Archaea 2: Janis (13 page)

“Very well Gene. We are out of time, so we will just have to test our new capabilities as the situation requires. Right now, it's time we get gone.”

I scanned across the boards and flashed greens on his board. “Engineering is good-to-go, sir”

“Weapons, good-to-go, sir” Shorty added on comms.

“Very well. All hands, brace for acceleration.”

I had a moment to snug the crash bars right across me, and then with a shove that felt like it was going to break my back, the Archaea blazed into the starry night.

Chapter 11

“Sir, incoming hail”, yelled Yak, straining to get the words out against the acceleration crushing us into our couches.

“Very... well... Yak...” I managed, though I would have preferred a firm nod and a confident look, at the moment I didn't want to break my neck trying. “Open... channel...” I choked.

“Archaea, stand down or you will be fired on. By the authority of Americo Ventures, stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

I took a deep breath, and considered my options at the moment. They were slim, pretty much limited to fight, or flight. I didn't care much for the glom, but Les was not my target, and wouldn't be. Unfortunately, he had a job to do, so that pretty much ruled out flight.

“Gene... energize psuedomass!” I croaked, eyeballs flattening into my skull making stars out of the lights on my boards.

“Psuedomass... aye!” Gene stammered weakly. I thought for a moment that we probably should have had that warmed up before blasting without compensation. Next time, maybe... if we get the chance.

“Janis, compensate... dear...” I said as the world tunneled into gray.

“Compensating sir”, she chirped smartly, as the blood rushed into my head and I rebounded off the crash bars. My hands and feet tingled out of control, like they were on fire and a skull-crushing headache just about made me cry out. Somehow, I managed to bite my tongue, the last thing my crew needs is to see me yell.

“Archaea, cut your engines and stand down. Prepare for boarding. Stand down, or you will be fired on. This is your last warning!”

“Starry Dawn, this is Captain Dak Smith. I am not disposed at the moment to honor your request... with all due respect.”

“Dak, this is Les. Come on now... don't do anything you will regret.”

“Les, I am trying... believe me mister.” I was hoping he would understand... and understand we have no alternative – and hoping he would shoot wide.

I swiped a ghost of the target track off Yak's screen so I could keep an eye on their rate of closure. So far we were just blowing their doors off, but I knew as soon as they got going, that might change.

“Sir, turrets are active.” Shorty said, as calm as if someone had just asked her to pass the salt and pepper.

“Very well Shorty”, I said, matching her cool, but a tingle had just gone up my spine. That meant that Janis was firing intercepts for incoming, and at that moment, I knew the chase was on... I just didn't really look forward to where the chase was going.

“Yak designate unknown vessel Master-one, Starry Dawn designate Master-two.” It really hurt my feelings to do this, but the fact was, these were now hostiles.

“Master designation, aye,” he paused briefly, “Sir, incoming bogeys designate Masters three-through-ten... um. Sir, sorry about that. False alarm maybe. Nothing on screen.”

“Janis just took them out Yak”, Shorty added. “Check the solutions layer, and confirm with the gravimetric layer.”

“Thank you Jane, checking.” he paused briefly, adding “Sir, targets are destroyed.”

“Very good Yak.” I said, as Janis flashed an upcoming course correction with a 30 second clock. “Stand by folks, transit in 30!” As we were actively burning at the time, I couldn't line up the shot first, I was going to have to ride the pipe by hand. Of course, that only made me smile.

“Captain, Weapons. Nearly solid outgoing turret fire.”

“Yak?” I asked, tapping him on the shoulder with an eyebrow from across the bridge.

“Sir, same thing. Right as we pick up incoming bogies, they are being splashed. Damn near right in the launching tubes, sir!”

“Very well. Janis dear, superlative job. I am honestly about to run out of words to describe how good you are doing.”

“Thank you sir. If you like, I have included a list of 2,312 appropriate adjectives on the side of your screen”, she said smugly. 

I burst out laughing. “Janis, after this transit I need help with shaping a new route to Solis through Mallory sector.”

“That is the course currently on screen sir” she said immediately, as the hairs on my neck grew an extra centimeter.

“Very well Janis. Well done, dear.” I played over the process I was going to do in the next... ten seconds, my hands dry on the yoke. “Stand by for course correction in 3... 2... 1...” and right on the mark, I hauled hard over to starboard and pulled the bow up, punching a new course right down the center of the pipe, a perfect hole shot.

As I was about to congratulate myself on a very nice bit of flying, the collision alarm blared out, and as the forward port blacked out, I knew what was coming.

“Look away!” I yelled across the bridge, as I looked down to the right, shutting my eyes as tightly as I could. Even so, the afterimage of the nova beam that scoured a hole through the stars off our port side burned purple into the side of my eyes.

I looked over the boards quickly for anything orange or red, then focused on the pipe, waiting for the new course. I could just imagine AV giving poor Les both barrels right about now, for missing on purpose. Except he hadn't, and we both knew it. I was rolling that one around in my head a bit, putting myself in his shoes and wondering what I would have done, when Janis flashed up a new course correction.

“All hands, new transit in 20 seconds” I said automatically, my entire attention focused on the numbers counting down, my world consumed by the moment. You could have danced naked past me with a beer in each hand, and I might not have noticed. Well, I wouldn't have noticed much, anyway.

“Captain, engineering. Janis recommends 600% for slipspace generators...” Gene trailed off into some terrible place where engineers go to die inside.

“Steady on Gene. You know you want to see this, right?”

“Um” he answered, as eloquently as the moment allowed.

Right then, the clock hit zero. I hauled back on the yoke to 50, then pushed it back down to level into the new pipe at 35. Predictably, a bare moment later, another massive beam blazed past. I swear I could feel it's heat on my toes.

I checked the boards again, but we were holding green. So far, so good... but the credits hadn't started rolling past just yet.

“All hands, secure for free fall.” I said over the 1MC, cutting the burn and psuedomass at the same time. As we bounced into null-g, my coffee made a gurgling sound in the back of my throat as I swallowed it again.

“Janis precess to course, please”

“Precessing, sir”

As the stars wheeled past the forward port, I watched the field energize with my finger over the big red button... waited... waited... and right as it came up, pressed EXECUTE as we hurled into the Mallory Lights.

*****

Null-g was as welcome as it ever is, disorienting or not, it's so much nicer than rattling around in my station, trying to not fly out of my crash bars.

“All hands, stand down from battle stations. I am setting condition yoke at this time. Shorty, I need ramp up on the main gun to nominal levels immediately, this isn't a very long hop”.

Here we go.

“Ramp up, aye” I said, getting that familiar tingle again, that itch. As afraid as I was, I craved the feeling of rampant danger that swirled around me, just out of reach, just out of sight. I loved it, every terrifying moment.

I tried to focus on my screens, reeling in the delicious horror of the moment. All across the board, power output was way, way up. Incredibly high, in fact. Values were so high I felt like I was dreaming – I felt an overwhelming urge to pinch myself.

“Janis, we haven't had an opportunity to chat about our new power output yet.”

“Yes Jane, I know.”

“Janis, this model of nova cannon is rated for a specific range. I am afraid I am not enough of a physicist or engineer to even guess what this will do if we use these values.”

“I understand Jane.”

“It's not that I am scared to try, Janis. I know there's some wiggle room, these guns are designed to take all sorts of power fluctuations and continue to function, but this... this is way more than a fluctuation.”

“Jane, would it be helpful to visualize a simulation to failure?”

“Well, I would prefer that over an actual failure, of course! Can you simulate this accurately?”

“Of course Jane. If you check your screen, I have cloned your console, during ramp-up and charge-off phases for the cannon.”

“I see that Janis, this is... astounding. So we have this at normal currents... and if I fire, it simulates?”

“Yes Jane. Note the current rate limiter control. You can charge and fire, and increase the rate. As you proceed to failure, you should be able to review the values on your console and work a safe limit.”

“Janis, have you already progressed this simulation to failure?”

“Of course Jane. I am afraid you are correct. This is too much power for the current configuration.”

I ran through the simulator a few times, increasing the output, watching the levels. Right away, before it failed, I could see the weak point.

“Janis, the weak point of this system is the flux gates.”

“That was my conclusion as well.”

The flux gates carry the load when the cannon discharges, they hold the load briefly, then close a circuit back to the pumping chamber when the gun ramps back up. At this amount of current, the flux gates overload when the weapon discharges, almost certainly arc welding a massive section of deck in the process.

This is not common, but it's not unknown. Even at normal current, the amount of energy being tossed around between these systems is massive. Usually, flux gates that aren't maintained to a showroom shine, even a slight patina might be enough to increase resistance enough to cause flashover. Of course, I keep our flux gates at tip-top condition, so they are able to handle a lot, more than I expected – but nowhere near the amount we have to work with.

“Janis, this is bad news. Before I tell the captain, do you have any suggestions?”

“Yes Jane, I do have a suggestion, one that I think is a novel approach that should allow nearly unlimited power input to the charging chamber.”

“Janis, are you referring to gateless discharge?”

“Yes Jane, I am. You are very knowledgeable on this subject!”

“Oh, not really. It's not really unheard of – when I left the service it was on the horizon. I remember hearing about a research program they were starting, but it was all very theoretical, and not something that they were actually experimenting with.”

“Jane, I recently located information on the Milnet regarding an experimental program that has demonstrated progress in this field, and shows considerable promise. The progress reports and related data from the program are now onscreen.”

I flipped over the new report and slid through it to the juicy bits. It looked pretty interesting, and was probably the framework for the new guns coming off the line right now, in fact. The output curves were astonishing – but the failure rate was unacceptably high.

“Janis, this data looks good at first, but... they blow the gun up about ten times for every time they get it to fire.”

“Yes Jane.”

“Do you have a solution to the reliability issue?”

“Yes, I do. The failure rate is caused by circuits that are not flexible enough in terms of the range of current they can carry, or accurate enough in regards to the timing of the switch, to dump the charge back into the chamber.”

“And you think you can write a more accurate circuit?”

“Jane, I don't think a hard-coded circuit can accurately be built to handle the process. I will handle the circuit in real time, as a second-order process.”

I thought about this for a bit. On the one hand, she's definitely fast enough for the task, and on the other hand, she's smart enough to adjust the circuit to meet the needs of each charge. I realized I was out of hands, and didn't have any sort of meaningful objection to her plan.

“Captain, I have some news for you sir”

“Is it good, or bad?”

“Sir, that depends on your frame of reference.”

“Shorty, some people see a cup half full, others see it half empty. Because I am the Captain, I see it full, because someone just filled it. My frame of reference is impervious. What's up?”

“Sir, we are going to need to modify the gun configuration a little bit.”

“Very well, Shorty. Will it go bang?”

“Yes sir, we think so, sir” I swallowed.

“Now Shorty, when I say bang, I want to be clear I mean, out the correct end.”

“Yes sir, of course.” I laughed as confidently as I could.

“Do you need Gene, Shorty?”

I thought for a moment. Speed is of the essence, and Gene is as good as it gets. It's an easy decision.

“Sir absolutely, if he is available. We will need to pull the flux gates.”

“I understand, Shorty.”

“You do?” I was amazed.

“No. They sound absolutely awful though, and I can't wait for them to be gone. Gene. I need you on the gun deck with tools handy to remove a flux gate or... many. Shorty, you guys are going to need a very large, very high capacity bus, right?