother with preventative maintenance…or cleaning.
Tanis moved out onto the dock and immediately had to navigate around an argument between the ship’s supercargo and a repair crew. It seemed that the crew was repairing part of the life-support system at the transport’s berth. The main cargo hatch was completely blocked off by conduit hanging from the ceiling like vines in a jungle, and more than a dozen pulled-up deck plates.
After circumventing the mess, Tanis logged on to the station net while Angela chatted up the traffic and mass balancing AI for information. She checked the public areas to see if there were any alerts or warnings that would affect her plans before beginning a slow circuit of the station.
Even though she didn’t expect any—or much—trouble, knowing the lay of the docks and where clever hiding places or distractions could be found was never a bad thing. More than one vendor hauling carts filled with random trinkets and knickknacks trundled along the dock. A larger than average population of greasy food carts was also in evidence. She suspected that some of them must be doing double duty both keeping a lookout and smuggling items onto various ships.
Tanis was undercover, her net presence and ID switched to a new record that Angela and Ouri had set up. She was certain that they had picked this particular disguise as a joke or some sort of punishment for overworking them.
She was masquerading as a Golist, a religious sect of quasi-cyborgs who believed in reaching enlightenment by minimizing motion and being at peace with oneself. They also were fierce traders. The religion’s roots were an odd combination of capitalism and Taoism.
Because she wasn’t a cyborg, the sect’s regular attire was not comfortable at all. Ironically the part of her that was the most comfortable was her head where nearly all of her skin had been removed.
/> Covered in a silver metal, with only a sliver of skin around her right eye still in place, her head had a slightly ovoid shape. The liquid steel that covered it could take any form, but the standard pose was a totally expressionless mask with no mouth, nose, or ears.
Angela said.
Her body was covered in a polymer that coated her like a second skin, which was somewhat uncomfortable as it really wasn’t meant to wear over skin, but typically in place of it. She had opted for the temporary discomfort as re-growing the skin on her face was going to itch enough as it was; she could suffer a few days to save the weeks of itching and scratching across her entire body. The glossy white covering was largely inflexible; not that strange since the Golists deplored excess motion. Tanis had allowed for more movement in the arms than was typical, but her legs were essentially straight as a beam and ended in fine points that hovered several inches off the deck. It took a good bit of power to achieve that effect, which meant that most of her thigh muscle was waiting for her back on the Intrepid, the area it usually occupied now filled with SC batteries.
An itch began to twinge way behind Tanis’s right knee.