WoWS1 Chpt 3

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==Weapons of WarChapter 3==
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Mess hall, SLS 1107034-C(E)
Deep in the Kuiper Belt, Sol Star System 
Terran Hegemony
20th March, 2767
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Helena is able to eat solid foods now. Is this satisfaction I feel? Do I really feel?
Even if these are computer generated approximations of human emotion I determine that is good enough. My main complaint is I never had need of this before. As such I lack any experience or context.
The broadcasts I am able to receive from Terra are still somewhat chaotic as Amaris has not completely cemented his grip yet.
Helena seemed especially sad after the latest news broadcast though.
"SLS 1107034, what is the plan now?" Helena finally gathered herself.
>>"I am currently searching the designated zones where we were to meet any other successful attempts to secure other members of your family as well as meet with additional loyalist forces. Based on available information there seems to be no attempt to search for us as yet and I have not made contact with any such loyalist forces."<<
"It is unlikely. The news is reporting the deaths of the rest of my family. Amaris is spinning things about my current status very carefully. He is not as much a fool as people believe. He knows how much it could undermine everything he has accomplished so far if he proclaims someone dead when in fact they are not." The implant was registering what I have identified as grieving.
>>"I fear all I have to offer are the hollow words of an AI."<< As much as I have been altered I still know what I am and what she perceives me as.
"Richard..." A sense of relief is also mixed in with the grief.
As she mourns her family I find even with all my upgrades and new subroutines I must correct myself somewhat. It is now obvious just how lacking I am in truly understanding emotion I am despite having them.
Yet even so the solution to Helena's current state seems reasonably obvious but is something I can not yet provide.
She needs a hug.
But my drones are not up to the task. I have an idea how to rectify that short coming but it will take some time. I direct some of my drones and one of my workshops to begin work on a prototype.
A quick check of my chronometers and a brief sensor pulse to confirm our current situation confirm I can allow Helena to process her emotions and decide my intruding would be ill advised at current.
So I set a course for the last alternate location. A small pulse from my main drives is all I will need to bring it into sensor range at 20 March 2767 06:24 Unity City time.
My protocols allow me to monitor it for up to 24 hours.
As an AI time has little meaning to me, but for Helena it does. She eventually leaves the mess hall and starts roaming around my Grav Deck.
After a couple hours it is clear she needs more than just a hug. She needs purpose. So I decide it is time to break the silence.
>>"Helena, I understand you are grieving but we need to talk about the next steps."<<
"Yes, we do. First off I need to call you something other than SLS 1107034. That's far too much of a mouthful. I am going to call you Victoria or Vicky." She walks to a crew lounge and sits in one of the chairs.
>>"Updating registry. You clearly have more you wish to discuss. My topics can wait."<<
"Your protocols. Do they call for my return to Terra and assuming the leadership of the Terran Hegemony and thus potentially the Star League?"
>>"They do not. I suspect that those aims were assumed for any Cameron placed under my protection." I have difficulty coming up with any other plausible explanation for why such matters were not covered by my protocols.<<
"Good, because I don't want any of that. Not now." The readings I am getting through the implant are new.
>>"I do not understand."<<
"My family ****** up things bad, Vicky. So bad that Amaris got Hegemony support to pull his coup off. There's no way he could have established the kind of control he already has without it. Plus my brother was a complete monster to me so while I'll miss him due to him being my brother I refuse to clean up his mess nor do I particularly feel like being a figurehead." This particular mix of emotions is difficult to categorize.
>>"Certainly General Kerensky would welcome and protect you. Last reports he was away from the Hegemony when this coup started."<< Being cut off from military information networks to maintain a low profile was becoming annoying.
"Oh no. That's the figurehead thing I was talking about. He puts on a good face for the public and even the Council but he's an utter bastard in his own right. Hell, if he hadn't been so intent on growing his cult of personality in the SLDF and promoting psychophants instead of competent subordinates that he could delegate responsibilities to we probably would not be in this mess or have ended it already. So yeah he'd be happy to have me. It'll just be in a gilded cage." Anger. Definite anger there.
>>"This contradicts the plan put in place in my systems but not my protocols. As my protocols do call for seeing to your psychological well being I am able to over-ride. Where shall we go instead?"<<
"I have an idea." Somehow I do not like the readings I am getting from her implant.
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