Once a Myth

“Talk to me Kara.” Alex said as calmly as he could as he walked through the VR representation of the Missive’s massive engineering section. The catwalk showed a host of repair bots swarming the room on their spindly legs.

Kara stood on that same catwalk before him swiping through a portable holo-tank as information from the drones streamed in. “It’s not good, the kugelblitz reactor is simply putting out too much power. We’ve been radiating a lot of it as waste heat for years, but the power couplers from the reactor to the ships buss bars were never designed to carry this much current.”

Alex looked down at the three couplers that merged the massive meter wide superconducting cables into the buss bars and disconnect panel. They were glowing red from the internal resistance from the immense power the kugelblitz reactor produced. “Well, that’s what we get for having a micro singularity on board. Hey Monty, can you pop over real quick and give us a hand?” He said as he opened a channel to her mid sentence.

A chipper voice appeared as if on an invisible speaker, “Sure boss, what’s up?”

Alex grinned, he didn’t know where she got the idea to start calling him boss, but it tickled him every time, so he went with it. “Seems our resident black hole is trying to eat our ship, got a second to help Kara out?”

Monty popped into existence beside Kara on the catwalk. Her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing brown overalls with what looked like old fashioned welders goggles on her forehead. Looking at the holo-tank she whistled, “You’re going to have to use the bypasses to vent the excess energy as plasma overboard.”

Kara nodded, “I was thinking the same thing, these couplers are shot. This new universe is so much more energetic than the old one. This reactor already produced far more energy than the Missive needed, but since they had it in inventory they added it to the refit. Now it’s biting us in the ass.”

Monty looked over the specs for the couplers. “We’ve got another problem.” She stated as she pointed to the schematics.

Kara grunted as Alex looked over both their shoulders, “Let me guess, we can’t make new ones without a particle accelerator.”

“Got it in one big guy. Those couplers aren’t just huge chunks of metal that make an electrical connection, they’re superconductive, high temperature superconductive in fact. The materials they are made of aren’t stable under normal conditions, we need a pretty serious particle accelerator to fashion enough of it and stabilize it.” Monty said, looking over her shoulder at Alex.

Sighing and running his hand through his close cropped hair he asked, “If we vent some of the excess energy as plasma, how long can we keep using what we have?”

Kara’s eyes glowed blue for a moment while she crunched the numbers, “If we can get them cooled down and under about four hundred kelvin they might last a few months. But the damage is already done to them, they will fail eventually.”

Kara started the bypass process to bleed off the excess energy, “Mind if I come over to your lab for a bit after this Monty? We’re going to have to come up with a temporary solution for the kugelblitz or we’re going to be dead in space.”

Monty nodded, “Sure, but Kelly and I have a date at 1900, so I have to kick you out before then, you know how she is, leave work behind and all that.”

Kara nodded, “Sounds good, thanks Monty.”

Monty nodded, waved, and blinked out, leaving Alex and Kara on the catwalk.

“I’ll get with Admiral Benton about our portion of nannites, when the fleet gets here we can use it to manufacture the new couplers.” Alex said as he watched the holo-tank display the plasma being vented.

Kara turned to him, “That would be nice, but the Missive is in bad shape Alex. Between the pouncing she took in Birmingham, the arrival here, the beating she got defending this system, she’s got more internal damage than we can hope to fix.”

Alex patted the VR catwalk rail, “Aww, it can’t be that bad, she’s a tough old ship.”

Kara sighed, “She was a tough old ship, when we put her into the shipyard three years ago we fixed what we could, but her internal structure is riddled with micro fractures that would require replacing almost all of the internal structure and bulkheads. It would be easier to just build a new ship at this point.”

Alex put his hands on the catwalk railing looking down at the repair bots as they stood by to close the bypass valve. “Okay, I get it. Once the NHR fleet is done with repairs and refits in shipyard three we’ll start work on a new cruiser. You need to get with Monty on transferring everything of value into the new ship. I don’t look forward to the conversation with the good Admiral, she is not going to like us having to strike a ship off the roster.”

“She may not like it, but as an Admiral, she will understand that sometimes it just isn’t worth it to keep and old ship around.” Kara said as she watched the holo-tank, nodding as the temperature of the couples dropped below four hundred kelvin.

Alex nodded as he left engineering for his strategy corner, he had some ideas of his own for the new ship. Kara and Monty will probably roll their eyes like always, but sometimes his hare brained ideas worked out.

__________________________

Admiral Benton was not happy. The Missive of Dissent was a powerful warship, having it out of commission was not ideal. They didn’t expect another fleet to come barreling into the system anytime soon, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. The new cruiser, Epoch of Humanity was a huge boon to their existing fleet, boasting about double the firepower of the Missive thanks to her ability to launch four hundred and eighty centimeter torpedoes.

Only the battleship class NHR ships could fire torpedoes of that size, each one mounting a three hundred megaton hafnium warhead. The Epoch housed sixty tubes with five hot loads, after that they had to be loaded from cargo holds, slowing down rate of fire significantly. But the sheer weight of fire at the beginning of a fight was truly scary for a ship of her size.

Keeping to the rebellion theme, it housed auto-factories, forges, mining drones, haulers, raw materials, and a few empty cargo bays meant to hold nannite stores. Alex stated it was designed that way to be able to do repairs without shipyard facilities, which the rebellion lacked. It made sense, and they would be lacking in shipyard facilities in the near future as well, so she couldn’t argue with the design.

What bothered her was that the next cruiser that came out of shipyard three wouldn’t be part of the NHR arsenal. I mean, technically it was, as Commodore Smyth did obey her orders, but the council had yet to officially recognize him as an Officer of the New Human Republic. He wasn’t part of the Alandran Navy either, leaving him in a peculiar state of limbo.

She had already put forth orders to only repair and upgrade necessary systems within her fleet, if she was losing the Missive, she wanted the new cruiser ready by the time the combined enemy fleet arrived. It pained her to have to use up the precious supplies of nannites they brought with them on the new construction, but it would be replenished with the incoming refugee fleet.

“Just five more months.” She thought to herself. Once the fleet arrived they could start setting up one of those amazing new shipyards and she could start work on repairs and refits on the Reckoning. The AI known as Monty had offered up plans for many of those upgrades, mostly new reactors, shield generators, and new torch drives.

Still, she had to admire the work ethic of Alex and his people. The Missive sat beside shipyard three awaiting her turn for disassembly, but in the meantime hundreds of bots swarmed over her, stripping the outer Warsteel armor from the hull and taking off anything that would be of use in the new cruiser. She nodded in approval, looking at her monitors view of the shipyard.

The New Human Republic knew all about scarcity. Both in manpower and material, she ensured there was never waste, and often had to forcefully remind other officers to reuse everything possible. She was thankful this was not something she had to tell Alex, he would use everything he could from his old ship. That was just the type of man he was.

During her last conversation with him she asked for schematics for the kugelblitz reactor. He supplied them a few days later, but she was warned that without a particle accelerator the size of the one back in New Home, there was almost no chance of building the cradle needed to create the micro black hole that powered it. Much less the housing unit and quark feeders to keep it running.

She passed it on to the council anyways, perhaps they could get a cradle made before they had to destroy the accelerator. That one reactor could power the Reckoning by itself according to her engineers. She could only imagine how much internal space would be freed up in her flagship with just a few of those powerful reactors.

She was broken out of her daydream by Greg’s voice. Looking up from her monitor she saw that he was once more in hologram form standing at attention in front of her flag desk. “I’m sorry Greg, I was lost in thought, what was that again?”

There was a hint of a smile on his face as he stood before her, arms crossed behind his back, “I was inquiring about your audience with the Empress next week ma’am.”

Of all the things for Greg to seek her out for, that was probably the last one she would have expected. “Yes, I am expected to attend a parliament ball. This is an annual event and we are to be guests of honor. Why do you ask?”

Greg shuffled his feet a little, okay, that was new, “I would request permission to attend as part of your attache.”

This caused Admiral Benton to raise an eyebrow, “You are requesting to attend a political event with literally hundreds of strangers?”

“Yes ma’am.” Greg stated formally.

Leaning back in her chair she grinned a little, “I have no problem with you being in attendance, but on one condition. You tell me why you want to attend.”

Greg seemed to blush a little. She didn’t know his hologram could do that. Sighing he looked down before continuing, “Izzy has asked if I would be attending and if I would be her date for the evening if so.”

“Well, well, Greg has been busy in his free time.” She thought to herself as she watched him stand passively at attention. Giving a crooked grin she continued to lean back in her chair, “I have to admit, that was not the answer I expected, however, my word is my bond, and you may of course be in attendance. I take it you will be controlling an android body?”

Greg let slip a small smile, “Yes ma’am, Monty has one already made for me should I ever need it, I merely need to let her know and she will send it in a hauler to the embassy. I can then use the string network to inhabit it.”

“Very well then, remember this is a formal occasion, be on your best behavior.” Admiral Benton said with a twinkle in her eye.

Greg blushed again at her innuendo, “Yes, ma’am.” Before turning on his heel and leaving her office.

Sitting back up in her chair and staring at the now closed door the she thought, “This should be an interesting night.”

___________________________________

Alex looked out across the Imperial Ball Room. It was truly enormous, white marble columns held up a massive roof. Tapestries ten meters high covered the ancient stone walls, showing deeds of generals and heroes from all over Alandra. Hundreds of dignitaries bustled about in formal attire, which of course, Kara and to some extent, Admiral Benton forced him to wear tonight.

He was in an ancient human outfit that was customarily worn in Terran Imperial formal events dating back nearly a millennium, something called a tuxedo. Oh, he had seen movies with people wearing them to formal occasions, but he had never worn one while he was biological. He kept checking the specs on his android body to ensure he couldn’t actually be chocked by the bow tie around his neck, he still thought it might be a possibility by the end of the night.

He wasn’t alone of course, John held the same uncomfortable expression on his face as he hugged up to Erin. In fact, the only man in attendance that didn’t seem put off by wearing the devilishly tight suit was Greg, who seemed to be on top of the world dancing with Izzy.

He was taking a sip of some sort of Alandran punch made from local fruit when he heard a familiar voice beside him. “They look happy.” Said Admiral Benton to his left. He looked from the couple down to the Admiral, who was wearing her best Officer’s whites.

“That they do, I was just thinking that he was the only man here out of uniform that did seem like they were having a good time.” He said as he raised an eyebrow while having to look down to the rather petite admiral.

Kara sighed, “You’re not getting out of that tuxedo until this is over, now quit your whining.”

Alex chuckled as he took another sip of the punch, wishing he had something to fortify the incredibly weak drink. Parliament members and military officers mingled across the massive room causing a low din of white noise. An orchestral band played music for many to dance to on a well polished wooden dance floor.

Then the din died down as a trumpet like instrument was sounded, almost exactly like some old films he had seen. In marched a group of Imperial Guardswomen, now donning black Human power armor. Well, mostly black, the breastplate was still silver to denote Imperial Guard, and at the back of the procession was Empress Shi’Lana, followed by the rather impressive Captain Mon’Kelron who always stood behind and to her left.

The former woman was once mortally wounded in defense of her Empress from an assassination attempt. Well, it was a mortal wound for Alandran medicine at the time, but not for Human technology. At the request of the Empress, he brought her back to the missive to the biological medical bay and they used medical nannites to repair her.

There were… side effects. Monty managed to program the nannites for Alandran physiology, but they did what medical nannites are built to do, repair the body to Human norms. While the Alandran’s are definitely not Human, their genetic makeup and organ placement are near enough, although they do lack some organs that evolution gave to make Humans the dominant species on Terra. Seeing that the patient lacked an adrenal gland, the nannites remedied that problem while they repaired the damage done to her body.

Tales of her feats while defending the Empress from yet another assassination attempt have now been inflated to the point of folklore. No, she couldn’t dodge bullets or punch through solid stone walls, or move so fast others can’t see her, but she hasn’t denied the claims either, some of that may or may not be some of Spy-Mistress Kel’Taraan’s doing.

Speaking of Kel’Taraan, Kelly to the group in VR, she was there in her normal formal role, her second in command, Spy-Mistress Li’Dona at her side, watching the procession as the Empress walked the blue carpet until sitting on the ornately carved throne. The whole ordeal had some sort of regality to it, as though this was the way it had always been done and should be done.

Once seated, Empress Shi’Lana spoke to the room at large, hidden speakers behind the tapestries allowed her warm soprano to fill the room. “Ladies, and a few scattered Gentlemen, tonight we celebrate the second battle for our home world. Thanks to the effort of our navy, combined with our allies in the Human fleets, Alandra is safe once more. We put off this occasion until Parliament was out of session to ensure everyone could enjoy this night. Please mingle, and make acquaintances with our new allies.”

And with that, the trumpet like instrument was blown once more and the party resumed once more. Looking around everything seemed to be going smoothly, people were talking, laughing, and dancing. He looked down to Kara to his right, “Would you like to dance my lady?” He said as he held out his elbow.

Kara snorted, “No thanks, you’re heavy and you somehow always manage to step on my toes!”

Alex was about to feign ignorance of his truly atrocious dancing skills when the doors to the ball room exploded inwards, shredding the people near it in wood splinters and knocking the guards off their feet. The room erupted in chaos as a group of figures in orange and black power armor starting firing their weapons into the crowd.