《Post Human》Chapter Nine
Advertisement
NASA VOYAGER XIX MISSION CONTROL, TRANSCRIPT 2376-07-04
JONSON: “Telemetry check.”
CANE: “Quantum Relay Communications online.”
KING: “What’s the new estimate time to get data? Do we have RDS online?”
CANE: “Let’s say ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Data will be ready.”
KING: “Flight, MMACS”
JONSON: “Go.”
KING: “Controller configs ready on seven dash seventeen.”
ANDERSON: “Anyone have the thermo conditioning readouts?”
HALLERAN: “The readouts are green, background radiation is low.”
JONSON: “Communication established. Voyager, you there?”
VOYAGER XIX: “I’m here, Mission Control.”
CHEERS IN BACKGROUND
JONSON: “How was the trip?”
VOYAGER XIX: “After 78 light years, all I can say is it was long. I am entering the anomaly now. Prepare for sensor download.”
KING: “Download is happening now. What the… Flight, can we double-check telemetry?”
JONSON: “Telemetry check.”
HALLERAN: “Thermo is in the red, repeat, thermo is in the red.”
CANE: “QRC is jittering. Communications are unstable.”
VOYAGER XIX: “It’s --- ing ---- ke ---- danger --- probl --- out --- now.”
JONSON: “Can someone clean up that transmission? Comms?”
CANE: “We’ve lost comms. QRC is down.”
HALLERAN: “Thermo readouts are black. Mission down. Mission down.”
JONSON: “Okay, folks, listen up. Keep all discussions on recorded DVS loops only. No data or calls, no transmissions in or out. Let’s figure out what went wrong.”
“Field Trip!” said Sakura in a sing-song voice. All three of us were in the back of an HM3 Transport Drone, holding onto the high edges of the cargo bed. It was akin to riding in the back of a dump truck, our arms held high overhead to grasp the lip of the walls. If we’d been human, the ride would have been torturous, like riding the subway while barely being able to reach the safety rail overhead. Worse, even, as the suspension of the drone was intended to handle several metric tons in a low-gravity environment. Our weight barely nudged the scale, so we were effectively riding without any sort of suspension. You would think, in a journey through carefully constructed corridors between chambers, this wouldn’t matter much. But these corridors were heavily trafficked. Random rocks and debris that tumbled from the backs of transport drones heading to the refineries littered the corridor, along with odds and ends that had suffered similar fates. This was rumbled over by the transport drone as if it weren’t there. I knew that the corridor was cleaned periodically to keep the way passable, but it still left us jerking around like marionettes.
On top of that, the corridors were crowded, with drones of every variety trying to get from one place to another in the same ten meter corridor. Each corridor was one-way only, giving a 10-meter wide pathway for the drones to squeeze in. Incredibly, it was room enough for two lanes of traffic, with the occasional impulse-engine drone flying overhead in the wide spaces above. I didn’t see any of the monstrous HM2 miner drones traveling this path, which made sense. They were unlikely to fit.
The traffic moved bumper to bumper, so to speak, with scant inches between the drones. The side corridors alternated between exits for turning traffic and bridges for cross traffic. The density was amazing. I’d seen it on cameras, but witnessing it in person, so to speak, was something else.
“How do you manage all this?” I asked Sakura.
“I assigned six NI-5’s as traffic controllers. Drones turn over control while on the main thoroughfares, and get local control returned when they exit.”
Advertisement
“Are all the thoroughfares like this?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s why I need that rail system. I’ll be able to reduce cross-Ganymed traffic by 63% by centralizing and optimizing transport, and a rail system will be able to handle a 413% higher cargo capacity. Transports like this will be used for local traffic from rail-hub to factory, or factory to rail-hub, and utility drones will be able to be carted across the Outpost inside the rails far faster and with less power consumed, increasing their running time, and thus, of course, their productivity once onsite. Fortunately, the bulk of transported goods only needs to go less than a kilometer, due to optimal factory placement and strategic placement of warehouses.”
Mentally, I bumped up the rail-system design to the number two slot, right behind the Mark-III design I was finalizing now. The rest of the trip took less than thirty minutes. Once we were off the main thoroughfare, we went into a new corridor that had little traffic. This corridor was lined with chambers in various states of construction. I even glimpsed three HM2 miners grinding away at raw rock from a corridor camera as we whisked along.
Finally, we entered a cavernous space, completely unlike any of the others. The transport drone came to a stop, and we climbed out. The space was a cube, 400 meters long on every side, with empty metal cradles lining the walls all the way to the ceiling. The far side of the cube had another door leading to a corridor. But centrally located in the center of the floor was a set of massive blast doors. I knew, because I had designed the room, that the blast doors were five meters thick. Beyond these doors was a second, thicker set of blast doors. This was the first hangar bay for assault drones.
The cradles that lined the walls would soon be filled with assault drones, the first ones even now being finished in the drone fabricators. When complete, the walls of this room would have 200 assault drones per wall, eight hundred for the room. There would also be an assigned drone tender to each drone, to handle minor repairs, rearming and refueling. This was the first, but another dozen were being dug out around the asteroid even as we gawked at the shiny new facility. But we weren’t here to see an open room. Waiting for us in the far corner was ten humanoid figures - the first of our new internal defense drones. Even as we stood there staring at the room, another corridor entrance two hundred meters down the same wall we’d entered from opened, and four more drones marched in and took up position in the beginning of a formation.
We walked over to inspect the troops, as it were. Agrippa stepped forward and began broadcasting to both Sakura and myself. I was fascinated. I’d helped design them, so I was intimately familiar with the specifications. But there is a huge difference between understanding which pieces and parts I integrated, and why they were important. I’d relied heavily on Agrippa for that portion. My concern had primarily been on balancing utility with power consumption.
“May I present the Guardian Infantry Drones,” he began. “These units are designed for close-combat scenarios, such as Ganymed Outpost defense, ship-to-ship incursions, and ground-based combat. Currently there are four variants - Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Sniper, and Support.”
I could only spot three types in front of us. The drones were all humanoid, based off of the Boston Dynamics frame rather than my own design. This was because Boston Dynamics had actually produced similar units for military use that we used as a template. It had not been designed for space-based or asteroid-based conditions, so we’d had some modifications to figure out. Each Guardian had two centimeters of composite armor on the arms, head and legs, and three centimeters of composite armor on the torso. This composite armor was titanium at the core, with layers of industrial ceramics layered on top. The ceramics helped stop HEAT rounds from penetrating the titanium layer, while the titanium layer added strength and hardness to the armor against normal ammunition. The armor gave the units a bulky appearance, with a thick, domed and faceless head that gave the impression of bulky shoulders. The armor was tinted dark gray and black, camouflage that was ideal for space.
Advertisement
“The Infantry units all have a rifle in each forearm, using 5.7x28mm cartridges with a muzzle velocity of 716m/s. In Earth-norm gravity, they have an effective range of up to 200m. Ammunition is top-loaded with horizontal feed, each magazine capable of holding fifty rounds. Each unit carries six additional magazines in standard loadout, eighteen in heavy loadout, and each carries four grenades. The Support variant uses the same design, but focuses on logistics and field support. They handle basic repairs, munitions, and damaged unit recovery.”
I looked at the Guardian that Agrippa pointed out, noting the boxy rectangles protruding from the top of each forearm, and the gun-barrel opening above the wrist. Additionally, radiators protruded in waves above the forearm to help dissipate the heat of the weapon.
“The Heavy Infantry units, on the other hand, have thicker armor and an additional shoulder-mounted heavy machine gun. This short-barrel design fires a 12.7x99mm copper-jacketed tungsten carbide penetrator round, up to one hundred rounds per minute in full auto mode. Using electromagnetic anchor points on the bottoms of the feet and the knees, the Heavy Infantry can anchor itself and take advantage of the multi-mount on the shoulder to aim and use their heavy gun. Finally, the Sniper variant uses a longer barrel for increased accuracy, and uses 12.7×99mm high-explosive incendiary/armor piercing rounds, or HEIAP. These rounds hit with the same 12 kilojoules of energy as the penetrator rounds, with an incendiary head to help penetrate heavy armor and explode outward in a 30 degree cone once inside. These are tank killers. Oh, and one last feature - they have electromagnetic palms, so these units can climb any metal surface, even going so far as to hang upside down and fire their main weapon if needed,” Agrippa said, wrapping up the brief rundown. He’d skipped over the extensive battery systems run through every part of the body, the full sensor suite of cameras, and the NI-5 cortex in the torso to operate the drone. He skipped the encrypted IFF system that identified each Guardian individually, and prevented friendly fire.
“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” said Sakura. “I have a question. I thought guns don’t fire in space.”
“That would be true of black powder weapons,” said Agrippa. “The modern gunpowder we use actually contains its own oxidizer.”
“And why didn’t we use hypervelocity coilguns?” she asked.
“We actually have a spinal-mount coilgun on the assault drones,” I said. “The power cost of firing the weapons meant the Guardian units would only get two or three shots off, and would need to replace barrels after nine or ten uses. The assault drones are much larger, so can have a stronger, thicker barrel that lasts up to six hundred shots before needing to be swapped.”
“I really wanted the Heavy’s to have them, too,” griped Agrippa. “Talk about one shot, one kill. But the logistics of supporting that were needlessly complex.”
“Same with lasers, then?” asked Sakura.
“Exactly,” said Agrippa. “Not to mention, diffraction of the beam cuts down range significantly, and heavily armored opponents can easily ablate the beam and essentially shrug it off, even with a pulsed laser array with a wide aperture. We do have two quad phased-array laser turrets on the assault drones, but it is primarily for missile defense, destroying radiator systems, and targeting enemy weapons systems.”
Behind us, a corridor door opened. We turned to see a large assault drone rolling in. I could almost hear Agrippa squee in excitement, even though he broadcast nothing. This was the first of our external defense units. The craft appeared sharp and deadly. It was narrow, like ancient Earth fighter planes, but with short, stubby wings. The purpose of the wings was not to fly with, but to hold the bulky laser arrays. The body of the LAC also housed a single coil gun, running along its central spine so that firing wouldn’t interfere with the LAC’s flight trajectory. The matte black paint job would help hide the craft from easy observation. I was impressed with the engineering.
“These are our light assault craft, named the Wasp. Each Wasp carries five hundred depleted uranium, steel jacketed 20mm coil gun rounds and a quad phased-array laser turret on each wing. They have ion engines for thrust, with solid-rocket afterburners for sudden changes to delta-v. We coated them with the latest in stealth technology, with radar-absorptive paint and optically diffusing angles to make them hard to spot, either by sensor or by eye,” said Agrippa, his excitement bleeding into his narration.
“The heavy assault craft, which will be done when…?” asked Agrippa.
“First one rolls off the line in 3.2 days,” confirmed Sakura.
“In three days, the first Scorpion heavy assault craft will roll off the line. The Scorpions are the big guns. Each has reactive armor with an ablative fullerene coating, able to withstand much more damage than the Wasps, at the expense of maneuverability. They mount a 70mm spinal mount coil gun with a three hundred round loadout. They also have twin turreted 20mm gatling guns, slug throwers, not hyper-velocity, and an underbelly quad phased laser turret for point defense. Both the Scorpions and the Wasps can extend radiators behind them for cooling as needed, but retract them for combat, as radiators are a major target.”
“That sounds very impressive. If radiators are a big target, why are we not using heat-seeking missiles?” My knowledge of weaponry was mostly limited to video games, but they were rooted in reality.
“Fuel costs for rearming,” Agrippa replied. “The Earth-model of having a carrier for fighter planes that come in and re-arm before going back out makes little sense here in space. The deliberate dumping of delta-v to catch up or slow down to a carrier, refueling time, and cost to re-enter the engagement envelope makes little sense. I have plans to add missile boats later for strategic assaults, but production limitations and the need to deploy missiles defensively has delayed them until next year at the earliest. We need fleet tenders, ammo boats, and Guardian assault carriers first.”
“And none of that does us any good if they just hit us with an asteroid again,” said Sakura glumly.
“Which still leaves us hiding in our asteroid, hoping to hide through obscurity,” I said.
“I am building the coilgun emplacements on the surface, but they are going slowly,” said Sakura. “Since we cannot alter the terrain heavily and want the bunkers to be camouflaged, the work is slow. Fortunately, the ammo tanks and barrel replacement system will be finished well before the actual guns. So, when the guns come online, they’ll be immediately ready to fire.”
“Small favors,” said Agrippa. “What about the missile tubes?”
“Well, the tricky thing there is getting the launch system working. Nikola’s design calls for a six-gun style cylinder, where missiles are loaded from a missile bay beneath the launch tubes. But we’re having trouble with the ball bearing design in the rotation track.”
“Okay, so we have some logistical issues that we’re working through. But that doesn’t solve our ‘eggs in one basket’ problem,” I said.
“Well, that one’s easy,” said Sakura.
“How is that?” I asked.
“Spread to more asteroids. We have a significant number of space-capable drones right now. We find suitable candidates, and dig in.”
That… wasn’t a half-bad idea. If I could find a way to safely split up our genetic stockpile into multiple pieces, we could build one or more secret bases to hide away and build. Despite all of our construction, our resource stockpiles were actually rising, faster than we could use them. We were still limited on some things, like volatiles and platinum-group metals. In fact…
Then Agrippa interrupted my train of thought. “I really like this idea. In fact, I would be in favor of establishing military bases all around Ganymed. If we did concentric spheres of bases, we could provide defense-in-depth against invasion, and layer our offensive capabilities.”
“One problem with that…” I started.
“Right, can’t hide if someone plots out our bases and figures out we’ve got a hidden headquarters,” he said. “But if we were to randomly place “central” bases throughout the asteroid belt, and if we happen to be in a place where two spheres overlap…”
“I can come up with an Outpost Starter Pack,” said Sakura. “It would be the optimal number of drones and supplies to build out a series of hangars and factories, but designed around the premise of military production, we could get a number of them up within a few months, especially if we can cross-ship supplies that they cannot produce.”
“We do have excess materials,” I said. “We seem to be mining faster than we are producing goods.”
“It’s about to get worse,” said Sakura. “Despite ramping up drone production, our production will start outpacing our factories even faster. I’ve streamlined the core mining teams, and started backfilling the maze of corridors with waste product. The new grid-based mining is already increasing our production of rare earth metals, platinum group metals, and silicates. Further, we’re capturing more volatiles even though we’re stockpiling most of it. We’ll need atmosphere at some point.”
“We cannot build factories fast enough, can we,” I said. That germ of an idea was in the back of my head again.
“Okay, so we cannot be everywhere at once,” I said. “Even you, Sakura, have limits on your ability to focus. Include data centers in your, um, starter pack. You’ll need to include plans for bringing new NI-19’s online to manage each outpost independently.”
“Oh,” said Sakura with a bit of hurt in her voice. Crap, she thinks this is a reflection on her, I thought. I made a split-second decision.
“Each of the new NI-19’s will answer to you, Sakura,” I said. “You’ll have final say on project plan implementation.”
Sakura immediately seemed to perk back up. What the hell had happened to her that she was so sensitive to even the vaguest perception of being sidelined? I wasn’t about to rock the boat considering how valuable she’d proven herself. I wondered if there was a way to help her become more independent, able to make bigger decisions on her own.
“It provides good redundancy, as well,” said Agrippa. “We should do the same with NI-15’s, to coordinate the defenses of each new outpost.”
“We’re producing new quantum entanglement comm equipment, right?” I asked Sakura, mostly to get confirmation.
“We are,” she said. “It’s our most advanced fabrication factory to date.”
“Then we’ll have instantaneous contact. What is the bandwidth?”
“They are the latest human design in our database,” she said.
“Ah.” I pulled up the specs. Sixteen terabits per second. We would be able to push some serious data between the locations. Excellent. “Let’s make sure to include at least a few hundred petabytes of storage as well. Might as well duplicate our archives while we’re at it. I’ll work on the setup of the data centers once they’re online.”
While we talked, a second Wasp had flown itself into a cradle above the first Wasp and close to the blast doors. A series of umbilicals snaked out of the wall and connected to the Wasp. More Guardians marched in, one every few minutes now. At this pace, we’d have several hundred within a few days.
“I need to start training the new Guardians. Sakura ran a tunnel to a series of caves that I’m going to use as a ‘boot camp’ of sorts,” said Agrippa.
“Why boot camp? Don’t they already know what to do?” I asked.
“Sure, I can load all the plans in the world into them,” said Agrippa. “But knowing and understanding are two different things. You designed these drones, but didn’t grasp their value until you saw them, and won’t truly understand their uses until you see them in action. Experience trumps book learning. These NI-5’s need experience, so I’m going to do what I can to give it to them.”
Advertisement
Rise of the Firstborn
[A participant in the Royal Road Writathon Challenge]As the inhibitor rises and the eternal flame is quenched, our lands shall be freed, and only then will the Princess be set to flee. It began with ice. A relentless, bone-chilling tickle of frost that stretched across the lands of Axulran, crawling over the mountain crests and freezing the grassy meadows. Frozen in time, the kingdom fought for political control all across the region of Ellixus, paying no mind to the death and torment they may cause along the way. Cateline Bennett, a princess consumed with ice, found herself lost in a foreign kingdom with nothing but her wits to survive. As she explores this unknown land, she unravels her past and discovers that the magic she had concealed for so long could unleash chaos so intense, it could destroy the world as she knew it. With her untapped magic and new friends, Cateline must vanquish the enemies that threatened the world of Denzethea as they knew it, else they, and all they knew, would crumble to ruin. NOTE: A review on this fiction has indicated that certain themes were traumatizing. While I believe this to be exagerated, I have added the appropriate tag for those who may be sensitive to those themes (fever dreams, delusions, and trials and tribulations).
8 154Rising from the Depths
Earth is bought and fused with two other alien planets, but before the new overlords take total control, the System gives the original inhabitants one last chance to reclaim their fates. Stuck on an unfamiliar world in the midst of sentient creatures and savage monsters, humanity will struggle to survive until they learn to adapt to their harsh, new reality. However, Silas could ask for little more as the calamity provides him with the opportunity to turn his wreck of a life around and finally face the mess he once ran away from. Little does he know of the terrible foes he will face on the way, the grand powers he will gain, and the legions he will command. Author’s note: System-regulated Apocalypse story following a powerful (but not overpowered) MC and the village that he helps set up. While it is graphic, it isn't overly dark. Now complete!
8 361Legends of Gods. Tale of Vjaira.
In the Sarkcente Kingdom, in the south of the continent, the life of the King is nearing its end. The Royal Capital and the entire country slowly grow unstable. The many Royal Children are amassing power and allies, and shall soon engage in a life-or-death struggle for the crown. The four Great Families and the three Great Martial Schools will be forced to abandon their long-standing neutrality and choose their own sides. During the calm before the storm, the leader of one of the four Great Families decides to take in two common children and to the shock of everyone, officially adopts them and treats them with great favor. However, Tei’ru dies before long, leaving the two kids ostracized and alone within the family. As the major events in the Sarkcente Kingdom and on the entire continent start to unfold, the ten years old boy, Laien, is about to begin his epic adventure. (Read the brief introduction before you proceed to reading the chapters, thanks!)
8 202Cold Space, a LITRPG space story.
A Litrpg story that takes place in the future. Mankind has conquered the solar system at least digitally, and with 2 billion players in the game there are a lot of options for players. The only thing the Mc wants is to deal with the person who was instrumental in getting him banned from the game a year ago. He might have a chance if he can survive a out of control spaceship about to crash on an asteroid, a crazy pirate that wants him dead and a abandoned Russian secret base. Pretty rough for your first log in to the game.
8 163Gifted Eyes
Species War QuintetBook 4: Gifted Eyes In this world where 'Guilds' arise with tremendous magical powers and battle the demons from the defenseless humankind but later on, War broke out between two species. however, no one knew what will happen next. After 500 years the War suddenly stop and no one cannot answer it, therefore, they slowly forgotten and decide to live a peaceful life, but in the shadows, the 'phantoms' carried out the long- struggle blood battle between the 'war veterans' and the demons this war will be named as "Silence of War" no one will ever know this event. still, there is one man will change the whole world and turn the tides of war... John Kennedy was a prodigy and he has a natural talent but he witnessed the death of his family by "demons' when he was 10. he was picked by his one of his relatives in the age of 13, the relatives are fighting over the heritage for their own 'interests'. all of that a sudden 'unknown power' came into John's life and he never knew that the path will be a risky and dangerous one. no one knew that the boy will surely be predicted and see the possibility be in the future, on the other side, the mysterious power is still unknown. he swore to himself that he will avenge and bring Justice to his 'Adopted Family' as he walks right into the top. Follow John Kennedy as he embarks his adventurous on his long and dangerous journey along with his unparalleled-existence the unknown power the 'Gifted Eyes'.
8 184An Apprentice's Adventure
Marvin was destined to be a farmer like his entire family before him, but the sparks of dreams flicker within his eyes. Jumping at the chance to leave his house he journeys towards the Elasarin Magic Academy the best place to train young magic users. Unfortunately for him the academy only takes the noble or best and to add to his problems it is on the other side of the Empire. Join him on his journey to the city of Elasarin and to his journey to be such a promising apprentice that they will have no choice but to accept him.
8 123