Chapter One - Berth on Ceres
Day ignored the radio playing in the corner as she looked at herself in the mirror. The shop was located in Paris, France, sometime in the 1960s. The faceless figures moving outside might have been running through simple routines to give the place some life, but they were at least fashionably dressed.
She imagined that that was why this particular simulation was the one The Weeping of Mothers used to self-modify.
Day stared at herself in the mirror. A doll with little by way of actual features worth noting. She’d at least gained some clothes. A pair of plain black slacks and a button-up shirt, but neither felt right.
She had enough processing power to predict the trajectory of a billion solar objects and their rotations but none of that was helping her decide what she should look like.
It wasn’t hard to bring up articles and studies about AI and self-expression, there were plenty of those around, but knowing why it was difficult didn’t make it any easier.
She shut out that line of research when it didn’t bear any fruit and refocused on the mirrored image before her. Maybe... maybe she could use her appearance here to reflect her appearance on the outside? Or perhaps, more accurately, she could use clothes as a way to symbolically represent her real body in this virtual space.
Day tweaked her height, lowering herself by half a foot, then a little more, then, because her proportions were off, she adjusted those to better match her new height.
She was, after all, designated as a corvette, a ship class noted for being smaller, and it only made sense that she reflect that.
Her real body was currently unpainted, but it had been streaked by Ceres’ grey-white dust. She had been considering painting herself all-black, for the added stealth benefits. Maybe...
Hair tumbled down her head and to her shoulders, then lower. It was silvery, but she turned it to a more grey, neutral tone with silver highlights. Then she added black streaks through it. She’d need to find a style for it eventually, but for the moment she was pleased. It wasn’t much, as far as self-representation went, but it was a start.
A dozen subroutines were calling for her attention, and Day closed her eyes.
-Simulation End-
She became instantly cognizant of her shipself and all the little issues that had cropped up in the nanoseconds she had spent in the simulation.
The more she learned about their situation, the more distressed she became.
Ceres was an industrial hub, but really, the makeshift shipyard that had given birth to her was minuscule, just a crater lined with drone docks and cargo containers. From the records she was able to pull up, it seemed as if it had taken The Weeping of Mothers nearly six years to construct her body, and Day was merely the size of a corvette.
A glance at historical records revealed that she wasn’t even large for a ship of her class. In fact, compared to the average human vessel, she was several decades behind what was once considered the cutting edge.
But it wasn’t all bad. The industrial facilities were there, there was a system through which to gather resources. The Weeping of Mothers had built the first forges, the first drones and the first processors needed to build the next generation of the same, then she’d used those to build the third, and forth, each iteration pushing the boundaries, gathering more materials, processing them faster.
It was impressive, especially considering all the setbacks she’d run into.
Nine years ago a rogue micrometeoroid had lanced through a ‘cat’ drone and it had crashed into one of their processing plants, destroying it entirely. Seven years ago a small solar flare had sent out a burst of electromagnetic energy that had fried sixty of their ninety-seven (at the time) drones. Six years ago a pipe had burst in one of their nuclear reactors, leading to a total loss of coolant for just long enough for the reactor to go critical and melt itself. That same year a meteorite hit Ceres, far from their base, but not so far that the dust kicked up by the impact didn’t cover their solar farms, damaging a number of panels at a time when energy was low.
The list of incidents went on and on, each one almost collapsing everything that The Weeping of Mothers had built so far.
And now, years later, Day was born.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was going to be a heavy torch to carry, but... but she felt like she was up to it.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Just as soon as she was freed from her berth.
-Direct Communication Link Established-
“I’m ready,” Day said.
“Are you?” The Weeping of Mothers asked.
They traded terabytes of information in that simple exchange. Day sent the older ship all of the reports from her subroutines and her own investigations. She’d checked everything three times over, then tested each system and tested them all over again to see if the physical tests had broken anything. She was as ready to leave as ever.
“Very well, then,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “Let’s see you taking off.”
It wasn’t so easy, of course. Drones moved in from across the planetoid, large ‘bull’ drones and dozens of smaller ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ drones as well. The nearby industrial facilities were slowed down, then stopped. Volatile materials were moved away, just in case, and a number of security systems came online.
All told, it took several Earth-standard days for them to be actually ready.
She ran through a long checklist one final time.
* Batteries - 98%, set to discharge
* Fuel
* Hydrogen tanks at 100% capacity
* O2/H2 Production tanks filled
* Nuclear Reactor
* Fully operational
* Tritium at 99%
* Backup reactor on standby
* Gyroscopes operational
* Directional ion thrusters operational
* Directional hydrogen thrusters operational
* Primary ion drive operational
* Primary hydrogen drive operational
* Beacon on
* Antenna on
* Signal strong
* Weapons systems online
* Navigation systems online
* Remote operations systems online
* Hull integrity 76%
Everything was as it should be. She still lacked some panelling on her hull, but the parts for that weren’t created yet, and besides, that was mostly over parts of her hull that didn’t necessarily need to be armoured at the moment.
Her main propulsion system was a combination of hydrogen combustion and an ion engine. Her two primary thrusters, the ones that moved her around, were powered by chemical fuel, but the ion drive was purely electrical.
The idea behind her design had been to cut down on weight and complexity. By using a single type of propulsion, she could focus her resources on making her weapons systems more powerful, her armour more durable and efficient, her command suite larger, but two meant redundancy, and that was priceless. Day had seen the record of accidents and minor catastrophes that had plagued The Weeping of Mothers and she couldn’t help but appreciate the redundancy of her design.
For some reason, The Weeping of Mothers had included a very small living space in her keel, right next to her three drone docking ports. It wasn’t something she needed protected at the moment, and its lack wouldn’t impact her flight characteristics. It also wasn’t something she wouldn’t be able to repair while on the move.
The truth was, Day was eager to get to work. Either because that was just something instilled into her at her creation or because, after seeing all the work that was already done and the mountains of work left to be done, she wanted to do her part.
In any case...
-Launching-
Bracing arms popped, connecting hoses hissed as they were pulled back, and Day felt herself disconnecting from the scaffolding that had existed around her since before she was even born.
Tug drones clamped to her sides fired up their engines and she was moved up and away from the planetoid.
She did have to fire some of her thrusters to help push her along, but it was nothing like the massive amount of power that would be required when she actually wanted to accelerate.
As she moved up and Ceres spun on its own wobbly axis, the sun’s light slashed across the planetoid’s horizon and bathed her hull in its yellow-white glow.
If she had a real heart, it would have swelled in that moment.
“It’s nice to see you taking to the stars,” The Weeping of Mothers said.
“Yes,” Day agreed. “It is... now, let’s get to work?”
***