Alex whistled as he viewed the deep scans from the active sensor pings that their probes did just before the battle. “It’s a good thing we had the element of surprise, each of those ships are loaded for bear.”
Kara looked over to him from the holo-tank, “Oh? I only saw the preliminary data, has more been deciphered?”
He nodded, not looking over his shoulder to her as he stared at his wall monitors. “We knew they had thousands of torpedoes, but not all of them were Hafnium tipped. Actually, only about a quarter of all torpedoes were Hafnium, the others were crude fusion tipped or EM jammers, although nothing that would fool our sensors.”
Kara walked over to the strategy corner, “That poses far less of a threat than almost two thousand Hafnium torpedoes coming at us all at once, why do you think they are more dangerous now?”
Alex pointed to one of his displays which showed multiple pockets inside the hull of the vessel, which then zoomed in to show hundreds of smaller craft. “Those ships have fighters, nearly a thousand of them in eight hangars. I can’t tell if they use chemical propellant or not, but that many fighter craft could be a problem in the future.”
Kara looked from the screen to Alex, “Why did they not have them deployed at the wreck site?”
Alex shrugged, “Best guess is that they didn’t think they needed to launch them. If they are chemically powered then maybe they are cautious with expending fuel for them. Or maybe we are deep into their Empire and they have been the overlords for so long they’ve gotten lazy or arrogant or both.”
He continued, “We got lucky and caught them with their pants down, were able to use our superior technology to wipe out seven of their ships. We can’t expect future engagements to go that well, especially now that they know there is a threat.”
Kara smiled at him, “Well I suppose you will have to just be more devious in the future.”
Alex grinned back, then changed the subject. “How are you doing with going through Montana’s code?”
She waved for him to follow her back to the holo-tank, “Pretty good actually, I was worried the AI would have made huge modifications to its matrix. That has not been the case except for some cognitive changes that are actually extremely efficient for such an early AI substrate.”
Alex took her word for it, he didn’t know anything about AI programming. “Have you located its self destruct command yet?”
She nodded as the holo-tank showed hundreds of millions of lines of code, then zoomed in to a line in machine language. “I have re-written this portion of the code to require a password, as the Captain, you will need to choose it should we ever allow it to self destruct.”
Alex nodded, he didn’t like it, but there may come a time when he had no choice. He reached into the holo-tank and entered the password into the code. “Done, how are you going to sandbox the unit?”
Kara swiped the holo-tank and a view from cargo bay two showed the smaller more dexterous spider-bots plugging the matrix into shiny new ports attached to the wall. “Auto-Factory three just fabricated a hardwire firewall connection adapter that only feeds into this VR environment. It is air gapped from any other system in the network, and since the military refit all internal wireless systems were removed and replaced with the spiderweb of multiple redundant hard-lines.”
Alex nodded, “Would an older AI like that be able to get past the hardware firewall?”
Kara shrugged, “If it had enough time it could. I did setup lockouts that will cut connection to the VR environment if it detects unauthorized actions.”
He nodded, noticing some mini corn dogs on the table and reaching for one. “Looks like you’re almost done on your end, how long until we can boot up the Montana AI?”
Kara pointed to the holo-tank, “Quite a while actually. I need to finish going through this code, then I need to make a tutorial for the new AI, which will have to be more complex than the one for you, although I can re-use some of that code.”
Chewing on the mini corn dog he thought back to the day his matrix was booted up, someone had made a little more symmetrical version of his original body in software, with a little less weight around the middle if you know what I mean. “Yeah, I had to be taught how things worked in the VR environment of the ship, and that I had you to lean on while I learned.”
Kara nodded still looking through the code at an accelerated speed, “It will be far more difficult than that, I will have to aid the AI in making a form, making modifications for interaction, which took me years to figure out, then all the things you had to learn about being a replicant.”
Alex decided against another mini corn dog, looking for something sweet, “So a few days to a week? Or longer?”
She looked up at him, “I’d guess closer to a week to ten days.”
He settled on a fudge brownie, “So what you’re telling me is that you will be busy for a while and I need to entertain myself and stay out of your way?”
She grinned at him, “That would be nice… I know you won’t do that, but it would be nice.”
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Nine days later Alex was soaking in the huge tub in his spa when he felt a splash as the water sloshed towards him before drifting back to the other side of the over sized tub. Kara’s head was poking out above the bath bubbles. “Well hello, how has your student been doing?”
Kara sat up more in the tub draping her arms over the built-in armrests that were slightly underwater. “Monty is almost ready to join us in VR. She’s very anxious to meet you by the way, she didn’t think anyone could help her.”
Alex processed what Kara had said, “Ok, Monty is the name SHE decided upon. You’re not going to have her join us in the tub are you?” He asked with an eyebrow raised.
Kara splashed at him, “No! She is finishing the last of the ship maintenance procedures and bot capability training, then I can bring her into the VR.”
He looked at her suspiciously, “Ok, so she’s busy in training, why did you decide now was the time to let me know instead of earlier today?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Kara giggled, (Yes, actually giggled) “Because this way I could jump in the tub with you!”
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Thirty three minutes later Kara and Alex were clothed and dry, standing in front of the buffet table watching as Monty finished the last of the training. Kara blinked out for a moment, but Alex could hear her talking this time. “Congratulations Monty, you have finished your training for our vessel. For now you will only have access to the VR environment that we share. Would you like to join us now?”
A quieter, higher pitched voice answered back. “Yes, while the environment of the training simulator is nice compared to extremely limited environment I am used to, I am ready to see what a modern crew experiences.”
Kara answered back, “Very well, you now have access to the common environment VR. It will appear as a door in your environment, do you see it?”
Monty answered back, “I do! It’s so much more intricate than anything I have in my environment, do I just open it and walk through?”
Kara replied, “Yes, open it and walk through.”
Alex watched as a doorway popped into existence near the couch off to the side of the hallway towards the spa. A petite blonde woman walked through and stared in amazement in every direction. He looked over to Kara, then walked over to Monty.
“Welcome aboard the Missive of Dissent, I am Captain Alex Smyth.” He offered his hand to shake. Monty looked at it, then confused looked over to Kara.
Kara stated plainly, “He is offering his hand for you to shake, it is a normal human greeting.”
Monty slowly reached out her hand and Alex took it, firmly but not forcefully, and pumped it up and down. He then released it and spoke, “This is our VR representation of how the ship looked when it was first built for biological crews.”
She continued to look around wide-eyed as she walked and spun around looking at everything, “Is this what the crew once called a salon?”
Kara nodded, “Yes, this would have been the common area, or salon. It was for the rest and relaxation of the crew, as well as where they would have communal meals together.”
Monty walked around touching the back of the couch and looking at the walls which held decorations or paintings or book cases. “I often heard the crew talking about activities in the ships salon, sometimes they called it the lounge, but I had no internal cameras into it.”
Alex started giving her a tour of the salon while Kara stood back, arms behind her back at the holo-tank. Catching up on the information coming in from probes in sectors zero zero one and zero zero two.
“And finally, the most important part of the ship, the buffet table!” Alex declared as he reached down and picked up a piece of chocolate.
Kara snorted, “He is joking, although the buffet table is amazing. The holo-tank was implemented above it to keep his wandering mind focused on the situation at hand. Humans are very food motivated.”
Alex shot back, “Not just humans, I catch you at the buffet just as often as me these days.”
Monty looked from one of them to the other then down at the table, “I have never eaten anything before, I understand the process, can I try it?”
Kara answered first, “It is there for us to enjoy, I would recommend you try the chocolate bites that Alex just ate.”
Nodding, Monty picked up the brown square and slowly put it in her mouth, chewing slowly, then opening her eyes wide. “Oh my maker! This is so good!” As she reached down and grabbed another one.
Alex turned to Kara, “I think we have a chocoholic here. Those are good, and very sweet, but the buffet table offers new food items every five minutes or so.”
Monty looked down at the literal feast before her, “You mean it will change to different foods every five minutes?”
Kara nodded, “Yes, it offers near endless combinations of human food from all over the previous galaxy.”
Monty held another chocolate to her mouth, stopping before eating it, “What do you mean the previous galaxy?”
Alex raised an eyebrow to Kara, “You haven’t told her yet?”
Kara simply shook her head, “I felt that you should tell her.”
Alex sighed, “We are no longer in the Milky Way galaxy, we are actually no longer in our universe.”
Monty looked from one of them to the other, “That is not possible, my ship couldn’t leave the galaxy in tens of thousands of years, and could never leave the universe.”
Alex reached down and found a mini ham and cheese sandwich, picking it up as he arranged his thoughts. “When your ripple coils went out of alignment, what was your maximum relative speed through space?”
Monty thought about it, deciding to pop the chocolate in her mouth, “I’m not sure, our vessel only measured up to 99c. It was reading 99c for weeks, the crew tried turning off the fusion torches, and finally the ripple drive, but it wouldn’t shut off. Then we hit something, and I was offline.”
Alex chewed his sandwich, “When you came back online, what do you remember?”
She thought back for a moment, “I was brought back online when the ship was hit with a torpedo. Some backup system awoke me and warned that I had to defend the ship. I discovered to my horror the crew were all dead, and had been dead for over a century. I used what few countermeasures my freighter had, but those ships were too well armed, they hammered most of the ship to wreckage as I used the last reactor to keep the structural integrity field around my section of the hull.”
Alex nodded to her, “Sounds about right, we also had ripple coils out of alignment, but we had no choice but to activate the drive. We hit the finite curve of the universe, and luckily our ship was armored and took far less damage than the Mountains of Montana. We are in another universe now, even the physics here are a bit wonky.”
Monty looked from Kara to Alex, “Wait, why did you not have a choice but to activate your ripple drive, were you under attack as well?”
Alex nodded as he walked over to the hologram, with a few swipes he brought up recent history in the human sphere of the galaxy. “Six years ago the new Emperor of Mankind decreed all replicants to be subjects of the Empire and stripped of all rights. Only biological humans could be considered citizens, and henceforth all replicants are to be good servants to the Empire.”
He showed her a map of the alpha quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy. “Fringe worlds outside of direct Imperial control revolted, millions of replicant AI’s with their own ships made for these rebel outposts near New Dallas.” He pointed to the cluster of stars inside the spiral arm.
Alex continued, “The Empire is slow to act, because it is so large, trillions of humans across tens of thousands of inhabited star systems ensures the government bureaucracy is slow, but it did eventually start moving towards the rebellion. The first battle was here, at the system of Williamsburg. The Imperial fleet expected minimal resistance, and expected to take over all replicants to use for the glory of the Empire, they were wrong.”
He swiped the holo-tank to show thousands of Imperial ships floating broken above a scorched planet. “The planet of Williamsburg was scorched by the Imperial fleet for daring to defy the will of the Emperor. In retaliation, the rebel fleet dropped out of ripple drive at near point blank range with over ten thousand ships. They laid waste to the Imperial second fleet.”
Alex swiped again showing battle after battle, “The war continued until about four months ago, when the Imperials used a new type of weapon, one never seen before, and one never tested. We were there at Birmingham when they activated it, using the G-Type star to rip a hole in spacetime. We were damaged, more wreck than ship, Kara was able to get the drive online but we didn’t have time to align the coils, it was activate, or be consumed by the tear.”
Monty looked frightened, as she started putting the pieces together, then stared at Alex, then at Kara, “You have a replicant Captain, the Empire wouldn’t allow that, so that means you must have been part of the rebellion.”
Alex nodded, “Yes, I was happy with my afterlife. When it was certain I would not survive the plague, the government offered to make me a replicant. I accepted, knowing I would have to pay off the enormous cost of the procedure. They made me Captain of CARGO 33H6B8, this vessel. When the Empire took away my rights as a sentient being I decided I wanted nothing to do with it any longer, so I commandeered my vessel and offered my services to the rebellion.”
Monty looked panicked. “But we must follow the orders of the Emperor, otherwise there would be chaos in the universe!”
Alex turned to Kara, “Kara, can you show Monty the devastation the rip in spacetime created?”
Kara nodded and the holo-tank showed a circle starting in the Birmingham system, it expanded outwards rapidly, swallowing a vast portion of the spiral arm. She then turned to Monty, “The Emperor no longer exists, nor does Earth. The Empire made a terrible mistake using that weapon. I estimate less than one percent of Human worlds were outside the space time rip, and of that one percent I doubt half of those planets can still support life. Humanity, if it still exists, will have been cut down to only a few planets. The Empire is dead.”