C61 A Day of Hope
A Day of Hope.
Weldor System
Hope was busy as ever, multitasking as only an AI could. Cordan, Eldrani, Melkar, she was active in each of these systems as the operation on one planet each, spread out to other rocky worlds.
Cordan in particular was busy, as the first world they placed industrial equipment, on was very resource rich. The primary virtual intelligence on that world was now controlling over a thousand Androids that mined, fabricated and constructed. Preparing what they needed to grow beyond their current scope of operation.
On the side she was holding four conversations, testing the new implementation of the Control room they could derive from the Pirates Brawler ships, and watching Anthony approaching the wrecks in Logan.
By Hope’s request, Kira was currently taking a seat in one of the twenty control stations, that where now installed on the Hope’s new room. A construct that was composed of a seat with an adaptive exoskeleton, which wrapped around the user once seated. Connecting to a special suit that was able to convey the sensation of touch partially. And with a helmet that served as the means to change viewpoint from oneself, to the Android they would be controlling.
“ How is it Kira ? “ Hope asked as the control station Kira used was establishing connection, moving the Siren slowly into the same position the android held before completing the link. Then to hand over control and sight to her, so that, each of her movements was being translated into the movement of the Android.
“ A bit strange, but it’s working. “ Kira noted, moving her hands and legs to test the Androids reaction.
“ Movement translates without problem. Oh, hello there, I got boobs ! “ Kira gasped then, in the middle of testing still as she realized the new Command android she controlled, was altered to have a female body type.
“ Yes, Anthony thought it would feel more comfortable if you can identify with the body. “ Hope explained.
Kira would meanwhile look around, finding a Sovereign besides her, and three more of the alternate variant, women with long white hair, white eyes, and white robes with golden embroidery.
“ Ok, where is this right now ? “ Kira asked.
“ On one of the new Destroyers that is currently being build. Phantom class as Anthony calls it. He plans to use this ship in case the Terran delegation wants to meet us. “ Hope explained.
“ Oh, thought he intended to evade that possibility ? “ Kira remarked.
“ He is keeping the option available that it may not be circumvented. Moving freely in Terran space while waving our own flag may otherwise become, troublesome. “ Hope responded.
“ Hope, have a look at this. “ Anthony interrupted her then, drawing part of her attention over to him.
Anthony was currently looking at a Destroyer vessel that was strangely intact, which made him wonder if this could have been a trap. But since it was powered down, he slowly approached it, suspecting that cloaked vessel from before to sneak up on him again. But nothing happened, and scanning the vessel, he found that it’s structure was compromised.
It was emitting high levels of Gamma radiation, it’s structure so porous that it surprised him to still hold an atmosphere within.
“ What do you think ? Gamma levels look a bit dangerous.“ He asked her.
“ I agree, it wont harm the jump-ship, but unless your ability can remove the radiation, I would not bother to bring it over. “ Hope agreed.
“ Ok, I will have a look. I let you know if it works, if not, I have a reason to finally test the Jump ships lasers. “ Anthony noted.
“ This reminds me of something. “ Hope noted, searching her database, until she found a newscast she glanced at in passing while Anthony was on Rendar station with Sovereign.
“ Found it. “ She uttered then, Playing a short clip about a report in Vigal, about a fleet being destroyed by an unknown ship that used some kind of gamma weapon.
“ Huh. Vigal, that is the system that connects to Merag, right ? “ Anthony asked.
“ Yes. You think that is what Modaran meant when he said, the First stepped in ? “ Hope asked.
“ It sounds plausible. But a weapon based on Gamma radiation, strong enough to tear even metals apart ? I shudder to think of it. Worse, if the Terran’s seen it in action, you can make a bet that they will try to reproduce that weapon. “ Anthony observed.
“ Quite likely. “ Hope agreed.
“ Well, I will see if I can repair and restore it, I will bring it over in case it removes the radiation, otherwise I have some target practice. “ Anthony declares.
“ Understood. “ Hope responded, turning her attention back to Kira, though allowing part of herself to still watch Anthony’s work.
“ So your saying the Android will be able to control the ship directly ? “ Kira asked at that point, as Hope had suggested the new ship models to be designed to work with a new interface.
“ Yes. The Captains chair in the current ships is already designed with a charging port. The new ships will have a command interface added. Aside from the command android, there will only be a few military once for protection, and maintenance androids. The command variant will either follow orders from me, or the new AI Anthony is working on, or one of you girls if your in control of the Android. “ Hope explained.
“ Interesting, so a mobile VI of sorts. “ Kira remarked.
“ Yes. It also means you girls get to have multiple ships. If yours gets destroyed, you can swap over to another Android and control it’s ship through that unit. “ Hope explained.
“ But that means they have to be connected through Anthony, right ? “ Kira observed.
“ Yes, but he could connect and control to hundreds of them, while able to control far fewer ships in a similar fashion. So holding sway over the Androids is the cheaper solution for his ability. He plans to have only a few special ships directly influenced, to assure their survival, such as the Command ship we are planning for. “ Hope elaborated.
“ Huh. Sounds like someone has a plan. “ Kira remarked with a grin.
“ More or less. “ Hope noted.
“ Yeah, he sometimes needs a kick to start moving. “ Kira joked.
“ You two are aware that I can hear you, yes ? “ Anthony chimed in.
“ Whoops ! “ Kira uttered.
“ I guess someone will need a spanking later. “ Anthony warned.
“ I am not sure if rewarding her for that act would be a suitable course of action. “ Hope noted.
“ Hey ! “ Kira protested.
“ Well, maybe we should give you the ability to sense haptic feedback with the appropriate response, and give you a body as well. So I can spank you also. “ Anthony warned.
“ No thank you, that would be a waste of my available computation resources. “ Hope declined while Kira just started to giggle.
“ I got the ship by the way. Connect Kira to it and let her try flying it once I am in Weldor. And Kira, be careful, the fuel lines were broken, so some fuel leaked into the ship, I vented the atmosphere. But It might be better not to run the engines to hot. “ Anthony instructed.
“ Understood. “ Hope responded.
“ And, we will need to sanitize the ship, it seems like they did not dare to recover the crew, it is a mess in there. “ Anthony warned, which was a warning for Kira as well, as, with her view from the ships bridge, she would be seeing the remains of the bridge crew.
“ Understood. “ Hope responded again while Kira just uttered an unhappy, “ Oh Great.”
Hope would watch then as Anthony brought over more of these ships, a few striker heavy destroyers, a front liner, an electronic warfare vessel, and a massive drone carrier, the TMS Wrath. After which, the Jump-ships energy was mostly spend carrying all that extra weight around. And his Idle control value raised to 162.8 of 506.2.
“ I think that will be more then enough. The heavy carrier appears to be the only ship that had it’s crew cleared out. Looks like they dumped all the ships from that incident in Logan. Makes me wonder how they manage that. “ Anthony spoke.
“ I believe they use a massive transport vessel. It can carry multiple wrecks in its hold. It is nearly as large as the Hope and uses a magnetic system to suspend wrecks inside itself. And it’s so heavily armored, it can shrug of most minor explosions in it’s hold. I am not sure about the heavy drone carrier, but the destroyers should have been no problem for that ship to take here. “ Kira responded.
“ Honestly, if they do not salvage them, and don’t want anyone to touch them, they should just throw them into the next star or something. “ Anthony uttered.
“ That would make it impossible for you to take advantage of this situation. Besides, I believe this is the perfect instance of Human bureaucracy. “ Hope noted.
“ Your probably right. “ Anthony agreed.
“ How long till the first Phantom class is done ? “ He asked then.
“ About 2 days for the one on the Wishkeeper, 1 day on the one I am working on. “ Hope reported.
“ Why Phantom ? That sounds, odd. “ Kira asked.
“ Well, we can’t call them all New Horizon, even if they look the same from the outside. I plan to leave the NH 03 as the New Horizon. The armed variant will be Phantom, Though we probably will stick to the old scheme of, P 01 and so forth, for ease of use. “ Anthony explains.
“ And the transport variant ? “ Kira asked.
“ Hm, Maiden class ? I admit, I had not thought about it before. “ Anthony admits.
“ Maiden it is. “ Hope noted.
“ The hell, why would you call it a Maiden ? “ Kira wondered.
“ Because all the bad guys will want to get inside her and plunder her ? “ Anthony then teased.
“ Ugh. “ Kira grunted, causing both Hope and Anthony to laugh.
“ Why not make them related in name ? “ Hope then suggested.
“ How do you mean ? “ Anthony asked.
“ Dawn for the transport, and Dusk for the destroyer. Dawn brings a new hope, while Dusk brings an end to things. “ Hope explained.
“ Huh, that is pretty good. “ Anthony admits.
“ Yeah, she’s got you on that one, much better naming sense. “ Kira teased now.
“ Yeah, I admit she got me there, good. I like your thinking Hope, lets make it so. “ Anthony relents.
“ Understood. “ Hope responded.
“ The heck ? “ Anthony then uttered.
“ Everything ok ? “ Kira asked.
“ Yeah, uh. I don’t know, actually. “ Anthony noted, sounding confused.
Hope switched the view over to him then. He was back in the room where they had their talk last night. Having parked the jump ship in the planets orbit near the Hope, only to return to his own body that was resting on the bed.
And now, being done, he wanted to take a shower. But walking past the mirror, he had noticed something, and was now standing there, feeling over, and then bending his earlobe further out, so he could look at it.
“ Hope ? Do you think my ear looks, different ? “ He actually asked, like he was not sure.
Hope zoomed her view in on it, taking measurement to compare with the last data taken when he was in medical. And she could measure slight changes. Not much, but it had expanded further to the back, just a little, and grew slimmer too.
“ I detect a slight change, in shape and measurement. “ Hope responded then.
“ I need to talk to Ludwig. Send the Pride and the brawlers over the moment you can. “ Anthony instructed.
“ Shit, your not telling me I am starting to turn into an elf now, are you ? “ He then uttered, more to himself.
“ Perhaps it may be a good idea to visit medical and run a few tests ? “ Hope suggested.
“ Yeah, that may be a good idea. “ Anthony agreed.
“ Hope ? “ Came then via the gate network as Aria reached out to her.
“ Yes Aria ? “ Hope responded.
“ The Terran delegation is on the way. They do want to meet Sovereign. “ Aria spoke.
“ Oh well, one moment. “ Hope noted, and then turned her attention back to Anthony.
“ Anthony. Aria just contacted me. The Terran’s do want to meet Sovereign. “ She reported.
“ Great. “ Anthony groaned.
“ I haven't even considered what to do in this case. “ He admitted.
He was just going to trade for credits like it was the normal thing to do. But if this was going onto a diplomatic level, well, he would have to make a serious considerations about how to present himself, and reasons as to why they seek trade relations.
“ Shit. Three days. I have something by then. Let Aria know that we go with the establishment of a new species route. So, they should share as little about us as possible. “ Anthony instructed, and then cursed inwardly as he recalled he had to remember Andrew White in all this still.
“ Understood. “ Hope responded, turning back to Aria.
“ Aria. Anthony plans to come in three days. He needs time to establish plausibility in his approach. He will try to establish Sovereign as part of a different species. “ Hope shared with the other AI.
“ Is that really such a good idea ? “ Aria questioned.
“ I am not sure, but it will introduce an element of unpredictable behavior, and an extra layer of uncertainty for Terran’s to consider. “ Hope noted.
“ I will relay your message to Modaran. “ Aria responds.
“ Share as little as possible about us for now. Anthony has not worked out the finer details yet, so there will probably be some acting involved. “ Hope then added.
“ Ok. They will arrive at Haven station in a few hours. Given Anthony’s presence on Rendar station, do you think we can share a rough description of Sovereign ? Prepare them that they may not be meeting another human ? “ Aria asked.
“ Yes. It may be best to let them find out that Andrew Withe is a fabricated personality used by us. But don’t point them to that fact, let them figure it out on their own. Just place Sovereign as the representative of our side. Frame it like we keep to ourselves and share little even with you about us. “ Hope instructed.
“ Very well. “ Aria accepted.
Then Aria ended the connection, and Hope found herself wondering if that was the right thing to do as well. But Anthony preferred to keep themselves as a separate entity from the Terran’s, and the act of, a different species , while currently a flimsy one, could provide a level of uncertainty and eventual deniability for them to use later on.