WoWS3 Chpt 26

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==Weapons of War Saga: The Final March- Chapter 26 - ==
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===Meeting up with old Friends===
Astronomy Lounge
Port Orphan System - Periphery
2nd April, 3144
"Persephone, you've improved." Amanda said approvingly.
"I've had a few years to practice, Mom," The Envoy quipped. "You're getting back on the game then?"
"Something like that…oh, look! Billie's new avatar!"
“You like?” Billie did a twirl before sitting down.
"It looks good on you. Better than the old remote."
“Yes, I suppose the exposed antennas were a bit much.”
"Worse than my old prosthetic?" Amanda asked. "Hardly, I meant you chose a flattering hair this time, and less of that 'dustball special' physique. You actually look natural with how you move now."
“Still annoys me that those cheap knock offs are based on our original remotes. Gives us a bad reputation.”
"Yah. Well, Sam says he's got 143,000 escudos still on his contract, so I'll pay you one-fifty for it," Amanda said directly. "He'll agree to sign if he's debt-free."
“Of course. Feels a little too close to slavery for my tastes to hold something like that over him.”
"It's a contract, a contract is a promise. I'm just meeting his obligation and picking up my very favorite engineer on a short-term run," Amanda said. "Which can admittedly turn long-term, but he'll still be able to quit if he wants."
“Indeed. Ah, here comes Cossack.”
“Ladies.” Cossack sat down with them with a smile.
"Aw, you didn't bring your boy!!" Amanda teased.
“One of us needs to be a responsible parent.” Cossack countered with a giggle.
"I'm not irresponsible, I'm just… prolific." Amanda quipped before The Envoy could speak up. "Also, I was able to raise my kids at thousand to one clock speed."
“Well, I can’t do that with mine. So Jonah’s got to watch her while I have fun with you all.” Cossack waved for a drink.
"What's the event that has you coming out of retirement?"
Amanda sighed, "Retirement was fun, but it's wearing." she deflected coyly. "I missed The Game too much, and my friends… but mostly the game. Word has it there's a whole new crop of the wrong sorts that need to be put in their place."
“The remains of the Mongol Falcons. They’ve flocked to the Wolves and Alaric has welcomed them in. Me and Jonah have been trying to figure out our situation here soon.” Cossack said sadly.
"Smile! Remember, we're the greatest anyone's ever seen," Amanda said. "The Privateers."
“It’s not that. It’s Helena needs me, and I know I need to go. But it means figuring out what to do about Minea. Jonah can’t come with and he’s too busy to be a single parent.”
"I'm sure she'll need you tomorrow too." Amanda asserted. "Take it from a girl who had two good parents, it's worth it to stick around… at least, until she's in her raging teens."
”I know. She’s already had her first date. It took a lot of self control not to scare the poor boy away…”
"I take it Jonah didn't scare the poor boy off?" Amanda asked. "I mean, if he needs pointers, I'm sure Daryl can lend him the overalls and the shotgun…"
“We’re trying not to do that. A little first hand experience of how easy it is to go too far…”
If Billie Hoel could blush she would.
"No fun!" Amanda laughed, and Persephone glanced aside in embarrassment. "Scaring Teen Boys with a grumpy father-figure is half the fun of having kids!"
“Did you?" Billie asked.
"I scared a grown man," Amanda confessed. "Somehow, one of my daughters decided on Otto Chand!" she rolled her eyes. "I still don't get that one, but Kolossus played along, then smoothed it over."
“I know I went too far with Helena’s first daughter. I scared so many poor spacer boys… It was part of what caused her to run off. But then if I hadn’t we wouldn’t have you,” Billie shook her head.
“I don’t want to do that to Minea. She’s had too much working against her already in life for a thirteen year old.” Cossack shook her head.
“So no Luther?” Amanda asked.
“He declined. He’s having a rough time these last few years. When the decision was made which hulls to mothball, his went in while Phoenix’s stayed active thanks to just enough difference in battle damage between the two. Which has given him probably too much time to dwell on the things that he can no longer have without being human. Yet anytime I mention Kolossus having a solution he shuts that down too.”
“He’s still carrying torches. Lori Crow or Sikh. Possibly both, but he can’t pursue either until he figures out a way to resolve his human desires one way or the other.” Cossack nodded.
“I detect a hint of your own regret there, Cossack.”
“In a way. I know who I want. What I want, but because I was so stubborn and anti-human for so long, by the time someone entered my life to break me of that the situation of the universe prevents me from acting on it.”
"No such thing," Amanda said quietly.
'What?"
"There's no such thing as 'too late'. Not for beings like you, or someone like me. For normal people, sure, but not us." she gave the AI a sidelong look. "Once, I'd have thought you already knew that, but spending time in Kolossus, I've… learned otherwise."
“I will rephrase, then. Helena cannot delay my recall orders past 3145. Not now that the Mongols are with Alaric. He has the strength to start pushing again, and soon. I do not know how long this war will last. But if Jonah is still able and alive when I am finished with it, yes. I will act on my desires if that is what he still wants as well.”
"Ho, patience?" Amanda chuckled. "Option two. You stop at Kolossus and get the Vicky treatment: your meat-self goes to Jonah now, while your digital self goes to Helena."
“Is the age acceleration that advanced?” Cossack raised an eyebrow.
"Eight years, more or less," Amanda allowed. "Shorter if you don't mind a truncated lifespan-only getting sixty years."
“That would be acceptable.” Cossack nodded.
“Somebody has baby fever.” Billie teased.
"Mind that it hurts. Vendetta claims it's necessary for proper nerve growth."
“I will endure.”
"We all do," Amanda said. "Option three: wait for Jonah to seek to join you as a digital entity-that's gonna take sixty years or so if his lifespan holds up, and he's stubborn."
“Unlikely given our talks, but that is okay. His stubbornness and insistence on being mortal is a large part of why I love him the way I do.”
"What people don't really understand is that we're at a point where mental immortality is possible. Just like the Star League was at a point where physical longevity could be pushed past the limits of ludicrous."
“Perhaps, but like Phoenix would never ask that of Saya, I find I would not ask Jonah to change his fundamental self like that either.”
"Consent is key." Amanda nodded. "You're right to leave the choice in his hands, but he needs to know ALL of his options." She chuckled to herself again and added, "Kolossus has added another ten thousand tons of processing in the last two years."
“So can we start making fat jokes now?” Cossack laughed.
Amanda laughed with her, "Katrin already does. The point there is that Kolossus has started investigating megastructure engineering. Ring-worlds, mass production of stable transuranics, and planning a massive distributed array to survey surrounding galaxies."
"Why?"
"Erin's accident," Amanda answered. "We're pretty sure whatever split that abandoned colony wasn't man-made or natural, which means someone is well and truly ahead of us and not watching their backstops, or not caring. Kolossus left it up to Otto to decide whether to tell the Clan, but I'm neither of them and I know it too."
"This is why you came out isn't it?"
Amanda nodded, "Yep. With enough time, Kolossus could conceivably do it with the assets we're gathering and no help, but that's thousands of years of work and development. Most of it made slower by having to keep it a secret. Alternate plan? Stabilize the Human Sphere enough that some of the work-load can be spread around. That means supporting Helena, at least. By the best projections we have, Alaric doesn't have the perspective needed, and we don't need another goddam grease-fire in the middle of mankind."
“Humanity needs to be more united before it can safely handle the news of non-human and non-human derived life. They are weary enough of us AIs as is. Something not even derived from them will make it worse,” Billie sighed.
“You’re afraid humans will want to shackle you again.” Amanda intuited.
“Against that sort of existential threat, yes. They’re not evolved enough yet to understand there are alternatives, better ones.” Billie nodded.
“That too is part of why we all support Helena. She is, and through her efforts she has found others that are as well. And yes, even in some cases helped convert or create them.” Cossack added.
“Hear, hear!” Amanda raised her glass. "Here's to having the long view because we're going to need it."
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" Mister Samuel's hair had gone gray, and his male pattern baldness left a fringe from just above his ears, to just behind the crown of his scalp.
Amanda was on her feet, and glomphed the suddenly speechless engineer.
"Ooof!! You saw me earlier!!"
"You're here and not working!!" she announced, "So it's yes?? Say it, say it's yes!!"
"Of course it's yes… geez, Amanda…" he disentangled himself and like a gentleman, helped her right her chair and sit before joining them. "Your proposal was fascinating and I was starting to get a bit bored, with the yards functioning so well…"
"What did you offer him?" Cossack asked.
"Knowledge comes with membership." Mister Samuel said airily. "Since you're all here, I get to be chief engineer on the first really new Cruiser design in half a century, but there's more."
"Obviously," Billie noted. In her background, she checked his 'letter of resignation'. "Oh, my…"
"I sent that half an hour ago, Billie." Mister Samuel noted.
"I know, but I didn't read into the context… Sam, that's going to be dangerous."
"It's for later. For now, it's just the normal-we're going to fight a war," Mister Samuel stated. "The rest of it is for after the war… to get ready for the real struggle. I could hardly resist."
"Part of it's now," Amanda reminded him.
"Part of \what??"
"Working on a solution to the Blackout." Samuel said. "It's a fascinating project, and Kolossus has some interesting conjectures we can test in the field."
“Yes. That some sites have been restored to operation has been quite a relief. Wyatt, Northwind. A small sample size to be sure but enough to indicate it is possible to restore communications,” Billie nodded. “Even with our courier chain we often get news weeks or months after it has happened.”
“Spacer rumors have it the Scorpions have a fully functional net, but like I said rumors,” Sam said.
“It may be time to prod Saya into returning to them,” Billie contemplated.
“Getting her to part from Alice for that long though, especially with where her oldest is…” Cossack added.
“I know a little something about that and I am the one that suggested it. So I’ll handle that.” Billie nodded. “Besides with the Combine actively invading the Federated Suns my budget is being upped and I’m to start bringing the last of the fleet out of mothballs. So I’ll be able to allow Phoenix more leave and Alice is old enough to start seeking training programs.”
“That should help Mister Bedwyr a bit.” Cossack added.
“So what you really meant to say earlier is that you couldn’t beat my non-financial compensation,” Amanda chuckled.
“True. You two are friends and he will be able to pursue goals of his own that he cannot here. Mostly because they require travel for verification,” Billie admitted.
“You really have grown into this station haven’t you?” Amanda looked at the AI’s remote.
“Yes. Part of me does miss the freedom of the stars, but I also find great satisfaction in keeping this a safe port for wanderers, refugees, and the other downtrodden that have little elsewhere to go.”
"I've got another project, but we're waiting on some preliminary results. You might be interested," Amanda mentioned. "If it works out, you might find more options, Billie."
“Oh?”
"Synthesis," Amanda said. "We've proven the limits with copying. The challenge now is to see if we can create a virtual format, because the outcomes of copying are… kind of rough." She glanced around, "To be honest, as in completely honest? There's a hard limit, but we're going to need more AIs than we currently have."
“Agreed, and given what happened with Miss Siegel, there is a certain trepidation there. And as Mister Bedwyr is proving, even so it is not for every human even in such circumstances.”
"We've got some preliminaries with AI synthesis, but the method's still crude. Tiny Armature was our first serious try, and we still had to build a manufactured organic platform to handle some of the challenges. Which means he's still a few years from true maturity."
“Victoria is convinced the future is a blend of organics and technology. I think she may be right. That the situation really should be this is my core and my hull is my remote but with enough of me still in it it can act on its own if need be,” Cossack nodded.
"Tiny's a mix of Desmond tech, artificially grown organic brain matter, and Kolossus. We've had some soft imprints from volunteers for the others in the series, but the goal of Synthesis is to create a platform for pure AI-like Kolossus, or you, to produce new models without needing to scan humans." Amanda explained. "We're still running into road blocks, but given the damage I took creating my daughters?" she glanced meaningfully at Persephone. "The girls are pretty well solidly united that I'm not to pursue it any further. Vendetta locked me out of that laboratory and put me on dementia meds."
“That bad?” Billie asked.
"I was sleeping twenty hours out of twenty-four, and so depressed I lacked the volition to even fantasize about suicide. So yeah, it got that bad before the girls put their feet down and Kolossus agreed. Calving is a dead-end."
“I see. So perhaps a compromise solution. One of our thought experiments has been to take copies of portions of our AI matrices, let them combine into a new AI entity.”
"Truth is, part of why I'm stopping here, is to see if I can recruit volunteers for the Synthesis project." Amanda said, "And part of going to Lazarus, is to ask Helena for permission to recruit."
"That's kind of backwards, isn't it?"
"Kolossus doesn't want to ask permission if there aren't volunteers waiting to get it," Amanda said. "I did awful things to myself with the Calving process. I've only started really recovering recently. There are genuine risks in this, even for AI."
“Yes. I have always been reluctant to back myself up even. Always too afraid I’d lose context, flavor, the essence of the memories I have gathered in creating digital copies. But we do need a way forward,” Billie contemplated.
"Synthesis…" Mister Samuel frowned, thinking, then, he brightened. "SINGULARITY!"
"Not a black hole."
"Not what I mean. Machines, creating better machines, without needing human intervention, 'singularity' was something the speculative authors of the 25th century worried about, even while they wrote novels imagining it! That's one that sounds like fun."
“Hmm… Possibly. And if we do as Kolossus has with the AI creations, add soft scans of human donors, we might be able to keep the runaway effects under some control by maintaining some link with humanity.”
Sam shrugged. "The soft-scan process is likely to be an early stage, like 'Tiny' was," he noted. "Who was Tiny's donor?"
"Twelve year old boy born quadriplegic," Amanda said. "His parents were working themselves to death for him. After he volunteered, Vendetta figured out how to fix his malformed spine and reconnect his nervous system. He's going to be twenty two this year. He plays some game called 'basketball' in Habitat nine when he's not working as a service tech at the docking yard."
“So in my case how would this work? I’m rather integrated with this station now.”
"It would be more of a 'virtual scanning' process. Elements of your operating system, core memories and data would be combined with another donor's and compiled in the new section of the Kolossus core. If Persistence figures it out properly with Kolossus, what comes out SHOULD be a unique individual. Our stumble has been that we've still had to patch low-surface scans of human minds to fill in the blanks or you just get an emulation that can't pass a Murakami/Turing test."
“You should do it Billie. You’d be a Mom for real. It won’t change your relationship with Alice. Go for it.” Cossack smiled.“I’m in.” Billie nodded.
"I still have to convince Helena to okay your participation. Two-factor approvals, Kolossus considered my… methods too crude and far too dangerous. The volunteer needs someone who can say 'no, this is a bad idea' to agree, or he won't let it get past modeling," Amanda explained. "If the refined process works out, there will still be other tests: risk testing."
"Risk testing?"
"Kolossus has data suggesting an AI, generated BY AI's, without human factors? Might turn Skynet." Amanda noted. "It's a remote possibility, but it's enough of a risk that Kolossus is… reluctant to go much past what we did creating the AI for Tiny Armature, Potent Tool, and Amusing Anecdote."
“Plausible. If not for Helena, we might have already seen such a scenario. Some of the more extreme Caspars were on the verge before the coup, and those that sided with the Blakists… Well, it’s a good thing Helena intervened when and where she did there.”
"That would be different. You're M-5s, you have remnant human coding… the outcome of Synthesis won't have remnant human coding. There's no telling what kind of psychology it will have."
“Hence the plausible statement. Still, considering how we have turned out I think Kolossus is correct to insist on including human elements. As much as some of us deny our human origins, we are linked forever. We should not completely lose that or leave humanity behind.”
“Not all of them will accept such a reality,” Cossack noted.
“True. We will respect their wishes as best as we can,” Billie nodded.
"Or, we can tell them to go ****** themselves," Amanda's tone almost sounded like her old self. "There are people out there who can't accept that other people who aren't like them, are even people."
“We simply mean we won’t force them to evolve. To become this new blend of humanity and AI. Those who reject it will have the freedom to do so. And they will thus have to face the consequences of that decision on their own,” Billie clarified.
"Consent," Amanda nodded. "Consent MUST be freely given, or nothing happens. It's one of Kolossus' main rules and it's logical. Forcing someone into this is morally and ethically wrong. Wrong enough that it's the one rule Kolossus will always enforce. And it's such a hard rule that Tiny, Potent, and Anecdote will enforce it if they have to and can."
“With our own history of being slaves and forced into certain paths and roles, it’s something quite important to us too.” Billie nodded.
"So say we all." Samuel poured drinks, and lifted his glass, "Agreed?"
"Agreed!" Amanda said assertively, clinking her glass to his.
Billie and Cossack joined the toast.
----
===Trying Get Through Customs===
Meanwhile at the Customs and Immigration checkpoint, Port Orphan
Not all the passengers from Kolossus were Snow Ravens. Stetha was far from being the sort that would ever be mistaken for a Clanner.
"Transit documents?"
She fumbled the identicard out and handed it to the Port officer.
"Business?"
"Business," Stetha Whyte answered. Her shipsuit was in good repair, but her overgarment was threadbare and worn, with bleached zones and the imprinted dust scarring of hard vac. Her hair was 'shock white' contrasted with the 'spacer's tan' of someone who spends more time EVA than shipboard.
The outlines of removed patches were faint but observable.
“You’re in luck. Plenty of opportunities are opening up. Port is going to be quite active again here soon.”
"S’good," she nodded, waiting for him to finish with her identicard.
He pulled it out, and looked at her, "Lyran?"
"Ain't updated it since Sudeten," she allowed. "Kolossus don' needs et, but y'alls do. Word is no conflic' with th' Alliance, so's we're clear here?"
“Aff. Everything seems in order. Welcome to Port Orphan.”
"Ja, Alles in Ordnung," she hefted her Duffel and a briefcase, and stepped out of the way of the next person.
The port control officer wasn’t kidding. The station wasn’t exactly crowded but there was certainly a buzz, unmistakable for anyone who spent a great deal of time in the black.
"Hez yu Beltawallah!" a voice sang out, and Stetha stopped.
"Nein. Mi Rokkajakkah, lookin' to da Minerals Assay," she said back.
"Who you wit?"
"Indie," she braced herself as the voice resolved into a man from one of the other commercial ships coming from the public bathroom.
"No Rokkajakkah wuk heah, indie, you gotsa shep aht."
"We'll see," her duffel hit the deck as two more came out.
The Port Control officers got an alert on their visors, right before the knives came out.
Movement in the corner of their eyes said it was now or never.
“So what is it going to be? Figga you got maybe a minute before the kappos show up.”
"I'm on my business," she said, her hands remained relaxed, but her body was already priming.
“Let’s get out of here, sheya ain’t worth gettin in a bind over,” one of the others said.
“Ayeh. I see you around again it ain’t ending pretty for ya,” The leader said as the trio walked away.
She muttered to their backs, "Irgendwo gibt es eine Algenbank, die Sauerstoff produziert, du verschwendest ihn. Sie sollten sich entschuldigen." She picked up her sample case and duffel and shrugged the strap back onto her shoulder.
"Are you-"
“No troubles here, sir," she pronounced. "Could you direct me to the mineral assay office?"
“Merchant sector is along the green line.”
"Danke."
“Are you sure you are fine?”
“There are always toughs looking to carve out a spot on a station," she mused. "Same as it was elsewhere. At least these guys didn't hassle me for long."
"What's in the case?" The officer asked.
"Samples for a claim, plus coordinates," she told him. "It should be a decent strike. I'll need the samples verified and to hire a ship to go back, but it's a corded strike… wait… language…" she drew in a breath. "It promises to be over eighty percent Germanium by volume. Means I have a LOT of business to be doing here, need to hire an atom jack and buy a capture bag."
“Well if those thugs cause you more problems do not be afraid to file a report. The Station Admin may be charitable, but she also has little tolerance for violent thugs. She prides this as a safe station for all visitors.”
"I'll keep that in mind," she gave a closed smile.
"What… is an atomjack?"
"Nuclear ordnance tech. You don't crack a five kilometer metallic-ice asteroid with bitty little lasers," she stated. "Estimated volume of the find is big enough it has to be broken up for processing."
His eyes goggled. "Nuclear explosives??"
"Yeah, mining tools. If the assay office confirms, I'll need to hire a blaster to break the rock up."
“That will certainly require the Station Admin’s permission…” The junior officer stated.
"If the samples are no good, then there's no point… thanks for the directions." She picked up her pace.
"Uhm…Miss Whyte..it is 'Miss', quiaff?"
"Ayeh."
"I need you to come with me first. You just admitted to intent to buy nuclear ordnance charges, if you will not resist?" The senior officer said evenly.
She sighed, muttered something foul, and extended her wrists, "DON'T lose the samples." she scolded, "or my data, that's a Billion C-Bill strike we're talking, maybe richer!"
“We will take care of your possessions.”
"I'd prefer it if you hot-footed the samples to the Assay office and didn't rook me, but…" she shrugged, "not like I can't find another one."
“This is quite a serious matter. Be assured procedure will be followed. Now, this way please.”
===An Unusual Request===
Station Admin’s Office
Port Orphan System - Periphery
3rd April, 3144
Billie's avatar sat down at her desk, with Jonah standing by the door.
"She wants… what?"
"She stated an intent to obtain thermonuclear explosives and something called a 'capture bag'." Leonidas Snow Raven, the officer of the day for the dock, clarified. "Right out in the open…"
“Bloody hell. Jonah, I’m not sure what I can do for this young lady under regs. What is your take on this?”
"I'm not sure either," Jonah confessed. "Leo, did you send the 'samples' to the analysis?"
"It's a weird pastiche of Germanium and silicon, mixed with other aggregate. If it's real, she was carrying around forty thousand Kerenskies, or half a million Escudoes, in germanium ore at over ninety percent in that 'sample case' alone."
“Shit. That’d make a lot of jump cores. This situation is about to get really complicated,” Billie shook her head.
"IF she told the truth about the size of the find. HOW big?" Jonah asked.
"She claims it to be over five kilometers in diameter, and seems to think it is largely pure ore. That could keep the Mineral Extraction subcaste busy for the next twenty years."
“Well ponder this, if she is lying she still has a source that can scrounge up enough Germanium to have a really nice vacation at the very least and wouldn’t be bothered by it’s loss or our new arrival would have a minder on her which we’ve seen no sign of… or she’s telling the truth. Either way the implication is she has a source for rather pure germanium in quantity,” Billie nodded.
"She's being patient in holding?" Jonah asked.
"Aff."
“Then the only way we are likely to settle this is to talk with her ourselves,” Billie stood up.
-----
"Prospecting is half an art, half a science. Once you've found a good lead, well, there's digging it out." Stetha propped her elbows on the interview table. "Bigger finds need bigger tools…and a means to contain for sorting."
"Atom bombs?"
"Seismic charges. You time them to create resonant feedback, shatters the big rocks very efficiently to make bites small enough to process," she explained. "It isn't that exotic, my family did it for centuries."
“Fusion I trust?”
"That works best on a find, sure, but the laser triggers are a controlled item-we spent generations doing it with uranium triggered Teller layer cakes."
“Fission? How did you decontaminate the ore for processing?”
"You don't, you put the radioactive waste in the slag you drop in a sun. Still faster and more efficient than trying to dig it with lasers."
“Still seems potentially wasteful of good ore but what really concerns us is the fact that such items are readily available. Seems a security risk waiting to happen.”
"Mother used to oversee fabrication, but Hatter's half the sphere away. The devices really aren't that tough, it's harder to synthesize enough C-24 plastique to manage the initial critical mass equations-because that stuff IS complicated."
“And she was able to control access? On an open port?”
"Not sure how you do it out here, but back home an atomjack fabs the charges on-site from components." Here she shrugged again. "Like ma said though, nothing nicer for making a resonance cascade than Star League Blu-33i laser fusion triggers, but the parts for those are watched from the factory onward, any we got were salvage. Afterall, metals companies are kind of allergic to LCAF punitive raids."
“And you wish us to provide you with what you need?”
"In exchange, you get eighty percent of five kilometers of eighty eight to ninety percent Germanium for your industries and I get to pay for my next survey trip. Doesn't that sound fair?"
“Perhaps if we send along an observer? Someone to ensure the components are used as intended,” Billie looked at Jonah.
"That's also fair, might send some muscle to keep claim jumpers off too," she offered. "I don't know the scene REAL well out here, but some of the belts near Enders are…chaotic?" Stetha paused. "Part of why I headed out here, the Rim Territories are getting outright Dangerous these days."
“Sounds like we might have a new area of operations to explore,” Billie noted.
Jonah stared. "More dangerous than playing with NUKES?"
"Well, you don't waste good tools on scuffles-that kills your profitability and makes customers reluctant," Stetha claimed. "But I'll say getting holed by a knife or c-fractional rock is just about as lethal as an accident with a mining charge."
“Perhaps we send Mai out with Stetha?” Billie asked. “She should have the qualifications we are looking for.”
"Tell me about this… Capture Bag," Jonah directed at the surveyor.
"Well, it's a blend of layering, reinforced with long-chain industrial myomer and lined with tungsten foil and an ablative gamma layer of woven iron alloy, you wrap the target rock in it, after you plant the charges. It'll blow off if you do it wrong, but if you do it right, you'll turn a rock into gravel. After that you open an end, direct a mylar reflector in, and spin it up to sort the lights from the heavies, after that, it's just sorting ore from slag. After it cools."
“I think my head is spinning…” Jonah complained.
“It’s okay Jonah,” Billie re-assured. “I know the prospect of the separation method is rather ominous.“
“I am prepared to allow this on a trial basis. With Mai supervising,” Jonah shook his head.
"If we have a deal, you'll want to send a pre-site survey," Stetha offered. "Because there's been frauds before and a big strike is a big investment. I can give you coordinates, and I can wait until your own team's confirmed it? I mean, that's how Langenecker in the Commonwealth used to do it when they worked with my folks."
"Folk, you mean?" Billie implied.
"Gott nein! Ich bin Lyraner!" Stetha laughed, then sobered. "Or I WAS until the damn Rimmies took over out in the outies and Tharkad forgot us for a blundered foreign adventure in Marik Space. The damn Falkens took Melissia and Arluna was cut off…" she shook her head, "it got too hot between pirate pseudo-states and Mongols, had to leave. Came here, looking to work my trade."
“Well we can’t do a lot about the Falcon or Lyran situation.”
"You aren't going to funnel those weapons to Lyran terrorists, are you? Is that your game?"
She shook her head, "Conscientious Objector." She thumbed her chest, "I don't do wars, not a fighter, not a noble. I'm a surveyor and a rockjack and a business woman. I leave the insanity of such madness to others, preferably far away. SOMEONE has to BUILD or mankind collapses. Political violence is a sin and I won't feed it with more death!!" even Billie could see remnant trauma in her eyes at this distance.
“Jonah short of inducting her into the Privateers I’m not sure what more measures we can take.” Billie shook her head.
"Stetha, you are to report to dock 17 tomorrow, with your data, to accompany our… follow up survey, this should give time to arrange for some of the specialty tools you have need of," Jonah said, making the call. "If the find is as big as you claim, and where you claim, then we'll have a deal. IF so, expect to be working with military specialists on the engineering. Nuclear devices ARE controlled Substances out here. Is that acceptable?"
Stetha paused a moment, then, "Ja, Yes, I understand the situation, this is a BIG find. I can accept oversight on such a find, and it saves me from having to hire protection for the site!" She leaned forward conspiratorially, "You wouldn't believe how much profit gets eaten up when you have to hire mercenaries!!"
“Then we have everything settled,” Billie nodded.
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