Admiral Nar’Vala watched from the command position on the bridge as Captain Jan’Inar ran the ship through its paces on their sea trial. The Rivendell was five meters longer than any ship in the rest of the fleet, that difference being in the command station on the bridge and the admirals’ quarters. Riven stated it would not affect performance of the vessel, but would add to the sensor cross section.
To be honest, this was a little more boring than she thought it would be. She understood that her job was to control the fleet, and without a fleet she really didn’t have anything to do. As she watched she saw that the bridge crew were settling in nicely. They seemed to know their stations and their jobs, she knew each of them were being coached by Riven through the communication device in their earrings.
Mainly because Riven talked to her through it from time to time as well. As such it was no surprise when Riven’s voice appeared in her ear, “Are you ok Admiral?” She asked.
She took a sip of the absolutely wonderful beverage the Humans called coffee before answering, “I’m fine Riven, just feeling like a fifth wife in the family circle right now.”
There was a pause, before Riven answered, “Your slang terms are a bit strange to us, sorry, I had to laugh off mic on that one. But don’t worry, IAV Isengard will be coming out of shipyard two in three weeks.”
Putting down her coffee cup, listening for the clang as the magnets held it to the small desk she sat behind she answered, “That will at least give me something to do around here. I do love the books Alex left for me, the stories are wonderful. Is it your custom to name Vessels after fictional people and places?”
This time Riven answered much faster, “Yes, at first names were given to vessels as tradition, but as time went on and vessels were made in massive numbers, many ships were named for popular culture references.”
Nodding as that made perfect sense to her she asked, “So has Alex decided to name all our vessels after people and places from these books by Tolkien?”
Riven sighed, “Yes, he thinks it is hilarious for some reason. I really don’t understand men sometimes.”
Nar’Vala chuckled, “They are an enigma, that is for sure. Speaking of Alex, will he be bringing the next crew up from Alandra?” She probed.
Riven answered back, “Actually, he and Monty will each be taking a shuttle to the Palace to drop off more equipment and to pick up the Isengard crew.”
Admiral Nar’Vala knew that humans were more or less equal in number of male to female births, but Alex seemed to be surrounded by females. She knew Riven was the ship’s artificial intelligence, and thus wasn’t really a physical woman, but what about Monty and Kara? Something just didn’t add up, the humans were being secretive about something, but she just didn’t know what.
Prying further she asked, “So does Alex have a wife, or more than one?”
Riven paused again, something she rarely did, if anything she usually answered too quickly, it threw off the balance of the conversation sometimes. “No, but he and Kara are very close and spend most of their time together.”
Nar’Vala nodded internally to this, “I have never met or talked to Kara, but I would assume she is the Matriarch of your group?”
Again Riven seemed to pause, “I suppose you could consider that to be the case, she does watch over the rest of us.”
The Admiral pondered this, the group had a Matriarch, but they all followed the orders of the Captain, who was a man. A very strange way of doing things, but from everything she knew about the Humans, they were a very strange lot to begin with.
Shift change was coming up, Nar’Vala watched as the Lieutenant Lar’Iel relieved Captain Jan’Inar, then the rest of the bridge crew were relieved in order of rank. She had to admit, Human military etiquette was quite elegant. She was told that after the long nap many of the crew felt that doing it any other way now felt somehow wrong or disrespectful.
She rose from her desk as well, taking her coveted coffee cup with her to join the ‘A’ shift in the galley. It was not yet time for dinner, but they had taken to meeting in the mess hall as it was the only area of the ship large enough to accommodate an entire shift at a time. She was sitting in on the after shift report, and was surprised to see a full sized version of Riven in hologram form in the galley.
She had seen Riven in this form before, but only as a tiny avatar on a console or holo-tank, she didn’t know she had the ability to manifest herself that large. She was the same height as the Captain, but with raven hair clipped to her shoulders. She also wore the same uniform as the rest of the crew in officer white, her outline shimmering as she called for attention. “Settle down everyone, we have a few things to go over.”
After a moment or two she began as the room quieted down. “Everyone is doing well, across all shifts, it seems the long nap took hold quite well. The ship does have some bugs to work out however. As we have explained to you before, this frigate design has been modified with newer, better equipment, but that doesn’t meant there won’t be teething problems meshing the old systems with the new. We will have to stop back by shipyard one for some dry dock time.”
Captain Jan’Inar spoke up, “Will we have to disembark from the ship?”
Riven shook her head, “No, the current punch list items will not require you to leave the ship, I’m sure that will be a relief to most of the crew as hot bunking in the shipyard wasn’t well received.”
Admiral Nar’Vala asked the question, “I know there is a problem with the secondary shield generator and one of the torpedo launchers. Have you found more issues?”
Riven turned to the Admiral, “Yes, on top of those issues there are problems with power conduits from the new reactors, they will have to be upsized yet again, and we are having intermediate problems with long range communications. These issues must be dealt with in dry dock.”
Nar’Vala settled in for the rest of the shift debrief, not much else came about from the meeting, oh there was the occasional person who put in minor punch requests for things like lighting or drainage issues in the group showers, small things that didn’t effect ship efficiency, and then it was over. She filed out after the Captain and the rest of ‘A’ crew and made her way through the corridors of the frigate.
She marveled at the tiny cleaning bots that adhered themselves to the walls, ceilings and floors to keep the vessel spotless as she walked around one of the round floor models on her way to her cabin. Pressing the panel beside the door, it slid open with a ‘whoosh’ allowing her entrance to the one spot on the ship that was her own.
As the door closed behind her she sighed, pulling her hair clip out and letting her blonde hair fall to below her shoulders. It wasn’t huge, but for even a large naval vessel of the sea it would be considered luxurious. Not that her people had ever built a sea vessel this large, and the Humans considered this to be the smallest class of warship.
After the long nap she instinctively knew things that she would otherwise not know, one of these things was that the Missive of Dissent was not originally a warship. While it was of course far larger than this craft, it was too large to fall into a destroyer class, perhaps it would fit into a cruiser class vessel?
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She removed her form fitting uniform jacket for the moment and placed it on the back of the metal chair at her small desk. Then removing her earrings, which doubled as a communications device with both Riven and the rest of the ship she reached into her pants pocket and pulled out the personal data device and placed it on the desk.
Of all the devices she was issued, that was the most impressive. It was small and thin, but surprisingly tough, but the device could access libraries of information almost instantly, and the sheer amount of entertainment that it contained was truly impressive.
“Three days until we are back at ship yard one.” She thought as she picked up one of the leather bound books that she now coveted as one of her most prized possessions and laid down on the incredibly soft and comfortable bed. She turned on her reading light and started reading.
___________________________
Kara sipped her warm tea as she watched the holo-tank above the banquet table. The Rivendell was now in dry dock getting repairs and refits, and Riven would pop in and out of the VR environment to socialize, but lately the needs of twenty nine crew members were taxiing her ability to multitask. She smiled to herself, remembering when the then CARGO 33H6B8 had a human crew and she was in that predicament.
Things were infinitely better once they placed the replicant Alex in to replace them all. It was no secret that this was a cost cutting effort on behalf of Michelle de Halland shipping, but it made her life so much better. She still didn’t know how Alex got Kara out of Cargo, but she liked her new name, and the big oaf was fun to be around.
Just as she was thinking it was going to be another dull day she received a proximity alert from the Lynx system. Waving away the shipyard she frame jacked to maximum forgoing the VR environment for just he holo-tank before her. She noticed Alex appear beside her, also frame jacked to watch the information come in from the probes surrounding the system. Twelve pine cone shaped ships were converging on the system.
That would have been concerning enough, but it was the other three ships with them that both concerned her and confused her. They were triangular in shape, not like the cone shape of the others. They were also small in comparison, roughly a third the mass of the Missive. Taking control of the Missiles outside the Oort Cloud she sent all one hundred and eighty eight of the remaining missiles towards the fleet at full one hundred g acceleration.
Alex spoke up, “We’ve never seen craft like those before, and the Alandrans have no record of them either. They’re obviously here for a reason, we have what, ten minutes before our missiles close the distance to targets? Let’s see what a deep scan reveals.”
Kara nodded and tapped on the probe network, in unison they all focused their deep sensor scans on the triangular ships and received… almost nothing. “That’s not good, that is significant shielding to keep out a string pulse sensor.”
Alex watched the readings in the side of the holo-tank, “From what I’m seeing here those ships are not organic. Their hull is comprised of a large portion of the unknown ore being harvested from Alandra. I think we should consider them to be a far greater threat than the Howron vessels, target them first, we’ll expend everything we have on them to test their defenses.”
Several more focused sensor pings did not show more data on the unknown craft. It could detect some of the outer hull, but not much else, and nothing about in the interior. As they were escorting the Howron vessels it could be assumed that they were far tougher than the organic units. Monty and Riven joined the two around the holo-tank as the missiles closed the distance.
All four assumed control of the missiles through string radio routing. Alex struggled to interface with his sixty two missiles. The rest of his companions were true artificial intelligences, who were built to multitask, thus would have no problem controlling that many independent units.
As they closed on the new craft they watched through the sensor probes as thousands of point defense lasers launched out from the triangular vessels. They weaved, they dropped, they corkscrewed through maneuvers that would be impossible for a biological to survive, and they watched to their horror as over ninety percent of their numbers were cut from the sky.
Monty let out a whoop as one of her missiles managed to dodge through the almost complete wall of laser and maser fire and detonate within two hundred yards of one of the vessels. The joy was short lived as the Hafnium torpedos explosion was dampened by the vessels shielding.
Monty cursed, “Damn it, their shields are good, I can’t get a reading on how much damage it did through the sensor net!”
If Alex was still biological he would be sweating right now, he had only four torpedoes left and was probing for an opening into one of the vessels, he cursed as another one was taken out by what seemed to be a rapid firing flack cannon.
Riven cheered as she managed to weave yet another torpedo through the defenses on the same vessel and detonate it. This time there was a noticeable effect, that side of the vessel seemed to buckle in a bit as the shielding failed. The paint scorched from the hellish temperatures and pressures washed against the hull. There was no doubt that vessel was damaged now.
Alex spoke up, “Focus remaining missiles on the damaged vessel, the fewer of these we have to deal with here the better.”
The other three grunted acknowledgement as Kara managed to curve a torpedo using its side thrusters through the near complete wall of point defense and detonate it on the same vessel. This time the shielding and point defense systems stopped completely. The lights visible on the vessel abruptly shut off, and the battered triangle floated dead in space.
Monty shouted “YES!” As she guided a fourth torpedo directly into the vessel and detonated it mere meters from the hull. The ship was consumed in a plasma sphere as the hafnium explosion set off something inside the vessel, a reactor or charged accumulator, who knows, but in milliseconds the vessel was floating debris.
“Focus whatever else we have on this target!” Alex stated as a crosshair appeared on one of the two remaining triangular ships.
Kara was the first to score a hit, the torpedo exploded against the shields of the vessel causing very little damage. She stated with a sigh, “I’m out!”
Monty cursed as her last torpedo met its final fate to a point defense maser.
Riven stood back and ran both hands through her hair as her last torpedo failed to breach the wall of point defense.
Alex was focused, he had only one torpedo left, he managed to come in right behind Riven’s torpedo and it’s destruction allowed him a brief millisecond where the point defense system was tracking for incoming, he used that moment to bring in his torpedo, it detonated less than a hundred meters from the hull of the vessel. It seemed to stagger in space, losing its shielding and scorching most of that side of the hull.
Alex stood back and looked into the holo-tank. “Well, that’s it, everything we left behind is scrap now.”
Kara reached into the holo-tank and manipulated the probes. “Confirmed, no working torpedoes are left. Sending self destruct protocols to any that may be somewhat intact.”
After a tense few milliseconds the probes confirmed that there was nothing the Howron could salvage from their weapons. After that they all eased up on their frame jack and the VR environment faded back into existence.
Alex was the first to speak. “Ok, whatever those new craft are they are tough, they’re barely bigger than the frigates we’re building for the Alandran’s but they can take more punishment. With almost two hundred torpedoes we managed to destroy one and damage another. Any thoughts?”
Kara nodded in agreement, “Yes, these are going to be a problem, but twelve of the pine cones and two of the new craft won’t be a problem against the mine field as well as us and whatever ships of the Alandrans we can field.”
Alex nodded, “That is true, but what if this fleet just waits for reinforcements? Those new ships are not organic, they don’t need to grow or whatever, they’re probably put together in shipyards like our own vessels. We don’t know if they are Howron or not. I’m kinda leaning towards them being a different species.”
Monty thought about that for a moment, “Oh, that could be bad. What if the Howron bow to someone else, and took the ore from the Alandrans to pay their own overlords? You saw the compositions of their ships, they were using Adamantine in their hulls, which was probably how they survived three direct torpedo hits.”
Riven nodded, “Those could have been scout ships, their version of a scout frigate, if so they are on par with our own technology. If they were only scouts, they may have bigger vessels.”
Alex ran his hand through his hair, “This keeps getting worse, where are we on ship yard three?”
Kara checked the auto factories, “Another month out, Isengard will be complete before it comes online, although we have pushed its completion date back three days to accommodate the refits we discovered with Rivendell.”
Alex nodded, “As soon as Rivendell is finished with dry dock, move her out and start work on Valmar. Kara, do you magic with getting the Isengard AI online and trained. Riven, get your crew battle ready, if those ships decide to run through the system and bee-line it for here we have about four more months until they will see combat.”
Monty turned to Alex, “What do you need me to do?”
Alex looked over to Monty, “Keep up the work on the mining drones, Kara will need all the raw material you can give her to get the Isengard completed and sea trials done before the fur balls and whoever our newest friends are show up to ruin our party.”