Archaea 2: Janis (14 page)

I was momentarily caught off-guard by his grasp of the process. “Correct sir, I was thinking  of using gold. It is a great conductor and we have quantity... or is that too spendy?”

“I think it's a fantastic idea, Shorty. Gene?”

“Well, we can definitely build those busbars with gold... Maybe we open a few cases, sir?”

“Can you build me a box with a magnet we can trigger at range? That way, if the case blows, we don't lose the gold.”

“No problem Dak, building a box would be far easier than figuring out those crates. Give me a few minutes for supplies, and I'll fabricate a bomb-proof box in the cargo bay.”

“Gene, don't spend too much time on this. Time just isn't on our side. There are people slipping behind us right now, chasing us with bad intentions. While I would prefer we were going faster, this is as fast as we can go given our current course.”

While he spoke I was moving fast, plasma rig up and goggles down. I was carving off an entire set of the nicest, most polished flux gates you have ever seen, but strangely, I didn't care. It was bad technology, and I wanted the absolute best for my gun, nothing else would do.

The captain came back on comms, “Gene, you were right about Duron. We are blazing through a densely packed, highly energetic and very hot area – this is absolutely fantastic stuff, amazingly good hull plating. ”

“Captain, with the hull energized to our current limits, you could probably land on a star if you had to, but it would be a pretty tricky approach.”

“Tricky? Nah. I could do it.”

“Only you, Dak. No one else could.”

“Well, let's hope we never have to find out.”

“Amen to that, sir. Okay, it's not pretty, but I have a box built. Can I borrow Yak again?”

“Gene, he's heading aft now. Shorty, I would like you to head on back to the cargo bay as well please.”

“Aye Captain.”

I got up, and went.

*****

“Yak, I need you suited up” Gene said, the moment my head was through the inner lock.

Here I was again, on station to move heavy and possibly deadly explosive things, suiting up, I worked through the procedure, over, and over. Nothing more serious. Gene is back at the crates, but at this time has built a stout little metal box. That man is seriously good with a welder.

“Gene, comms check.”

“Check. Let's work from the very outside of where Red was, Yak.” he said, looking to the forward corner. I nodded, and headed up, catching a grabber below the catwalk right above it, then gently kicking down to the floor, carefully holding on to the cases and pulling myself down. Gene was on the floor with a toolbox, heading over doing the left-footed clickstep with his magnets on, but I preferred the direct approach. I was already clipped in and ready to work. He was a close second, though, and we made short work of unclipping the pallet.

Moving it was pretty easy for me, it was a heavy mass, but it wasn't really unmanageable. Gene and Jane both look sideways at me when I do this, but they are both shorties.

“Gene, what's the plan here?” I ask, as we approached the ramp.

“Well, we're going to break the pallet, and shift a case into that box there, and set it, as slowly as we can, into open space.”

“Then we go to a safe distance and trigger? What if it blows up?”

“Well, the captain doesn't care, we need that gold. At least one, maybe two cases.”

“What are you building with this gold again... a bus? What is that?”

“It's a bridge, Yak, for the current to flow across, though I am not sure why we are building it. If they used it to push the overload back into the firing chamber...” he mused off looking aft into space. “I'll be damned, Yak! Now I know why!” He laughed.

“Why?”

“Well, Yak... because they're not holding the charge at all, waiting for the chamber to reset, they just shove wattage back into the chamber, pre-loading a shot even faster.”

“Won't they melt the gun?”

“Nah, the optics of the gun are way capable, Yak”, Shorty said, kicking in towards the ramp. “The charging chamber is also unbelievably stout. The current isn't a problem for any part on the gun except the flux gates.”

“Why would they ever use them in the first place?”

“Well, Mister Onebull, flux gates hold the charge, then that charge ramps back into the breech when we recharge to fire.“

She stopped, thinking a bit.

“Well, that's what they did, anyway, as far as I am concerned. They certainly won't do it any longer on my gun!”

“Ma'am, I'm sorry. I must inform you, that at this moment in time, I am not keeping up, technically.”

“That's okay Yak. It appears that the service is experimenting with a new technique now, and Janis thinks we should as well. The current should feed back into the chamber just fine, but Janis and I had an idea, something completely new. We think we may be able to stimulate ignition of the beam energy, by adding additional energy into the cycle – overloading the failover, essentially. We're still talking about the math, but this gun will work.”

She smiled.

“Isn't it already ignited when it is fired?” I asked.

“Yes, but in a single event, a discharge of energy.”

“And you think you can make it a continual burning beam?”

“Yep. Cool huh?”

“What is the output Jane? Did you guys simulate an exawatt?”

“Did we ever, Yak, and then some. The tokamak is producing simply an amazing amount of energy right now. We are having to limit the energy to some extent to keep from overpowering various systems throughout the ship, but the systems that are able to use the energy, like the slipspace generator, and soon, the nova cannon will have access to tap deep into the well of energy.”

“Jane that sounds awesome.”

“It is!” She laughed. “It's really an elegant solution, the challenge is the timing, it's incredibly high energy, just massive unbelievable amounts. Janis has written switches that appear to test out. Her ability to produce simulations is almost beyond comprehension.”

Gene and I laughed. There isn't much she can't do.

“Well, she can't move gold.”

“Of course she could Yak.”

“Then why isn't she?”

“Excellent question. Janis, are you able to run the hoist?”

“Of course Gene, though I am unable to create a movement force sufficient to run it without assistance, as our slipspace gear doesn't support multi-homing.”

“Something else for the shopping list?” I asked.

Shorty looked over the pallet. “Gene, how expensive is top of the line slipspace gear, I mean, the very best money can buy?”

“About 16, 18 of those crates, Shorty.”

“Yikes, okay... we'll keep an eye open for salvage, I guess.”

The sound of the hoist starting suddenly across the cargo bay startled Gene enough to kick involuntarily and rise off the deck. Jane and I laughed as he fell upwards toward the end of his tether trailing a solid string of curses.

Even without Gene's help, moving the re-strapped pallet back over to the bulkhead racks was easy - Janis was absolutely perfect on the hoist, and anticipated our movements flawlessly.

“Captain, I have your box, and enough crates. Can we drop slip for just a bit, and run these out?”

“Gene, are these crates from anywhere near where Red was?”

“No, Dak, not according to Janis.”

“Well, just open them Gene. Use Shorty's magnet. I need those guns now. I can't stress this enough.”

“Opening, aye” Gene said, as Shorty passed over her magnet. We all took a breath, as he leaned over and popped the latch.

The case opened and we all exhaled, like we were on a synchronized breathing team going for the podium.

“Well...are we all dead?” asked the captain.

“No sir, the cases opened just fine, we're back on track.” Gene said, obviously relieved. He closed the case and secured the latch.  

“That's great news, thanks Gene. We'll have to save that box for later, I know it will definitely come in handy.”

“Aye skipper”, he said while kicking off towards the inner lock with the case. Jane and I each grabbed cases of our own and followed as quickly as we could.

*****

“Janis, do your gravimetric sensors have enough resolution during slipspace to plot the Starry Dawn and her escort?”

“Not directly, sir. At this time we are nearly a third of the way through this sector. I have 4 corrections to make, but we should be able to slip through it without dropping.”

“Do you think they may have dropped slip, Janis?”

“I think it likely, sir, though I am afraid I don't know about the AV vessel. Unfortunately, they didn't get in range of my network. If they have an AI on board, as Pauli thinks may be likely, they could be on our course.”

“Janis, you said directly. Can you indirectly locate their position, through extrapolation?” If I was learning anything around here, it was that many things were possible. Janis had an uncanny, unfailing track record.

“Not with enough accuracy, sir. I am afraid my best range-to-target is likely 12.8 million kilometers, they are almost certainly stopped sir, or considerably slower.

“Nice.” and I meant it. Even if she was off a few hundred thousand kilometers, they were a very long ways off. Not far enough, of course.

“Folks, Janis has about twelve and a half million kilometers of lead on our pursuers, and we are navigating the Lights at speed. We will not be coming out of slipspace for this run. Gene, how are the buses coming?”

I felt like our ship was constantly being downgraded to inoperable by these crazed gearheads and gun freaks. Of course, I will allow they have done an impeccable job.

My concern is for Solis. We really don't know what we're facing out there. My initial understanding was that we were carrying plague medicine. I couldn't imagine what sort of plague we're trying to cure with this. This sounds much worse.

Solis was going to be a tricky job, anyway. It's a miserable iceball – water ice, of course. As an indentured system there wasn't much on charts about it, essentially 'water ice year round, mining colony'.

As I half-expected, Janis had built a very complete precis from information she mined from the Unet. Pauli helped her refine the search she was doing, and between them they located survey maps, and weather data for the past 130 years. Janis recovered a very recent map series that showed habitations, mines, surface station, and so on.

The data files were standard gribs, and Janis made short work of them, showing me weather patterns across the landscape. She overlaid the various maps with weather data on my holo, and I was able to get a good look at the coordinates we were headed towards. A pretty sizable mining station was located a short hop away from the coordinates. I flipped to the weather layer for the area and shuddered.

Solis had a pretty horrendous weather system.

A number of massive mountain ranges from north to south across the globe created rugged mountainous areas with dense peaks and deep valleys – and all of it was almost certainly completely covered in, or being covered by,  blowing snow. As miserable as it might be, this sort of weather is perfect cover for a covert flight path.

Between the terrain and the weather, it was looking like a pretty tough ride. I will need Shorty, Yak and Pauli, but I will want to leave Gene here with Janis. Between them they can get this bird anywhere.

Of course, I was putting the horse before the cart a little bit. Before I worry too much about landing, we needed to get to Solis first. AV knows we're enroute, and they will most likely be looking for us.

At our speeds, if we passed close, it would blow their gravimetrics right off the chart. Some merchie out there, even a glom boat not actively looking for us, they may not know what happened, but an AV gunship almost certainly would.

“Janis, how close can we slip to the coordinates on Solis?” I asked.

“We could slip to lower atmosphere, sir.”

I sat down my coffee.

“Janis, that's cutting it pretty close. Are you sure... no, belay that. Janis, that may be necessary, I may hold you to that, dear.”

“I am quite sure of it, Captain.”

“If you say so – it's a good idea. We have a more pressing concern, though. We can't really pass too close to other ships in the system. Are you accurate enough to avoid detection, and maneuverable enough at these speeds?”

“Absolutely sir. Under stasis, we can fly to the limit of pseudomass compensation. This allows us a very large degree of maneuverability. I can display my anticipated course through the system sir, if you would like.”

“That would be very nice, Janis.”

She flashed her route across my holos, and if I wasn't belted down I might have been floating across the bridge.

“Janis... are these bogey tracks?”

“Yes sir.”

“We're currently... about halfway through the Lights, and you are tracking ships in-system?”