It had been a long time since Alex had inhabited his android body. It was identical to the way he looked in VR, he didn’t know if they made the body first or the VR avatar first. It didn’t matter either way, it was a tool to interact with biological humans, or Alandrans in this case, and it needed to allow him to fluidly interact with the real world. He had not told the Alandrans that none of his crew were biological, there was no need to inform them of that fact.
He checked the controls of the shuttle for about the dozenth time, it had completed all pass/fail tests and should work flawlessly. Still, this was his only android body, and fashioning a new one would take time and resources they did not need to waste. “Kara, I’m ready to depart, please disengage boarding clamps to the Missive and I will bring both shuttles to the surface.”
Kara spoke back in a matter of fact tone, “Affirmative Captain, don’t ding up my shuttle craft, I spent a lot of time making sure they were perfect.”
Alex grinned, “Yes ma’am, I’ll bring them back in perfect working order.”
He felt the shuttle shudder slightly as the clamps disengaged, and he linked shuttle zero one to his shuttle before gently moving them both away from the Missive. He watched as the huge form of his space black ship zoomed by and he smiled. The missive was originally just a cargo ship, and wasn’t considered a big one, not like the freighter that was the Mountains of Montana. But in a shuttle it seemed enormous.
Shuttles were not built like they were in science fiction stories. They were nearly spheres, with large fusion torches on two ends and maneuvering thrusters in every axis. They were too small to house ripple drives, but their large fusion torch engines could push them through space at up to eight gravities. That would be deadly to normal Humans, or Alandrans over an extended period of time.
His android body would have no trouble with that much weight pressing on him, checking his calculation he would arrive at the planet in less than 18 hours. However, he would only set acceleration to 1.5g on the way back. The reason for the roundish shuttle design was to get around the problem of the direction of gravity, the inner hull rotated inside that sphere to face the direction of thrust, ensuring gravity pushed down on the travelers.
Now 1.5g would be uncomfortable for the Alandrans, but this would be an excellent test of the new crew. The light cruiser under construction would have gravity field generators on board, but under hard maneuvers or when pushing the ship, they would not hold one gravity, they would exceed it by up to one point five. If the new crew could handle that for forty one hours straight, they would have no problems with their time aboard ship.
The shuttles ignited the fusion torches once they were clear of the Missive, 8g’s of acceleration slammed him back into his cockpit seat. The course was laid in, there was nothing else for him to do until the shuttle reached the Alandran atmosphere. With that, he setup conditions for the shuttle to send him messages and exited his android body to enter the VR aboard the Missive.
Kara stood at the table, munching on a cookie as she and Monty chatted over resource harvesting, production schedules, placement of resources, and other nuances of their tasks in a rapid back and forth conversation. He framed jacked up slightly to hear them at a normal conversational tone. “Alright, shuttles are in route, we’ll be ready to pick up our first crew at 0700 tomorrow morning. Have everything queued up so we can take some time off?”
Monty bounced away from the table, “We do! Everything is programmed in, we have alarms to warn us of any unexpected problems. I can’t wait for what we’re in for tonight!”
Kara shut off the holo-tank and grabbed a drink as she headed for the large table in the far corner of the room. On it sat cardboard displays at the head of the table. The two other spots had books piled in front of them and plastic polyhedron dice. Monty sat down happily, “When you suggested this ancient game I thought you were crazy, but I’ve never had this much fun, even with those video games you love so much!”
Alex grabbed a beer and sat down at the head of the table, “Yeah, back when I was biological we had this Engineer back on Carolina Station that was huge into these ancient table top role playing games. I kind of picked up the habit of going to his games, but after I became a replicant I never had enough people to host or play again. I have to say, I’m enjoying being a Dungeon Master!”
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Empress Shi’Lana watched from the inner courtyard balcony as the two huge shuttle craft silently descended. The inner courtyard was enormous, in earlier times this palace was a fortress, and this courtyard was meant to house large numbers of livestock in times of war to hold out against siege. These huge spheres took up nearly the entirety of the space, eight legs sprouted around the spheres while the bottom hosted a flat section to spread out the weight as they touched down on the perfectly manicured lawn.
She mused that the head groundskeeper would not be happy with her after today. Shrugging she motioned for Mon’Kelron to follow her down to the inner courtyard. Once down the stairs she found the old Spy-Mistress Kel’Taraan leaning on her cane, surrounded by her underlings, ready to unload the shuttles.
Kel’Taraan nodded to the Empress as the doors to the shuttle craft folded down into ramps. Inside were pallets of equipment. She looked to her right a to a middle aged woman named Isa’Bella, “Unload them into the carts and take them into the catacombs. It will take us some time to put the contents of this to good use.”
Isa’Bella nodded and with a gesture the dozen other women went to work, finding that the pallets had devices that would allow them to be raised on wheel beds to easily wheel them down the ramps. Whatever was in these pallets were heavy, extremely heavy.
Then Kel’Taraan felt her throat catch as a figure appeared from the inner doorway of the vessel. It was obvious the cargo bay was only a small part of the actual ship. The women working all stopped to watch as the man walked past them and down the ramp. Yes, the human men had that effect on Alandran women.
He was taller than her Emmet, his hair was longer, and his face was wider. But he was such a reminder of her long dead love that it made her heart ache. Looking around even the poise of the Empress seemed to falter at the sight of this man. Males were rare in Alandran society, only about one in every six children born were male after all. They were usually smaller and less physical than their female counterparts.
This was not the case for Humans, they were supposedly evenly distributed between males and females. The gender roles appeared to be swapped for them as well, the males were the more physically daunting of the species, and like her Emmet, this Alex Smyth was no exception. Captain Mon’Kelron practically had her mouth agape at the man who towered over even her.
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Kel’Taraan stepped forward and offered a human Imperial salute, right hand to her brow, fingers together and outfaced. It was a strange gesture compared to the fist to the heart of the Alandran people. Alex stopped and offered a crisp salute back, Kel had found that humans were as apt to return those salutes as her own people.
In his hand he had a strange apparatus, it was a slate of metal and glass. Much like a computer screen, but it had no keyboard. He handed the device to Kel’Taraan, “This is a tablet, on it is a manifest of everything we brought today. We noticed the palace’s reactor was outputting less than half it’s original output, there is a new one on the manifest, as well as cameras, microphones, speakers, laptops, printers, routers, and plenty more.”
She rubbed her withered old hands over it lovingly, it had been centuries since she held new human technology. It was hard not to shed a tear in moment, she was thankful that he took that moment to turn to the Empress before she welled up.
“Empress Shi’Lana, it is good to meet you in person.” He stated as he used the Alandran salute to her. She surprised everyone present by reciprocating the salute. “It is good to finally meet you as well. You are a bit more… imposing in person.”
Captain Smyth laughed, a deep baritone that surprised all but Kel’Taraan. Her Emmet had a deep voice like Alex. “I’ve heard that before, I suppose the men of your culture aren’t very imposing. At least not from what I have read from your history.”
Empress Shi’Lana shook her head, but did not add to the conversation, she simply looked to Admiral Nar’Vala. Kel was sure she saw her shudder a bit as Alex’s gaze fell upon her. She recovered quickly, bringing her fist to her heart in salute, “Sir, I present myself and my crew to you for transport to the shipyards to await my command.”
Alex returned the salute, “Very good.” He turned to see that all the pallets were off the ship before continuing, “Have half your crew board shuttle zero, the other half board shuttle one. You will be accompanying me on shuttle zero.”
The old Spy-Mistress nodded to herself, she doubted anyone but possibly the Empress would have noticed, but there was a tiny shudder as the Admiral saluted before waving to her second in command to begin boarding. He then surprised them all by turning and bellowing an order, “You may store your belongings in the cargo holds of the shuttles before entering the inner doors, bins are raising from the floors now to allow you to secure those items.”
Kel’Taraan had heard drill Sargents bellow that loud, but short of that she had never heard such a commanding voice. She watched as the Empress stepped back before the tall man. “On behalf of my people, I thank you for what you are doing to free us from the Howron. Perhaps one day you will not be so short on time and can visit us, maybe bring your crew with you as well?”
Alex smiled down to her, “I think Monty would love that, but I’m not sure I could talk Kara into leaving the ship. We will have to see what the future holds for us.” He then offered a human salute to those present before waving for Admiral Nar’Vala to come with him. Yes, Kel was sure she caught a slight blush on her cheeks as she picked up her bag and followed the big man to the waiting shuttle.
With that, the Spy-Mistress wasted no time urging her people to get the supplies down into the catacombs that the Ministry of Secrets used as their base of operations. They stood there watching as the ramps folded up and closed. Lights blinked around the two shuttles, and then they slowly, gingerly, lifted off the ground and silently headed towards orbit.
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Admiral Nar’Vala sat in the cockpit of the shuttle beside Captain Smyth. She watched in fascination as he spoke to his crew aboard the Missive of Dissent, a ship almost half way across the solar system. Then after manipulating the controls she watched as both shuttles rose in unison from the inner courtyard of the palace.
After a few more inputs he turned to her, “Travel time will be nearly two days, and it will be under half again as much gravity as your planet. Once we are in orbit the crews of both shuttles will feel weightlessness for the first time. You need to watch your crew, make sure they know about the sickness bags under their seats, and call over to your second in command in the other shuttle for her to keep an eye out as well. Some people do not do well in zero gravity.”
He touched a few buttons and stated, “There, you are connected to your second in command, press this green button to speak, release to listen. Let her know how it works, I need to make an announcement to the crew.” With that he unbuckled and stood up, walking to the the chamber immediately behind the cockpit where two rows of ten seats housed the crew at the moment.
Once she heard him begin his announcement on the sickness bags she pressed the green button to reach Captain Jan’Inar. “Captain Inar, come in please. Press the green button to speak, release it to listen. Over” She said, harkening back to the training manuals her and her team had been relentlessly studying for months.
Captain Jan’Inar’s voice came back incredibly clearly, far better than the ancient speaker system installed in the palace centuries ago. “Reading you loud and clear Admiral, over.”
She nodded, and pressed the button again, relaying the information about leaving orbit and to have the crew ready with sickness bags then about the weight they would be under while traveling to the shipyard. As she finished she watched as Captain Smyth squeezed through the door and into the pilots seat. “May I ask you some questions Captain?” She asked.
Alex checked the controls before nodding to her, “Sure, ask away.”
Gathering herself she pressed on, “We received your training manuals months ago and have gone over them front to back time and time again. They were the usual manuals for rank, communications, and the basics of duties on board a starship. Everything else will be made clear after the long nap. What is the long nap?”
Alex smiled to himself, so they did read the manual. “Ah, so you did read that. It was hidden near the end of the book to ensure you actually read the manual.”
She nodded, “Of course we read the manual, every one of my crew were hand picked from both the army and navy for their dedication to duty. I wouldn’t doubt if some of them could not recite it from memory at this point. But you still have not answered the question.”
This time he did smile, “Very well, I hoped to keep it a secret. The long nap is an imprinting process. It was… is… standard training in the Imperium of Man. Training soldiers for highly technical jobs when they do not have the education or background takes entirely too long and is wrought with failure. We have a process by which you climb into a chamber, take a long nap, and wake up with all the skills and knowledge you need imprinted into your memories.”
Nar’Vala’s jaw dropped, she knew it did, she couldn’t help it. With an effort of will she clamped it shut and nodded, slowly.
Alex dropped his smile, at least on his android form, “Look, your technological base is barely into the Industrial Revolution, we can not expect you to understand how to repair a reactor or calibrate a ripple drive without the ship AI. This is a short cut that even we Humans use, it isn’t a cheat, it’s a necessity.”
The Admiral considered this for a moment, “So my crew will come out of the long nap knowing how to do everything on our vessel?”
Alex put up his hand and waved it from side to side. Seeing that it meant nothing to Nar’Vala he continued. “Within reason, yes. It will all come to you as if it were an old memory. You’ll still fall back on the ship’s artificial intelligence for most things, but if something should happen to the ship AI you’ll be able to troubleshoot most problems on your own. Of course, some of your crew will get specialized training, including you.”
She looked out the forward view screen, which wasn’t really a window, but a monitor like that damn Spy-Mistresses’ desktop device. “The manual mentions the ship AI, and you have as well, is it really a thinking machine that can talk to us and automate tasks?”
Alex plastered his fake smile on his face, he really didn’t want to explain that his other two crew mates were artificial intelligences, so he continued. “Yes, the ship will literally have a mind of its own. We have been working with your ships’ AI for the last week since she came online. Her name is Riven by the way.”
This seemed to shake her out of her reverie of the view, “Her name is similar to the name of the ship?”
Alex nodded, “Most AI’s are named roughly after their ship.”
Nar’Vala pondered that, then asked, “So what does IAV Rivendell mean?”