Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane (5 page)

“Possible, but not now. Not with current power reserves and not
with possible field interactions with the ship.”

The Admiral made a face. “All right,” he said, scrubbing his face
with a napkin. “So, that's out. Nice diversion of time,” he exhaled noisily.

“Not completely Admiral. The research has opened a few avenues to
explore,” Sprite said, sounding excited.

“You mean the lens effect?” the Admiral replied.

Sprite opened her mouth and then closed it. “You would figure it
out,” she grumbled.

“I have my moments,” he replied.

“Sometimes,” the AI teased. He snorted as he policed his dishes
and then exited the room. His feet were nearly tangled by a purring bundle of fur.
He paused long enough to scoop up the little monster. The cub settled in his
arms, purring and nuzzling him.

“I'm for bed you little monster. Tomorrow is another day. So, go
play. I think Proteus and Sprite have some things to think about.”

“Definitely,” Sprite replied with a nod.

<----*----*----*---->

The next morning the Admiral got his coffee and idly stroked a
finger down a cub's spine while he read the shift report. Nothing had happened
in his downtime, which was to be expected. What was of note was the AI were
quiet. Usually Sprite would say good morning. Defender he could understand,
that AI had never been one for small talk. Nor Proteus. But even Phoenix was
quiet.

He turned, resting his rump against the counter top and crossing
his arms as he looked at the cubs. Blaze had given up getting tokens of
affection from him in order to taunt and torment her sibling, who was sitting
under the table. The little brat was looking up, ready to grab a dangling paw,
but the sibling had the height advantage.

“Better give it up,” the Admiral murmured. “She has the high
ground.” He snorted when the little minx switched to attacking her sister's
tail from below. That got Blaze to jerk and then twist around.

“Actually, we found something. Several somethings,” Sprite
replied.

“You mean grav lens applications?” the Admiral queried with a
slight smile.

Sprite hesitated and then appeared on his HUD. “You figured it
out?”

“It was pretty obvious where you were going,” the Admiral
retorted.

“True, AI aren't well known for innovation,” Sprite said,
sounding a bit snarky. “Proteus usually follows your lead.”

“Someone has to do the grunt work. And I am well aware that there
is a lot more work involved than in just dreaming something up. Realizing
something is possible is nice, but others have to put the idea into practice,
or cut it down to size.”

“Amazing to hear someone admit that,” Sprite sighed. She waved a
hand. “You are, however, correct. We have some grav lens applications. And no
we didn't think of the possibilities for such applications ourselves, we went
back through the library for ideas now that the possibility has presented
itself.”

“Ah?”

“Ah indeed. How would you like oh, a force beam emitter?”

“Tractor?”

“Push or pull. We can already project a repulsion field with your
antigrav. But Proteus modeled a linear emitter. Traveling down that avenue of
thought, we looked up the specs of a typical force emitter weapon and then
applied them.”

“In theory,” the Admiral replied.

“Of course,” the AI replied, pursing her virtual lips. “Right
now, that's all we can do.”

The Admiral nodded. “Understood. Continue.”

“With the emitter in mind Proteus can use it to enhance your
energy weapons as well.”

“Energy weapons? So far I've relied exclusively on plasma weapons
Sprite.”

“And now you have more in your arsenal. A force beam emitter
option,” Sprite projected an icon of a weapon on his HUD and then pushed it
back to the background. “And a graser.”

“Which begs the question, how the hell can you do that?” The Admiral
demanded. “Energy weapons like grasers and lasers are affected by projector
surface area. I don't have a hell of a lot here,” he said.

“Grav lens,” Sprite replied smugly. “And it's not me, it's
Proteus,” Sprite replied. “And no, you don't need a lot either. But having them
available...”

“Interesting,” the Admiral replied. “Continue.”

“Both use a lot more energy than the plasma weapon, but they
don't draw plasma directly from your power systems Admiral.”

“Trade off? I'm still seeing a bit of red ink here,” the Admiral
replied.

“True.”

“Okay... and where is Proteus during this presentation?” the Admiral
asked and then took a sip of coffee.

“Proteus is still modeling field interactions. Even though we've
got the rough idea and form, it's going to take weeks to nail down the interactions
and that is all in theory. Since we can't do a real world test to get data to
plug in...”

“There is only so far you can take it. Gotcha.”

“The interesting side note to all this is that the blob of
mercury has figured out how to improve your plasma weapon. And how to not only
extend its range, but change the shape of the plasma munition.”

“We could do that before,” Irons replied. His force emitters drew
and shaped the plasma bolt, sending it down the barrel at mach three to the
target.

“Yes, but with manipulation of your nodes, or creating micro
nodes at the tip of the barrel, Proteus can change the shape. We're still
applying aerodynamic studies to get the proper shapes. I thought a teardrop
dart would work, but apparently not.”

“Okay,” Irons replied thoughtfully. He finished his coffee and
put the cup in the dishwasher. He had almost enough for a full load. A good
thing, since he was running low on clean dishes.

“With the force emitter idea, we believe we can project tractors
to control the plasma bolt, and possibly even redirect it.”

The Admiral stopped what he was doing briefly. After a moment of
thought he continued. “Okay, that's different,” he said.

“Different? Is that all you can say about it?”

“All I can say until we see it in action Commander,” Irons
replied. “Right now this is all theory. Don't get too excited by theory, too
much has not panned out over the years. Wild haired schemes tend to come to an
abrupt halt when reality set in.”

“True,” Sprite reluctantly admitted.

“Can we do any real world studies?”

“No,” Sprite said slowly. “I mean, we could in theory, maybe in
the small cargo bay if we did this corner to corner, but fire the weapons? Not
a chance.”

“I thought so,” the Admiral replied.

“You don't sound too disappointed,” Sprite said.

“No, that's because reality smacked me in the face. I thought
about what we were playing with when I went to sleep.”

“Playing with fire?”

“Yeah,” the Admiral drawled.

“Hmmm.”

“I'm wondering about other applications to force emitters though.
Some we might be able to try. Small ones.”

“Oh?”

“Molecular blades?” The Admiral asked as he punched in a command
for breakfast. The replicator lit as he turned away and crossed his arms once
more. “What about that? There are all sorts of applications there, from small to
large.”

“You mean from a scalpel to a sawzall?” Sprite asked thoughtfully.

“Or a blade for a weapon.”

“Interesting.”

“I can see all sorts of applications for this. Say, oh, cutting
through decking or bulkheads to get to equipment in a hurry, or to get out of a
bad situation. Or oh, medical yes, but also weapons... even a show of force.”

“Hmmm,” Sprite replied.

“You are sounding more human every day,” the Admiral teased.

Sprite turned flashing eyes his way. “Bite your tongue!” she said.
He chuckled, smiling. “That's not funny! You take that back!”

“Sorry,” he chuckled, shaking his head. She looked like she was
ready to say something else but then sighed.

“I suppose you are ready for another round of growth,” the Admiral
said.

“Possible,” the AI replied. She had gone through several builds
since they had awakened in Senka. She was overdue for a molt. But the downtime
involved could be substantial. And there was no telling what level her sanity
would be when she came out of it. If she came out of it. With the hole in her
memory... anything was possible.

“We can do this,” the Admiral said as his plate finished
replicating. He had replicated scrambled eggs with a side of toast and bacon.
He picked off some herbs and sprinkled them on top of the steaming food and then
picked up a plastic fork. “Low power tests. Micro or nano amps if necessary.”

“Drop the field and do it in zero G?” Sprite asked.

“Can't,” the Admiral said as he picked at the eggs. “Inertial
dampeners are tied into the gravitational field. So, no, that's out.”

“Okay,” Sprite replied.

“So, we'll have to take that into account,” Irons said, holding up
his right arm and looking at it thoughtfully.

<----*----*----*---->

Exploring the force blades led to more thoughts on gravitational
lenses. That led to speculation about a cloak. When they took the force blades
as far as they could the AI switched to running simulations of possible
cloaking methods.

The Admiral's idea of using his shield emitters to bend light
around him was one method, though it was energy intensive and difficult to
maintain. Simulations found that there was a high load and strain on the system
if he attempted to move while cloaked. It also gave away a massive
gravitational and energy signature.

“So, that's out,” the Admiral said. “Pity, I had this idea of
projecting a field in front of me to hide myself or others.”

“We could do that with a hologram. Which is another cloaking tech
we can explore,” Sprite replied.

“Holograms are only as good as the lighting and surrounding area.
In broad daylight; Sunlight?” the Admiral asked, shaking his head.

Sprite pursed her virtual lips and then put her hands on her hips.
“You know, it's not nice of you to dangle something shiny in front of a lady
and then snatch it away like that,” she mock pouted.

The Admiral chuckled, doing that very thing with the cats. “Who
said I had to be nice?” he retorted, jerking the string up out of the cat's
reach. The little brat leapt for it, but missed.

“True,” Sprite chortled. Clearly amused by his activity and how
closely resembled their conversation. “And I think you'll find...” she paused,
noting the other cat slowly creeping up on the Admiral's string. The cub
dropped, clearly ready to pounce but waiting for the right opening.

“What?”

“That we women tend to get what we want anyway,” Sprite said
triumphantly just as the cub wiggled and leapt. Irons was just looking up,
distracted when the lean spotted monster got the string and yanked it out of
his hands. She proudly made off with her prize, flirting her tail while her sibling
chased the dangling end that dragged behind her. She growled when the string
was jerked, and then turned to tussle with the interloper.

The Admiral smiled ever so slightly as the two rolled, the string
forgotten. “You were saying?”

“She did get it though,” the AI, said, “You have to admit that.”

“A distraction,” the Admiral said, looking at the AI with a slight
twinkle. “Which you helped her with.”

“Moi?” Sprite asked, hand to her chest. The Admiral exhaled
noisily in response to her air of innocence. “Okay, maybe a little,” she said,
measuring a centimeter between her fingers. The Admiral smiled once more.

AI tended to ignore lower life forms because of their lack of
sapience. But confined to the ship for months Sprite wasn't being so uppity.
She was built for regular interaction, and took what she could. Besides, she
had found that their youth and curiosity was fascinating as it was amusing to
behold. A flicker of light attracted the cub's attention. Both stopped what
they were doing to look. One licked the other, but their ears were perked.
After a moment they couldn't resist the urge and padded off to investigate.

The Admiral shook his head; glad they were entertained, but
somehow resigned to whatever mischief they were about to get into. “Now that we
have some free time...” he pulled out a tablet and scrolled through the
cloaking tech files.

Looking into the problem, the Admiral did a little research on
cloaking technology. “It's not like we, we meaning the Navy, hadn't been
researching it for oh, the past two thousand years and all,” he murmured.

“True,” Sprite replied. One thing practically jumped out at her.
“What about that? Smart skin?”

“What?” the Admiral asked, pausing.

“Yes! Couple that with your camera work, and it is possible. And
this we already know how to do!” Sprite said growing excited once more. “It's
been done for over a thousand years Admiral, nearly two thousand years!”