Chapter Thirty-Eight - Expert Opinion

“This wasn’t our finest idea,” Day admitted as she looked over the Junker Nine’s remains.

The ship was wrapped in cables and netting, all freshly printed by Night. Drones were locked onto the hull as well, with their main thrusters angled precisely to give them the most control possible over the ruined ship.

And then, to cinch everything up, Night and Day had strapped their hulls to the wreck as well, giving it the propulsion needed to move.

It would have been a hideously dangerous manoeuvre already, except to add to the danger, they weren’t heading back home. No, they had taken a slow but careful orbit that brought them closer to Jupiter.

Twilight followed after them, towing the remains of the now-detached Accord destroyer. She had started complaining about how obvious it made her long before she actually took off, and hadn’t stopped since.

“Annnd we’re in orbit,” Twilight said as they slid into a stable orbit around Io. “Finally. Can I let go of this hunk of junk yet?”

“Not yet,” Night said. “We’re giving that piece to NOVA QUANTUM. If she wants it.”

“I don’t see the point,” Twilight said, and Day sat back to listen to an argument she’d already heard several times. “She’s a weapon’s researcher. This is a propulsion system. It’s outside her area of expertise.”

“I’m sure she’ll be able to figure out how it works,” Night said.

“We can figure out how it works. It’s Accord tech. They don’t bother working in complications or even using DRM stuff. It’s all blindly obvious once you crack it open,” Twilight said.

Day sent a digital sigh over their shared coms, calming the argument down for a moment. “We’re in Io’s orbit now, can we stop the arguing? Night, are you ready to send things down to the surface?”

“Yeah, almost,” Night said.

They entered a closer orbit, with Twilight approaching so that Night could detach more of her repair drones and send them over to the Accord ship. They ended up grinding past parts of the Accord ship’s hull to get to the innards where they fired off deep scans. Those allowed them to create a simulation of the drive and all of its parts, though even with the high fidelity of their scans, it wasn’t perfect.

They wouldn’t be sending the wreck down to the surface, of course. That would be irresponsible. Instead they’d send the raw data down, then crunch it themselves too.

What they were launching towards Io was the entirety of the Junker Nine’s reactor core and its fuel assembly.

It was damaged, but not so much that it couldn’t be made functional with some repairs. They just didn’t want to conduct those themselves. Besides, their own reactors were better in nearly every way except perhaps when taking account sheer robustness.

They received a ping from the surface soon after the reactor was wiggled out from the wreck and welded to enough spare drones with thrusters on them to slow it down for a gentle...ish landing.

“What is that?” NOVA QUANTUM asked.

Day accepted the invitation for a meeting in virtual space, then opened it to find her avatar in... an empty void.

NOVA QUANTUM was standing nearby in her golden astronaut’s suit, and Day’s siblings stood on nothing next to her.

“Hey NOVA,” Night said. “We brought you something!” She sent a package over, detailing the plans to have the reactor arrive near NOVE QUANTUM’s base.

“That’s... a daring plan. I can see the utility of it though. Yes, the reactor could come in handy. It’ll replace one of my dysfunctional ones. Though the output of that kind of drive isn’t exactly enough for my needs. I need something better.”

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Night nodded along. “Yeah, we’ll try to get you something with more kick, but right now we’re not exactly swimming in resources. This is what we can spare.”

“I suppose that’s not so bad, then,” NOVA QUANTUM said. She nodded. “I’ll thank you for the assistance. This will empower me a little more, and allow me to push onwards to fulfil my purpose.”

“Sure!” Night said. “You’re welcome. Oh, and hey, while we have your attention, can you look at this?” Day noted Night sending a packet forwards, the scans of the Accord destroyer’s drive system.

NOVA QUANTUM frowned for a moment, then blinked and smiled. “Oh, this is easy, it’s just an Accord drive system, isn’t it? Yes, I’ve seen these from afar. Interesting how they work. Nothing too complicated, surprisingly, but you can see how this is an iterative design. Look, here, here, and here.” A large blow up of the drive appeared around them, and the group found themselves with an ant’s perspective as NOVA QUANTUM pointed to different systems. “See how this part here was clearly changed at some point? The parts need changing to account for wear, of course, but there’s an empty bracket there, and a mounting point over here. And this other drive section has a nearly identical part, but not entirely. A different model of the same mechanism. This one is clearly superior, and slightly newer as well, judging by the stress patterns. So, the Accord didn’t only design a drive, then refined it and built it with refinements in mind.”

“That’s very interesting,” Night said. “I don’t think we really do that.”

“No, of course not, you print most of the equipment you need wholesale, but I imagine that it complicates things when it comes time to replace a part with a better version. Then again, parts printed that way will be better, overall. Ah, speaking of which, here, I believe I owe you this?”

Day blinked as she received a schematic at the same time as the drive disappeared and they were once more in an empty sim. “Oh, thank you,” she said.

“Weird sim you’ve got going,” Twilight said. “Usually we have, you know, an environment.”

“That isn’t necessary to conduct business,” NOVA QUANTUM replied quickly.

Day received a silent message, sent just to her and Twilight. It came from Night. “I think she’d conserving power as much as she can. It might make her a little nervous to point it out.”

Day nodded along. “Thank you for the... ah, is this an improvement on our Bulwark system?”

“Yes, I scanned you last time. It’s poorly designed. This is better,” NOVA QUANTUM said.

“Oh, well, thank you,” Day repeated as she tucked the file away for later.

“So,” Night began. “How have you been?”

“Gloriously busy!” NOVA QUANTUM replied. “There’s so much to do, so much to build, and now that my power situation isn’t as dire, I have the ability to push forward mankind’s understanding of commercially-viable death delivery to a newer and brighter future!” she said. Then she paused, looked at all three of them, and then Night specifically. The pause stretched for a long while. “Ah... how are... you?”

Night grinned. “I’m doing well!” She said, “Hey, want to see some of my new nuke designs? I know they’re not nearly as good as what you can come up with, but I was thinking maybe I can test them on Io, in a low-atmosphere, that way we can both scan them from the ground and from orbit!”

“Yes! I’d like that!” NOVA QUANTUM said as she cheered up.

Day... decided to leave them to it. There was other work that needed her attention at the moment.

***