The Evolution of Vaughn, page 6
Frasier stepped towards Vaughn, his face inches from his sister’s former commander. “Alright. The generator is in the south field. You have two hours and then I want you gone. Next time I see you, you’d better have an untraceable card with a million crench on it. And if you hurt my sister again, I will kill you myself.”
“You got it. Thanks, Frasier. I won’t forget your help.”
Frasier turned and walked back towards the transport he’d been working on when they arrived. He called back over his shoulder, “Please do. Forget you ever knew me or my family.”
The Captain and his first got in her transport and headed towards Frasier’s south field.
“Halle. Can you land near me? We have a secondary generator.”
“Captain, there are Fogerian ships searching the orbital lanes. Any attempt at re-entry would give my position away and result in my destruction at the hands of Foger Planetary Defense.”
“Make it happen, Halle. We’ll only be on the ground for a few minutes and then we can get you back into space.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You talk to her like she’s a person.”
“She is a person. Halle is fully self-aware.”
“You’re crazy, Vaughn. AI is outlawed throughout the entire Fogerian Empire. Even the E’Clei don’t use AI. Are you trying to get executed?”
“Halle was going to be my ticket out of here. She was my chance to get away from the E’Clei and the Fogerians, forever.”
Fresia shook her head. “The Fogerians have been good to us. They gave us a home. They took us in and protected Humanity from the E’Clei.”
“Fre, they use us. We’re no more than tools. We’re their workers. Without us, they’d be nothing. I was a god damned Independence Captain for five fucking years. I advanced their navigational abilities farther in half a decade than they have in the last thousand years. And when they were done with me, they cast me aside and promoted a Fogerian junior officer with no command experience over me.”
Fresia looked at him, staring at him with her massive brown eyes. “Is that what this is about? You’re angry at being passed over for promotion? You were the highest ranking Human in the history of The Empire and you threw it all away.”
After winding through the aisles of spare parts, Fresia stopped her transport near the generator. Four circles stood still on intersecting planes, connected to an outer circle that was the upper housing. A plate at the top and bottom of the outer circle mounted the generator to the ship.
“How are we going to lift it?” Fresia asked.
“We wait,” Vaughn replied, looking up. “I’d suggest we take cover, she’s coming in hot.” He grabbed Fresia’s arm and ran towards a pile of scrap as a fireball arced across the sky, heading right for them. “When Halle opens the door, run. Get inside.”
Halle streaked through the sky, being tailed by three planetary defense cruisers. She was faster; they’d had to change their descent angle. Halle’s hull design was more aerodynamic, and didn’t heat up as much as the round, flat planetary defense ships. She fired her rockets, slowing to a stop and landed hard. “Captain, we have two minutes, thirty five seconds until we’re in range.” The door opened, and Fresia started running as a large rover bounded down the ramp towards Vaughn and the generator.
Vaughn strapped the generator to the rover and rode it towards the ship. The door was almost closed with the first bolt from the defense ships hit. Halle fired her rockets, and lifted off while Vaughn and Fresia worked to secure the generator.
“Sir, Argimonium levels thirty five percent.”
“Get off the ground and into the fold for Savye, Halle. We’ll have to refuel when we get there. Just before the jump, launch a one kilo stasis container for Frasier’s house.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Vaughn looked up from his work. “Don’t use that tone with me, Halle. Would you like to refuel now? With Planetary Defense closing in?”
“All hands, brace for the fold.”
Fresia grabbed railing and looked at Vaughn. “Is she always like this?”
“I can hear you, Commander Werts.”
Vaughn grinned. “I think she’s a little jealous.”
“I can also hear you, Captain. I am not capable of jealousy. It is an interesting turn of events that the commander is aboard.”
Vaughn nodded at Fresia and mouthed the word ‘jealous,’ before saying, “Let’s get Halle’s backup generator installed.
Vaughn and his former commander worked side by side for most of the trip, converting the largest sleeping berth into a secondary power room. They talked about current things as they worked, both avoiding the past. “Tell me about his ionic field generator you have on your wrist? How did you stabilize the field?”
“It’s not stable; I couldn’t develop a way to stabilize it. Instead I used a rotating frequency generator to propel the field outward in tandem with protonic implosion,” Vaughn said.
“The power consumption must be massive,” Fresia said.
Halle broke in, “Sir, with the additional power, an ionic shield could be generated large enough to encompass the ship. The Alcubierre field generator could be modified to create a shield.”
“Halle, I’m not sure I could mine enough fuel for that much power output.”
“In my off cycles, I will work on your formula and see if I can come up with a more energy efficient calculation.”
Fresia asked, “How long until we’re at Savye, Halle? And Vaughn, I assume you know what you’re walking into there. A captain of a Fogerian Warship won’t be very welcome on an E’Clei friendly outpost.”
“They may be E’Clei friendly, but they’ll be friendly enough when I offer them six grams of Argimonium.”
“Commander Wertz, we are two hours, forty minutes from Savye. Captain, the commander is correct; it is likely that the Savyean scavengers will attempt to deceive you.”
“Of course they’re going to try to deceive me. That’s what they do,” said Vaughn. He sighed audibly. “Five years serving with me on The Reetus, and Halle, you’ve been with me for ten years, and neither of you trusts me yet.”
“Last time I trusted you was two years ago,” replied Fresia.
“I am incapable of trust or of distrust. I can only calculate the likelihood of success or failure.”
Fresia tightened the last bolt on the final power cable running to the generator and asked, “Are you ready?”
“Looks good. Let’s fire it up; ten percent power. Stand back.” Vaughn reached over to a console on the generator and pressed several buttons. The outer ring started spinning, slowly building up speed. Then the inner circles started moving, and the entire thing came to life.
“Power generation stable at ten percent, Captain. Argimonium core stable.”
Chapter 9 Lost in the Fold
Date: 402nd Year of Emperor Valek Foger XXVI
Fourteen year old Vaughn watched the stars streak past his tiny porthole as he spun wildly in space.
“Halle, what works?”
“I’m sorry. Voice Command Module offline.”
He hit a large, red button on the console to swing the manual control panel back. It moved several inches and stopped.
Vaughn screamed. “Are you fucking kidding me!”
“I’m sorry. Voice Command Module offline.”
“I’m not fucking talking to you!” He yelled, hammering his fists down on the control panel covering.
“I’m sorry. Voice Command Module offline.”
He worked his fingers under the cover and heaved with all his might. The metal bent, and then tore free of the console. He pulled the manual input controls towards his lap, and set to work.
The rear of the ship was compromised. The toxic coolant was vented out into space, but so was all of the oxygen. Coolant ice had formed on the window, and he could no longer see through it.
He ran through the systems one by one, cataloguing the damage. Most of the ship’s processors were damaged, having overheated after the coolant leak. Navigational computers were dead. The boy pulled the thruster control panel downward, and over the next thirty minutes stopped his spin, aligning a single star in the center of his porthole.
“Think, Vaughn, think!”
“I’m sorry. Voice Command Module offline.”
Vaughn sighed and tapped a few buttons on the control panel.
“Voice input deactivated.”
“At least something went right. Damn,” he muttered. A few more keystrokes indicated he had four hours of oxygen left. He stared out the porthole vacantly. “I guess this is it. This is the end of the great Vaughn Troupe, the first and last Human conscripted into The Institute for War. Fuck.”
He hit the thrusters, looking out the small viewport as he spun. He was just outside the gravitational pull of a large gas giant. He watched a tiny moon circling the massive planet. Just before the moon passed behind its parent, he caught a feint hint of blue.
“Water! He exclaimed. That moon may have water!” He aimed his thrusters towards the gas giant, and launched the disabled craft towards it. Minutes later, he deftly maneuvering the craft into high orbit and waited for the moon to make its reappearance.
He moved to the other seat and started furiously scanning with the mining craft’s limited sensors. When the moon came into view, he aimed the sensor array at it. A massive electromagnetic field surrounded the moon, which was responsible for holding the atmosphere in, but also blocked his sensors.
“No choice,” he said, and pointed his ship towards the plant. He recalled all of his lessons that talked about calculating entry angle, and rate of descent. He hurtled towards the planet when Malika’s words replayed in his head. “There is no room for doubt, banish it from your consciousness.”
Vaughn cleared his mind and rolled his ship over, flattening out over the moon. Orange light licked the bottom of the porthole. “Shit! Too steep, pitch back!” he yelled to no one in particular, rolling the thruster control back. The orange light dimmed, and the pinging sounds lessened from under the craft.
He was falling towards the surface of the moon at 280 meters per second. Twice as fast as he should. He fired all four thrusters at maximum and watched velocity peel off the gauge. “Two hundred meters per second Halle!”
He continued firing the thrusters. He had no way of knowing how much Argimonium was left in his generator, but if he crashed into the surface at two hundred meters per second, it didn’t matter if he had enough fuel left to take off. He ignited the rear thrusters, adding forward momentum in an attempt to glide the craft.
“One fifty!” he called out. “One Hundred! Fuck you Foger, I’m going to make it! Eighty! Fifty!” He ripped the lever, extending the landing legs. “Thirty meters per second!”
He impacted the surface of the moon at ten meters per second. Vaughn was thrown over the control panel and crashed into the ground. During the impact, broke two ribs and his vision went black. Time passed and he woke with a start, gasping for breath. Standing proved to be difficult and the boy winced in pain as he stumbled to the cockpit door and pressed the release, flooding the small room with the planet’s atmosphere.
Vaughn gingerly made his way to the back of the ship, grabbing a med-kit and a bottle of water. The impact of the crash made his legs unsteady. After taking a few steps, his foot caught the corner of ship and he tumbled out the cargo bay door into the sand. He landed on his arm, which shoved his broken ribs further into his chest. There wasn’t even time to yelp in surprise before he once again passed out from the pain.
He woke to the sound of the ocean and waves lapping at his toes. Although his thoughts were groggy, he didn’t recall seeing an ocean when he was on approach. With a groan, he rolled over and climbed to his feet. By the time he was in the cargo area of the ship, the water was knee deep outside. He hit the hatch, and hoped the hull breech was on the top of the ship.
Inside the med-kit, he found a roll of steroid tape. It was made Fogerians people, who processed the enzymes differently. The stimulants inside were much too powerful for a Human. To make sure it wasn’t too much of a stimulant, Vaughn put the strips on over his shirt, binding his chest tightly. Within minutes, he was feeling light-headed from the drugs, compounded by the rocking of the ship as it floated in the water. He scanned the hold for any leaks, and in the first stroke of luck since he started this mess, there weren’t any.
Life-support was the primary concern. It didn’t matter if he could fix the hull or return to orbit if he couldn’t breathe. He opened the panel, releasing a puff of smoke trapped inside. The crystal was charred, and the board around the outside was blackened. On the wall next to the cockpit door, there was a parts bin that had several spare crystals, and he pulled a control board from the front cannon.
The ship’s gun was designed to disintegrate small asteroids or other space debris that might collide with the ship. Not having that operational gun was a risk he’d have to take. An hour later, life support was operational. Vaughn pressurized the cabin, and located a small crack in the hull by the sound of air whistling.
“Well, at least I’m not going to suffocate,” he said to himself, taking a deep breath. The atmosphere of the moon was much thinner than he was used to.
Inside the med-kit, he found a small canister of skin gel, and applied a thin line of the foam across the leak. It would hold while he was on the surface. He sat down at the small table, and began to prioritize. “Step one, figure out where I am. Step two, get the fuck off this rock. Step three, figure out where Foger is. Step four, fold,” he said. “Easy as that.”
He started searching star charts for solar systems with gas giants and habitable moons, but stopped when he’d found fifteen. He knew he’d have to watch the night sky for at least one day to further narrow it down. While he waited, he checked the Argimonium fleck in the ship’s generator. It was coated in a thin, brown layer of dust, and couldn’t be more than a tenth of a gram. He’d lost the containment field, and the atmosphere in the cabin was eroding the superheated mineral.
The containment field turned out to be an alignment issue, and once the field arrays were aligned, containment was reinstated. Once the generator was back to full power, the bad news was apparent. He had less than ninety minutes of power. The tiny 500 microgram speck of Argimonium he’d been given was almost entirely spent. The landing gear scrubbed the bottom of the ocean as the tide receded, and in minutes, he was once again sitting on the ground.
Vaughn cursed and screamed, punching various panels of the ship until his knuckles were bloody. The only thing left was to use the ship’s sensors to try to find some sort of life. Perhaps he could follow local wildlife to find something to eat and fresh water. He slid into the co-pilot’s chair, and the sensors lit up. He pounded his fists on the control panel, clearly the sensors were malfunctioning. According to the readout, he was parked on a field of Argimonium. He ran a diagnostic of the sensors, which came back negative. Apparently, they were functioning properly.
He leapt through the cargo hold, bounding in the light gravity through the ship. In the twilight, blue sparkles of Argimonium light up the horizon. If he could see this much Argimonium with the naked eye, there was no telling how much was just below the surface. From what he could see, there was enough of the mineral to make him a very rich man back on Foger. He cast around in the beach looking for a big enough fleck. In a matter of minutes, he found a piece, roughly two grams worth. He wrapped his shirt sleeve down over his hand and picked it up. Inside the ship, he brushed it off, rinsed it in fresh water, and laid it inside the generator.
With the power system functioning, Vaughn entered his eighteenth hour since leaving Foger feeling positive. The only crystal powerful enough to process the information he needed in the Navigational computer was from the Fold Computer. He scavenged the computer responsible for calculating the fold, stealing parts to figure out where he was, and then to figure out where he needed to go. When the computer was crunching away at the star charts, looking for his exact position, he took a few minutes to eat.
While he waited, he worked on the voice command module of the outdated ship’s computer. He set up a scope and micro-circuit laser and started the work of rebuilding the pathways. The old circuit was ancient technology, at least by Human standards. He completely redesigned the circuit, carving out microscopic channels with the laser and filling the groove with a layer of graphine that was just a single atom thick.
The new circuit could handle fifty times the power of the old board. Without really thinking about what he was doing, he just let his fingers do the work. He knew what the end-game was, what the chip needed to accomplish. Vaughn used an innate sense of spatial relations and logic to redesign the board from the ground up.
When he was finished, he replaced the circuit board and powered the module on.
“Halle, are you able to accept voice commands?”
“New hardware detected. Unknown origin. Anti-piracy protocols activated.”
“Halle. I built the chip to repair the damaged processor. I am your captain, Vaughn Troupe.”
“Captain Troupe, please entire your access code to continue.”
“Victor, Tango, six, five, three, seven, seven, alpha.”
“Access confirmed. Thank you for the repair, sir.”
“What is the ship’s status?”
“Micro fracture in the hull. Fold computer offline. Coolant system operating at twenty-three percent.”
Vaughn thought for a few moments. “Is there additional coolant on board?”
“Negative.”
“What caused the leak in the first place?”
“Unknown.”
“Who is in charge of maintenance on this vessel while it was docked at Spinjar Station?”
“Dulark Agron.”
“What is the relationship between Kinfron Agron?”
“Dulark Agron is the sponsor of Kinfron, a relationship akin to fatherhood in Humans.”
“Mother fucker. That fucking… Gah!” Vaughn’s blood boiled, but he needed proof. He took a deep breath before asking, “Did Dulark do any maintenance to the cooling system prior to my launch?”
