“You’ve obviously never tried the Onaku City sim,” Finn replied. “I ended up waiting for an air train for twenty minutes.”
“You played that alone?” Clara asked. “That’s supposed to be a social simulator. Minimum two hundred participants.”
“Oh,” Finn replied. “No wonder.”
“The better question is: why were you playing a social sim when leisure sims are restricted?” Stephanie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Just exploring the program library,” Finn muttered.
“All right,” Jake said. “We’ve got clearance, let’s thicken the Warlord’s skin.” He watched as their course changed so they would pass near the sun then turn away after it was finished there.
“Let’s hope we don’t have any thin spots,” Frost said under his breath.
“Frost,” Stephanie said, shooting him a warning glance. “Everything we’re saying is going ship wide. Some positivity, please.”
The Warlord gracefully followed its assigned flight path out of orbit and away from Tamber. Jake could feel Finn hurriedly checking systems behind him, and brought up the engineering status screens himself. The readouts filled half the area in front of him. “This crew deserves more credit than I can give,” Jake said. All the essential systems were functioning nominally, especially the thrusters, which were firing at less than a quarter of a percent. “Make the inboard engines available, please.”
“Okay, main thrusters five through eleven opening,” Finn replied.
Jake watched as the hull plates concealing the thrusters they installed across the rear of the ship between the maxjack and the rear dorsal turrets raised and slipped to the sides. They were an older style of engine, but they could take many different types of volatile fuel and provide an increase in acceleration that would be a surprise to anyone expecting the Warlord to be a simple converted hauler.
The Warlord cleared port space and Jake smiled. “Fire ‘em up.”
“Aye,” Ashley said. The light of the four main rotary engines was joined as the rear of the ship lit up. “Well, the inertial dampers are good. Didn’t even feel that.” She ramped the thrust up slowly, and stopped at six percent. “The Samson never moved this fast.”
“We’ll be slower soon,” Jake said, watching the sun loom closer. “Still much faster than the Samson, if everything goes right. Give it another three percent for ten seconds.”
“That’ll take us up to approach speed,” Clara said.
Ashley didn’t ramp the power up as slowly as before, but surged it up to the requested level. “Whoa,” Finn said as he watched the power levels jump then normalize. “Okay, we’re okay. I was sure we’d lose a few micro nozzles.”
Ashley powered back down at the ten second mark, and nodded. “Smooth ride.”
“All right, how long until we can close the doors on those thrusters?” Jake asked.
“Three more seconds,” Agameg replied through the comm. “The inboard engines are cooling as quickly as expected. They’ll be easy to conceal.”
“Close them as soon as you can,” Jake said. “Time to let the ergranian steel work its magic.”
“Never seen this before,” Frost said. “Not like this, anyhow.”
Jake sent the order for all departments to get ready and received positive reports within a minute. “All right, monitor your stations for problems and report as soon as anything comes up. Time to flip the switch, Finn.”
“All right,” he nodded. “Energizing the hull and releasing the static binding. This is going to be loud.”
“Beginning slow rotation,” Ashley reported. “Time for baby to get a tan.”
“It’s not even nearly the same thing,” Finn replied. “The Warlord’s hull is going to absorb solar radiation and increase its mass and size as it converts the energy to matter. It’s more like photosynthesis, only better.”
“Okay, then,” Ashley replied.
The Warlord’s hull was bathed in light as it slowly rotated. Jake’s tactical screen told him that they were being scanned by one hundred fifty eight vessels and counting. Everyone in the system would know what kind of hull the Warlord had before long.
Before anyone was ready, the ship around them began creaking loudly. “It’s just the steel binding with the inner supports and growing along the seed lines inside,” Finn yelled.
The bare struts above them were enveloped by strands of grey-silver metal that crept across the metal like thin vines until all the supports and the outermost surfaces were covered completely. “Full internal coverage,” Jake told Finn.
He made a few adjustments and the ergranian steel stopped growing into the ship. The outer hull began retaining all the radiation from the sun, and Jake smiled as he heard something that the metal had become known for. It began to groan, then the sound increased in pitch.
“It sounds like the hull is singing,” Kadri said.
The hull outside thickened, and Jake watched as the surface rose until the devices and round launcher ports were almost recessed. The fins rose along with the rest, only they grew harder and took on interior details that would make them the most resilient parts of the ship. Finn was doing a good job of directing the growth of the hull at the front while Agameg worked at the rear and several other crewmembers worked the middle. Jake took over two of the main engine pods himself, seeing that whoever was in charge of them was having difficulty. They had glider blades built in to the struts, like the Uriel fighters, but they wouldn’t be useable until someone cut away parts of the hull that bound to them by mistake.
After several minutes of rotating past the sun, every station reported they were finished, and all the parts hanging off the Warlord were recessed except for the four main rotary thrusters and the blade-like fin arrays.
“Returning the hull to stable status,” Finn said. “Reports coming in. We have a lot of cutting to do.”
Jake saw the status reports coming in from across the ship. Most of the reinforcement went well, though some areas weren’t completely covered, while a some hatches would have to be re-cut. There were no major injuries, and no unexpected problems. Most of the cutting and hull treatment would have to take place on the outside, however. A few of the emitters, launchers, and outer hatches were sealed. “Flight, how are our thrusters?” Jake asked.
“Rear thrusters are sealed shut, but we have our four mains, and rotation is fine,” Clara reported.
“Controls have adjusted,” Ashley said. “We’ve lost some responsiveness, but I think she’s still a sleek bird. Ready to enter hyperspace.”
“We have enough open emitters,” Finn replied. “We just can’t project a wormhole yet, so no way to test the combination FTL system.”
“Captain, this is Ronin. Both fighter launches are sealed shut. Looks like whoever was in charge of growing those sections didn’t control them very well.”
“Looks like you’re grounded until we get those cut,” Jake said. “We’re heading into hyperspace in a few seconds, so make yourselves at home.”
“Course plotted, we’ll be ready for hyperspace as soon as we clear the solar system,” Clara said.
“Good,” Jake replied. “Congratulations, everyone. Our new ship has a shiny, thick skin.”
Chapter 38
Conclusion And Commencement
The walls and ceiling were polished to a silvery shine. When Alice opened her eyes, she saw a woman that she recognized immediately, but what she saw didn’t make sense. The brown-haired, blue eyed, tall woman who stared back at her felt perfectly right, but she’d never physically been that woman. One of her eyes was cybernetic, and seemed exactly like the one she’d been given on Veers Nine, but it was blue, matching her natural eye.
Someone had put a grey metal choker on her. The vacsuit, heavy boots, as well as the thick command and control unit were all Freeground military issue. They were newer models, but definitely Freeground. She pushed her fingers through her straight, longer than shoulder-length brown hair. Her smile reflected ba
ck at her and broadened at the sight of it.
She remembered dying. That body that was such a reliable host for years was fully corrected, and the flaw in its brain that allowed her to borrow it for so long was gone. Alice remembered being trapped, hearing many of the Triton crew speaking to her, entertaining her for hours on end. Then she let go, and copied herself into a digital system. Her last memory was of the man who treated her like his daughter, patiently sitting at her bedside. She’d said goodbye, but he couldn’t hear her.
“I’ll make sure he hears me when I say ‘hello,’” she said aloud. The sound of her voice in the silent space was so surprising she clapped both her hands over her mouth and giggled. It was a strong voice with a very feminine tonality, almost exactly how she sounded when she was still an artificial intelligence running on Jonas Valent’s command and control unit. “Now, how’d they do that?”
Alice tried to scan the small room but her cybernetic eye failed. She could feel the choker around her neck interacting with the eye and the implant that allowed her to communicate through neural channels. “A restraint,” she said, tugging on it with no success.
The outline of a door appeared and a slab of metal was drawn out of the way. A woman with sharp features and long, dark red hair emerged. She wasn’t wearing a soldier’s uniform, but a long, conservatively cut green dress. The woman nodded at the soldiers behind her and the door closed. “We don’t have long, so I would like you to answer my questions quickly. Then you can go.”
Alice decided that the conversation should begin with a logical leap, maybe that would skip a lot of minutiae and get to the point. “Why has Freeground Intelligence resurrected me, and how did they do it?”
The woman looked stunned for a moment then smiled. “Why didn’t I see that assumption coming?”
Alice’s guess was obviously a miss, but she pressed on. “This room, the style, it’s all Freeground. That door’s a metre thick.”
“So you have no memories from the artificial intelligence version of yourself, or your experiences while you were my passenger?”
Alice thought for a moment, and remembered. She sent herself towards the biggest Regent Galactic communications hub she could find right before she made the transfer to digital. “What happened?”
“An artificial version of you separated from a file that it guarded. That file had all your memories and human traits. It started degrading so your artificial intelligence copied the file into my brain. You don’t have any memory of that, do you?”
“No,” Alice said. She tried to remember what it was like to be an artificial intelligence before she was human and realized she could barely recall anything. Her life as software was, for the most part, gone. Her human memories were rich, clearer than ever before. “Someone did some serious housekeeping in my head.”
The smile that brought on in the woman watching her was surprisingly joyful. “I’m glad you’re back. I only wish we had more time.”
Alice watched the woman, there was something inexplicably familiar about her, but she couldn’t figure out what. “Okay, then where am I? Whose pet project am I?”
“You have to promise not to react too extremely, let me explain the whole situation.”
“Okay,” Alice replied, sitting up straight. “I’ll let you finish before I decide on an escape plan.”
“The creator of framework technology didn’t stop developing it after escaping Vindyne. He incorporated edxi and issyrian technologies and kept on researching the secrets to true immortality.”
“Edxi,” Alice said, nodding. “I met one, looked like it took a real act of will for it to resist tearing into me like an entrée. They don’t like anyone researching or altering them.”
“That may be true, but Omira, formerly Doctor Marcelles, had a lot of success. Your framework created a modified version of human physiology. You have neural pockets scattered throughout your body, a little more strength, you’re hardened against vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperatures to a certain extent.”
Alice looked at her bare hand. It looked completely normal. She pinched it has hard as she could with her fingernails. She felt the normal pinching pain, but it didn’t break the skin. “Vacsuit skin.”
“That’s accurate. You also have a reserve lung and a bladder that reprocesses excess moisture, like an issyrian,” the woman said. “I wasn’t told this until you’d been transferred across, and they offered the same upgrades to me. Our version of the technology is locked, so we can’t make modifications to it.”
“This thing locks me down?” Alice said, picking at the choker.
“No, the lock is mental, and it can be broken, but I’ve seen what can happen when that’s done, and I don’t recommend it. That choker is keeping your cybernetics from operating. If you reached out to networks outside this ship, or started scanning things with your eye, the fleet would detect it.”
“Okay, if Omira could upgrade most of my important bits by borrowing from other races, why do I even have cybernetics?”
“Those are manifestations of your mental self image. Your memories of yourself having those are so clear that the framework duplicated them when you were transferred.”
“So if I had four arms before…”
“I suppose you’d have four now,” the woman replied, smiling at the whimsical thought.
“Damn,” Alice said. “Should have pictured five myself five years younger, with wings and a pooper that dumped platinum.”
The woman chuckled and pressed on. “You’re on Omira’s research vessel, the Fallen Star. We don’t know where she is, before you ask. We have a ship ready for you with the coordinates of Jacob Valent programmed in. Once you are clear of our fleet, the choker will fall off, and you’ll be able to use your implants however you like.”
“That’s one great big prize package, lady. Who are you?” Alice asked. “What did I do to win all that? Oh, and where am I?”
“You’re in the middle of the main Order of Eden fleet. I’m not going to tell you where the fleet is operating from, since that would breach our security too drastically. I’m also not going to tell you who I am. I could have had you cut out when I discovered you in my head, but instead allowed you to be saved.”
“Well, that’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard. I’m in a cell, in the middle of the enemy camp, which I’m assuming is bigger than I could guess.” Alice thought for a moment. “What happened to the artificial intelligence that put me in your head?”
“She deleted herself after Meunez arrived, at least that’s what she said she’d be doing.”
“Gabriel Meunez is here? Talk about burying the lead. Now I know I need to get going,” Alice replied.
“Answer a couple of questions for me, and I’ll set you free.”
“Fire away, Red. If Meunez is nearby, I have to get out of here. I didn’t make the greatest impression last time we ran into each other.”
“Well, he’s moved on to other things, but we’ll get to that. I’m wondering, what happened to Lewis?”
“How do you know about the Clever Dream’s AI?” Alice asked.
“There was another Lewis, before.”
The memory of him, and his last moments instantly lowered her spirits. “He’s dead.”
“Oh,” the woman replied. “How?”
“Okay, before I spill the nitty gritty on one of the most complicated men I’ve ever met, I’ve just gotta know why you’re asking after someone who was maybe known on two worlds. Two worlds that, I’m just guessing here, are a long way away.”
“I read about him in your history, but the file was incomplete,” the woman replied.
“Wait,” Alice said. “My memories were in your head. They didn’t stay sealed, did they?”
“No. I remembered parts of your life in dreams.”
“Well, it would have saved us a little time if you said that straight off, Nora.”
The woman regarded her with surprise. “How did you know my name?”
> “Seemed right, just a guess,” Alice said, making her best effort to underplay how disturbing the idea that she’d gotten some of the other woman’s memories as part of her transfer. “Right, so you found out about Lewis. He saved my butt twice, then I saved his once. Where did the memory end for you?”
“Before you saved him,” Nora replied.
Nora didn’t seem to want to dwell on how she knew her name, so Alice continued the story. “We had to stop for food, so we hit this drift. I think it was called Yikin, no, it was Yelkin. We were just finishing up at a Spacerwares mini-store when Lewis caught a stun round. I managed to drag him under cover and fire back. The whole quad broke into a full-on firefight, most of them taking the opportunity to take shots at whoever they didn’t like or figuring they would play law-maker and shoot whoever’s shooting. Drifts get busy with the idiots of the galaxy, the ones that shouldn’t have guns but tend to have the biggest collections. Long story short, I stole an antigravity cart and got him to a shuttle only a little more beat up than the one he had.”
“How did you start it?” Nora asked, engrossed in the story as though it was unlike anything she’d ever heard.
“It was a cheap shuttle, I busted the main console open with his sword-“
“He had a sword?” Nora asked.
“Yeah, this Zurra Cutter, like a nanosword with microsaw edges but four times as broad with heavier components, so it could cut through most metal. Can I continue?”
“Please.”
“I got into that panel and shorted the old security board inside. Once Lewis was back up on his feet, he plotted a course that would keep us away from most of the traffic. We made it back to Ulrik, but it took us three days.”
“What did you do during that time?”
Alice regarded her warily and decided that she’d please her audience of one so she could get out of her cell faster. “He was different during quiet times. Nice, interesting, he had a lot of stories and didn’t like people around him getting bored. We got close, I guess.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework Page 37
