Rise of the Empire 1: Olympus (12 page)

-Diagnostic complete, all clear.

-Are you able to start the integration now? Yes/No (vocalize the answer)

Adrian swallowed and said out loud “Yes.”

-Sequence initiated.

-What is the color of the sky
during the day as most commonly seen from Earth? (Vocalize the answer)

Adrian frowned at the question, but then decided that the implant was probably measuring his responses as a baseline so he answered
. “Blue.” He spent the next twenty minutes answering all kinds of ridiculous questions. Until finally that part of the test was finished.

-Are you able to start the audible portion of the sequence? Yes/No (vocalize the answer)

“Yes.”

Suddenly he could feel a faint tone in his ears.

-Do you hear a sound? Yes/No (vocalize the answer)

“Yes.” He said, wondering how this part of the test will work. Suddenly the tone stopped and he heard three more tones one slightly fainter, one much louder but still tolerable, and then one so loud it hurt his ears, he immediately brought his hands over his ears but the tone was already gone by the time he covered his ears, though it’s not like would have helped.
He read inside the manual that sound from the implant was transmitted directly to his brain, it only simulated it to appear as if it was coming from the outside. His ears reacted to what his brain thought he was hearing.

-Rank the four sounds on a scale of 1 to 10, going from the weakest to strongest:

-First sound-

-
Second sound-

-
Third sound-

-
Fourth sound-

Adrian ranked them accordingly the he gave the first tone a rating of
3 the second 2, third 7 and the last a 10.

-Designate desired sound level for audible systems from 1 to 10.

Adrian said “Five”. Then the text disappeared and after a moment he heard a monotone voice speaking in his ears

“
Greetings user, I am virtual help program, created in order to aid you with the configuration of your implant. The required pathways have been created, user commands now do not need to be vocalized, do you wish to continue?”
Adrian jumped for a moment, looking around before realized that the voice came from the implant itself. He leaned back in his chair and started conversing with the program with his thoughts, tweaking his interface. He set commands for various actions, first he set activation command for his implant, if he “thought” at his implant, he would get a response, he could then access many submenus, he chose to have those appear as a text in the left side of his vision, and next he designated the command for clearing his “HUD”. Adrian quickly grew excited and started playing with the many combinations he had available, it was just like a game where he had the option of managing his own HUD. He could have a graph monitoring his heart rate or pressure, a clock saying time of day, a calendar, he even had the option of accessing the internet via his implant, or rather the Olympus equivalent Olnet, which every member of Olympus had access to, it could be used to send messages or talk with any other member of Olympus though now that he was on Mars there would be a delay with those on the Moon or Earth. But that didn’t stop him from sending a message to his friend Sahib who was now on Earth bragging about his implant. He wasn’t told that he was required to keep his implant a secret, only that the Ai was classified, so he figured that there is no harm. Next he downloaded all the data he had on his datapad into his implant, there were pictures, videos, games, which he found were much trickier to play on the implant (until he found out that there were patches that updated the game specifically for implants), books, and multitudes of textbooks. He found that now he could archive them in his implant and using a simple search engine find the information he is looking for. After two hours of playing with the interface he decided to clear his HUD of all but a small closed letter image in the corner of his vision that will alert him if he had any messages. After he told the help program that he was finished it asked if he wanted to activate his Ai. Adrian thought about it and when he didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t, he gave his okay. At first he couldn’t sense anything different, then he remembered that the manual said he needs to initiate the Ai’s active mode.

“Ai initiate active mode.” Adrian said. Again he couldn’t feel anything different “Um… Hello?” Adrian said. After a beat he heard a
mechanical voice inside his head
“Greetings.”
It said. It took him by surprise, the Ai’s voice seemed even more impersonal than that of the help program.

After an awkward pause Adrian decided to speak, the manual instructed that the first moments after the Ai was activated should be used for introduction, and that he should chose the Ai’s name.

“Uh, I’m Adrian Farkas.” He introduced himself.

“Hello Adrian
Farkas.”
The Ai said.

“Um… The manual said that I should give you a name.” Adrian said.

“That corresponds with the information inside my databank.”
The Ai confirmed.

Adrian thought about a name for a while, before he was struck by a thought.

“Would you like to choose your own name?” Adrian asked, it seemed to him that if the Ai is really supposed to be sentient then it had the right to its own name, it wasn’t as if it was a baby which couldn’t choose a name. There was a slight pause and then.
“Yes, I would like that.”

Another pause and Adrian asked
. “Any thoughts on a name you would like?”

“I don’t have sufficient information to make an informed decision.”
The Ai said.

“Hm… what do you mean?” Adrian asked.

“Names are a way of identifying oneself, some have meanings other than identification, and there are sentimental or hereditary names. I have no reference to choose a name. My database says that you are supposed to give me a name.”

Adrian frowned
. “But you want to choose your own name?”

“Yes.”

Adrian scratched his head and then he had an idea. “Well, how about I give you my book collection, you can read it and maybe you will find a name that you like.” After a brief pause the Ai answered.
“That is acceptable.”

Adrian entered the folder in his implants where he placed his books, he chose historical
, mythology, fantasy, science fiction and biographies leaving the textbooks alone and sent them to the Ai. After he sent them he was again struck with a thought. “Wait how long will it take for you to read all them?”

“
Three hundred forty seven point six three one seconds
.”

“Um… Okay, but in the future you can just tell me approximate, unless I ask for exact time.” Adrian said, he looked at the time an realized that it was already past midnight, he didn’t yet receive any message from Laura Reis so he figured his schedule was unchanged, he was to come to work after breakfast like always. He usually spent the mornings working with the team, and the afternoons
studying. “I guess I’ll go to sleep, can you still read if I am asleep?” Adrian asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you need anything else?” Adrian asked.

“No.”

Adrian shrugged and went to bed, he fell asleep almost the same moment his head touched the pillow.

Chapter Thirteen

Adrian woke up to an alarm going off, he reached out to his desk where his datapad usually was, to turn it off, when he found it he tried to shut the alarm off. When he realized that the noise wasn’t coming from the datapad, he frowned at it in confusion, it took him a moment to remember last night, and that he set his implants alarm to wake him up instead of the datapad. He shut off the alarm, and got up on his feet, he went to the bathroom, and then put his clothes on, he saw that the time was 07:17 he had just under 13 minutes until breakfast, he then started towards the door, when he suddenly heard a voice.

“Good morning Adrian.”
Adrian was startled for a moment before remembering that he activated the Ai last night. The mechanical voice was the same as it was last night, totally impersonal.

“Oh, good morning
… Uhm… Did you chose a name?” Adrian asked.

“Yes, I chose Iris.”
The Ai said.

“Iris, like Iris from the Greek mythology, it’s a nice name – Wait, Iris is a girl’s name.” Adrian said.

“
Yes. Is there a problem with it being a female name? I am not aware of any restriction.”
The Ai said.

“U
hm… No, no, no. It’s just that I figured you would chose a guy name. I mean, well, I just thought you would want to be referred to as a male.”

“I have no gender. Though I did read in many of the books you provided
, of instances where humans attached gender to inanimate or genderless objects. If it will make you feel better, you may refer to me as a female.”
The Ai said.

Adrian opened his mouth, and then closed it when nothing came out, his mind drew a blank
. “But your voice doesn’t sound female.” He said stupidly.

“
I can change it if it bothers you, there are many available sound packs included inside my matrix. The voice I now use is generic. But I would like to make my own voice, if you allow me access to a few samples of female voices I can synthesize my own unique one.”
The Ai, or rather Iris said.

“Uhm… well sure.” Adrian said, he accessed his music data from his datapad, since he forgot to transfer it last night, chose a few female
singers and sent it to Iris, then he found a few interviews of his favorite actresses and sent those as well.

“Is that okay?” Adrian asked.

“Yes, thank you.”
She said. Adrian could hear a slight difference in the way she talked compared to last night, she seemed more conscious of the conversation between them, her answers less mechanic.

“You speak differently than you did last night.” Adrian said.

“The books you provided had many examples of human to human interaction. I am incorporating that knowledge into my speech patterns. Do you wish for me to stop?”
Iris asked.

“Not at all, this is a lot better, I’m sure that you will learn much more as you see me interact with other people.”

“I am still processing the information you provided. And I will only learn from your interactions if I am left in active mode.”

Adrian remembered that the Ai had a passive mode where they couldn’t monitor anything that happens outside of their own datacore. He thought about it and made a snap decision

“You don’t need to worry, I won’t put you in passive mode unless I really require privacy. You will learn faster if you are learning alongside me.” Adrian said.

“Thank you.”
Iris said.

Adrian went to breakfast, and then to work, Iris remained silent for that time. His work was basically being Laura Reiss’s assistant, he followed her around the station, and sat in the meetings she and her team had to discuss the Fleet organization, the team basically reviewed proposals submitted by other teams and decided which were to be implemented, beside listening in and giving his opinion when Laura asked, Adrian didn’t have much to do, so he focused on learning as much as he could.
And now that he had an implant he would be able to spend his free time in the simulators, which were a bigger versions of the game he played, Fleet Commander. The entirety of the game was in fact the same as it was in real life, it was a simulation, though none of the players really knew that. From the game he learned most everything he needed to know about commanding a ship and a fleet. The game was made in such a way that winning the scenarios awarded points which the player then spent on first improving his ship, and later buying new ships, until he had enough to create a fleet of ships. The scenarios varied from simple transport missions, escort, and pirate hunting, to major fleet actions against other fleets or stations. There were many customization options, players are able to buy different components and implement them on their ships, or design new ones from available technology. Laura told Adrian that every piece of technology in the game was in fact within their capability to manufacture, and that they incorporated many ideas that the players had implemented in the game to real life application. The simulator that Adrian would now use was far more advanced than his simple datapad game. The simulator interacted with the users implant in order to create a believable virtual reality, he would be able to walk through the ship inside the simulation, and command a ship from the bridge. There were also devices that enabled the users without implants to enter the simulation, but Adrian will not need to use them now. He was told that since there was never anything close to the kind of fleet they were trying to create, and as no one had any experience with commanding space ships, they would all be scored based on their achievements in the simulators, and after a certain period be given a rank in the new fleet and a position that best suited them based on the simulations. The simulations will include many different scenarios, some would put a person in command of a warship, other in command of a merchant vessel, some simulations would be entirely populated with computer generated people, other with other people who were running their own simulations, sometimes they would be put in teams where they would rotate on the ships posts and be scored on their performance on each. Adrian knew that the simulators would be coming online within next few days, and that the other recruits for the fleet would be arriving then as well, and also that he would be joining them. Laura told him that most of them will be at least five years older than him, and some more, they were recruiting from all graduates of Olympus, even from those that went to military school, and hoped to later go to the army. Adrian was a special case, being that he was raised by Olympus. He was the only one that was invited from the younger population of Olympus before he graduated from higher schooling, as the Fleet didn’t accept applications, the recruits were invited to join, hell, most people didn’t even know about the Fleet.

Adrian reached
the meeting room and entered. The meeting already started, so Adrian made way towards his place at Laura’s side and sat down.

“So
, we are in agreement about the ranking systems?” Oswald Mein asked the room, before being recruited to fleet he was in charge of the cargo ships, and later in charge of the few military ships that Olympus had, Adrian found out that they even existed just recently.

There were nods and affirmative answers around the room. He then recited the new ranking system from his datapad.

“So, the person in charge of all our fleets, will be called Fleets Master. The ones in charge of specific fleet will be Fleet Commanders, though we don’t have multiple fleets just yet.” Oswald said with a smile, his comment produced a round of chuckles from the room. “Next are Task Force Leaders for groupings of ships smaller than fleets, which will be called Force Leaders, Next will be ship commanders, what would ordinarily be captains, they will be called Ship Masters, first officers will be High Primes, third officers Low Primes, next will come Chiefs whether they are medical chiefs, engineering or others, all will hold the same rank. The next rank will be Adjutant, who is in charge of specific groups on the ships followed by Station Handlers, Navigation – Ship Handler, Communication Handler and so on. And then the crewmen, Cadets Tier 2 and Cadets Tier 1 being the lowest rankings in the fleet.” He finished and looked at the room for any objections, it took them a couple of months to agree on every rank, some wanted to transfer the Navy ranks from the countries on Earth, other wanted army or even air force ranks, they spent many meetings arguing until finally Laura had enough and ordered new ranks invented. After no one spoke up, Oswald sat down. And Laura spoke.

“Thank you Oswald, now since we are agreed on this, and in the nick of time as the first recruits are almost here, we need to discuss the plan
s for our shipyards.” She brought her datapad taped it a few times and brought the information she needed. It baffled Adrian why she didn’t just bring the information on her implant, and then realized that she like most everyone in Olympus were much older, some even from the time before, when implants weren’t common place, he deduced that it must have been habit.

“Alright, currently
Olympus has three shipyards operational, with another one coming online in a month or so, orbiting Jupiter. Now, we have thirty seven ships given to us by Tomas, twenty cargo and transport ships, thirteen mining ships currently in the belt, and four warships also in the asteroid belt.” She looked at around the table for a moment, taping her fingers on the table. “We have seven hundred recruits incoming, and not enough ships for them to use, of course they won’t be allowed on the ships for at least three years while they go through the training, but it still leaves us with a task of deciding how many ships we build and for what purpose, that leaves us with thirty seven ships we already have, their crew will be rotating with our more promising recruits, and they will attend the fleet academy for at least a year, since they already have experience, some will stay on to teach a few classes before returning to their posts. But the new recruits will need new ships. Tomas gave us complete control over two of the shipyards to be used for the fleet. And he gave us green light to build a maximum of ten new warships. It seems that the League and Concordis have started construction on their own warships, they are of course keeping it a secret.” She smirked, and the rest of the room chuckled. “In three years we can build twelve warships, or sixteen of any other class. Now bear in mind that Tomas plans to cut us off in four years from his supply lines, he wants us to be self-sufficient, meaning we will need to increase the number of our own mining ships, and cargo/supply ships. But until then we can rely on Olympus supplies. Any thoughts?”

The rest of the room then discussed pros and cons of various combinations, ranging from building all warships to all mining and cargo. The discussion continued until Oswald asked
.

“Do we have any information on the Lea
gues and Concordis intentions?”

“Our sources tell us that they sold it to their leaders as a precaution, and that they have no int
ention of starting any conflict, though we did notice a slight increase in their military activity on the ground, but that doesn’t really impact anything in space.” Laura said.

Oswald nodded
. “And how much do we know about their ships capabilities, how many are they building and how do they fare against ours?”

“We have acquired all of their designs.
Their ships have heavier armor but are smaller, ours are hundred meters long, theirs around eighty, and theirs use rocket propulsion, while our tech in that regard is much superior, our variation on VASIMR drives gives us much greater speed, and our ships are better armed.” Laura sighed. “We didn’t put any of our more advanced weapons on the ships. Tomas didn’t see the need.” She said in way that clearly conveyed that she disagreed with that stance. “And also, he didn’t want to antagonize the Earth governments even more than we already have, in case that they found out about the ships. So we have basic kinetic weapons, railguns that fire metal slugs at the fractions of speed of light, they might be crude and hard to aim at moving targets but still very effective when they hit. And missiles. We also have small laser emitters used for clearing debris or anything else that might endanger the ship, but they are low power. The designs that we have acquired show that their ships will be armed with missiles only, though of a slightly greater payloads, and they will have a greater number of missiles on board. Concordis has started building two ships, while the League has three under construction. If everything goes right they will be operational within two years.”

The room discussed the
information for the next two hours, until finally deciding that they would commission four additional warships bringing their “Security” force up to eight, three transports and three mining ships. After which they will build one additional warship per two years with the rest being mining and transport ships. The Olympus itself had more ships, which Tomas used to ship materials mined in the asteroid belt, and on the Moon and Mars. The one shipyard still under his command was dedicated to expanding Olympus mining and transport capabilities, the greatest problems they faced were with the transport of goods. Olympus operations in the belt produced more than they were able to ship back to the Moon, but Tomas still insisted that the operations keep working at 100% capability, with the materials being stored on the mining sites waiting for transport. In fact Olympus produced much more than it used, and most of the excess materials were sold to countries on Earth. Probably one of the reasons why they didn’t push harder to shut down Olympus. At least until they get their own mining operations up and running, but until now they were content to buy materials from Olympus, and expand their influence inside the Earth’s orbit, their colonization attempts on the Moon have been small to date with just a few recon bases, and no settlements.