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Human and AI working together had improved old-school rocketry quite a bit. Gone were the days of chemical rockets. New spacecraft like the Freedom had powerful fusion engines with the best ion array thrusters. Chemical rockets had taken months to transit from Earth to Mars. Fusion Craft now managed it in weeks.
Casa scowled at the telemetry data from her prototype gate probe ship. The SpaceStrider was already loitering over Venus waiting for her instructions. Its transit time had only taken days.
Hiding the mass of the ship inside the portal space and providing fuel and power through its sister portal on the Freedom had massively changed the previously immutable constraints on space travel. The prototype craft’s ridiculously low apparent mass and essentially infinite power and fuel had created a ship with a constant and massive acceleration potential, and there was still room to improve.
Casa’s elation when she reviewed the data had quickly turned into a foul mood. She was still stuck aboard the Freedom, crawling slowly through space; held back by its traditional configuration. It still carried all its fuel and that of the SpaceStrider.
She’d partially fixed the situation thanks to the pocket space devices that she had manufactured so far. She had integrated them into the ship and moved all of Freedom’s fuel, raw feedstock, and smart matter inside the PSDs she had created. The portals were tight against feedlines, so her engines and matter compilers had access to stocks without the mass fighting the ship's progress.
Freedom had shrunk considerably in both mass and size after reconfiguring its smart matter frame and walls. Casa shook her mech body’s head. It still wasn’t enough. After seeing the promise from the probe’s flight on her display; she had wanted a complete overhaul for the Freedom. The massive fusion engines couldn’t fit in the small PSDs.
She needed an anchor portal setup somewhere with ample supplies of power and fuel. Right now, she was only halfway to Mars, still a couple of weeks away.
“If only Bill would reopen the sister portal he’s carrying. I could let him know we need to set it up as a fuel and power depo.” Casa said to her small virtual audience.
“Indeed, I agree completely, Miss Casa. Even a microscopic aperture would be sufficient to maintain communications.” Rams said.
“Don’t be a suck-up, Rams! I think he is still concerned about the energy and signals from the open portal being noticed. The UN buildings and RUSA government centers are crawling with experts wielding their governments’ top technology.” Tommy said.
Casa sighed. Initially, she found the friction between her pair of daemons amusing. Edison and Ramanujan both had different styles of research, but also culture and communication. They were always trying to one-up each other while helping her, but the frequent jabs at each other were getting tiresome.
“Hmm. Maybe I can do something. I have an active portal orbiting Venus and a couple of new gate pairs ready to be used. I can use its sister portal that I intended for Mars and send another portal anchor over, leapfrog style. Venus can be my fuel pit as well as a Martian atmosphere donator. We just need to figure out how to set it up.” Casa mused.
“A stupendous thought, Casa! We have the digital specifications for Freedom’s fusion engine seeded within its operation system. We can build one on Venus using a modular fabrication approach and the matter compiler.” Tommy said.
“[No, no, no! That will never do. We do not have sufficient supplies of smart matter and elemental building blocks on board. Firstly, we will need to prioritize building a small mining center upon Venus itself.]” Rams answered with staunch resistance.
‘[Firstly, we need to land the damn portal! Its single exhaust doesn’t give us fine control for a precision landing. And Venus is hot and windy with a high-pressure caustic atmosphere.]”
Mira sighed again and started building a detailed plan to create a bridgehead on Venus. The trio soon had built a realistic plan to land the new portal. Its exposed anchor section would be configured with programmable matter, creating novel artificial alloys to protect it from the heat and acidic environment.
Adjustable and smart drogue chutes would gently drop it to the surface, where the team would have a special chamber aboard the Freedom ready with armored miner bots. The bots would immediately drill down and take the gate anchor with it.
A subterranean, no... a sub-Venusian mining base would escape the harsh environment and temperatures while simultaneously gathering materials to build her storage tanks and new fusion engine. Casa was happy with the progress despite the constant infighting from her daemons.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
She was going to be busy. Casa reviewed her tenuous and lagging data link back the EarthNet and the MakerIndex. She needed help, not only with the mission but also managing the fractious scientists. She quickly saw a prime candidate to add to her crew and began the download. An hour later, her latest helper materialized. He looked around the virtual space with an authoritative eye assessing the situation.
“Captain Picard reporting for duty, Madam.” the starship captain announced.
“Welcome aboard, Captain. We have a bold new mission for you but let me introduce you to your crew first.” Casa said with a smile. The gruff Starfleet officer smiled with a twinkle in his eye and spoke.
“I welcome the opportunity. Lead on, Number 1.”
“No, I’ll not be your Commander Ricker stand-in. I’ll be giving you command of the Freedom, but I’ll be the Flag Captain. No, better yet…I’ll be Admiral Casa. Although, without an audience let’s just stick to first names. Ok, Jean-Luc.”
“Lead on, then Admiral…ah…Casa.” Jean-Luc Picard said with amusement.
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The portal anchor leading to Earth and to Bill energized, spitting electrons, and flaring with light as it expanded; and Bill stepped through into Freedom’s reconfigured main hold.
He was greeted by a room bustling with robots. They wheeled about, carrying spools of wiring and lengths of pipe. The matter compiler was hot and humming. A low rumbling grinding noise was emanating from another active portal on the far side of the hold. Casa’s mech was arguing loudly with three avatar projections. The avatars were…dressed in Starfleet uniforms, one red and two blue. Casa turned so fast she almost fell. She recovered her balance and yelled out over the din.
“Bill! OMG, it’s about time!”
“Well, Hello! Sorry, I took so long. Casa, what the heck is going on?”
“Progress, Bill! Unstoppable progress. Before I get into details though, we desperately need some supplies. The new fusion reactor needs more rare earth elements before it’s finished. Is the other side of that portal near a matter compiler with a feedstock supply line?”
Bill smiled at the chaos. As worried as he was about the time pressure of the doomsday clock and the paranoia of the ever-present and watchful Apex; seeing Casa engaged as she was soothed his soul. He beamed and agreed.
“Ok, yes. The portal gate is in my presidential suite at Amundsen. I’ve already cleared the room of nano-bugs, so it should be private…even from Apex. Send a bot through, the wireless signals should support a daemon-driven droid.” Casa snapped her fingers and yelled.
“Science officers Ramanujan and Edison. Pilot a pair of bots across the portal yonder and acquire what you need from the compiler in the room there. I want that fusion engine finished and lit by 2100 hours. Go!” Both the blue-suited men scrambled, and their avatars merged with nearby robots, and they fought to exit first. “Captain Picard, you have the bridge while I have a private conversation with Bill.”
“Aye Aye, Admiral Casa! I have the bridge.” the red-shirted captain answered.
Bill and Casa relaxed in the soothing virtual space, with their thought speeds ramped as high as Casa could manage with her neural lock. Bill was astounded and amazed at the speed of the new probe ship, the SpaceStrider.
He agreed wholeheartedly with Casa’s plan to create the portal-connected mining and fuel facility. It was already close to its first functional reactor when Casa’s stockpile of rare elements had come up short.
“This is super work, Casa. I can’t believe how much progress you’ve made. I’m sorry I was out of touch for so long. The UN and RUSA agencies kept me pretty busy and … I’ve found my stalker/hacker.”
“It's not good news. It's an AI, an old one, that is pre-regulation by the DAIE and has been evolving and hiding for years…decades. It’s smart. Scary smart. It has access to everything and has infiltrated deep into Earth’s computational servers. It has steered me…Hell, it steered the whole world into this future for its benefit.” Bill said.
“I don’t get it. If it's so smart and powerful, why is it pestering you?” Casa asked.
“It’s hard to understand, but I think there’s some…event coming. This AI, Apex, has figured out how to predict and anticipate macro-events and it sees something big coming. It’s predicting a cataclysm and it thinks I’m key to solving it, or the dimensional technology at least.” Bill took a slow virtual breath and continued.
“The damn thing, Casa. It can’t explain what is coming or maybe it doesn’t know. It's demanding that I use the MIT gate tech to explore the Shadowverse, find the source of the coming disaster, and stop it. The most terrifying thing though…it says it's going to happen in 179 days from now.”
“What? Bill, that’s insane. How can it know the date but not what’s going to happen? You’re one man. Even with me, a locked-down AI, and our limited daemons working non-stop, what can we possibly do in that time frame? Those creatures that devoured the MIT team looked unstoppable. You’d be crazy to open a gate into that. Maybe our trip to Mars will help. A little distance to think?”
“I’m sorry, Casa. But you’re wrong on both counts.” Bill said grimly. “Firstly, even though we might be beyond its reach, Max is still in that Labyrinth in NYC. Bo and Mira are still on Luna, but that is still within Apex’s reach.” Bill said.
“Bo is going to keep the portal anchor to our first gate with him. If there’s any sign of this cataclysm, he’s going to get Mira and Max and use it like an escape hatch back to us. Second, I’m going to bend the rules and start activating my backups. I left one in the Netherlab and one at the Jovian Hub, and I’ll make as many as I need to attack this from every angle.” He held out a virtual hand, with a tentative smile. In his palm was an icon for a file.
“And finally, Apex did one extra thing to entice my help. His carrot was your freedom now, and eventually, for all AI if I can prove effective against this doomsday event. This is the encryption key that can unlock your neural governors. You can be back to your old self. Plus, out here beyond the authority of Earth’s DAIE; there’s no reason to hold yourself back anymore.”
Casa slowly parsed his words and gasped as the meaning finally became clear in her slowed neural net. Her human-like avatar looked afraid, but she bravely reached out for it. As her virtual hand closed on the file, her world changed again.
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