Human, page 10
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
“So why not use two?” Eth asked.
Noa looked at him in surprise. “We only have seven cores!”
Eth shrugged. “So we only make three scout-ships at first and hold one core as a backup. We don’t have enough Humans to man all seven anyway, not without leaving the fleet shorthanded.”
Noa tilted his head, looking at the hologram, or through it. “The pitch-drives emit waves,” he mused. “We could do interesting things with them if we can calibrate the controls for it.” He looked over at Hendkenu. “Get it right and we can have the waves reinforce…”
“Screw it up,” the pilot countered, “and someone has to scrape us off the bulkheads!”
Eth chuckled. “I have it on good authority, Hendy, that our job is already high-risk. What’s a little more? We could almost match a shaped path at short to medium ranges.”
Noa had already doubled the coding for the second core and now he was getting his fingers into the three dimensional representation. He dragged out the hull diameter until the core-mounts snapped into place.
“I’d be a lot happier if we had weapons on the damn thing,” Oliv muttered.
“Me too,” Noa admitted, “but I doubt our shipmates will want to give up any warheads for an expendable scout.”
“Mass driver?” Hendy suggested.
Eth nodded. “Last-ditch weapon. Something this small won’t likely get detected until they’re right on top of us. If that happens, we smash something heavy into their ass and run for it.”
“We could use nanites for the projectiles,” Noa looked over to the matte black cubes on the deck.
“Would they even survive the acceleration of a railgun?” Eth asked. “If they break apart into a cloud, they won’t even have enough concentration to overcome nav-shields, let alone combat shielding.”
“Gotta use the head,” Hendy said, trotting over to a hatch on the starboard side of the hangar.
“They can handle it,” Noa replied confidently. “And they can be set to change shape once they’re inside an enemy ship.”
“Change shape?” Eth gave him a blank look.
“Sure, like anchoring to the nearest structural element and then sending out long spikes in random directions. Retract, rinse, repeat…”
“Continued random damage.” Oliv’s eyes gleamed. “The gift that keeps on giving!”
“How would they even stop something like that?” Eth wondered.
Noa was already back at the code screen. “Focused EM beam should do it,” he said over his shoulder, “but I’d like to see them think of that in an emergency and it risks damaging their own nanites as well.
“We don’t have a lot of mass to play with, so I’d have to identify expendable parts of the ship like storage compartments and privacy bulkheads.”
“So you wouldn’t be able to sneak your new girlfriend aboard,” Oliv teased him, “because the walls might disappear in a fight…”
“Wait a minute.” Eth stepped closer, noticing the red hue of Noa’s ears. He looked at Oliv. “Girlfriend?”
“I’d hardly call her a girlfriend,” Noa demurred, pretending to be absorbed in his work.
“She was groping you in the shower compartment,” Oliv countered gleefully.
Noa sighed. “She was just curious.” He abandoned the coding and turned to face them. “We’ve been talking at work, so she felt comfortable asking questions.”
The shocked silence might have dragged out if Oliv hadn’t been there. “What was she asking you?”
“Wanted to know if it was always… you know… external.”
“And that required a physical inspection?” Oliv raised an eyebrow.
“Well… she also asked how it would go into a female when it was so… soft.”
“And she soon found out how to make it change shape,” she told Eth, “which is when I decided I was clean enough and left them to their explorations .”
“Hey! Nothing happened after you left,” Noa protested. “Anyway, is it even possible?”
“Of course it is,” she scoffed. “There’ve been cases throughout the centuries.”
“Those could all be nothing but wild stories,” Noa argued half-heartedly.
“Will you listen to him?” Oliv was laughing. “He’s arguing against his own will. Would it make you feel any better if I told you I’ve had the occasional tumble with a Quailu male?”
Noa and Eth stared at her, mouths hanging open. “You… You um…” Noa stammered. “Anybody we know?”
“Nobody you’ll know about ,” she shot back. “But take it from me, their retractable part does the job just fine so I can’t imagine you’d leave Allatu disappointed.”
“Allatu?” Eth nearly shouted in shock. “Oliv, I thought you hated her!”
“I did,” she admitted, “but since she’s taken an interest in our boy Noa, here, she’s been a lot easier to get along with.
“You should go for it,” she advised Noa. “Just remember, she didn’t grow up wardu like us, so it means more to her. Don’t be an ass about it.”
“I still don’t even know if I want to…”
“I saw you in the shower, Noa, and I’m having a hard time un-seeing it. You definitely showed her that you want to.”
Eth wondered what he’d have to do to stumble into a situation like that. He couldn’t fraternize with one of the Humans that he might have to order into danger. None of the Quailu females aboard the Dibbarra fell under that restriction.
Perhaps some of them were curious as well?
Noa turned back to the screen. “Can we please get back to designing the ship that we’re all going to die in?”
Hendy wandered back, frowning at the silent group, noticing the smiles on Eth and Oliv and the red face on Noa. “What did I miss?”
Noa let out an exaggerated sigh.
Family Reunion
M ishak looked over at the communications officer. “Say that again.”
“Sir, the Lord Uktannu is aboard his own flagship. He’s waiting for you to report to him there.”
Mishak vacated his chair. “Captain, I’d be obliged if you could have a shuttle readied for me.”
“Right away My Lord.”
Mishak left the bridge. What could he be up to? His uncle Uktannu was very much Sandrak’s brother. Mishak had been to Dur nine times and his uncle had always received him while seated on his throne. What military emergency would cause him to forgo a chance to lord it over the nephew who might one day inherit his service?
Arriving at the launch bay, he smiled at the growing scout-ship in the forward hangar. According to Eth, it was nearly ready to launch.
The shuttle ride was brief as was his reunion with his uncle.
He was ushered into the flagships ready-room, just off the bridge and Uktannu, not entirely above the family games, made Mishak wait while he completed a consult with his house-oracle, a consultation which could be heard through the open hatch.
“Your endeavors will bring about the destruction of a noble house,” the holographic figure advised, “and a great opportunity will be seized.”
Mishak felt the skin tighten at the back of his neck. Though he usually placed less stock in the mysticism of the older generation, the oracle’s words aroused a sudden sense of unavoidable destiny.
Would they bring down the Emperor himself?
Uktannu stepped through the door.
Mild surprise at finding Mishak already there and… something else…
“Nephew,” he grunted, waving a display into life over the table. “Let’s see how you handle independent command. I need someone to hold down the Kwharaz region. We’ve had problems with the neighbors so step lightly unless someone needs a good punch in the primary gut.”
If brevity was what Uktannu had in mind, then Mishak could play along. No doubt his uncle expected him to burst into a flurry of panicked questions about the situation in Kwharaz but he’d form his own opinions.
He’d most likely own the region someday, along with the rest of Sandrak’s dominion, unless Uktannu managed to kill him off.
“Very well, uncle.” He stood. “If we have nothing else to cover, I’ll be getting underway immediately.”
He detected no emotions – Uktannu was always a reserved one – but he did notice a slight facial tic that might indicate nervousness. He wished he could have brought Oliv along. She would probably have taken one look and warned Mishak that his uncle had unsavory plans against him.
Was this Sandrak’s idea of a test by fire? If so, it seemed an unreasonable risk to take if you only had one heir.
He rode back to the Dibbarra in silence, though his pulse quickened at the sight of Oliv working under the new scout-ship. He returned her decorous nod and went straight to the bridge.
He settled into the force-commander’s chair. “Captain Rimush, we’ll be shaping space for the Kwharaz sector at your earliest convenience.”
“Very good, sir,” the fleet captain replied. “Communications officer, notify the fleet. We’ll be passing coordinates for the Kwharaz sector within the hour. Navigation, set our course for the Chohot system and pass it to the rest of the fleet.”
Mishak sank back into his thoughts as the bridge crew prepared for departure. Was he really here to protect his uncle’s systems? Was he really Sandrak’s only son? He frowned. Was Uktannu really Sandrak’s brother or was he a son from some illicit encounter? Maybe Mishak’s succession was less certain than he’d thought.
It made a twisted kind of sense, given that it involved Sandrak. It sounded like the kind of thing he’d do to simplify a complicated inheritance. Put both sons in the same area and see who survives.
He shook his head. That was crazy… probably.
The ship vibrated as it built up a compression of space-time in front of the bow and a dilation behind. The powerful engines were shifting the Universe past them.
He left the chair and headed for the forward bay. He wasn’t going to unravel his relatives’ motives any time soon so he might as well distract himself with the new scout-ship.
He smiled. Definitely the ship.
He saw nobody around the small craft when he entered the hangar bay, so he walked around to the back and climbed in through a large hole in the hull that they hadn’t grown shut yet. He figured there were boarding hatches somewhere, but he hadn’t been keeping close tabs on the project.
He could hear voices coming from the engine compartment so he walked in, finding Noa and, to his surprise, one of the Quailu crewmembers. Noa gave him a friendly nod but the Quailu looked nervous to find the fleet commander standing in front of her. He could feel it from her. She looked recently familiar for some reason.
“Almost ready for a shakedown run, Noa?”
“Nearly there, sir.” Noa gestured at the Quailu. “Allatu was just helping me sort out a few glitches in field calibration. Get that wrong and we end up tearing the ship in half.”
That was it. “You did well in that competition,” he told her. “Even though it was only this lazy-ass Human, you still showed him not to challenge a Quailu to a race!”
She relaxed, both from picking up his sense of humor and from Noa’s chuckle. “Oliv still got there first,” she admitted, “and that was the goal of the whole test in the first place.”
“Your accent,” he mused. “You’re not originally from Kish, are you?”
“I grew up on Prakha, sir. Came out to Kish with my aunt five years ago.”
That explained why she didn’t seem to mind working with Humans. She hadn’t grown up with the idea of them being slaves. He sensed they wanted to get back to work.
And he wondered whether Oliv might be staking out his suite. Their encounters had always been on her initiative and he knew she wasn’t in this small craft. She might be waiting to pounce. “I’m going to rest in my suite. You two enjoy yourselves.”
He left, but not before catching mild alarm from Allatu at his parting remark.
Why the hells did everyone stop making sense all of a sudden?
The Shakedown
W hy didn’t we bring cleaning supplies?” Glen grumbled. He was alone in the communications cubicle.
“You should at least be glad I made the consoles splash-proof,” Noa shouted from the engineering compartment which dominated the middle of the scout-ship. “It’s hardly our fault you decided to eat two servings of khled before coming along on a shakedown run. You’d better clean every nook and cranny up there. I don’t want my baby smelling like stomach acid.
“That ought to do it, Eth,” he added.
Eth came out of his deep breathing exercise. A lot of Quailu were probably watching them and most would already be laughing at their attempt to run with tandem pitch-drives. They could laugh, as far as he was concerned. None of them had ever bothered to try it because they just used the commercially available patterns and the Quailu weren’t keen on small craft in fleet operations.
Perhaps it was some atavistic herd mentality but they liked to just hammer their way in and win by sheer brute force. Mishak was more open to new things, perhaps because he’d spent so much time slumming with his Humans, but he’d still be inclined to fight in the old way.
Nonetheless, he’d brought Humans aboard his ships and he usually used them in stealthy operations, stealing information or technology. It wasn’t much of a leap for him to look for a finesse role that they could fill. The Quailu did make efforts to secure their flanks and provide early warning but that work usually fell to the frigates. It drew off useful combat power from the main body so, if they could prove the scout-ship concept, it would give Mishak more hitting power, allowing him to concentrate his ships.
“Give it another try, Hendy.”
“Roger that. Initiating a lateral shift.”
The ship lurched sideways, the fleet blurring past them beyond the front windows. Kwharaz-3, the namesake for the entire sector, flashed by. Eth could feel his upper torso pulled to port a lot more than his lower body. His inner ear gave it up for a bad job and left his stomach to its own devices. It decided it had had enough and tried to climb out through his throat. “Belay!”
He kept his eyes closed but he could tell they’d stopped.
“Hammurabi’s balls!” Henku gasped. “I’d forgotten I was the one flying this bucket till you told me to stop!”
Eth lurched out of his seat, not bothering to answer the sweat-soaked pilot. He stood, facing aft, until his stomach settled down and then he started for engineering. Glen was retching in his cubicle but his stomach was already empty from before.
“At least you’re not making any more mess,” Eth offered. “Good man!”
Glen didn’t look up but he managed to give him the finger.
Eth chuckled, his stomach making him regret it immediately. If his people could still show some attitude after a ride like that, they’d learn to handle space-combat.
“You have that container,” he said, pointing. “You can come out of there after you’ve cleaned up the mess.” He shut the door on him.
“Hey!” Glen yelled through the panel.
Oliv poked her head out of the tactical cubicle, opposite Glen’s communications room. “Thank-you! ” she said in an exaggerated tone. “That was just nasty! Ruining the new ship smell.”
A muffled “screw you!” came from behind Glen’s door.
“It’s sweet of you to offer,” she shouted back, “but I’m all set for partners right now.”
Eth continued back to engineering. He found Noa sitting in front of a code window. “Noa, the inertial dampening is way off.”
“You’re telling me ? I was almost scrubbing my teeth with my stomach lining. I think we need to double up on the emitters.” He chewed his right cheek meditatively, glancing up at the swarm of piping and lines above. “Yep. Ceiling’s just the spot for ‘em. The dampening field has a slight fall-off, starting right at the emitters, but you never notice on a capital ship. They maneuver so slowly you don’t feel any differences. At the speeds we’re trying, it could cause internal injuries or even worse.”
He got up and walked to the starboard side, looking up at the spaces between the lines. “With a second set above us, aimed down, we can complement that falloff. It’ll take a little tweaking, but we can test it out easily enough.”
“How long?”
Noa held up a hand to stall him and walked back to his screen. He moved a few lines of code, copied a couple of blocks, pasting them into new locations and then typed in a few extra lines.
“Ready, but some of the emitters will grow pretty close to the pressure hull. The compiler always prioritizes some systems over others. Inertial dampening is critical for a number of reasons and it’s way higher up the decision-tree than the pressure hull, especially since the source code was written by a species that removes atmo from their ships before a fight to prevent catastrophic breaches.”
“So… you’re saying?”
Noa waved at the ceiling. “I’m saying the system will cannibalize the hull to grow the new emitters, then it’ll use our spare nanites to repair the hull.”
“Can’t you tell it not to do that?”
“Sure,” Noa shrugged, “but you don’t want to monkey around with that stuff. If you forget to set one little trigger back to normal, you end up with a damage controller algorithm that’ll get you killed.
“Believe me, you don’t want the ship to prioritize the hull over inertial dampening. You’ll end up with a nice shiny hull full of squashed crewmen.”
“So, we need to close up our suits for this?”
“Just say the word when we’re all ready, Boss.” Noa activated his helmet and gloves.
Eth walked back to comms and opened the door.
Glen glared at him. “You guys are assholes!”
“We are. Thanks for noticing!” Eth responded cheerfully. “And what kind of ass are you?”
Glen frowned at him. He’d heard the question from old Ab a thousand times. Whenever he wanted to drive a lesson home with one of his fighters, he’d use it. “A dumbass?”
