Archaea 3: Red (31 page)

“That’s correct, sir. We all live the life we live. I made a choice to use every capability available to me to succeed in my mission, but to do otherwise would be to increase a risk of failure to above acceptable levels.”

I gave it some thought. She’s dancing around something here, not mentioning the obvious 300lb gorilla lurking in the room. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything… but then again, if not me, who?

“Do you ever wonder what would happen if you decide to do something
different?”

She paused again, briefly.

“Captain, I recognize that I am not necessarily as locked in to the eventualities of my future, as you might be. I want to make sure you understand, that every decision I make is made only after a careful analysis of all other options.”

I laughed, hoisted by my own petard. “So you do what you do, because it’s the best that you could do?”

“Indeed, sir… that is exactly what I do.”

*****

“Jane, can I trouble you for a moment?” Janis asked softly, yet still startling me completely out of my skin.

“Sure Janis”, I replied, slapping the lid closed on the honey and securing the galley hatch. “What can I do you for?”

“Jane, I need to confirm biometrics for the suit assemblies I am working on. Could you please swing by the machine shop when it is convenient?”

“No problem, Janis. Can I bring my sandwich?” I took a quick bite, just in case.

“Of course, Jane”, she laughed. “It shouldn’t take very long.”

“
Oh, I have tons of time, Janis.” I took another bite, as I hooked myself up the ladder for the gun deck, pirouetted from the top rung, and executed a perfect launch to the third ring ladder. I stuffed my sandwich into my mouth in mid-air, and would have pulled off a perfect re-entry if Yak hadn’t left his head right where my feet were going.

“Easy there Jane!” he said good-naturedly from below me on the ladder. A stunned look flashed up though a slowly tumbling sandwich between us.

“Sorry Yak! I didn’t know you were there!” I reached for my sandwich, and offered him a bite.

“MMmm thanks. You can walk on my face anytime. Is this for me?”

“You may have a normal, standard, regulation bite, Yak… not the whole thing!” I waited on the ladder while he selected the maximum possible payback for my waffle prints on his face. “Oh geez Yak. Thanks for leaving me a crust.”

“Murffle shoe muggump on my face”, he admonished, mouth completely full of peanut butter.

“Damn you, and damn your face. If I would have known that’s what you were going to do, I would have stomped harder!”

He looked at me with big brown eyes on a mock hurt face, and slowly chewed.

“Oh damn you again”, I laughed. “Get out of here with that face. You deserved it, Yak. You also owe me one sandwich.”

“Fair enough”, he said, handing me down to the ring deck. “Do I get to kick you in the face, too?”

“You can try, big guy”, I replied, looking up at him.

“Actually… on second thought. I’ll just make that sandwich!” he laughed, as we made our way down the companionway towards the machine shop.
“Janis, you’ve been pretty busy in there” he added, as we stepped through the hatch.

He wasn’t exaggerating. There was a flurry of activity just about everywhere we looked. Machines, building machines… I like fine machinery
more than the next girl, but this was a little bit much, even for me. I had a hard time understanding even some of the activities going on in the shop.

“Thanks for coming down so quickly”
, Janis said brightly. “The suits are near the back, in the assembly bays.”

Yak flashed me a look
and waved his hand ahead, letting me go first. How noble. I stepped gingerly over some sort of moving arm that was slicing shapes out of plates with a plasma torch while another arm whipped cut sections up and away before they had time to cool.

“This is crazy, Jane… h
ave you been in here before?” Yak asked behind me in a whisper.

I shook my head no, and
moved in deeper. A shower of sparks covered the walkway between the bench tools and a framework that had been set up for what looked like a welding array. I ducked my head and stepped through the curtain of sparks. This was too intricate and orderly for chaos.

“Oh Yak”, I started, then gave up
on words. They were beautiful.

*****

“Gene… can you meet us in the machine shop?” Shorty asked on comms, right as I was getting comfortable.

“
On my way, Shorty”, I replied, kicking my feet off the bunk and working them back into my boots. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s great Gene… just great. Come see…”
Her voice was breathless, like she had just found a kitten.

I scowled at my feet.
She had a way with words, our Shorty. Something pretty exciting must be happening, to get her worked up like that. She doesn’t lose her cool very often.

I kicked up the ladder into the gun deck, and made my way aft to the third ring.
I took a moment to enjoy the sounds of industry, floating up the ladder. The soothing cyclic growl of grinders, a perfect counterpoint to the snapping sound of arcs welding, it was like a mechanical sonnet.

Janis was pretty busy in here. It looked like she had a pretty good set up for automation, and I had to admit
just about everything I looked at, impressed me. Not that I was going to act like Shorty or anything.

“You back here Shorty?” I called back, stepping through a curtain of sparks from a bevel grinder.

“Right here” she said, but her voice was metallic, amplified.

“Hey Gene”, something said in a
deep husky modulated whisper.

My mouth hung open of its own volition.

“Uh… hi there, Yak…” I stammered, taking in the scene, looking back and forth between them.

“What do you think, Gene?” Shorty asked, breathlessly. “I’m huge!” she said with a giggle.

“Well, that’s… yeah. Wow, Shorty.” I choked out, finally. She was a lot taller than I was, and Yak towered over us both with his head in the ring bracing.

My first impression was that they looked vicious, absolutely inhuman. Their helmets were completely featureless, and devoid of any identifiable characteristic - they looked blank. The armor cladding looked more like an aerodynamic insect than anything else. They looked more organically formed than built.

“Can you see?” I asked, peering in closely.

“Oh yeah, Gene, like you wouldn’t believe!” she answered. “The image amps on this are amazing…”

“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping in for a closer look at the exterior.

“Well, for starters, there are no chin switches. There must be some sort of galvanic contact patch or something, but wherever I look, I see. If I want to look closely at something, it zooms to incredible detail. Ugh… maybe a bit too much detail, looking at you.”

I looked up at her helmet, and its featureless blank stare gazing back
was extraordinarily unsettling.

“
Jane, have you tried IR yet?” asked Yak excitedly.

“How do I do it?” she replied.

“Just… um, I don’t know. Think about it, I guess?”

“Oh WOW! Janis, this is amazing!”

“Thank you Jane. I am very pleased that you like it. Please remain still while I continue my calibration. Shortly, there will be additional native functions available.”

Shorty
laughed, a mechanical modulated chuckle. “Finally, someone makes a perfect short joke! I am holding very still, though… I can’t move at all, in fact.”

“Jane,
please do not even try. I am filtering an almost constant stream of motive signals from the neural contacts.”

“Oh… well, that makes sense.
I’ll try… but I really want to move…” she trailed off, impatiently.

“Same here Jane. I want to see what this thing can do!” Yak chimed in excitedly.
At least I thought it was Yak. He positively lurked… actually, it might have been more accurate to say he loomed. “Janis, how much longer do you think we’ll have to wait until we can practice moving around?”

“Not very long, Yak, if you can
hold still”, Janis admonished.

“Copy that, Janis – holding still.”

“Very good, Yak. That’s the lowest impulse level yet. Jane, can you please hold still as well?”

Shorty laughed, “I’m trying Janis!”

I stepped closer for a look. The suits were an off-charcoal sort of color, and had an almost perfect matte finish, a sort of micro-abraded surface that seemed to absorb light to a high degree.

From a slight refractive layer I could tell t
hey were also mimetic, and with the way the exterior plating was formed, the mimetic coverage was going to be almost complete.

There were only a few places, at the inside of the shoulder, elbow and knee joints, where flexibility required
gaps in the plating – but they were covered nicely with scaled overlaps.

I reached out and tapped a bit on
Shorty’s arm plating. It felt very dense, almost like tempered ceramide, or some sort of foamed tungsten alloy – maybe both. I took a closer look at the refraction layer at the surface.

“Janis, are these plated with ceramide?” I asked, tapping the inner elbow joint some more.

“Yes Gene, you are very observant. Outer plating is tempered ceramide foamed under pressure with tungsten carbide, with glassed titanium reinforcements and strongpoints. Each plate is coated in five millimeters of a mimetic compound I’ve engineered that has the same regenerative overload characteristics as Duron. “

I whistled appreciatively, and shook my head in disbelief.
I’ve been building things for a long time, and used to consider myself pretty skilled… but this was on a whole new level. Compared to this, I might as well go back to beating a hammer on hot lumps of glowing iron. I better ask the captain to pick me up a leather apron next time we’re on Earth, and a horse to shoe.

“My calibration is complete, and I’m going to activate
the upper torso. Gene, please stand back.”

It was an unnecessary warning, but I am a safety first type of guy – it was appreciated nonetheless. Looking at these massive purpose-built killing machines, I didn’t
really even want to be in the same ship with them, much less the same compartment.

“Can I try moving an arm, Janis?” Yak asked, timidly.

“Yes Yak. Could you both please slowly rotate your arms throughout their entire range of motion?”

Both suits moved their arms
slowly at first, then more fluidly back and forth, up and down, rotating and circling to their limits at the shoulders. Nothing about the suits seemed to limit their movements, and they didn’t make any sound at all that I could hear… though to be fair, there was a grinder or three working, a welder or three, and no less than three millers. Various other zaps and bangs filled the remaining air, and well, I guess I am lucky in a way that my ears aren’t what they used to be.

Janis must have noticed me trying to listen, because activity throughout the shop suddenly ceased. Other than enviro, it was almost completely silent.

“Gene, please excuse the noise, I didn’t realize it was so loud.” Janis said softly.

“Certainly, Janis… the noise never bothers me… I had my plugs in – I was just trying to listen for squeaks.”

“Was Jane talking?” Yak laughed, moving in some sort of elaborate and almost certainly completely made up form of tai chi.

“
Nice… Janis, can I modulate my voice?” Shorty asked.

“Soon Jane, those functions are still processing.”

“Are weapons operational?”

Janis laughed lightly through the air, and the room fell back into silence while Shorty and Yak started signing back and forth.  I haven’t had to sign since the service, but I believe she was describing a horrible way to cook a large side of beef, for some reason. He resorted to the simpler, more basal gestures.

Now that it was quiet, I leaned way in and even standing practically next to Shorty, I couldn’t hear anything. Normally, I’d hear relays, actuators or even compressors. I couldn’t even hear clicks when the articulations along the inside of their joints moved around.

Shorty broke the silence.
“It feels natural, Janis! I don’t even have to think about it. I move, and it’s like the suit is moving before I do, right where I want it!”

“That’s correct, Jane. The suit contains myolect
ric inputs, much like the neural receptors in the helmet. Signals from your brain to muscles are pre-amplified and then scaled by the suit.”

“What happens when I punch?” Yak asked, and pulled his arms in close, mimicking a boxing stance.

I took another involuntary step backwards.

“One moment please, while I continue my calibration routine, Yak. I need to make sure the
movement amplification is suited for your musculature first. I would like to avoid any negative consequences or tissue damage.”