Adam was frame-jacked to a nanosecond time-frame. Controlling the nova forges of Midean, aiding the Professor and Nigel in logistics, and keeping a presence aboard the Unwavering Message required it. For every second of normal time that passed, 31 years passed for Adam. This was not sustainable for any other Terran, only a singularity could do this for any length of time and not go mad.
Even for Adam, this was not ideal. But he literally had to be everywhere at once, and then there was this damnable probe. For the last hour of real time, he had stayed at this frame rate, keeping everything running smoothly, but also planning on how to best use the probe, for him he had expended 1860 years on the problem, and the finished result was about to come online.
He smiled as he relaxed his time-frame to the millisecond range, much more comfortable for his servers while still giving him enough time to easily handle necessary tasks. The probe was beyond obsolete and simply did not have the power capability to print modern materials or computers, but it could print a very crude void gate. One that tied into the pocket dimension that Midean itself sat inside. The gate would be very small while activated, only about three meters in circumference, but he could fit a lot through three meters.
The device powered up and a node appeared on his network. He looked through the cameras onboard the FC probe to see the gate was indeed open. Sadly organic matter would not survive a trip through the gate, or else he could evacuate the ship through it. But he could finally get enough modern equipment aboard to do some serious work. Within minutes he had a version of his android body he used on Terra aboard, along with a nano-forge and enough gray goo to make anything in his vast library of plates.
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Captain Ra’jinn was leaving the Ambassador suite on her way back to the bridge when the ship seemed to groan. “Computer, tie me into Na’Edin.” After the chirp she asked, “XO, what was that noise?”
Na’Edin answered back, “Adam is doing upgrades, I made a ship-wide announcement, about an hour ago that he would be working.”
Ra’Jinn nodded, although Na’Edin couldn’t see it, “Very well, I’m on my way to the bridge.” She said as she continued walking towards the center of her small ship. Just as she reached the bridge doors the ship seemed to… shimmy a little. It was a bit disturbing, as she knew the ship was cruising at its maximum warp capacity. The frigate and cruiser following them having to slow down to allow them to stay beside them.
She walked in and sat at her command chair, after tapping a few buttons she asked, “Adam, you’d better not be breaking my ship.”
The door to the bridge opened behind her and a Terran she had never seen walked in, “I wouldn’t think of it Captain.”
Nora followed behind him as he walked over to the science station, which was vacant as Na’Edin was sitting in the XO command chair currently. Adam opened his hand and a gray puddle covered the control panel of the science station, after a moment the panel seemed to visibly morph into a new panel, with new controls. The then walked over to communications and asked Ke’Lish to please allow him to add modifications to her workstation.
Once completed he offered Ke’Lish her chair back and turned to the Captain, “I have upgraded your communications and sensors to Terran military grade, we now have string radio capability on board.”
Captain Ra’Jinn nodded, “Was that the shimmy I felt through the ship a few minutes ago?”
Adam shook his head in the negative as Nora sat down at the science station. “No, the shimmy you felt was the nanites building a new keel along the bottom of the ship. It caused some warp field fluctuations that made the shimmy. They should be done in a few minutes.”
Ra’Jinn raised an eyebrow, “And why have you built a keel on my ship?”
Adam smiled devilishly, “Oh, it will come in handy later, but not near as handy as the new bow, or the dorsal fin that I also added.”
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Nora rolled her eyes and tapped at the controls. “Um, Adam, I hope those upgrades are coming online soon.”
Adam turned to Nora, the communication between them happened in milliseconds, then he turned and walked briskly out of the bridge.
Nora turned to the Captain, “Three Jennifers have come into scan range, they’re pinging subspace and while their scanners aren’t up to ours, they detect us in about five minutes.”
Captain Ra’Jinn sighed, “With their skip drives how long until they catch up to us at warp?
Nora turned her chair to the Captain, “At their current range, twenty minutes to catch up and swap to warp engines.”
Ra’Jinn leaned forward and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Twenty five minutes, I hope whatever Adam did to the ship helps.”
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Adam was back to frame-jacking, his servers in Midean were screaming at him, but he ignored them, he bypassed checksums, skipped tests, cut every nanosecond he could from the upgrade process. All the upgrades wouldn’t be online in twenty five minutes, so work on two, the third will have to wait.
Nora spoke to him through comms, “Adam, what about the Blessed Morning and Shiar’s Rapture? They’re both battle damaged, low on ammo, and let’s face it, no match against a single Jennifer, much less three.”
Adam thought for a nanosecond, “I’ll use the string radio to ensure once they ping us they lock on to us. They should ignore the other two ships, they’ll be much more interested in Terrans.”
Nora sighed through the comms, “Ok, then what?”
Adam grinned as upgrade one went green, “Then we see how fast the Jennifers are.”
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Nora shouted, “We’ve been pinged Captain!”
The doors to the bridge opened and Adam walked through and spoke to Communications Officer Ke’Lish before walking over to the helm and asking the helmsman to please move.
Ke’Lish spoke, “I’m sending out this SOS signal on the string radio Adam, will this bring aid to us from the fleet at the rendezvous point?”
Adam nodded as his nanites morphed the helm controls. “It will but that’s not why I asked you to do it, we need to bait them away from our escort.”
Captain Ra’Jinn looked to Adam, “Bait? We have the Empress aboard!”
Adam nodded, “That we do, but we also have something else onboard.”
Ra’Jinn’s eyebrows raised, “What else do we have onboard?”
Adam smiled and said, “A fully functional skip drive.” And then brought his index finger down on the helm control.
The forward view screen went from the occasional star lazily moving by to every point becoming a stream of light past them. The ominous feeling of acceleration pushed them back in their seats as they watched the ship skip across the fabric of space.
Nora looked over to Adam, “Well that got their attention, all three are in pursuit. At current skip velocity they will intercept in thirty three minutes.”
Adam nodded, “Plenty of time then, we’ll reach the rendezvous point in thirty one minutes.”
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The Unwavering Message exited skip at the Rendezvous point, standard ion pulse engines drove her forward at sub-light speed. Captain Ra’Jinn looked at the forward viewscreen before checking her sensors, “Adam, where is the fleet, the Jennifers will be here any second now.”
Adam, who was modifiying the Gunnery Sargents tactical control panel didn’t look up, “They’ll be here, don’t worry.” He pressed a few buttons and the forward view screen showed a small representation of the Unwavering Message in the bottom right, suddenly the ship hummed and a blue shimmer showed on all the view screens. The small representation stated, SHIELDS ONLINE.
Three Jennifers tore into normal space and immediately fired missiles, Nora looked over to Adam, “Twenty four missiles launched, unless you upgraded the reactor on the probe they’ll melt our shields.” Nora started to panic, Adam wasn’t answering her on comms. While she wasn’t in actual danger as her matrix was in Midean, everyone onboard was, and she couldn’t bare to lose any of them.
With monstrous acceleration the missiles closed the gap in space until suddenly they impacted something between the Unwavering Message and the Jennifers. Space seemed to shudder as a ship de-cloaked. The massive ship fired some kind of beam weapon that ran along its entire spine. The beam cut through two of the Jennifer but missed the third as it banked away.
Just as it was about to activate its skip drive, three more ships de-cloaked and fired the same type of beam weapon, slicing the Jennifer into pieces.
Ke’Lish spoke, “Captain, we’re being hailed, it’s Simon!”
Simon’s face took up the forward view screen as Nora spun around to look at her beloved, “You cut that close Adam, I barely got between you and the Jennifers.”
Adam grinned back to Simon, “I had faith you would come through. Can you bring this little ship on board one of your fleet and send a few more to pick up its escort? We have some very important people aboard that need to get to Midean.”
Nora looked over to Adam, “You could have told me Simon would be at this rendezvous point, no need for drama.”
Adam smiled at Nora, “But then I wouldn’t get to see the look on your face when he came to our rescue!”
Ra’Jinn sighed at their exchange… “Terrans” she muttered.