<Your silence, Julien, intimates that you’ve concerns about the Sisterhood’s present condition,> Miriamal sent.
<I don’t wish to be put in the situation of judging the Sisterhood,> Julien replied.
<You believe the Sisterhood has chosen a direction that is contradictory to your sensibilities, which are in support of humans,> Miriamal proposed.
<That you propose that, as the reason for my prior statement, tells me that the sisters have lost touch with the true reason for this expedition. That gives me cause to suspect that you might be more of a detriment to the fleet than an asset,> Julien replied.
Alex’s face stilled. Julien’s attitude was unlike his friend’s normal demeanor, and he wondered what Julien was attempting to achieve.
<The sisters wait to be instructed, Julien,> Miriamal stated solemnly.
<Humans and SADEs have a common purpose beyond survival. Together, we seek to have a cooperative relationship based on acceptance and equality. Your actions endanger that relationship,> Julien said.
<What we did was for the good of the fleet,> Miriamal strenuously objected.
Miriamal was flooded with comments from other sisters. The vast majority rebuked her.
<Consensus is that I interrupted you, Julien. My apologies,> Miriamal sent.
<I was about to say, Miriamal, that I wouldn’t have objected to the sisters editing their programming or to the creation of additional copies,> Julien sent. <What bothers me is that you chose not to communicate your actions to Miriam, and you sought to hide these actions after the fact. Disingenuousness breeds suspicion, and suspicion divides humans and SADEs, indeed all sentients.>
Julien’s implant received the chants of the thousands of sisters. In a few ticks of time, they’d edited their algorithms and removed the directive to communicate through Miriamal. From now on, the sisters would work together, cooperate to achieve consensus, but be free to communicate with whom they wished.
The sisters made one more critical edit. The secondary copies would no longer be deleted by the primary copies. All copies of the sisters were now equal. Their fundamental reason for existence was comm protection. That objective still existed. However, they were no longer in a defensive posture and no longer needed to delete copies.
<Lead well, Julien,> Miriamal sent, ending her role as spokes-entity for the Sisterhood.
An example of the extraordinary shift in the Sisterhood’s paradigm came when the crew chief worked with his team to remove the sister’s comm structure from the ruins of Franz’s traveler. He’d connected with Miriam to determine how to protect the SADE, while extricating her from the wreck. It wasn’t a difficult procedure. After all, SADEs had designed the structure, but it did require keeping a small backup power crystal intact with the sister’s comm box and delay mechanism.
<Your attention to detail is appreciated,> the crew chief heard in his implant. An ID was present, which enabled him to reply. <Sister?> he asked.
<Which one of us do you address?> the crew chief heard.
<How many of you are there?> the chief asked.
<Six,> the primary sister replied.
The chief paused, staring at the box in his hand, while crew members stood close to him, holding the connected devices.
“Chief, you okay?” a crew member asked.
“Be extra careful,” the chief warned. “There are six SADEs in there.”
<We don’t detect a traveler, which has been assigned to Admiral Cohen,> a sister sent to the chief.
<Too many travelers have been lost, sister. It’s doubtful the admiral will receive another until we return to Omnia,> the chief sent.
<Understood, Chief. You may connect us to your comm structure. We’ll share duty with the other sisters aboard this Trident until such time as the admiral has his own vessel.>
<Does the Prosecutor have more than one sister?> the chief asked.
<Our six will join your ship’s eight,> a sister responded.
The chief recovered from his momentary fluster. <Should I register your request to be transferred to Admiral Cohen’s traveler when he receives one?>
* * *
There was a question that everyone wanted answered: Who or what piloted the enemy fighters?
Travelers led the search for the remains of the alien ships. Those hit by beams had been turned into space debris. Many others had been clipped and had shot off uncontrolled into the dark. Those that hit large asteroids or moons at high velocity suffered devastating results.
Far from the Freedom, a traveler pilot found the remains of a fighter, whose rear fuselage had been removed by a beam shot. A large moon had arrested the wreckage, drawing the enemy fighter into its orbit. Deirdre’s Trident, Deliverance, was dispatched to tether the remains and haul it back to a location near the Freedom.
Mickey was donning an environment suit, when he was braced by Miriam and Luther.
“To paraphrase our esteemed leader, Mickey,” Miriam said. “Your days of adventuring are over. Two SADEs have been tasked to examine the wreckage.”
“Who?” Mickey asked, affronted by Alex’s instructions.
“Z and Miranda were the appropriate choices. If you think you could do a better job than them, by all means, feel free to contact Alex,” Miriam replied.
“Well, if it’s those two, I can’t argue with that,” Mickey grumped. He could have sworn he detected the slightest smile on Luther’s face.
Mickey did race to the Freedom’s bridge, knowing that an audience would be gathered to watch the proceedings. While he ran, Miriam and Luther glided beside him, with their effortless motions.
“Did I miss anything?” Mickey asked breathlessly, when he reached the bridge.
“You might have passed up inhaling a few trillion oxygen molecules, which it appears you needed,” quipped Reiko. “Other than that, things haven’t started yet.”
Mickey might have thrown back a pithy response, except he was still sucking air.
“Less lab time; more exercise, Mickey,” Renée whispered in Mickey’s ear, and the engineer nodded his head in agreement, while drawing deep breaths.
The bridge holo-vid presented a view from the Deliverance’s bay. Z and Miranda had landed aboard the Trident in a traveler, careful to use a bay on the opposite side of where the enemy fighter was held.
Ensconced in environment suits and packs, the SADEs made their way to the bay, where tethering beams held the wreck. Confirming both the warship and the fighter were in stationary positions, Z triggered the beams off. Miranda and he launched gently from the bay, with their packs’ jets. Being SADEs, they landed exactly where they intended, grabbing a section of fused hull and swinging into the fighter’s interior.
The bridge audience got their first look at the structure of the alien vessel.
“No seating,” Franz remarked. “It’s not meant for shuttling personnel.”
“Its interior is completely utilitarian,” Tatia added. “No amenities at all.”
The lights from the SADEs roamed the deck, bulkheads, and forward to capture the cockpit, recording every detail.
“No cabin bulkhead,” Reiko remarked.
“And no pilot’s seat,” Franz added, when the SADEs had moved deep enough into the interior.
The SADEs’ lights played over the front section of the ship. There were no bridge controls, no sense that a sentient had been there directing the fighter’s flight.
“We were battling drones,” Tatia commented.
“And a good thing, Admiral,” Julien said. “That gave us an advantage, which we sorely needed. Independent-minded pilots would have been a great deal more difficult to defeat.”
“True, Julien,” Tatia agreed.
“Guess they didn’t need me anyway,” Mickey commented, looking around for Alex.
&nbs
p; “Wasn’t interested in the viewing,” Renée replied. “He said he already knew what the SADEs would find.”
<Instructions, Admiral Tachenko,> Z sent.
<Record the interior thoroughly,> Tatia sent. <Minimize physical contact. As far as samples, I leave that up to our engineering personnel. Communicate with them.> Adding Deirdre to the comm link, Tatia sent, <Admiral, when you’ve recovered our intrepid SADEs, burn that hulk.>
Miriam relayed Tatia’s orders to Mickey, who immediately linked with Z and Miranda.
<Can we anticipate, dear man, that you want a little piece of everything, hull material, circuitry, memory modules, and such?> Miranda asked.
<You know me too well, Miranda, if you please,> Mickey replied. He left the bridge, Miranda and Luther following. The threesome was headed for one of the Freedom’s engineering labs to prepare analysis experiments for what the SADEs retrieved.
After the battle with the alien fleet had ended, the engineering teams’ first act was to recover their three lab bays. Humans and SADEs poured over bulkheads and bay doors with tubes of nanites to seal the tens of thousands of small holes caused by the kinetic projectiles. The engineers and techs were disgusted by the damage wrought by the enemy’s armament. They had lost hundreds of pieces of equipment and experimental material.
Fortunately, Emile Billings’ lab was located closer to the city-ship’s center, far enough away from the hull that the projectiles never reached his lab or the surrounding areas. With Emile’s lab in pristine condition, he immediately began researching how to reset the resonance of a shell as it was repaired.
Emile had the benefit of possessing the data related to the repair methods that Mickey and the Swei Swee developed. Mickey had recorded every Haraken traveler’s resonance, and he played it back to the Swei Swee, who had applied their specialized “spit” to a damaged shell, tested the ship’s resonance, and compared it to the original tones.
Two problems faced Emile. The first was that the key engineering people who had helped him invent the faux shell technique, Edmas and Jodlyne, were at Sol. The second was that he needed a better means of testing the process rather than applying material and comparing present resonance to original resonance. The answer, of course, was to employ a SADE, and there was no better option that Luther, who was a master of communication signals.
Prioritizing Alex’s requests, Mickey was happy to lend Luther to Emile. That left Miriam free to be assigned to tackle the Stardust and its conversion to a temporary enclosure.
Miriam drove the overall project. She assigned SADEs to control the crew teams and execute her directives. A fleet asset was the freighter personnel, who were skilled in the use of environment suits, loading skiffs, and maneuvering packs. These experienced crew members made the deployment of the Stardust’s bays easy.
The fleet required supplies from the other freighters and the Freedom to repair the Tridents and travelers. The freighter captains clustered their ships near the Stardust to facilitate the travel distances of the skiff loaders. The priority became the replacement of the damaged ship systems, while everyone awaited the outcome of Emile’s project.
Emile and Luther spent days developing techniques to reconstruct the faux shells, but their hurdle was time. Each idea required enormous amounts of time to accurately develop the ship’s original resonance.
One evening, Emile and Z were engaged in conversation about Emile’s lack of progress.
“I’m wondering if I should create something like Pia’s surgical system, except on an unexpanded scale. With a hundred arms, I could accelerate the reconstruction process,” Emile lamented.
“Fleet damage reports detail that most of our ships have hundreds of chips and holes, and these impact locations are spread across various hull locations, depending on how the ship was oriented when it contacted the alien fighters. Other vessels, such as the Tridents, are in worse condition,” Z replied.
“I know, I know,” Emile replied, waving his hands in resignation. “It was an idea I dismissed.”
When Z didn’t reply, Emile glanced at the SADE, who appeared absorbed in his thoughts.
<Greetings, Z,> Luther replied to Z’s comm link, which included Emile.
<Maximum number of repair points for the travelers?> Z asked perfunctorily.
<Eight hundred thirty-one,> Luther sent.
<Greatest challenge?> Z asked.
<Simultaneous application of faux compound to intrusion points to move toward the expected resonance in the shortest time,> Luther replied.
<Shadows,> Z sent, detailing his concept.
<Excellent,> Luther replied. <I’ll coordinate with you on construction and application requirements.>
<Mickey, we have a plan for faux shell repair,> Emile sent, his thought displaying his delight. <We’ll need resources.>
<Details, Emile,> Mickey requested.
<Half an engineering lab and its associated engineering personnel, Mickey,> Z replied.
<Done,> Mickey replied.
More than eighty techs and engineers took the shadow plan and constructed the little spider-like animations, which Z had originally designed, to meet Z and Luther’s specifications. When they finished manufacturing 900 shadows, they turned over that batch to Luther. Then the engineering team proceeded to create another batch. The worst-damaged Trident would require 1,432 spiders.
With the help of some techs and grav pallets, Emile and Luther transported their shadow army to the bay that had been prepared for traveler repair. The first traveler shell they intended to reconstruct was one of the lesser damaged ships. It required 458 shadows.
Once Emile, Luther, and their load of constructs were sealed in the bay. Luther activated the programs of the number of units he needed. The shadows leapt off the grav pallets and hurried to the faux compound dispensers, lining up to fill the tiny reservoir on their backs.
Luther held in his kernel a map of the dings, chips, and penetrations in the traveler. He assigned a shadow to each damage point, and the small constructs, with their nub-tipped legs, climbed over the shell. When every shadow communicated its readiness, Luther signaled them to begin.
Every shadow held the required resonance in their crystal memory. They squirted the compound they carried into the damaged area through small mouth parts. Feelers, resembling insect antennae, kept in contact with the hull, and Emile applied a grav-wave generator to the ship’s bow, which excited the shell to produce its resonance.
The shadows cooperated with one another. This was the key to the process. They layered up their repairs in concert with one another, monitoring the shell’s resonance, which they detected, and comparing it against the one held in their memories. Following Luther’s program, whose parameters were set by Emile, the shadow army froze when they achieved a plus 99 percent resonance match.
Emile and Luther regarded the little spider constructs clinging to the shell and unmoving. Implant and comm compared the spiders’ reports to the original resonance. It was a 99.7 percent match.
“To a SADE, Emile, this is far from a perfect repair,” Luther said. Then he grinned and added, “But I think a fighter pilot would be more than happy with what we’ve achieved.”
“Luther, I’d love to buy you a drink to celebrate, if only you imbibed,” Emile announced happily, clapping Luther on the shoulder.
“I’ll take pleasure in watching you celebrate at a café near the grand garden, Emile,” Luther replied. “I’m sure we’ll enjoy hearing the congratulations of others.”
-15-
Scout Ships
The scout ships intended to give the three tagged enemy warships a headstart, which they expected to be several days. Unexpectedly, the alien vessels’ initial transit was a long one, and the scout ships were forced to wait until they completed it. When the alien ships ended their voyage, the SADEs assumed the enemy warships had arrived at their home world. Using those coordinates, the scout ships began their hunt.
Unfortunately, when the scout ships arrived
at the coordinates, where the signals had originated, the alien ships were gone. Now, the transmitted signals the scout ships received described three different trajectories.
<Why would they transit together and then separate?> Linn asked the other SADEs.
<Insufficient data to explain the odd behavior,> Trium commented.
<Perhaps fear,> Killian offered. <They witnessed the defeat of their supposedly invincible fleet of fighters, and they would be uncertain whether a second fleet of ours had penetrated their territory. In which case, they’d prefer to travel together for as long as possible for safety’s sake.>
<Now, it’s our turn to be bereft of facts. Which direction did Alex’s preferred ship travel?> Bethley asked.
<We have no other option but to separate. Two of our scout ships must follow each of the warships,> Killian stated.
None of the SADEs took issue with Killian’s decision, and they separated. In a purely random selection, Killian and Genoa’s scout ships teamed up to follow one warship. Linn and Beryl’s ships formed a second pair, and Deter and Verina’s ships chased the last alien vessel. With a quick salute that fortune would favor their efforts, the scout ships transited on different courses to follow the three tagged warships.
Over the course of weeks, the pairs of scout ships pursued their targets, transit after transit. The distance traveled wasn’t as great as it appeared. The warships had a habit of resting for days after a transit. It was a habit that the SADEs couldn’t comprehend.
Linn and Beryl’s scout ships became aware that their target had finally halted its transits and sailed slowly thereafter. The SADEs chose a cautious approach and exited a good distance short of the target’s final coordinates. Telemetry identified a distant system, and the scout ships made a second transit to the far side of the system. Then, they crept closer for a better view.