ShipCore

USD: The Next Day

Location: Meltisar, Meltisar A, M3, MNS ‘Shipworks’ Facility, MNS Alacrity

Alex scanned the vast expanse of the orbital shipworks through the observation deck’s ceiling height window. They were in a low orbit, only a couple dozen of kilometers up, and the ground buzzed by below at a rapid clip. A constant stream of orbital lifters carried supplies from the ground and up into orbit, on a mostly automated schedule. Even more ships came from higher orbit around Meltisar’s gas giant.

All three of Meltisar’s main moons were locked in a 1:2:4 resonant orbit, and M3 was the furthest out. That placed it closest to the outer security zone that the navy maintained around the gas giant, where only state-run transportation was permitted. It made security more simple, and they had already lightened the transport requirements, allowing resources to flow to the station more easily.

The lack of security didn’t seem like a big deal; there was so much ship traffic through the system that there was almost a guarantee that at least one spy ship was deploying high powered sensors that’d be able to image the base as they passed through the system, anyway.

It was no secret that they were trying to expand the fleet as fast as possible.

Kilometer long hulls of steel gleamed under unfiltered red light. The size and firepower of those ships was tremendous, but as she had come to learn, hardly adequate for the challenges that they would all face. Tia had concentrated their production on cruisers, specifically heavy cruisers. Alex had agreed; they were much smaller than battleships, but were relatively fast and much easier to build, especially with the challenges they currently faced.

Even if they were smaller, that didn’t make them small, though. Each one dwarfed the size of the shrike. If she had placed it beside one of them, it would have only taken up one of the massive, armored hull plates that sheathed the vessels in heavy laminate armor.

[Informative: All visible vessels are currently undergoing final stress testing and analysis before shakedown cruises commence.]

“I’m surprised that none of them had any delays, and they aren’t coming off the line one at a time.” Alex murmured.

[Notice: This unit has optimized all shipworks procedures and mitigated any potential delays via outstanding construction methodologies.]

Alex smiled slightly as she watched the hundreds of drones buzzing around the ships, working like small fireflies that would occasionally light up whenever they needed to power up their multi-tool or welder.

“I’m sure you did. Good job.” Alex said.

[Notice: Sarcasm directed toward this unit’s capabilities is misplaced.]

“I wasn’t being sarcastic; I was being sincere.”

[Informative: Previous Avatar interactions suggest the opposite, however this unit has less current data for statistical analysis.]

Alex frowned as the Alacrity glided into its mooring position and came to a relative stop. A loud clunk echoed through the observation deck as the mooring magnet attached before the airlock gangways extended.

“You have been a bit distant lately. Are you saying you haven’t been paying attention to me?” Alex asked as she furrowed her brow. Taking a last glance out at the shipyard, she turned to head to the nearest airlock.

[Notice: This unit has been utilizing a preponderance of available computronics capacity for maintaining and directing system infrastructure and planning.]

“Things have been running smoothly from what I’ve seen, so thank you. And again, good job.”

[Informative: Avatar praise will not increase system efficiency even if it is sincere.]

Alex rolled her eyes while dodging past several crewmembers who were in a hurry to go about their duties as the ship moored to its slip. The airlock she was aiming for was attached to the aft cargo bay and when she arrived, there was already a crowd of people waiting to disembark. Most of them were enlisted personnel, and they nodded to her and stepped aside as she approached. Even if she was a bivouac ensign, discipline still required them to let her off first.

There was a small line of officers waiting as well, and she went to the back of that line. A hiss of gas sounded as the airlock hatches on both sides cycled, creating an uninterrupted tube between the two atmospheres. Two shipboard marines disembarked and secured the gantry, then the all-clear was given and everyone was allowed to leave.

As they came off, there was a noticeable difference in temperature; the station air was a few degrees cooler and had a heavier tang of oiled metal. A security checkpoint stopped the groups of disembarking crewmen at the end of the mooring arm. It was mostly security theatre; her HUD highlighted every person she looked at and showed their name and clearance. Nameless and whatever station security there was could do the same for all of them at once without getting dizzy.

Officers had their own line, but there were still twenty people ahead of her, and while she probably could have cut the line without issue, it would have been a bit discourteous to the higher-ranking officers. So she stared out at the window at the ships under construction and watched the drones work.

“We’re going to need more firepower and ships,” she murmured quietly. “But most importantly… we need to sustain production and replace any losses.”

[Affirmative: However, this unit has analyzed the available resources inside the Meltisar system and found specific shortages of rare metals and transplutonics that will hinder industrial efforts and run counter to self-sustainability.]

Alex suppressed her frustration. “I know we have shortages. But, why?”

[Informative: The majority of easily accessible rare resources have already been excavated and depleted. The construction of Meltisar’s infrastructure and fleet required a considerable amount of materials.]

“If everything has been depleted, then how are things still operating?”

[Notice: The Meltisar Navy and Government have maintained large stockpiles of essential resources to cover contingencies and emergencies. These reserves are insufficient for the current mass expansion of naval units and will not last indefinitely.]

Alex grimaced. “So all our production currently relies on warehoused materials?”

[Affirmative.]

It was her turn in line, and the gate guard scanned her ID. She started to step toward the biometric scanner but it blipped green before she could reach it and her profile appeared on the guard’s screen.

Chi Alex Myers.

Both Marines saluted her, one more rigid than the other. Alex returned the salute, but a frown creased a corner of her mouth. She was an officer, albeit one in training, but the sudden formality only appeared because she was a NAI. Maybe.

They saw her through and turned to the next officer in line. She put the interaction out of her mind and returned to bigger problems. “Even if all the accessible resources are tapped, surely there is something left? I know Meltisar is a small system, but the gas giant is large, and there are three moons.”

[Informative: This unit projects that shortages will begin to hamper production within a year and widespread exhaustion could occur within five years.]

Alex almost stopped, but she’d been getting better that managing her HUD and info systems on the fly, so instead she kept moving while opening the relevant graphs relating to major system stockpiles. Rare elements and metals followed a downward trend line that was unhappily underscored by a ‘at current consumption without increased needs’ moniker that didn’t seem like it was likely to hold up.

As soon as the rare elements ran out, a second resource flatlined. “Nameless, why do our consumables run out so soon after that?”

[Informative: Cessation of rare element availability will rapidly lead to a cascading failure in orbital bio harvesting facilities due to lack of maintenance materials.]

Alex felt a cold lump forming in her stomach. As soon as they ran out of rare materials, people would begin to run out of food and water. Rapidly. The maintenance requirements weren’t that high; they’d even probably be able to recycle and keep the facilities for a long time if they were willing to scrap warships, but...

The sense of frustration returned in full force. “What about the moons? There have to be trace elements? Heck, Empress Psi converted Luna to a battlestation? Why can’t we do core mining?”

[Notice: Trace elements within Meltisar’s first moon are negligible. More elements would be expended in the extraction than produced. M3 would require extensive coring and gains would be marginal and non-sustainable. Meltisar itself contains a higher concentration of rare elements, however extensive mining would have extreme risks for the environment and could render the surface uninhabitable due to secondary mining effects. This would result in a catastrophic disaster for the population.]

“Our resources are already dropping, but we need the new construction.” Alex murmured as she flipped the resource graphs away. She came to a stop at a window to glance out at the nearest under construction cruiser.

[Notice: Scheduled resource shipments have begun to be interrupted.]

“All of them?” Alex asked.

[Informative: A large percentage of all shipping carriers have been late or cancelled. The local market has been in a buying frenzy, however the Adjutant General has frozen market rates and begun organizing rationing to civilian organizations.]

Alex frowned. The other nations were already beginning to tighten their grip. They had expected this, but Tia had been hoping it would take a few months longer. “People aren’t going to like rationing, but at least it isn’t food.”

[Affirmative: Bioorganic supplies are a non-issue until maintenance of orbital facilities begins to degrade.]

She was torn about whether to contact Tia and talk to her about the potential resource shortages. But… the other girl had a lot on her plate already. Checking her calendar, she decided not to bother her; their next scheduled check-in was in just a few days. There was no reason to heap more workload on Tia unless she had a solution to their problem.

And she didn’t. Alex turned away from the shipyard view and found a map that led to the nearest café. She needed something tasty before going and visiting the station’s commanding officer. Reaching the tram station, Nameless helpfully highlighted each ship and displayed its hull number and class while she looked out the car’s window.

All of them were the heavy assault type cruisers that formed most of the Meltisar Navy’s line of battle. They were much less durable and a quarter of the size of a battleship, but they could be built in a quarter of the time, didn’t include some of the more resource intensive systems such as the double D-field Layers, and packed a massive amount of firepower on their frames. Cost-by-firepower was most in their favor.

A few implemented improvements made by Nameless appeared on her HUD, but she ignored them. They were minor upgrades; that made sense. Meltisar had been improving the designs for decades already and technology had not advanced by the leaps and bounds that one might have expected.

Alex thought that might have something to do with the NAI powers purposefully suppressing advancement for some unknown reason; actually, she was sure of it. Just reviewing the list of illegal and prohibited technologies outside of NAI supervision would reveal that intention.

But while Admiral Westlake and Captain Turner had seemed aware of that, most of the ‘regular’ people she had met didn’t seem to have any clue that interstellar civilization had been tampered with.

There was another issue with mass producing hulls that would only reveal itself once they had solved the resource shortage: personnel. There were only so many new recruits available. The Navy had already been stepping up recruitment and enlistment bonuses, and the people of Meltisar weren’t exactly stupid. Events had been covered in the news to death; she knew that well, being the center of half the news pieces and subjected to a horde of paparazzi reporters whenever she visited a civilian location.

Half of the news was hostile; the other half was well prepared by the navy’s media office. That the navy and government were nearly completely divided between partisan parties was still only vocal. There were many who felt that it was their duty to enlist to help protect their home, and recruitment had surged for a while.

The Navy had added tens of thousands of recruits until every training camp was full to the brim. Alex wasn’t sure how long that would last, though, but for now, the tide seemed like it was still coming in.

But each ship would require nearly four thousand crew; and many of those would be officers. That issue might have been solved with a draft, but Alex felt like they would most likely be relying heavily on their NAI MainComputers; Nameless had controlled the Shrike. With the increase in computronic capacity that they had built, each one of them could control multiple ships as long as they remained in a relatively tight formation. Probably.

The nagging feeling that no matter how many ships they built here and managed to crew; it wouldn’t be enough. Not alone against the rest of space. She suddenly wanted to be back with Tia and help speak to Veliana. The Solarians had something they desperately needed: resource access and a path back to 92 Pegasi. A weak smile creased her lips as the Tram neared her stop at the station’s central section, which contained a large shopping center and food court.

Maybe A31 had managed to continue mining for Ackman station and had been stashing up resources for her return. There had been ample amounts of untapped potential there that they desperately needed in Meltisar.

There was a second security station before they were allowed onto the concourse, but much like the first one she was ushered through quickly; there was no line of waiting officers this time.

She needed a break from her spiraling thoughts. The café blinked helpfully on her mini-map, and she headed straight there. A nice young woman that seemed to be about the same age as her quickly made a hot chocolate for her, and Alex couldn’t help but select a small selection of assorted donuts.

The view of the shipyards bay was easily visible from the café’s lounge area, and her selection of a window seat almost threatened to disappear the smile that had formed with her acquisition of a treasure trove of sweets.

As she sipped her hot chocolate, Alex gazed out the window at the ongoing construction of their fleet. Another thought crossed her mind—their rapid expansion of computronics was also competing with new ship production. They could potentially support—and create—many Chi NAIs to control ships if needed, but that idea made her uneasy.

The notion of creating more sub-cores like Tia or Heeler left Alex feeling wary; she remembered that both she and Tia had agreed not to create any without discussing it first. That conversation loomed over them as an unspoken agreement.

Her mind wandered; she brought up the resource list again, taking in all the numbers but still unable to think of a solution. More ships would certainly be helpful, but what they actually needed was a secret weapon. Something they could use as a trump card at an opportune moment. Something that would buy them breathing room and time to dig it and prepare.

A fleeting idea passed through her mind: perhaps if she could get close to one of the PSI rulers, maybe she could override them and stage a coup from within. She quickly discarded the notion as unrealistic; gaining access to any of ‘the big four’ would involve extensive planning and probing—there’s no way her Omega rank could remain hidden before she reached one of them.

Creating a PSI override scarab was apparently nearly impossible as well, at least without finding a way to improve their Computronics compression; tremendously. Although they could produce ones that worked up to Chi was a bit easier, but not going to be the same type of coup. She’d already done that by upgrading Tia. Whatever Chi NAI that tested that was going to regret it.

But… scarabs were out.

Alex sighed, her attention sliding across her HUD to the antimatter production facilities of Meltisar. The red dwarf star at the heart of the system was relatively dim, but its solar collectors generated a considerable amount of antimatter.

As she pulled up schematics of the massive structures—far larger than any she and Nameless had built and placed in orbit around 92 Pegasi—she couldn’t help but marvel at their scale. Fuel resources like fuel rods and antimatter containment units would not be a concern, at least not until the very end. At least they didn’t have to worry about running out of energy.

With another sigh, Alex turned away from the window and decided to visit the command center and to meet with the Admiral in charge of the facility. She could have done it anywhere using her HUD, but meeting in person felt more natural to her. Unlike Thea or Tia, Alex wasn’t entirely comfortable with virtual spaces, so appearing as a hologram was out of the question.

As she walked toward her destination through corridors filled with briskly moving personnel, she froze mid-step. A man behind her almost collided with her back, but she ignored his outburst as he passed her by, still frozen in thought.

They had lots of anti-matter. What was a weapon that used resources they had in abundance, was not used by anyone else, and would give them a decisive advantage?

There was one.

She had used it herself on the Shrike.

She’d planned to make more along with missiles with the anti-matter production they had set up back in 92 Pegasi. That was already done in Meltisar.

“Nameless, why is no one making Federation LRPSGSM rounds?” Alex asked, her voice almost a whisper.

[Informative: Smart munitions are a highly illegal weapon system that is strictly prohibited by international treaty. The only higher technological restrictions are NAI technologies such as NAI creation and Wormhole drive units.]

Alex blinked, stuck on the spot like a statue.

She fumbled with her next words. “W…wormhole drive. What do we need to make a wormhole drive?”

Were they all stupid? Maybe Tia and Thea hadn’t thought about it because… well, they had lived their entire lives so far with the very thought of using those technologies as anathema, but…

But she had used them. She’d been saved by them. Why hadn’t she thought of this already?

“Nameless, call Tia.”