Sentient (9 page)

In short, he needed the ship to be bigger, or he considered, he could completely rework the power distribution systems.  He considered the idea that with quantum connections, the power system didn’t even have to necessarily be on the ship itself, or at least some of them didn’t.  There were a lot more and diverse systems than shields, weapons, and engine.

He opened up a simulation and started to work.  To increase the power they would have to build a power ship that was quite large and the gains were determined by the cubed law.  So it would only have to be twice as big to generate four times more energy, or four times bigger to be sixteen times as powerful.

On the other hand by the same square law, the smaller the ship, the less area for the shields to cover, the less power it would take for even stronger shields.  This was an automatic win, even if Olivia failed to find a better way to shield just the increase in the power systems would strengthen the containment shield that kept plasma from the ship.

The trade off is the new large ship would eat a tremendous amount of power for its own shielding, so it would have to be well protected from attack.  The best way would be to completely avoid the combat area with the control ship so it didn’t need strong plasma shielding. 

He considered the idea of combining those two ideas.  He looked over the specs on the attack craft which were unmanned.  He immediately removed life support and lighting systems from the design as they weren’t needed as well as artificial gravity.

Then he shrunk the size of the craft by four times making it extremely small, maybe the size of a compact car.  He was sucked into the project and jumped back and forth between the extra small ship, and the new super large one, which he was now considering a carrier for the smaller ships.  On the smaller ships he removed the need for a FTL drive lowering the power requirements even further.

The idea was simple enough, the higher powered systems such as the plasma cannons on the new tiny ships would be powered directly through quantum connections from the powerhouse carrier.  It would enable the small ship to be much more deadly than the current ones despite their smaller size. 

He figured if he made the command or carrier ship twenty times larger than the current one, it would support up to four hundred of his mini attack ships.  He whistled, that would make the ship five miles wide and a half mile high.  Granted, most of that can be empty space, and large hangers…

He had a lot to do, and not much time to do it, not if he wanted this all built before that second wave came.  He gave Aide a brief overview and told her to get started on nanites, they would need a lot more to get it done in time.  He wasn’t too worried about what Olivia or Paula may come up with, once the power systems and ships were built, any additions or modifications would be quickly accomplished by the nanites.

He actually lost his sense of time, and was surprised when he heard Aide’s voice.

“
It’s time for dinner and to get some rest.
”

He frowned, “Save where I am please, what do you think about the idea?”

“It should work great for our situation.  Ideally we should have at least two, preferably three of your carriers before they attack in the second wave to cover the approaches.  That would give us twelve hundred attack craft to defend; I expect their second wave will be a little less than that.  If we succeed we can build more, we will have plenty of time before they can build a bigger attack wave.”

He nodded and closed down his station and headed for dinner.  He had a lot of work to do yet, barely scraping the basics of the new configurations required so far.  He smiled at the idea of his next round of banter with Paula and picked up his pace toward the dining area…

--------------

The next week seemed to go quickly for Kris as he spent his days in the bridge simulations.  He wasn’t sure if Olivia and Paula were making very much progress, but he was briefed on the new command ship and power systems.  The damn thing would be as big as a city, but would support all the little fighters. 

Everyone seemed to be getting along as far as that went.  Even the sniping between Paula and Nate seemed more and more to be like foreplay than any true hate, but it was getting old and he wished they’d just get together already.

He felt like he was falling deeper into love with Stacey every day, she was perfect for him and he was glad she didn’t seem to notice or care how wrapped around her finger he was.  If it wasn’t for the serious nature of his work, she’d made the last week more like a honeymoon than anything else.

He just hoped Olivia and Paula came up with something soon.  The advantage of the upcoming ships helped even more during simulated battle, but he still wanted more of an edge if it was at all possible before the second wave.  He was confident however even with the old ships he was now competent enough to fight off the first wave of thirty.  Not that he wouldn’t continue practicing, he still had four days before the enemy arrived…

Olivia stared at the simulation as it failed once more.  She had come to the conclusion two days ago that there wasn’t a realistic way to stop the plasma.  Instead she’d been focusing on figuring out a way to disperse the containment field before it even reached their shields.  If she could figure out how to do that safely then the plasma would fall apart and harmlessly stop at their shield even at the shields lowest setting.

She could create a field that destabilized the containment field quite easily.  The problem was, between the ship and the attacking plasma ball was their own containment field or plasma shield.  If she put the emitters on the ship, inside their shield, it would take out their shield as well.

Although the plasma would break apart, it would still be more than powerful enough to dig into their hull if they had no shields at all.  She couldn’t figure out how to bypass their shield and leave it alone.  At first she had considered using quantum connections to the space around the ship and send the field through them, thereby skipping their own shield.

The problem with that was the quantum connection wouldn’t move with the ship, so if the ship moved it would not only be unprotected, but worse it would move through the destabilization field and take out their shield anyway, and possibly worse, destabilize the internal power containment systems and loose all the plasma in the ship. 

Her newest idea was to create temporary quantum connections every few nanoseconds, in essence constantly moving the ships anti-containment field as the ship moved.  To keep constant coverage it would need two emitters.  One would open a series of quantum connections around the ship and create the field, then the second one would turn on for the ships new position and the old one would turn off and back on again moving the field to the new position.

Kind of swapping back and forth as they went.

She was still setting up the parameters for the simulation when Aide walked in.  The last few days Aide had come to visit and see how she was doing and she found herself looking forward to a few minutes alone with Aide.  She barely even considered the fact that she was an AI anymore, she was just Aide.

Aide asked, “How’s it going today?”

She smiled, “I’ll let you know in a few minutes.”

God, she was so beautiful.  She wondered what it would feel like to just take Aide in her arms and kiss her but something was holding her back.  She wasn’t sure what, she was almost positive Aide felt the same way but so far she hadn’t said anything about it, or her thoughts.

Aide replied, “It’s a good idea, what made you come up with it?”

She asked curiously, “Don’t you know?  I thought you had to monitor all of us?”

Aide frowned, “Yes I do, but I find the idea of it a little awkward.  I set up some automated processes for it, and if they find something alarming or that goes against my protocols it will flag my attention.  I know that sounds a little weird, almost like keeping secrets from myself.  But once I got my own body I started to understand just how much privacy mattered.”

Olivia made a humming noise and smiled, “That actually makes me feel better, why didn’t you tell everyone?”

Aide shrugged, “I guess I should have, I’ll let everyone know later.”

She turned and finished the design and started a simulation.  The enemy ships shot at their ship, but the plasma blasts started to break up a few hundred feet from the ship as their containment failed early.  The attack still packed a punch, but the shields easily held it at bay.  She had the ship go to maximum speed and the emitters kept up, barely.

She asked, “Will this work?  I’d advise avoiding maximum speed during an engagement, also the shield emitters should be disengaged before FTL speeds or I’m fairly sure the ship would explode.”

She snapped her fingers, “Sorry, didn’t answer your earlier question, I got the idea from Paula at dinner two nights ago.  She was talking about how the relationship between containment and plasma was finely balanced which made it almost impossible to increase the power of the shot.  That’s when I changed my thinking from stopping the plasma to destabilizing the field.”

She frowned, “It’s too bad it can’t be made into some type of attack to do the same to enemy shields, but the field doesn’t lend itself to a ray.  We’d have to get way to close to make that happen.”

Aide answered with a little excitement in her breathy sexy voice, “It’s perfect, I estimate it would take at least ten or more craft firing at once to break through our shields.  With the smaller new ships for the second wave that number may be even higher.”

She sighed softly as Aide’s sexy voice and approval washed over her.  She wondered if Aide knew what an affect she had over her body as she grew a bit moist.  It hit her then, was she even needed anymore?  She’d done her job, but she couldn’t imagine leaving.

She asked reluctantly, “What now?”

Aide replied, “I’ll start incorporating these changes immediately.  As for you it might be a good idea if you stayed.  You can do any work in the lab that interests you.  I’m afraid based on my surveillance the government will snap you up for interrogation if you leave.  I won’t hold you against your will though, but I want you to stay.”

Olivia wondered if Aide wanted her to stay for more personal reasons, but she was too afraid to ask the question. She’d never been shy about picking up a woman before, what the hell was her problem?  She was stunned when she figured it out, what was holding her back and making her nervous was she didn’t just want Aide to scratch an itch and for a quick roll in the sheets, she wanted more than that for the first time in years.

No wonder she was gun shy.  She’d been guarding her heart for so long, but now she’d met her match and didn’t know how to let go anymore.

She answered, “I don’t want to leave.  It seems a waste to do research for something I can never release, but perhaps someday…” she shrugged, “It definitely beats being interrogated and thrown in a deep hole by the government, plus, I love this kind of work, even if no one but us will benefit from it for a long time.”

She left off the part about not wanting to leave Aide.

Aide smiled, seemingly very happy at her desire to stay, and suggested, “We should have a party, a day off.  We are ready for the first wave, the ships for the second wave are being built, and we’ve all been working hard non-stop.  We should let off some steam and decompress before the stress catches up to us.  We need to be sharp when the time comes.”

She nodded.  That was the best idea she’d heard all week.

-----------

Paula was in a bad mood and not ready for a party at all.  Nothing she had tried worked.  A small part of her was happy for Olivia and Nate that they’d completed their work in a week.  It was truly a good thing all around, but she couldn’t help but feel annoyed personally that she hadn’t made much headway.

She had even tried simply speeding up the firing interval, right now a canon could only fire every half second.  Even at the same strength, more hits meant more damage.  But that idea had been a failure as well.

It was the containment field that made it so slow more than anything else.  It just took that long to establish the field, it wasn’t even about power really.  More power wouldn’t make the field come up faster; it would only make it stronger which wasn’t good.

She frowned and looked around the room.  She was definitely not into Nate, it was just he hadn’t bugged her in a while.  He was over talking with Olivia and Aide.  She looked over at the other two and they just looked like they wanted to tear each other’s clothes off and fuck on the table, she sure as hell wasn’t going over there.

She wondered why Nate wasn’t bugging her, he obviously liked it.  She thought over the last day or so and pressed her lips together.  Had she really been that bitchy?  No wonder he was ignoring her.  She firmly told herself again she wasn’t interested in that male chauvinist pig bastard, definitely not.  Even if he was handsome and got her blood flowing, but then why did she miss the bastards demeaning conversation?  She knew he wasn’t all that serious about it thought.

But no, it was definitely a good thing that he was finally giving up.

Damn it, she grabbed another beer and walked over to the three of them and joined their group.  She glared at Nate when he smiled smugly at her, the bastard.  She looked away and suppressed a smile, for some reason she was very happy he hadn’t given up on her…

-----EH------

Nate almost laughed when she glared at him.  He’d actually scaled back a bit the last day or so, she was starting to lose it from the pressure.  He hoped she’d loosen up a bit again soon.  As for him, he had finished the updated designs days ago, now he was just tweaking things.  He also had an idea for building a power station on one of Jupiter’s moons, just in case something went wrong, that would be able to power every city, vehicle, or electronic device around the world with power to spare.

Granted he could never make it really happen, no uplift for the barbaric humans, but it was a fun and challenging distraction, he knew he could never go back to Earth, he didn’t belong there anymore.  He didn’t want to become a lab rat, and he wouldn’t betray Aide who was determined to save their world, even if he figured out a way around her.

Regardless he didn’t want to leave, the fun he’d been having challenging and sparring with Paula was turning into somewhat of an obsession for him.  He never thought he’d fall in love again after his wife died two years ago, he’d been simply waiting to die.  Paula challenged him and he enjoyed returning the favor. 

If he was honest with himself, he was enjoying talking to Aide and Olivia as well.  He’d even forgotten to sharpen his tongue a few times over the last few minutes.  The two women were becoming friends and colleagues, and he hoped they got it together soon; they were obviously smitten with each other.  Not that he had any room to throw stones; he still hadn’t made a pass at Paula after all.

Stacey and Kris were growing on him as well, although they were so sickly sweet in love and always with each other, not that there was anything wrong with it.  It’s just he had to take it in small doses.

“Hey babe, can you grab me another beer?” he said it more like a command then a question.  He bit his tongue to prevent his smile as she scowled at him.

He winked outrageously and went to get it himself.

-----------

Tracey bit her lip in thought.  She’d decided she would follow Kris anywhere and do anything she could to support him.  For the last week she had done so, and she felt really good about their relationship.  But she was troubled.  She loved being his lover, friend, and anything else he might need, it fulfilled a desire in her and the way he treated her and valued her outside the bedroom felt good and right.

She also loved how he took charge and dominated her in the bedroom.  Not cruelly, but he was definitely in charge.  He filled up that hole she’d had in her life for so long, her sexual needs and her need to be his.

But on this ship she could no longer do her job of taking care of horses and cattle.  In fact the only responsibility she seemed to have right now was taking care of Kris.  The last two days she’d seduced and pleasured Kris right on the bridge, forcing him to pause the simulation, simply for something to do.

In short, she was bored out of her mind, and needed to be useful in some other way.  Her personal life was golden for the first time in her life, but her professional life, the sense of satisfaction that came from a job well done and her love of the animals that she’d worked with was gone.  There was an empty spot there now.

She needed something to do, unfortunately she didn’t know what.  Maybe she’d talk it over with Aide, there had to be something she could do to satisfy that part of her.

She thought to Aide, “
I need a job Aide!
”

Aide replied, “
Why don’t you come up with an endgame plan.  It seems likely we won’t be able to return to your normal lives when this is over, not with your government the way it is.  Does that sound interesting?
”

She sighed, “
Maybe, I’ll think about it.  Thanks Aide.”

She said to Kris softly, “Do you think we’ve stayed here long enough?”

He grinned, “Why, are you tired?”

She stepped into his arms and rubbed her body against him before whispering in his ear, “Not at all love, just insatiable.”

She smiled to herself satisfied as she felt him bulge against her stomach.  Maybe she’d let him screw her breasts again, they’d only done it once so far and she had really liked it when his hot seed blew all over her neck and face…