They almost succeeded in wiping out our entire system with just one coded transmission from a cloaked vessel when we were at our most vulnerable. When all of our people were on-orbit in the floating cities that had navigated from the gravity wakes in the sky, where there is an equilibrium between the gravitic up-currents with the static gravity well of the planet, and into orbit during the superstorms of the Perihelion Pass.
The mega-storms and planet quakes hit every thirty-four years when Prime was at its closet point in our orbit around our star. And the Galactic Federation knew this and waited patiently for the pass to begin, knowing that all personnel dirtside would be evacuated to the floating cities for Exodus, and everyone in the system would be together, on-orbit.
I wonder how many years they had suspected us of building our fleet without military oversight from Old Earth. How many years had those crystal licking bootwaffles from the Obsidian Pacification Force been hiding in the system, just watching, knowing they were going to 'pacify' us when the Perihelion Pass began?
I wonder what had happened to Terra over the centuries to turn it into this oppressive and totalitarian entity that ruled the other star systems by force. They had once been a great people of explorers and visionaries who reached out to the stars and made homes in so many planetary systems. Bright-eyed dreamers. Now they more resembled the worst of humanity, more along with the lines of the Nazi Empire of the twentieth century, or the Unified Pacific Consortium from the twenty-second century.
I guess the old adage that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely is more prophetic than it would seem.
The Galactic Federation hadn't anticipated that by a fluke, Tau Ceti Prime hadn't completely evacuated for this pass. I was stranded here in Agri-grid A1 with my pingers to ride out the mega-storms. And the pirates who have terrorized Prime for the past twenty-seven years were still hidden in their caverns.
We were the monkey wrench in the machine they couldn't have anticipated. After repairing a damaged tumbril and making it space worthy again, my pinger, Glitch and I were able to intercept the cities before they crashed into the surface of Prime and effect an external bypass of the control systems for the people trapped inside.
As I approached the door, voices were being raised and more of my pingers started adding their fervent squees to Flowers. Just great. What had the flanterskelling topsiders done now? I can't believe the lack of knowledge of the people I was supposed to train, to keep the food production running to feed the people in the floating cities. All the personnel from the surface of Prime, who used to maintain the Agri-Grids and the terraforming station... who the topsiders referred to derogatorily as dirters, were all vented out into space when the Galactic Federation's pacification routines were activated.
Since nobody had wanted the dirters mingling with the others when they were all evacuated for the Perihelion Pass storms, they were assigned menial tasks like sewage maintenance in the bowels of the cities. So I am the lone surviving dirter who knows how to maintain the farms and livestock that will keep our surviving populace from starving to death.
Unfortunately, the pingers and harvesters had all received the same activation codes and had destroyed much of the infrastructure until the deactivation overrides were finally sent from New Terra city. The only grid that survived intact was mine, Agri-Grid A1, because all of the pingers, harvesters, and tenders had had their Asimov inhibitor chips and control crystals either deactivated or destroyed by me and my mother before me when we 'woke' our pinger family and allowed their AIs to become self-aware.
Once we got the crops replanted here in A1, we've been sending groups of my pingers to repair and replant the other Agri-Grids, while the Betweeners who used to pirate the skyways here, were sent out to round up all the livestock that the rogue pingers scattered outside of the sonic fences that kept the natural predators of Prime away. Large numbers of them were lost, but if our people stick to a low meat diet for the next couple of years, we should be able to replenish the numbers again.
The Obsidian Pacification Force had almost inadvertently succeeded in wiping us out since our entire food production was brought to a virtual standstill. Even the two huge orbital agricultural domes had suffered one hundred percent loss of personnel and crops. The only thing that survived the almost absolute zero the domes reached, were all the seeds and genetic material that was in cryo-suspension.
I swung open the small access door that was beside the closed, massive bay doors and stepped into a free for all. Men and women were wrestling with pingers who were all surrounding Flower and keeping guys with electric cattle prods away from Flower's potting table and her small flower garden.
Glitchy had two men pinned to the ground with his grappler, as Wrongway was screaming and warbling as two men tried shocking him. Blip was just spinning in place, his grappler outstretched, creating a whirling wall the others were trying to duck under as they shouted, “Pinger A5-232, command override. Power down.” or “Pinger A5-232, command override, institute Asimov protocols!” and “Pinger A5-232 reinitialize base programming and run core diagnostic protocols.”
I slapped one man on the back of the head. “Stop that.” Then I whistled shrilly and everyone froze. I pointed around. “Turn those damn stunners off. Boys, stand down.” Then I moved beside Flower who was vibrating with anger and asked incredulously, this being an almost daily occurrence, “What the hells is going on here?”
They all started talking at once. And I held up a halting hand, feeling a headache coming on. I pointed at Flower and she, squeed out a series of highs and lows, and I found it sort of satisfying that I was getting to the point where I didn't need to count them anymore to understand their binary ad-hoc language my pingers have developed on their own since the cost of becoming self-aware was losing their vocal processor crystals to house some of their distributed consciousness.
I snickered at her use of the derogatory term for humans that Glitch had come up with, “fleshies” as she told me they were trying to steal her flowers.
I turned to the loudest man. “Is this true?”
He almost growled at me, “Is what true?”
I sighed. “Everyone down here is supposed to be learning binary or using your iso-pads to translate when speaking with my pingers.”
“My pad is inside. We needed more space to lay out parts and came out to bring this table in to use. And this tin bucket went crazy. When we tried to reset it, the others attacked us.”
I ran my hand down across my face and said, not for the first time, “One, stop calling them tin cans, they are people and have names just like you do.”
“They're pingers. They're tools to be used, not people.”
I stepped up to the man, my nose almost in his chest as I looked up at the burly man. “You talk like that one more time and you're on the next tumbril heading to New Terra.” I looked around. “That goes for all of you. Either you treat my pingers as equals or you're of no use to us down here. They are the only thing keeping our people from starving to death. Do I make myself clear?”
There was a long delay before they started nodding slowly. I continued, “And this table? Nobody touches this table. It is Flower's, where she pots her flowers and tends her little flower bed here.”
I glared and Glitchy trundled up to beside me on his tracks his ocular port widened in a challenge to the others on his orb-shaped body. I poked his ocular port and accused, “You're supposed to be keeping the peace here, and I come out to find you pinning two Topsiders to the ground?”
He tried to make excuses as he squeed, looking embarrassed, and I listened to a long diatribe of his version of events, nodding slowly. I sighed and said, “I know you boys overreact when Flower is involved, but really?”
He made a motion that looked like a shrug. And the man said, “They attacked us, they're dangerous.”
I nodded. “They did, and they are, just like every human you know is. You apparently wouldn't take no for answer then started pull
ing out weapons or tried to shut them down when the boys tried to block you from taking the table. What would you do if someone pulled weapons on you? You're just lucky they are more humane than you as they could have torn you apart without a thought if they wanted.”
Then I looked around and said impatiently, “We are way behind and I'm needed at terraforming control then on orbit so everyone shake hands and let's get back to work.”
I tried so very hard not to grin in satisfaction as they all looked frustrated but shook hands with my pingers who looked just as put out. One day I'll just let them all kill each other, then maybe I'll get work done or at least a decent night's sleep.
I sighed and headed back in, Blip following behind and he tipped over with an audible “blip” when his tread hit a hydro-seal laying just inside the door. I sighed heavily as I helped the clumsy pinger back to his treads as I grumbled while picking up the hydro-seal. “What is so hard about keeping the walk and tread spaces clear?” I'm basically a hoarder but keeping the walkways clear is sort of a no brainer, especially with easily distracted pingers like mine trundling around.
I headed back over to the latest tech I was training again and had to close my eyes and count to ten before saying through my teeth. “Why did you pry that ceramic-gasket off before I could show you how to do it without damaging it as you did? We reuse everything we can down here planetside.”
The weapons-tech looked at me like I was being silly. “It's just a gasket. We'll just put a new one on when we reassemble the unit.” The tender, Sid, rolled his ocular port far above us and his horn made a deep chuckling sound.
I asked flatly, “You're right Jerome, so why don't you grab a new gasket and we can do that.”
He looked around, Blip started shaking in humor as the man looked at the racks of salvage which I and my pingers had pulled out of the junkyard near the grid's perimeter, the Boneyard. Then he pulled open various parts drawers in the repair bay as I leaned idly on one of Sid's huge wheels. He lowered the stalk of his ocular port to cover my eyes for me and I whispered, “Thanks, buddy.”
When the tech gave up after querying his iso-pad, he prompted me and Blip, “Where do you keep them?”
I shrugged and said, “We don't. In all the wisdom of the resupply officers on New Terra, we get about ten percent of the new parts needed to keep the fleet of harvesters and tenders, not to mention all of my maintenance pingers, in good repair. Now we're going to have to see if we can't scavenge up a used one from the salvaged assemblies or just cut a new one from a sheet of scrap graphene since it isn't a high-pressure environment this particular assembly requires.”
He started to chuckle then his smile faltered when I just leaned there, arms crossed over my chest as I waited for the realization. “You're serious? But all these machines down here are what keep us alive.”
I nodded and said with a grand sweep of my arms as I pushed off of Sid's wheel. “Welcome to my world. The crystal lickers topside think it is ridiculous to divert resources into keeping us mere dirters well supplied. It is only when we start falling behind in our quotas that they take us seriously enough to send partial shipments of the most needed parts down to us.”
Then I noted he had replaced one of the power crystals in the assembly with a nearly full one. I sputtered as I moved over to remove it and dig out one from a bucket of burned-out crystals that had about a quarter charge left, “What are you doing? We have so few full crystals that we only use them in emergencies.”
I looked at Blip and pointed at the damaged gasket. “Blippy, can you fabricate a replacement out of that cracked graphene heat sink sheet out back and button this up to get Sid on his way? The big man is needed in A3, and it is a long drive.”
He squeed out what sounded suspicious like, “Aye, aye, Fixie.”
I sorted through the bucket to find a couple more partial burns for the next job, pocketing the full crystal so these entitled bootwaffles didn't waste it.
Jerome rubbed his ebony chin with his hand as he summarized in disbelief, “So the most important department for the survival of the Tau Ceti system is not given the tools needed to even do proper maintenance of the machines here dirtside?”
I nodded at him as he looked to be searching my eyes for any deceit, then he looked at the bucket like it was nothing but trash. “Not even power crystals?”
Sighing, I shared, “Ideally each Agri-Grid is supposed to have no less than one hundred full crystals on hand at any given time. I'm lucky to get five or ten in a year down here.”
The weapons-tech grinned like he had caught me in a lie. “Impossible. You can't possibly do the maintenance you log every month with so few crystals.”
It was my turn to grin as I winged a thumb toward the door. “It is amazing what you can find in the junkyard of discarded tech the floating cities litter the grids with. We call it the boneyard. We salvage whatever used power and control crystals as well as any other parts we can there.”
A man called from the door, his baritone traveling well in the space, “Well maybe we can do something about that, little dirter.”
My eyes bulged at the mag-sled the unshaven man was pushing, which had what had to have been at least three hundred kilos of uncut ionized crystal eriodite, or ICE crystals. That'd be about two hundred and fifty usable kilos of power and control crystals once cut. That would be a lifetime of ICE dirtside!
McGreery was the commander of the Betweeners, looking every inch the swashbuckling captain who saved my ass on-orbit when the Obsidian Pacification Force tumbril carrier decloaked and attacked me en route to save New Terra... not to mention the recent revelation that he is my girl, Vashon's father.
He smirked as he came up to us with Glitch trundling along behind him. “Close your mouth Vega, you act as if you've never seen a shit-ton of ICE before. We just happened to have this sitting around in the mines, gathering dust, and I thought an enterprising young woman such as yourself might have a use for it.”
I squeaked, “I could kiss you, McGreery!” While I noted Jerome had instinctively reached for his hip where his weapon would have been if I allowed more than a stunner dirtside. Understandable, I guess, in the presence of the leader of the sky pirates. But I had our leader, Lady Peregrine, extend pardons of all past crimes for all Betweeners in exchange for the fuel donation to get me on-orbit to save the floating cities.
He pointed at his cheek. “What's stopping you?”
I kissed his cheek and he grinned, then the man said to Glitchy, “Hey Sparky, why don't you see what you and your other metal companions can do with these and a sonic blade?”
Glitch squeed an affirmative then McGreery said to me, “Abigail says you need a ride to terraforming and then orbit?”
“I do.”
He offered his arm and I said, “Glitch, put Flower in charge of that since she has the best eye for it, and why don't you tag along, Vash would like to see you.”
He squeed another affirmative and I told Jerome, “Flower is in charge when I'm not here, so don't get any ideas.” I added after a moment in afterthought, “And double-check any of Wrongway's work, sometimes he does things backward.”
Then I walked out on a pirate's arm and got into his vacuum rated attack tumbril to start chapter two of my busy day.
Chapter 2 – On Orbit
We made a quick visit to the huge terraforming station that was making the atmosphere more breathable every day to check up on the junior engineers who were going over the systems of the station. They were tasked with familiarizing themselves with the systems and replacing any command crystals or circuits provided by the Galactic Federation which likely contained the malicious code sets that had almost caused our demise.
Since I was the most qualified engineer available dirtside, I had to supervise the juniors from time to time. Over eighty percent of the engineers, mechanics, and techs were slaughtered on the floating cities when the malicious pacification code sent all the pingers and drones into a bloody rampage. The code caus
ed them to hunt down and kill anyone who even resembled someone who could be tech-savvy enough to come up with a solution to save the cities before they plunged through the atmosphere to their fiery doom.
New Terra had fared the best if you could call it that. They only lost fifty percent of their skilled tech laborers, the bulk of which was below decks when those sections were vented to space. The Sky Guard and palace guards were able to neutralize the threat in the upper, isolated portion of the city with minimal losses of vital personnel.
Unfortunately, this left most of the senior engineers either repairing systems to the city systems, orbital power relay, and agricultural domes, while devising a new planetary communication system to replace the satellite network that had done a kamikaze dive into Prime's atmosphere. There was too much work for so few people.
The new pingers being produced to replace the destroyed ones, were a huge help, though many were distressed that they didn't have Asimov Inhibitor Chips and were able to make their own decisions on whether to help or not. But they rallied around my Glitchy. He was a pretty inspirational guy, and my personal hero as he had saved my life during our rescue mission, almost at the cost of his own.
The Director of Sciences for Prime, Anna Germaine, is always shadowing me, trying to figure out how I was 'waking' random pingers whenever I had time alone with them. She was dying to figure out the process that my mother had taught me before she died, to utilize various systems in the pingers to create a distributed consciousness, making them self aware.
It was my family secret and I wasn't about to share it with someone who was also Head of Covert Sciences who was helping to build the Dark Fleet to wage war against the Galactic Federation if they attempted the pacification of Prime. Ironic, since the very existence of that fleet is what triggered the very thing it was meant to deter. And I would not allow Covert Sciences to use pingers for war... for disposable soldiers.
Fixit Adventures Anthology Page 22
