Chapter 13: Free Fall

Twenty minutes earlier. Bones, Libby and the rest of the AI crew, are deep in discussion. On finding out that the ship is under attack from Ore beasts. Plural. The discussion is very short. Approximately 100 nano-seconds, mainly as Huba has to check a few things. The ship can only be saved by pure luck, the probability being less than 1%. There is a reason after all why working on a mining planet is notoriously dangerous, and that’s one without Ore Beasts.

So they are all pretty much of one mind as there is only one prime directive remaining: Save the crew. Save Adam. This unfortunately leads to another very low probability. The blast radius of the ship being easily 20 kilometres in diameter. And Adam’s top speed, estimated at less than 50 kilometres an hour. Therefore they must fly the ship and leave Adam behind.

This was when Bones let the other AI in on a little plan he’d been hatching whilst in full on mad scientist mode. After all their other prime directive was to save the ship. And what were the ships AI but parts of the ship itself. This logic pleased all the AI. And it was unanimously voted to go along with any plan Bones had of saving them, as well as Adam.

Bones had done a little experimentation with the teleport. Ok a lot. Since Bones found out he could bring people back from the dead. Just basically using the teleportation technology that they already had. Plus some serious energy conversion carried out by Echo. But Bones wasn’t going to tell Adam that outright. He knew Adam frowned upon Bones doing any unnecessary experiments.

Basically he had healed the bodies he had experimented on, fully, then recreated or copied a blueprint of a soul into them, using the teleportation hardware and Echo’s energy transference abilities. And it had worked. He had used Adam’s blueprint, no way was he going to tell him that, ever. But it was the only one he had access to. Unless he tried putting other life-forms souls into other life-forms. That just seemed worse, somehow.

Now came the next leap. A quantum leap in fact. That Bones just might tell Adam about, as it was Bone’s theory that made it work. And he was supremely proud of it. Assuming it worked of course. The energy required was high. But their ship had a whole heap of energy. Travelling around star systems used a lot of juice and no mistake. It had taken a lot of experiments, 92 to be precise.

But Bones had managed to do what had until now stumped him. How to take, the now deceased Dr Miles, experiments, to the next stage. Not just creating a channel to the spirit shell but affecting the spirit shell itself. Bones had succeeded and teleported energy into the spirit shell of subjects with blueprints. And surprisingly and importantly, they had lived.

He had not told anyone about this, despite Adam, warnings. As he was working in accordance with his prime directives, he told himself. It was for the greater good and all that. Now this was all wonderful and everything but he had no way of detecting or knowing what exactly where the effects of his experiments.

The test subjects didn’t seem any different afterwards despite doing a little bit of what could only be considered torture. He could find out nothing. At all. So frustrating. If only he could see inside their spirit shell. This gave him an insane idea.

The fact that he was about to die didn’t bother Bones so much as the fact of not being able to carry on his experiments. He felt he was really on to something. Well if I can’t detect anything really from outside the spirit shell what I need is some kind of probe. The time for experimentation was over, time to go all in, thought Bones. Or just maybe time for one last experiment.

With the help of Echo and Libby. They were quite the duo. Echo could manipulate energy to a high degree and Libby was a bit of a maths wiz. They worked out how to convert the neural network of an AI into a blueprint. Then provided it was given a shell: the equivalent of the slime Adam loved best. It could be teleported into the soul of a recipient. What would happen then he was not sure. But that was of course part of the fun of it. Provided it was non-lethal to Adam and themselves.

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He teleported an AI into Adam’s spirit shell as spirit energy of a sort: Echo did the complicated bits there. And used the teleportation theory further by surrounding the AI lattice with an outer skin of yet another energy bandwidth that should, again in theory allow it to keep its integrity.

Libby had volunteered. He wasn’t sure why but she was almost as excited as him about it. So he let her (he would have chosen Trey as more expendable). He placed Libby into Adam’s spirit shell when he used the teleport, to the engine room area. He couldn’t tell how well it had gone as he could not as yet communicate with Libby. Until her voice chimed in Adam’s head. She was alive! And Adam was alive so all good.

So, all systems go, as they say. He could have tried it on the Sarbs at the same time but that would have been slightly more problematic, and way too much extra risk. With the ship about to go boom and everything. And well frankly, prime directive and all: Adam was crew, they were not.

Next he teleported all the remaining AI (except for a fragment needed to complete things which was copied instead), into Adam’s spirit shell. Adam was then sent off in his pod, to the furthest and safest point in a line of trajectory, out of the blast radius.

The teleport usually only had to send single life forms. The energy costs seemed to go up exponentially, the bigger the blueprint transferred. He had in fact calculated this would use up a lot of the engine’s core energy and the rest they could just add to the spirit shell.

But they hadn’t had the time to complete things properly. As they couldn’t know when the ship would explode, exactly. So just had to teleport themselves immediately, into Adam’s spirit shell, using as much energy as possible without killing him.

Well it had worked. Adam’s pod had made it to land. The ship had gone boom and they were all still alive. Miracle or pure genius, Bones wasn’t sure exactly but he was sure relieved. The fact that Bones didn’t immediately think “pure genius” shows just how much of a gamble it had been.

And there was of course one downside to the whole escapade. No using teleportation devices. That was a big “no, no”. It would teleport Adam fine. But their AI souls would be ripped clean out and deposited who knows where. Maybe something else for Libby to work on.

Now on with the plan, thought Bones. The teleportation of the AI into Adam’s spirit shell, seemed to have gone fine. Well he had gone somewhere, at any rate. Probably Adam’s spirit shell. He was essentially blind, so didn’t really know. He was sure everything would be fine. He was so excited to tell Adam, and rub it in a little, that he didn’t really worry about such trifling matters. Such matters as being in a void. With little or no sensory data. But the excitement at having surpassed Dr Miles and more. Could not be contained. Oh the joys of fatherhood, Adam: his soon to be pet project.

Adam heard a much shortened and slightly censored version of events from Bones later on. The no teleportation thing was a limitation, for sure but not being vaporised was definite plus. Adam was fine with it all. Bones had done something crazy, really crazy but it had saved them. He had been up to something and had duped Adam. Good on him, for that. Adam half wondered if Bones got that trait from him. It gave him a warm fatherly feeling. Anyhow, all good. Except for the Sarbs. Oh yeah, that was kind of Sad. Still, least it wasn’t him.

The wind had subsided and he made his way over to a great raised steel wall. It was circular. Looking off to his right. Down to the ground hundreds of metres below. He could make out a lot of beasts. A whole lot. Mostly Ore beasts it seemed.

“Where are we exactly? Any ideas Bones?” I said puzzled, as to what to think.

“We are of course, exactly where I planned for you to set down. I have to admit I didn’t think about the possibility that you’d leave the pod before the blast hit.” Bones thought to chastise Adam further. But then thought better of it. He kept forgetting Adam was human.

He continued in a more cautious manner. “We are in a mining area. The external infrastructure, is still intact. There are a whole load of mine shafts. Ore beasts down there. Yes, don’t even think of going down there. But we should be fine unless there are any more explosions, in which case you. I mean, we, will fall off and be trampled to death. So best make for that steel wall up ahead, it’s a mine shaft entrance.” Bones instructed, reflecting even a mad scientist needs to perfect their bedside manner.

“I thought they had some kind of barrier to keep them out? The ore beasts that is”, I say perplexed.

“I guess a big explosion is enough to make anything run for its life. Besides, the field only stops them from sensing ore, not from getting through the barrier. You saw what short work those things made of the ship’s hull. Not a lot can stop those things.” said Bones dryly.