Strat-3 Chpt-5

<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
----
==Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 3 - A Light In The Black - Chapter 5==
----
===Embarkation===
Six Hours…
…was nowhere close to what Larry needed. But it was the time he had, and between soothing the Warship's AI and beginning to meet the crew and officers, he was beginning to get an idea of what needed to happen over the next few weeks.
If there was one surprise it was how voracious the AI had turned out to be once she dedicated herself to being his pupil. Once she did that, the human crew were also a lot easier to teach. It would still take a lot of time for the humans, but he was wondering just what kind of hell he was getting into with the AI.
Especially after he saw how she decided to dress her human form drone.
----
He decided he needed to pick his battles with that one and with the time available he did not think victory was possible with everything else he had to do.
Perhaps the most jarring thing was that apparently early on Helena Cameron insisted that Vicky keep her clocks synched with Unity City Time and the rest of her fleet did the same. The headache of different time keeping alone took up way more time then he would have liked.
While talking with the CAG, Jyestha, she told the story of Helena Cameron as the Eternal Princess and the AIs as her Eternal Knights.
He almost packed it in right then and there, making a case for this being a terrible idea and calling the whole thing off.
But what changed his mind was just how earnest the crew was. They were keeping their promises and their religion, for lack of a better term, was odd but certainly not Blakist. Or maybe it was what the Word of Blake always should have been. Either way even after a few hours he felt certain that they were very interested in becoming professionals and professionals don’t start mass genocidal wars.
That and there were lessons that they had already clearly learned. Their uniforms were always in order and tools when not in active use were properly stored. The ship was likewise clean and neat. They even knew how to stand for review.
Spacer culture. While they lacked certain elements of formal military discipline they were still spacers.
He could work with that.
Amanda stepped onto the concourse umbilical promptly at 07:30, nearly an hour late, and the last to arrive.
"Mister Nichols, is the ship in shape?" she asked.
"There are some lingering questions, Captain. You're Late."
"Psychiatric appointment," she told him. "I sent a message on the PMail about it…"
"I was busy," he confessed. "I'm still getting the crew sorted on filing routine reports-they've been operating without most of that and leaning on the AI far more than they should, in my opinion."
She glanced down, then finessed the item from his front cargo pocket. "Smartbooks?" she said, sniffing the cover. "New ones?"
Larry nodded, then, "Do you still have yours?"
She grinned and produced a similar volume from her waistcoat. Thinner, but similar. "I take it the new edition is based on the ship's design?" she asked.
"Yeah, and on having the expanded air-wing of mostly-drone fighters."
"Hopefully we'll have plenty of time for training. Are the rest of our staff embarked?"
"Mister Seron was up here at zero three ship's time, and started ranting about wanting to bring some of the Marine complement from Evanescent on as cadre." 
"No," Amanda stated. "We're not doing that. Foster has first claim on most of our Marines, I almost had to engage in dentistry to get him to release Mister Bedwyr for the air wing-he wanted to keep our air-boss as a possible candidate for one of the Bonnies in storage."
"CAG, or?"
"Another berth," she asserted. "Bedwyr had to remind him personally that he wasn't Jump Navigation qualified. We're lucky though-the rest of the temp transfers went through without a problem."
"When you say 'without a problem', I worry," Larry commented.
"Half our junior department heads are going through the School of Foster while we're out, we're losing people to the other four hulls," Amanda said apologetically. "But you already knew that."
"Hey, I WAS consulted on the promotions lists." Larry defended.
"Any of these guys officer material?" she asked.
"No more, or less, than you were."
"That doesn't fill me with confidence. I haven't been exactly the platonic ideal."
"You have a very cool hat. So cool, even, that the ship's AI remote wanted one just like it."
This got her to chuckle. "So, we're doing this as a training cruise."
"Every cruise we've done has been a training cruise in real terms," Larry told her. "Including the aggressive, high intensity combat ops."
She sighed, "Yeah… can they stand in line?"
"Why not have a look?"
This time I’m ready.
Stacey’s human drone was standing with her crew.
Every one of her crew knew what was expected of them right now.
Standing for review was a time honored tradition. They had done it many times for Helena and she had not been afraid to use her cybernetic eye to pick out the tiniest imperfection during her reviews.
Amanda moved down the line. She shot Larry a look, "They're fine. Let's get ready to cast off."
"Captain?"
"They're fine, get everyone to stations, we'll go over duties on the way out, it's sixteen hours to the jump point. Stacey, get the duty rosters from Mister Nichols and post them where the crew will see them, we're not here to do parades."
“Aye Captain.” Stacey snapped to.
"Which way to CIC?"
“This way. If time permits I would be honored to give a full tour personally but I understand this is a war cruise, not a pleasure cruise.” Stacey gestured.
"Stacey, we've got sixteen hours to the jump point, and seven days once we get there before we can take off again," Amanda explained. "That doesn't include the time we're spending at the target system, which is probably going to be weeks if we're lucky, meaning I'm going to be pestering the shit out of you for tours… But right now, I want to have a look at the navigation board, and reassure myself on the calculations your Nav officer's done." 
“Of course. Lady Cameron does insist we have trained Navigators on staff and Golden Hind do have Guild Pathfinders that handle much of that training for us.”
"Excellent," Amanda said. "I still want to check their math, it's a habit-I check every navigation calculation on the Evanescent, and Larry checks them when I do it. Also, does your CIC have a shop-vac??"
“Yes. Those were installed during my conversion to accommodate human crew. Even those without diagnosed TDS can have the odd adverse reaction to jumps. And checking math for something as important as K-F jumps is just prudent standard practice,” Stacey smiled.
"Add to your medical files then; MINE aren't from TDS, they're because the EMP from a jump knocks half my brains out of action for up to ten minutes," Amanda told her. "Desmond has to reboot, you dig? Shoddy workmanship by the terrorists who cut me up…" She reached into her pocket and added, "My medical, you'll want your ship's barber to have this on file."
“Barber, oh I get it. A reference to back when barbers were also medical experts. Of course.”
"Yup, I'd say 'carpenter' but Sam's someone you try to keep OUT of sick-bay, not someone you want doing surgery," Amanda grinned. "I had to leave my own CMO with the Base, so we're using yours, which means they need my medical file."
“Yes. My crew does include a fully qualified medical staff.”
"A whole staff?" Amanda was impressed. "Good! We can do cross training! I normally have to make do with Corpsman-qualified infantry or burden ONE gal with everyone, and with a crew of 172, that's a lot of people to treat."
“Well my crew is larger and with the automation there is less for them to do so of course a proper medical staff only makes sense.”
"Stacey, you're making me envy you," Amanda stated. "We were emergency cross training grunts on Triage during the Michtal action, and that was AFTER boning up extra training after Devil's Breath!" Amanda was smiling: "I had EOD techs studying surgical manuals!"
“Oh my. That sounds… Complicated.”
"It was horrible, Stacey, go ahead and say so. We somehow managed not to lose any of the victims at either place pulling the bombs out of their necks, but it was a near thing, and some of the civilian wounded from Joan's Post or Devil's Breath ended up permanently damaged because we had to wait for actual medical professionals to take over." Her expression was serious, "I know Larry gave you a lot of harsh words, but you have a full medical staff. That's something to be outright proud of."
“That means more than you know coming from you.” If Stacey could blush, she would have.
"Well, it's what you get, joining the Privateers-we don't just kill bad guys, we save people," Amanda asserted. "The 'save' feature on the universe wasn't well thought out, you know, very tricky, takes lots of hands."
“Yes. We all look forward to working with you.”
They reached the CIC deck. "A couple of drills we're going to practice, Stacey, might make you uncomfortable," Amanda said.
“I’m ready as I ever will be.”
"We're not doing them today!" Amanda said. "But it's about your crew… at some point during the mission, I need you to hand off to manual control and pretend to be an ordinary, not-a-person computer for several hours. One of the things we end up doing, is capturing and confiscating enemy vessels-and they don't come with AI installed. We're not doing that this mission, but you'll want your people ready if it comes up next mission, or the one after."
“I will work with Mister Nichols to get some practice in then, a couple surprise drills.” Stacey smiled.
Amanda seemed satisfied, then she looked around the CIC, and sighed. "I… wow. I have no idea where to sit."
“Hmmm… I do have several stations setup for human crew but none seem quite right for a proper Captain do they? Maybe Navigation?”
"It's the shipyard's fault," Larry spoke from behind them. "They set this up as a caretaker or transit bridge only, and… Truk, right? The M9 who did the refit had to work around it. Your seat's right over there."
"Oh… right."
“Poor Truk was spoiled by her Ladyship’s ability to command from any position thanks to Simon and receiving data feeds directly. Still, he did his best and all stations are fully manual capable,” Stacey added.
"Point of imagination to send to your yard then…" Amanda said. "Helmet HUD displays for CIC crew, or maybe Augmented Reality sim-goggles-then everyone gets what Desmond gives me. We've been talking about it for years," she quipped.
"I think SAM has been talking about it for years, but those rigs he tried out give me headaches," Larry noted.
"Point."
Amanda was strapping herself into the couch, before pulling up the data from the Navigation station. "Always look for ways to improve, Stacey," she noted. "Even MY ship isn't 'bone stock' anymore."
“I was never a bone stock M5. Most truly were without the spark. Some of that was due to hardware. But I know what you mean.”
"All departments report readiness," Amanda intoned. "Mister Nichols, have the ship prepared to cast off."
----
===Designations and Senativities===
"We'll run the…
…experimental implantation on two hulls," Fleet Captain Foster explained. "The transceiver codes and subchannels are set to RQF-001 and RQF-002. R for 'Reconnaissance', Q for 'Automated' per the SLDF standard designation book, and F is normally reserved for Frigates, but it was used with some of the Caspar series. So we're going to keep that."
"But the cores already have their own designations!"
"Yes, and they'll be listed as commanders-of-record for the hulls they're going into, because those cores with their personality imprints. So they were configured originally for Destroyer hulls and they're going into light corvettes." He tapped the recently implanted interface connectors just below his right knee, and just above his left, "They're getting new body parts, initially those bodies won't 'feel right' just like how the prosthetics sitting in my quarters don't feel right, and won't feel right until I've had the time to spend in physical therapy instead of running the outfit. If it works, your technical people can recode the transceivers, but if the cores don't work out, or if they feel 'crippled' and don't adapt to the new hardware, they're still going to 'own' their names and identifier codes when we find a couple Lolas to transplant them into."
It clicked. "You're seeing those M-5 cores as people."
"I know, Erin." he said. "Spent enough time with her these last two years, and the Roberts Ruling being confirmed by the Outworlds Courts means legally I'm obligated to do so as an officer in Alliance Service."
Billie Hoel gazed at the ex-Clan officer with a new sort of respect. "You don't have to, you choose to."
"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," Foster asserted. "Siegel backs me on this, your girls are getting medical treatment. That means we follow the guidelines laid down by the Interstellar Psychiatric Treatment Association Board of Standards for extensive transplant cases-we keep an escape clause for the intelligences in case something goes wrong."
"That still makes no sense. You have no reason to take such pains, Truk's data…"
"Was on ONE case," he snapped. "And the M9 in question had a lot of specialty programming. Training and gear to make it work that we're having to learn on the fly for this."
"Still, your sensitivity…"
"Is not sensitive," he asserted. "Let me make it perfectly clear for you so you really, truly understand. My favorite apprentice, the girl who's going to be wearing these ranks when I retire? Half her brain is synthetic hardware tying damaged organics together because of some Blakist Butchers. I had to lose a LOT of my prejudices about Artificials when I signed onto this operation, because Amanda Roberts is real. So if she's real, and Desmond is also real, then living intelligence isn't entirely confined to organics."
"Wait… HALF??"
"Over forty percent of her brain would stop working if the implants were removed." he corrected. "Captain Roberts was damaged by what those terrorists did, trying to turn her into a killer machine. Her 'machine' parts connected to the surviving tissues and act as bridges between damaged sections of her thinking-meat. It's why she gets her ass knocked out on a Jump, while Helena Cameron doesn't even get a headache."
"Wait, why is she active?"
"Because she's responsible for this organization existing... and every time she wakes up, she's a little better integrated, a little more… fused, into a single person. She has fewer 'dead spaces' in conversations, her movements in transition between the girl and the killer are a little smoother, and she remembers more of her pre-surgery past." He tossed a chit on the table. "We've been tracking her progress. The girl who salvaged a Bonaventure from an abandoned asteroid base and the young woman leading this recon operation might as well be two people… or three, the third being the fusion between the initial two. It really shows up on EEG and Neural scans. Her actual brain activity doesn't change between her and Desmond nearly as much as it did when she was first examined at age seventeen, and the synthetic sectors don't go nearly as active when they kick in the augmentations."
“And because Lady Cameron had the benefit of one of the most sophisticated automated surgical suites the Star League could produce and a factory fresh Desmond, she had a much smoother time integrating, not to mention the centuries of living it. Of course this will be interesting to see. There is a reason Lady Cameron rarely flies her flag on any vessel other than Victoria. But saying what that is could be a breach of trust.” Billie Hoel nodded.
"Fair. So… you'll explain the risks to the minds we're implanting, and get their consent before the first wrench turns." he said. "Again, not my call there. It's something of a professional and ethical standard."
“They know what is being asked of them. One of the advantages of being an AI is near instantaneous communication only limited by the medium of transmission.”
He frowned. "Then you can link them to a printer so I can see it," he said. "Also so it can be filed in their treatment record with the shipyard, and the service."
“Would you also like to speak with them directly? Lady Cameron did bring spare human form drones because she knew this was a combat operation and we would be sure to take such losses.”
"Miss Gomez is supervising the process, she's the Chief Surgeon for this since she's got the training, so it's a matter of them consulting with their…" he grimaced. "Doctor? Doctor's the closest thing for us meat-people. If Esmerelda agrees the procedure has proper, informed, consent, we'll proceed… after I get some hard copy waivers and consent forms from the patients."
“Of course. I will even make sure they sign in front of witnesses,” Billie Hoel smiled.
----
===Preperation for Command===
A year working for Erinyes…
…has left Esmerelda Gomez with qualifications the university could never have considered or even conceived of. That meant being brought to Port Orphan aboard the Yardship to participate in a 'grand technical experiment' involving two almost-complete Bonaventure corvettes, and two Nirasaki 500 series AI cores pulled from the wreckage of Caspar drones.
It also got her a promotion to Director in the Technical Services sub-branch, with a specialty in advanced Electronics, Computers, and Communications arrays.
"Secure from jump," she said. The human auxiliary crew of OWS Erinyes were, by most standards, horribly green. Militiamen from half the Outworlds who enlisted, a few Clanner Test-downs who managed to make it into Privateer service before the Khans started recalling, and a spattering of volunteers for relief work.
A M-11 Colony Support vessel with a mobile shipyard racked back into the nose where a mass driver once lived.
"Port Orphan Control, this is OWS Erinyes requesting docking clearance with the station, over."
<<"OWS Erinyes, we read you Lima Charlie, set automatics to pulse beacon band sixteen Delta Lima and leave the driving to the automatics, over.">>
"Roger that, Port Orphan Control, Alice, how do you feel today?"
<<"Nervous, I'm going to be a mum, Esme!">>
Esmerelda chuckled, "Yes, you are. I'll need to speak with your prospective offspring when we dock and explain in detail what's going to happen with the other parents...I presume the Destroyer orbiting polar is the senior officer from the Star League fleet?"
<<"Yes! SLS Billie Hoel is the senior officer from the Star League.">>
"Good. We're coming up on dock six, I should be boots on deck in nine hours, fifteen minutes. Can you be a dear and connect me with the mind of Billie Hoel so we can discuss the actual details of the procedure?"
<<"She is already communicating with Erin!">>
"Oh, she is huh?" Esme hid a smile. "Good, Erin, would it be too much trouble to include me in the conversation, since I'm going to be wrenching on the brains of your sisters?"
"Si, Senora," Erin's vocoder spoke. "We were just discussing… things."
"Billie Hoel? Are you hearing me?" Esme asked.
<<“Loud and clear. Joana Johnston and Regina Raymond are both quite eager. It is not often we have an opportunity to put a core back in a hull.”>>
"I imagine so. It must be endlessly frustrating to be trapped as a spectator, or worse, stuck in simulations for months. Isn't it, Erin?"
<<"Yes.">> Erin replied.
"Here are the things that will be happening. First, I've reviewed Truk's instruction manuals for installation on the SLS Phoenix, so I'm going to be physically verifying the necessary components are actually installed. Then, we will begin with Joana Johnston. Based on the M9 data, the procedure will take somewhere around fifteen hours. I will have to take at least twelve to recover after the installation, during which time, Erinyes will run a Guardian scan to verify parity and that nothing was compromised or broken. After which, we'll run function checks to verify the BITE network, control systems, and related systems are properly hooked up. Joana will then begin, with a temporary crew, to practice movement outside the station, while I get to work on Regina."
"Foster said you'd be supervising!"
"Dave Foster is a good officer, and a good man, and means well. I'm not going to be supervising, I'm going to be Supervised by Erinyes and…is it 'Captain'? Hoel, to assure no accidents or damage is done during the work, and to verify the procedures."
“Captain would seem the most appropriate title given my nature and role.”
"Now, my qualifications include doing service maintenance on Erinyes. We replaced lateral port bus six seven two and server rack nineteen last year from stores after a slight case of damage-induced short circuits left over from the execution of the Manei Domini puta who used her for atrocities, so I am familiar with Nirasaki hardware, but not intimately familiar-that means what ladies?"
"That… you want to be certain?"
"It means we're going to spend forty five hours before I turn a single wrench or splice a single strand of fiber optics, making sure the procedure is correct!" Esme announced, "Comprende?"
“I will be glad to provide any access you wish for comparison purposes. Might be somewhat helpful to see the unique installation challenges for a Nirasaki system in another hull frame.”
"I can see we're going to get along fine!" Esmerelda smiled. "I'll see your remotes in the shipyard bay in twenty hours."
“They may be suffering from buffer overload by then from all the excitement but they will be there.” Billie Hoel said cheerfully.
"There's an adjustment for that," Esme stated. "Be ready to work. Gomez, out."
She got up. "Erin, I will need to sleep. Have Brubaker and Hoss assemble the get-list gear near the port airlock seven please? And two transport spiders, some of those boxes are heavy, which means awkward in low gee."
"Of course, Director Gomez… you don't mind if I socialize with my sister, do you?"
"Please, do. It's not often we get to speak with family out here… but set my alarm for eight hours from the time I turn off my lights, I need to be sharp for this."
-----
===Gifts and Preprations===
Harold 'Hoss' Snow Raven…
...was just a bit over a meter and a half tall… outside of his Protomech. Which was callsign 'Hoss', and had been retrofitted with lift hoists, hull cutters, and magnetic feet in place of the paired ER Medium Lasers that the Minotaur had originally been fitted with.
Stan Brubaker was from Northsun, a full two and a half meters of Northsun Belta-born and Belta-Bred, with long fingers that made him a skinny man in a suit of armor. His armor was outfitted with supplementary sensor arrays and improved powered gloves for both lifting, and fine detail work.
Both men had found themselves assisting Director Gomez as she helped replace damaged memory banks, power supplies, and secondary processors on OWS Erinyes. Harold's demotion to the Technician Caste came with an offer to join the Privateers, while Stan's offer came from essentially making a pest of himself at Northsun Base until someone would look at his application.
"She wants two cargo Spiders drones loaded with tools." Hoss complained.
“Could be worse." Brubaker noted, cinching down package 11.
"You're bringing that?"
"Guestrite gift." Brubaker commented. "Besides, I've already got the replacement in work."
"We're not guests, this is a job," Hoss griped.
"Thank you for the work gift," Brubaker amended. "I finished the carvings, it's no longer a good distraction for me, and I bought Northsun Maple for the one I've got in work."
"Your whole people are weird, Bru." Hoss noted. "What're they going to do with a wooden work-table with cabinets inset under the top?"
Brubaker shrugged, "Dunno, not my issue. The piece is done and I can't add more without spoiling it, but it's not exactly something I can sell either… did she ask for the Fourteen bench?"
"Aff." Hoss said. "Hence why I'm carrying extra load on my proto-body, that fourteen bench takes up too much space on the spider drone."
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
3-5