Reconstruction - Edited 11-9-2018

Thanks to the new mathematics, all sorts of problems were being solved from those with much better brain power than me. I had a small cheat for it, thanks to Observer, so I missed the sessions of academic discussion about it all. I had a built-in cheat in my Neurals for that anyway.

“Thanks again for the SI. I think with what I have planned we can name her Neith. I need help on materials for uniforms.”

I was chatting with Asimov and two of his colleagues in the tech bay next to our Crystal Fabs. The weaves I was thinking of would need to work for a few things, and I wanted to start “small.” I’d work up from there.

The conversations we’d had while I was plugged into Hera were haunting me a little. With Hephaestus, Ares, and Enyo testing laser weapons theory, getting something with highly reflective or refractive properties was going to be key. If we had it, then others did as well. I then made the jump to plasma and would need a material that could withstand temperatures of as close to 10,000 K as I could get.

“What’s wrong with the current uniforms?”

“Nothing, just a bad feeling. Now that the other seven Arks have abandoned us, we will need to adapt to this area of space quickly. Then we need to reclaim ours and help the species in this sector, hopefully solving a lot of problems.” I shrugged

“Okay. Any advanced math then?” One look at my face answered the question. “Yeah, stupid question. Of course. Anything other than chemistry knowledge?”

“No, I think I have all the primers I need for it,” I tapped my temple, “I mean, tons of data, remember?”

Since the reboot a lot of rumors, about yours truly, were floating about. It took a while for me to get a whiff of them. One said I was a Sol planetary AI housed in an android shell. New model replica stuff. Another was that I was an all-powerful alien and that I was faking a human appearance. The closest to the truth that I had heard was that I was contacted or visited by pan-dimensional beings that whispered in my ear about the destruction of the fleet, and only because of that our Ark was saved.

I was pretty sure Torres was behind at least one of them. I wasn’t letting on that I knew about any of them. Well, not often, and definitely not to those I didn’t know. Except the two with Asimov. But that’s it!

“Oh, let’s add capacity for Neural communications?” I asked more than said.

I was doing my bridge duty when we entered the “Oort” cloud for the solar system we had dubbed a V-0001.E. We were going to have to decide if we kept Oort for all solar systems, or just for ours. Not my job, so I just called it an Oort cloud. Much easier than “ball of crap outside of a solar system but still technically part of it.” The naming system we decided to use was “V” for visited, followed by a number, then “E” for Entered. The difference between the two is you could get scanner readings (now) without having to go inside the cloud to see if what we need was there. Sure enough, the Uranium-233 and Helium-3 deposits that were necessary to fabricate power were plentiful in the system.

We would be thawing some miners shortly. First, we had to slow down. By some strange violation of a law (I’m looking at you Newton) braking took us longer than twice acceleration. Probably Angular momentum or some such. Our deceleration burn only took us to the sixth planet. We would have to work on that for the future, but I wasn’t the pilot.

During my duty shift, I was reviewing material choices with Neith. We had discussed several options over the last many days, and one that we kept coming back to was robes. They simply wouldn’t work, but Neith didn’t want to let it go.

It won’t work. Those would not be acceptable uniforms.

-Can be. Just make it acceptable-

That isn’t how human militaries work

-Your militaries sometimes make work, to work.-

She made that statement as if it was a matter of fact. I think perhaps we got a little more than we had bargained for when Asimov and his team created her entirely with a crystalline matrix as part of the design. He even said at one point in time it was almost as if the code was writing itself.

Neith, doing that wouldn’t be proper. Even if you “could” doesn’t mean that you “should”

-Stupid human rules.-

Well, keep in mind that the uniforms are FOR us, stupid humans.

-Jax is not stupid. Host is smart enough to know when outclassed.-

Okay, what in the world was she saying?

You may outclass me in some regards, but remember, I have thumbs.

-Yes, but humanity is a flawed design, require sleep. We NI will not need rest-

NI? Is that a new term you’re using?

-Yes. Neural Intelligence. Work with crystalline structures. Crystal helped design. Allows matrix connection when keyed. We are keyed. We cannot be unkeyed. Locked to a Neural.-

“CONTACT!” the shout came from a midshipman on sensors.

I had been distracted by my conversation with Neith, so I jumped a bit. Not gonna lie, I also peed a little.

Captain Wallace was in his rack. The XO was currently on Duty, however.

“What do we have?”

“Three ships unknown origin. No matching signs in the database.”

“Three ships, that’s a start. How are you reading them?”

“Gravitic scanners saw a ripple. Low light amplifications detected the Doppler adjusting the light from some of the stars it was obfuscating.”

“Well, Jax, your new sensor package actually works.”

“Sir!” I responded to his not statement not compliment I knew it was all the “thanks” I’d hear.

Observer, any ideas?

No, these are not mine.

“Observer has no matching data as well,” I stated calmly. I connected my terminal over to pull the sensors data. “Can you check if you can find their EM data?” No harm in asking.

After scanning through several EM fields, we found a frequency that the three ships were barely visible at. We watched the scanners as they stayed in a perfect triangle formation and followed us. Then after a dozen or so minutes, they were gone. Completely vanished. Just a pulse of energy right before and then nothing.

“Where did they go?” Commander Watson was asking as the Captain entered the room.

“Rasputin woke me, where are they?”

“You just missed them, sir. Will you be taking over watch?”

“No, I’m here informally, all decisions are yours, XO.”

The XO and Captain had to have that exchange for the benefit of everyone present. Had he relieved the XO of Duty, then the chain of command would be with him at the top. As it was, because he did not relieve the XO, we could ignore his orders if they contradicted the XOs as he wasn’t actively in the command chain at this time.

“Understood. Here’s the breakdown.” Commander White then proceeded to go down the actions of us and the three cloaked ships, including me, asking about the EM frequencies.

“Rasputin, can you fill in any holes or gaps that were not reported?” The XO wanted to ensure full reporting to the captain.

“Nothing additional to add, that is pertinent.”

“Very well, XO, continue with your duties. I shouldn’t have to tell you to keep extra eyes on those sensors.” With that, the Captain left again.

The rest of duty was stressful yet uneventful. By the time my shift was over, there was a full scan of a large chunk of two of the five asteroid belts in the solar system. We would have plenty of iron, silicon, titanium, uranium, as well as helium, nitrogen, neon, and other gasses from the nearby gas giants.

The next morning at 0600 hours, the Captain made an announcement over the ships PA system.

“All hands, all hands, this is Captain Wallace. As you are aware, there was an attack on our ship in the recent past. We lost several crew members during this attack. We must take some time and regroup. As it stands, our original orders are defunct. We are no longer capable of building a colony on Anki in the Meso System.”

“We will hold true to the spirit of those orders! Our traveling companions have been lost. But as we have survived, so too have they. We have found a moon in the system that will be habitable. It will be Dome life, but it is still a life. We have the Civilians to look out for. We must ensure the survival of our species in this sector of the universe.”

“The plan had been to have several Arks merge together to create different space infrastructure. Mining stations, space stations, and shipyards. With only our Ark-5, we will be rethinking that strategy. I am calling on all planners, military and civilian alike. We must plan the infrastructure. We must plan security.”

“Look to your orders. Help us succeed. Captain Wallace Out.”

I had my hand-held with me. The tell-tale blip of an incoming message hit my terminal.

TO: Engineering Department

REPLY TO ATTN: Ark-5 Command

SUBJECT: Orders

You have been selected to be part of the planning infrastructure. Your expertise in the field will be necessary to ensure the survival of humanity far from home! We would like to ensure your discipline has all the tools it will need. Please inform your chain of command of any additional hardware or utilities you will need.

As part of , you will be reporting to . As an officer from a critcal field, you will be permitted to have a handpicked staff. Command recommends using members of various disciplines for your team. You never know when having an E-1 will backfire because he doesn’t know how to make coffee!

For planning session purposes, please be aware that there will be a time dilation effect.

Please forward your team picks to your chain of command. Please choose no more than 14 people, along with the list of additional hardware.

So, one of those in my chain of command was having fun with this. Due to my knowledge being all over the place (thanks to Observer) they had pulled me out of the group I would have been with as either a CB or a Combat Engineer.

Neith, can you get a list of available friends for me? I would like at least two CBs, a Combat Engineer, two Aviation Engineers, and one Aviation Ordinance Engineer, as well as Asimov and Yavuz. I would also like Janssens. Let’s also check out Wachowski, Le Roux from Engineering, and get us a medic. How many is that?

-Thirteen, without you. Fourteen with you.-

Okay, good. Except for those I specifically named, find me some team members with exceptional records, a good head on their shoulders, and the desire to help. Feel free to contact Rasputin or Hera for assistance.

-Understood. Candidates found. Your critera matches at rate of 70% or higher. Additional criteria was included in process-

How many candidates and what criteria would that be?

-Thirty. The criteria are as follows: Out of the game. Known by you directly or known by someone you know. Three degrees of separation at most, AI excluded from the selection.-

Okay, that is acceptable. Please forward the email I received for my orders to the candidates along with the message “Accepting interviews for my team. You have been selected for the shortlist. Meet in Cargo Bay at Down-6-Port Frame 2-Fore at 0730 hours this morning. Bring your own coffee, and a zero-G container is recommended.” Include the names of the specifically named on the “to” field and send it off.

I finished dressing then all but ran to the mess hall to get a quick bite. From there I was off to the newly reconstructed cargo bay.

I then sent my list of materials off

TO: Ark-5 Command

REPLY TO ATTN: Lt. Jax

SUBJECT: Materiel Request RE: Orders

Hera (and rest), I will require the following hardware and tools to comply with my orders….

Reconstruction - Original

Thanks to the new mathematics, all sorts of problems were being solved from those with much better brain power than me. I had a cheat for it, so I missed the sessions of academic discussion about it all. I had a built in cheat in my Neurals for that anyway.

“Thanks again for the SI. I think with what I have planned we can name her Neith. I need help on materials for uniforms.”

I was chatting with Asimov and two of his colleagues in the tech bay next to our Crystal Fabs. The weaves I was thinking of would need to work for a few things, and I wanted to start “small”. I’d work up from there.

The conversations we’d had while I was plugged in to Hera were haunting me a little. With Haephestus, Ares, and Enyo testing laser weapons theory, getting something with highly reflective or refractive properties was going to be key. If we had it, then others did as well. I then made the jump to plasma, and would need a material that could withstand temperatures of as close to 10,000 K as I could get.

“What’s wrong with the current uniforms?”

“Nothing, just a bad feeling. Now that the other seven Arks have abandoned us, we will need to adapt to this area of space quickly. Then we need to reclaim ours and help the species in this sector, hopefully solving a lot of problems.” I shrugged

“Okay. Any advanced math then?” One look at my face answered the question. “Yeah, stupid question. Of course. Anything other than chemistry knowledge?”

“No, I think I have all the primers I need for it,” I tapped my temple, “I mean, tons of data, remember?”

Since the reboot a lot of rumors about yours truly were floating about. It took a while for me to get a whiff of them. One said I was a Sol planetary AI housed in an android shell. New model replica stuff. Another was that I was actually an all-powerful alien, and that I was faking a human appearance. The closest to the truth that I had heard was that I was contacted or visited by pan dimensional beings that whispered in my ear about the destruction of the fleet, and only because of that our Ark was saved.

I was pretty sure Torres was behind at least one of them. I wasn’t letting on that I knew about any of them. Well, not often, and definitely not to those I didn’t know. Except the two with Asimov. But that’s it!

“Oh, let’s add capacity for Neural communications?” I asked more than said.

I was doing my bridge duty when we entered the “Oort” cloud for the solar system we had dubbed a V-0001.E. We were going to have to decide if we kept Oort for all solar systems, or just for ours. Not my job so I just called it an Oort cloud. Much easier that “ball of crap outside of a solar system but still technically part of it”. The naming system we decided to use was “V” for visited, followed by number, then “E” for Entered. The difference between the two is you could get scanner readings (now) without having to go inside the cloud to see if what we need was there. Sure enough, the Uranium-233 and Helium-3 deposits that we needed to fabricate power was plentiful in system.

We would be thawing some miners shortly. First, we had to slow down. By some strange violation of a law (I’m looking at you Newton) braking took us longer than twice acceleration. Probably Angular momentum or some such. Our deceleration burn only took us to the sixth planet. We would have to work on that for the future, but I wasn’t the pilot.

During my duty shift, I was reviewing material choices with Neith. We had reviewed several options over the last many days, and one that we kept coming back to was robes. They simply wouldn’t work but Neith didn’t want to let it go.

It won’t work. Not acceptable uniforms.

Can be. Make it acceptable

That isn’t how human militaries work

Can make work.

She made that statement as if it was a matter of fact. I think perhaps we got a little more than we bargained for Asimov and his team created her completely with a crystalline matrix as part of the design. He even said at one point in time it was almost as if the code was writing itself.

Neith, doing that wouldn’t be proper. Even if you “could” doesn’t mean that you “should”

Stupid human rules.

Well, keep in mind that the uniforms are FOR us stupid humans.

Jax not stupid. Jax smart enough to know when outclassed.

Okay… what in the world was she saying?

You may outclass me in some regards, but remember, I have thumbs.

Yes, but humans flawed design, require sleep. We NI will not require sleep

NI? Is that a new term you’re using?

Yes. Neural Intelligence. Work with crystalline structures. Crystal helped design. Allows matrix connection when keyed. We are keyed. We cannot be unkeyed. Locked.

“CONTACT!” the shout came from a midshipman on sensors.

I had been distracted by my conversation with Neith, so I started a bit. Not gonna lie, I also peed a little.

Captain Wallace was in his rack. The XO was currently on Duty, however.

“What do we have?”

“Three ships unknown origin. No matching signs in the database.”

“Three ships, that’s a start. How are you reading them?”

“Gravitic scanners saw a ripple. Low light amplifications detected the Doppler adjust from some of the stars it was obfuscating.”

“Well, Jax, your new sensor package actually works”

“Sir!” I responded to his not statement not compliment I knew it was all the “thanks” I’d hear.

Observer, any ideas?

No, these not mine.

“Observer has no matching data as well.” I stated calmly. I connected my terminal over to pull the sensors data. “Can you check if you can find their EM data?” No harm in asking.

After scanning through several EM fields, we found a frequency that the three ships were barely visible at. We watched the scanners as they stayed in a perfect triangle formation and followed us. Then after a dozen or so minutes they were gone. Completely vanished. Just a pulse of energy right before and then nothing.

“Where did they go?” Commander Watson was asking as the Captain entered the room.

“Rasputin woke me, where are they?”

“You just missed them, sir. Will you be taking over watch?”

“No, I’m here informally, all decisions are yours XO.”

The XO and Captain had to have that exchange for the benefit of everyone present. Had he relieved the XO of Duty, then the chain of command would be with him at the top. As it was, because he did not relieve the XO, we could ignore his orders if they contradicted the XOs as he wasn’t actively in the command chain at this time.

“Understood. Here’s the breakdown.” Commander White then proceeded to go down the actions of us and the three cloaked ships, including me asking about the EM frequencies.

“Rasputin, can you fill in any holes or gaps that were not reported?” The XO wanted to ensure full reporting to the captain.

“Nothing additional to add, that is pertinent.”

“Very well, XO, continue with your duties. I shouldn’t have to tell you to keep extra eyes on those sensors.” With that, the Captain left again.

The rest of duty was stressful yet uneventful. By the time my shift was over there was a full scan of a large chunk of two of the five asteroid belts in the solar system. We would have plenty of iron, silicone, titanium, uranium, as well as helium, nitrogen, neon, and other gasses from the nearby gas giants.

The next morning at 0600 hours, the Captain made an announcement over the ships PA system.

“All hands, all hands, this is Captain Wallace. As you are aware there was an attack on our ship in the recent past. We lost several crew members during this attack. We must take some time and regroup. As it stands our original orders are defunct. We are no longer capable of building a colony on Anki in the Meso system.”

“We will hold true to the spirit of those orders! Our travelling companions have been lost. But as we have survived, so to have they. We have found a moon in system that will be habitable. It will be Dome life, but it is still a life. We have the Civilians to look out for. We must ensure the survival of our species in this sector of the universe.”

“The plan had been to have several Arks merge together to create different space infrastructure. Mining stations, space stations and shipyards. With only our Ark-5, we will be rethinking that strategy. I am calling on all planners, military and civilian alike. We must plan the infrastructure. We must plan security.”

“Look to your orders. Help us succeed. Captain Wallace Out.”

I had my hand-held with me. The tell-tale blip of an incoming message hit my terminal.

TO: Engineering Department

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Ark-5 Command

SUBJECT: Orders

You have been selected to be part of the planning infrastructure. Your expertise in field will be necessary to ensure the survival of humanity far from home! We would like to ensure your discipline has all the tools it will need. Please inform your chain of command of any additional hardware or utilities you will need.

As part of , you will be reporting to . As a key officer, you will be permitted to have a handpicked staff. Command recommends using members of various disciplines for your staff. You never know when having an E-1 will backfire because he doesn’t know how to make coffee!

For planning session purposes, please be aware that there will be a time dilation effect.

Please forward your team picks to your chain of command. Please choose no more than 14 people, along with the list of additional hardware.

So, one of those in my chain of command was having fun with this. Due to my knowledge being all over the place (thanks Observer) they had pulled me out of the group I would have been with as a CB or a Combat Engineer.

Neith, can you get a list of available friends for me? I would like at least two CBs, a Combat Engineer, two Aviation Engineers and one Aviation Ordinance Engineer, as well as Asimov and Yavuz. I would also like Janssens. Let’s also check out Wachowski, Le Roux from Engineering, and get us a medic. How many is that?

Thirteen, without you. Fourteen with you.

Okay, good. Except for those I specifically named, find me some of them with exceptional records, a good head on their shoulders, and the desire to help. Feel free to contact Rasputin or Hera for assistance.

Understood… candidates found. Matches at 70% or higher for unspoken criteria.

How many candidates and what criteria would that be?

Thirty. The criteria is as follows: Out of game. Known by or known by someone you know. Three degrees of separation at most, AI excluded from calculation.

Okay, that is acceptable. Please forward the email I received for my orders to the candidates along with the message “Accepting interviews for my team. You have been selected for the short list. Meet in Cargo Bay at Down-6-Port Frame 2-Fore at 0730 hours this morning. Bring your own coffee, and a zero-G container is recommended.” Include the names of the specific named on the “to” field and send it off.

I finished dressing then all but ran to the mess hall to get a quick bite. From there I was off to the newly reconstructed cargo bay.

I then sent my list of materials off

TO: Ark-5 Command

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Lt. Jax

SUBJECT: Materiel Request RE: Orders

Hera (and rest), I will be requiring the following hardware and tools to comply with my orders….