Sentient 02

She said breathily as Aide kissed her below her ear, "Well I can certainly take a break."

Aide replied smugly, "Good, it will take a little while for my nanites to finish the upgrade, and then you can test them and see if they need any improvements..."

Aide's voice went straight to her core and she could feel herself moisten. She'd never actually been happier. She was doing the science she loved to do, and had a partner that would never get intimidated by her drive or intelligence.

She said, "In that case, I believe there are still several rooms in our suite to be broken in..."

She didn't protest as Aide took her in hand and led her back to the suite...

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Nate frowned at the schematics for the reaction drive. His expertise was in power systems, but he had some knowledge of drives as well from his work on the subs, although it wasn't really comparable. They'd improved shields, weapons, and power. From what he heard at dinner they were on their way to some improved sensors as well.

He didn't think it would hurt to give themselves an increase in speed as well, but it wasn't as intuitive to him as updating the power systems was. For him, that had been almost easy. This was... complicated. The reaction drives never had to worry about running out of reaction mass, because they used plasma from the sun. It would take millions of years before they'd make a noticeable difference.

The problem was it wasn't just the drive he would have to upgrade; so many things were interrelated in moving the ship. The gravity systems which provided inertial dampening as well as integrity fields to reduce shear and wear on the ship were integrated. The power requirements also went up geometrically the closer to the speed of light they approached.

He kept trying to think of it as G's of acceleration, when that was meaningless. The ships gravity systems and other fields kept them almost separate from the universe around it and the change from standing still to .04 C was almost instantaneous, or vice versa. The carrier's systems were almost too complicated for him to see it all, so he changed his focus to the attack fighters which were a bit simpler in design.

Besides, they were really the ones that would be doing the fighting. If the carrier entered the battle things would already be far too sideways and they were probably screwed anyway. Though, if that were the case being able to run faster than the enemy could follow would probably be a good idea.

He also hadn't spoken to Paula about their relationship yet. They still bantered, and then fucked like rabbits while living together. It wasn't just him holding back. She was keeping her feelings about it hidden as well. He wasn't sure how long that would last before things came to a head. The last woman he'd loved had been his wife of thirty years; he just didn't know what to do there.

After a few hours he came to the conclusion that the speed was limited by its type. If he wanted to go faster, he would need to come up with a completely different means of propulsion. That seemed impossible at this point; the one they had now was the most efficient and powerful based on the Alion's level of science.

Before he could make a breakthrough in a drive design, he'd have to make a theoretical breakthrough in science, and that just wasn't his cup of tea. He wasn't a theoretical scientist, he'd always been an engineer.

He looked forward to getting out of the solar system and hoped Kris was right to stick their necks out and not just burrow in defensively. It could go either way.

He spent the rest of the two days working on the ships power systems, looking for any short falls on the expected power outputs. But he'd done his job right and he couldn't find any issues.

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Paula sighed. She really liked Nate, maybe more than that, but it seemed like all they did was snipe at each other and fuck like rabbits. The sex was amazing, the best she'd ever had. Not that she'd slept with all that many others being so focused on her career back on Earth, but she'd enough experience to know Nate was an extraordinary lover.

Still, she needed to know where things were going. It wasn't like she had a lot more options, but that wasn't good enough for her, she wanted more than that. She snorted, one of these days they might actually have a serious conversation and she'd bring it up. Right now things were being carried on pure heat and lust between them, but she knew that couldn't last, not on its own.

She rubbed her eyes and looked back at the monitor. She was attempting to build a new weapon that would fire a beam of plasma, instead of the balls, and it was... complicated. The idea was extremely simple and it actually worked. All she had to do was create a containment field that was a tube, and send the plasma down it. When the tube hit enemy shields, that part of the containment would fail and a steady stream of plasma would pour into the enemy shields, overwhelm them, and turn the enemy ship to slag.

The problem was it was too slow. It took a half second to create a strong enough containment field, just like the current plasma turrets. That's why the balls of plasma were created before they were fired. A half second was forever, if an enemy ship detected a field forming it could simply turn, or slow down. At the speeds the ships could move a half second was more than enough time to dodge.

Containment fields did more than just contain the plasma; they contained the radiation the plasma put off, essentially making it safe. However, if it was outside the ship where the ships normal shields would handle that radiation, did that part of the field even matter?

She decided it wouldn't.

Plasma had mass, so she changed the parameters to use a gravity field for containment in the weapon. Gravity fields were instantaneous, or near enough not to matter, and it would also reduce the energy required. She programmed the simulation and gave it a try. The beginning of the stream hit the simulated enemy ship, but didn't stay locked on and most of the stream was wasted, ejected into space.

She saw the error. The containment field was programmed to lead to the sensor target data, but not track it. She programmed the containment field to follow the lock with nanosecond updates. The physical plasma cannon didn't even need to be facing the enemy ship directly or track the ship, the field would arc as required.

The results were quite spectacular as she put up one fighter ship against five enemy scout craft. She had forgotten with using gravity for containment there would be no reload time, or at least she hadn't fully thought it through. It took a half second of applying the beam to a ship for their shield to fail. She found she could even disable ships instead of destroying them by cutting off the beam very quickly.

Without the reload time, all five ships were taken out in 3.2 seconds. She stared at the screen for a very long time before contacting Aide, time for more upgrades...

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Stacey felt like she was in school. She'd worked with Aide on several things, such as terra-forming Venus and ideas on how to go forward with first contact if appropriate when they found new species. But she felt like it wasn't quite enough. She was now in a world where her skills as a veterinarian were complete worthless. Even if she did find a sick animal, it would take a simply scan and an application of nanites now to fix the issue.

She decided she needed to go a different way, and that meant schooling of sorts. She already had all the information in her head; she just needed enough grounding to make sense of it. Then maybe she'd be able contribute scientifically. She was certainly intelligent enough, but all her experience and knowledge was grounded in biology.

So she'd gotten with Aide and now she was in virtual classes.

As far as her personal life went, things with Kris had never been better, and she was excited at the thought she'd shortly be fertile. She knew some women would be horrified at the thought and accuse her of undoing years of hard work for women's rights, but for her nothing could be more fulfilling than giving the man she loved a family. She yearned for it.

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Aide was busy getting things ready. The first set of carriers was done and the second eight were coming along on schedule. She incorporated the weapons upgrades into the second carriers, and was implementing them on the built ones now. The computer system upgrade for the sensors worked, so she was doing those upgrades as well.

She was also creating new protocols at Kris's suggestion. His main concern with her idea had been absolute power corrupts absolutely. There would be clear cut issues, such as the Sthellan attacking another world. The right thing to do would be to protect that world.

But what happens when they find a barbaric civilization that enslaves and kills its own citizens? Right now she knew it would be a mistake to interfere in the internal matters of a species, but it would be much harder to face that decision when it was an actual reality. She finally understood what he meant about what gives them the right to interfere. In a case like that, they wouldn't have the right.

So she was expanding her protocols to include first contact situations. Their aim would be to stop civilizations from oppressing other civilizations, and that was it. If a civilization was on a suicidal track, there would be nothing they could, or should do to stop it.

She also added protocols for the ships, if they found a civilization to protect, they would automatically make three more ships locally to add to the protection force, that would mean all the ships being built in the asteroid belt could continue to be dedicated to searching out and fast responses, just in case they found a civilization in dire straits that couldn't wait for a local build.

She was also going to do experiments and testing. Instead of absorbing the thirty six craft for new builds, she decided to send them toward the black hole in the center of the galaxy. The Alion had mastered quantum science, but there were still things it didn't explain. The universe was deeper than that, and the science didn't explain what happened within black holes.

If they could be understood and harnessed like the stars, what wouldn't be possible? She theorized they would have much stronger shielding, energy weapons, FTL even inside a solar system, and more. What prompted her to do so was what if in their explorations they ran into an aggressive civilization which already had that technology?

Their current ships would be like toys. Not able to survive a fight anymore than they could survive flying into a black hole. Still, she hoped she was wrong and they'd have a long time to figure things out. She believed the important thing was that they were ahead of their current enemies, and had the drive to keep pushing for more advances.

She had a feeling the logical Alion stopped advancing because they thought they were at the apex of knowledge. It was the lack of emotions and drive she was sure, without the curiosity and desire to help others the idea of trying to harness the power of a black hole wouldn't have occurred to her. If it had, she would have only shrugged it off as impossible.

She even recalled how dismissive she was about it just a couple of weeks ago when Paula asked about the possibility. It must have planted a seed in her mind to give it a try. She may fail, but she had to try. It wasn't as if she didn't have time for it.

As noble and compassionate as humans could be, she knew their selfishness and lust for power and control was just as prevalent. She got back to creating more protocols, just in case she wasn't as immune to the draw of power as her humans believed her to be.

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Kris was fighting against two thousand scout ships with just two carriers. The enemy fighters outnumbered his by over two to one. Between the shields, second weapons upgrade, and his experience he was kicking their asses. Of course, he might lose anyway. He'd managed to take out fifteen hundred of the ships as they passed through his lines without losing more than twenty of his, but now he was in deep shit.

He'd gotten cocky and hadn't redirected his ships fast enough, and now that the enemy was between his carriers and fighters and out of the fighter's weapons ranges. He'd just proved how even with more advanced tech, there was no way to compensate for stupidity.

He had his carriers in full retreat mode to give him space, but the enemy was matching his pace and in less than ten minutes he'd have to either stop and face them, or abandon the planet he was protecting. Either way would be a loss.

His own ships followed behind the enemy but weren't gaining any ground either.

He had the second carrier slow slightly and routed all of the power from its assigned attack ships and rerouted the power to increase the carrier's own shields and weapons. It wouldn't last long against five hundred scouts on its own, but it should last long enough.

As the scouts made it into weapons range the carrier reached out with its turrets and enemy scout ships started to be blown out of the sky. But they also managed to get some shots off first. As more and more came into range at a time he knew he was in deep shit. Finally fifty enemy scouts hit his shield at the same time. The shield fell and the outer hull turned to slag, two of the landing bays were damaged badly.

But slowing down had in turn slowed the enemy enough for four hundred ships, still fully powered from the leading carrier, let loose into the four hundred enemies still remaining. His other four hundred fighters were right behind and the damaged carrier rerouted power back.

A few seconds later, all the enemy ships were dead, but not until they had managed to severely cripple the carrier. The internal ring and shields were still fine and active, but much of the rest of the ship was damaged enough that it would take days to repair.

He'd managed to pull out a win in the simulation, but only barely. He decided to take a break and hunt down Stacey. He promised himself he'd never be that cocky again, and thanked god it'd just been a simulation.

Chapter 19

With nine carriers in Earth's orbit no one had any qualms about leaving the system. According to the new sensors, there were a thousand scouts en route to Earth, that was over three to one odds in their favor and as long as he didn't get cocky again, Kris should be able to handle that.

The other eight carriers headed for open space. The trip to the outer edge of the solar system would take a few days. In addition to their normal work, they all got language downloads for known alien languages, as well as cultures. Obviously this wouldn't help with first contact, but it should make things go smoother when they met the Alion, and perhaps the Sthellan as well, but Kris wasn't holding his breath on the second one.

They dropped off the nanites on their way out at the asteroid belt which would supply matter for building for the foreseeable future. It would also have the ships closer to the FTL point although they'd still be much closer to Earth than Neptune.

With the new enhanced sensors, they were able to backtrack the thousand scout ships to one of the Sthellan's worlds. They weren't sure how many worlds the Sthellan inhabited but they decided to go there first in an effort to make peace. They figured that would be more important than making friends with the Alion who after all weren't attacking them... yet.

The world was just over forty three light years away, which at FTL speeds would take them a little over a day. They were all a bit nervous; would the Sthellan even talk to them? Or would they simply attack? They decided when they came out of FTL they would hold at the perimeter of the system, so as not to appear aggressive, or so they hoped.

Kris was on the bridge, connected to the ships back at Earth. It was only an hour or so before they reached the FTL perimeter and the Sthellan fleet was only a few hours away from Earth. They had considered intercepting the fleet, but the nine ships left behind were already beyond overkill. In fact they left two by the planet and only moved seven away from Earth toward Sthellan on an intercept course. That would make the odds 2.8 to 1.

He launched the fighters, assigning two ships per enemy and left eight hundred in close proximity to defend the carriers in case something unforeseen happened and some of the enemy got through. He was fairly sure however the only way any of them would live would be if they turned around before coming in range with one of their ships.

He wondered what the enemy was thinking, and then realized they had probably scanned the little ships and didn't understand most of their power came from the carrier. Based on their size, they would be too weak to withstand one plasma round from the enemy. This was the first time the Sthellan would face these ships, so they had no clue it would take closer to ten shots to destroy the little ships, or that those little ships now had plasma beam weapons that will tear them apart in one sustained shot.

He almost felt a little sorry for them. Almost.

It was a complete slaughter. All the Sthellan ships attacked in ignorance of their updated systems and paid the price. He actually held his weapons fire for a few moments and made sure they were all in range before firing. He knew this would be the only freebie, no doubt their central command was monitoring the battle and would see the results.

In one very short moment, two thousand beams of plasma reached out and obliterated all the enemy ships in .2 seconds. The enemy managed to fire at least twice before he did, since he waited for them to get in range, but he didn't lose any ships at all. They hadn't known they'd need to hit one of the little fighter ships with a large group of theirs to score a kill, and they hadn't had time to figure it out.

Kris blew out a breath and had the fighters return to the carriers and sent the carriers back to Earth orbit. He knew if they sent more ships, it would be a lot more than a thousand. Hopefully they would listen when they arrived at the Sthellan staging system in just over a day. Don't mess with Earth.

He got up and left the bridge with Stacey on his arm. He wasn't really hungry after that slaughter, but it was dinner time and he knew he should eat if he could. It was something he had learned in the military. Food is strength.

When they got to the lounge, they joined the others who were already eating. He didn't taste anything when he took his first bite.

Paula asked, "How did it go?"

Stacey said softly, "The battle lasted five seconds... we didn't lose any ships."

Aide added, "They weren't cautious at all, next time, if there is a next time, will be harder."

A screen came on and he looked up while Aide said, "We're about to pass the FTL barrier."

Aide said, "Engaging FTL drive."

The stars on the screen seemed to blur and then go out as they entered FTL space. He continued to eat without comment. He was the warrior in the group, it was his job to run the ships and defend Earth. He would do what he had to, but that slaughter hadn't sat well with him. Intellectually he knew if he hadn't billions of humans would die back on Earth, but that didn't mean taking all those lives in a split second was any easier on his conscience.

Or perhaps it was because he knew it was only the beginning.

His mental spiral was broken by Nate.

"I checked the power requirements of the battle, and I should have picked this up earlier. The beams use twenty percent less power than the plasma cannons."

He grunted, "What does that mean for the ship?"