Chapter 10

"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

~ Neil Armstrong

WarpStar

The WarpStar had tucked inside the cavern without any issues, a testament to the skills of Ensign Carr, the ship’s helmswoman. They were as safe as they could be—for the time being, while Legion ships were in orbit. They could not detect the Federation Destroyer unless they sent a ship to see them where they were hiding. This advantage served as a disadvantage, as well. The radiation from the uranium and the properties of the lead not only blocked any ships from discovering the WarpStar, but prevented them from scanning outside of the cavern as well. The Destroyer was blind.

Char began to lock the ship down in her final power-down procedures.

The ship's tactical officer, Heidi, took her seat at the command chair at the island, assuming duty as officer of the deck. Heidi was a reasonably young officer for her posting; in her late twenties, she's positioning her career for command. Enjoying a posting onboard the warp star as the chief of security puts her as third in line for command and expedites her chances at one day commanding a ship of her own. She sat on the seat, for the first time genuinely being in command. Pride flowed through her, as she just took the first step towards her dreams. Nothing was going on at that moment; the ship was hiding from a superior enemy in a cave system that prevented them from seeing outside. Nothing was likely to happen for a long time, but she didn't care. She was in command.

Char did not share the same feelings. Rage flowed through her. It was the only thing left to feel after the bliss died down from her accomplishment. "Propulsion systems powered down, throttling main reactors to station idle. Gravity systems remain offline. We are parked. Ma’am, may I be excused for other duties?" Ensign Carr asked her current commander, trying hard not to show her emotions. Not knowing what kind of commander Heidi is, or would become, Char was banking on the side of caution.

"You are relieved, ensign," Heidi nodded and pulled up security data on the captain's terminal, deciding to get some paperwork done with the extra downtime she inherited on the bridge.

"Sir, may I have a word, please?" Charles thought his request was soft enough for only John to hear.

"Absolutely," John replied, standing up from his command chair, he gestured towards the rear of the bridge, inviting his executive officer to the captain's office. "Commander Watney has the con."

"Would you like some tea, commander?" John asked while pulling out a chair in front of his desk, signaling Charles to sit.

"Please! Ganymede hibiscus," John nodded and put the order in the recycler to produce the warm liquid unique to the food production moon of Ganymede.

John sat down with the two drinks, tea for his second in command, and Columbian coffee for himself. John never could resist the intense flavor and aroma of a good cup of the brewed bean from Columbia. The ship's recyclers do a decent job imitating the bean, but nothing beats the real thing. Since the WarpStar was built in a Martian shipyard, she was supplied with mostly food products from Mars. No special orders were submitted, given the top-secret nature of the project. John had already put in a request to the ship's logistics officer for a few crates of the bean next time they are in port.

"Sir, I have to ask. What is your plan, since the original plan got tossed out the hatch. That was a drastic last-minute call," Charles said.

John took a sip of his coffee while listening to the concerns of his executive officer, legitimate interests. Before he had a chance to explain his decision, his hatch slid open. The look of disappointment on Charlene's face that she couldn't slam the hatch open was apparent. "What in the hell!!" she yelled out, ignoring two senior officers in the room.

"Excuse me, ensign?" Charles stood up and emphasized her rank. "You do not talk to a senior officer in that manner! And…" he tried to continue but was interrupted.

"It’s okay, Charles." John stood up, motioning O'Connell to sit.

"Sir, with all due respect."

"Noted, commander. Please sit. You as well, ensign." John's use of her rank told her this was business and not a personal meeting. She entered the room inappropriately.

"Sir," Ensign Carr began to protest.

"Firstly, ensign," John interrupted her. "Just because we have a strong friendship does not give you the right to barge in here the way you did. Save that attitude for when it's appropriate."

"Yessir," she said crisply, sitting straight up, as much to attention as she could muster on the chair.

"Secondly, I know what you are going to say." Char began to give him one of those 'what in the hell are you doing' looks. "Don't start, ensign. It was my call."

"It's just as much my project as it is yours!" She couldn't control herself. Her Scottish heritage was boiling her anger beyond a point that anyone could control.

"Yes, however, as captain of the ship, I had every right and authority to use anything at my disposal during a combat situation. It was our only option."

"Uh, excuse me," Charles interrupted, not knowing what was going on in a meeting he thought he had called for. "What's going on?"

"Sorry. Let me explain," John began.

The 'Betsy' Project, named by John at Charlene's protest, was a project created jointly by the Impossible duo in an attempt to create a safer and more efficient battlefield. Betsy was an Artificial Intelligence created for the goal of full autonomous fighters. A.I. has been a controversial topic for several hundred years, never gaining any ground in development beyond simple Navigation A.I.'s or ship-automated systems. John had written the software that governs 'Betsy,' while Charlene helped program combat maneuvers, tactics, and other behavioral traits into the A.I. in hopes that she would learn and become a better pilot. They had created 'Betsy' in a modified X-401 Fighter that John had also designed in the academy.

With space battles spanning multiple light hours at a time, space combat can be quite tricky for single-pilot fighter crafts. The most dangerous reason would be the g-forces produced by the tight maneuvers in space. Cruisers, which are hundreds of times larger than a fighter, can outmaneuver a fighter with ease with the advanced inertia stabilizers and subsystems that fighters lack. A pilot in a fighter would feel every force thrust upon them. The second bit of impairments to the pilots would be the time lag. Fighters cannot go more than a few light seconds away from their carrier to coordinate orders and tactics well, yet most of the fighting takes place further out than a few seconds. Fighters also lack the sophisticated combat computers larger ships have to be able to calculate trajectory, speed, and distance of a target, making it near impossible to track them. For general space use, fighters by themselves are near useless.

To combat these issues to the best anyone could, assault Corvettes were the answer. These small, ten-man ships are deployed from Capital ships down to Battleships and are the main control point for the modern fighter. Five pilots sit in the main chamber in the center of the Corvette, each resting in their flight cockpit, complete with controls. Each pilot controls a wing of ten drones that are attached to the outer hull of the Corvette. Of the five pilots, one pilot controls a flight of fighter bombers. Each Corvette intern carries forty assault drones and ten bombers. Since the drones themselves do not have any humans inside of them, they are capable of performing insanely high-g maneuvers, accelerating on upwards of one-hundred-g's and performing fifty-g turns. Miniature fusion reactors power the drones and take up the bulk of their mass.

The Corvettes themselves only have minor inertia stabilizers, capable of mitigating up to five-g's of force. They are not equipped with gravity plating inside them in any form. When they are not under thrust, the crew floats in zero-g. To help mitigate stress on the crew, everyone is strapped in a high-g crash couch specifically designed to sustain high maneuvers for long periods and specially equipped with a gel-like substance that cushions the person from the forces being pushed on them. Extreme burns call for a liquid to be injected into the body that carries oxygen to vital organs and prevents collapse of the veins and most organs.

Destroyers do not carry any Corvettes for the pilots, as the maneuverable ships themselves act sufficiently enough to allow the pilots perfect communication to their drones. X-401 Fighters are still onboard any starship equipped with a fighter bay, so pilots can always control one firsthand, mainly for atmospheric combat as the drones cannot enter planetary atmospheres.

Charles attempted to wrap his head around what he had just heard. "You are trusting our lives to a robot?"

"She's artificial intelligence," John corrected his executive officer, taking another sip of his coffee.

Charles wasn't drinking his tea. Staring at the cup in his hands, he tried to wrap his brain around the situation. "And what if your plan fails? If the 'A.I.'," setting his cup down, he quoted the words with his fingers. "Fails to activate and return to us? What if the Legion discovers it?"

"We have seventy-two hours. By then, our Hyperdrive will be out of cooldown, and sufficient time will have passed to hopefully lose interest from the Legion. If our luck holds out, they will have left the system by then. If not, then we should have enough of a head start to jump back to Sol, and find another system to initiate the F.T.L. test."

Charlene jumped in to reassure her commander, who still was not accepting the idea. "She won't. The captain has a master's degree in Artificial Intelligence and design. I've been working with him on this project for several years now. I have trust in her."

"Alright, I just wish you would have brought me up to speed on this."

"It's a valid point, commander. However, the project technically is classified, and I had to make a split-second decision. You have clearance now since I am reading you in, and as the project lead, I have the authorization to give you the clearance. Are we good now?" John finished his coffee, craving more. He opted not to replenish his cup as his duty shift was starting to creep on the side of needing sleep.

"I'm good, sir. With your permission I want to check over some of the crew."

"Understood. Let Heidi have the con for a while, I am going to head out for now. Char, get some rest; you will need it soon enough."

"Aye, sir," they both replied as they stood up and headed out of the office. John looked out the viewport to stare at the white and gray cavern that was barely lit by the outside sunlight, wondering what the Legion was doing at that moment, hoping the unknown alien species would determine they were not a threat and leave the system, anxious to start testing on the prototype drive system he had helped develop.