FENRIR: Chapters 30 and 31

[seawasp]

I owe two, so you get two in one!
 

 

Chapter 30: Upgrading

Days to Launch: 150

     "Angus! Good to see you!"

     Silver turned, an answering smile already on his face as Peter caught up to him. "You look even more cheerful than usual, Pete."

     "And that's because of you,". He punched Silver lightly on the shoulder.

     "Me? Oh. Our discussion the other day?"

     "An eye-opener, honestly," Peter said. "Problem with running a business like mine, you get things working, then you get customers, pretty soon you're running around trying to get the job done and you start to lose sight of the stuff you knew when you started. You reminded me to step back and take a look at the tech, and boy were you right."

     A deprecating wave. "Computing hardware's my specialty. I'm afraid I always end up heckling people over their choices, especially when," he looked apologetically at Peter Flint, "well, when they're using stuff a few generations out of date."

     "Not heckling when you're asking the right questions, Angus," Peter said seriously. "You were dead right, simple as that. MIROC's little Bells need to do a lot more than they used to, and upping their onboard computing capacity gives me options. Wouldn't have thought it'd be so easy – done too many hardware upgrades that turned out to be two years of headaches, know what I mean?"

     Remembering some of his early projects, Silver couldn't keep from laughing. "Pete, I know exactly what you mean. But I can't take all the credit. Luck gave us a little jackpot."

     A thoughtful nod. "Can't disagree. Plenty of people make new processors without much thought for the prior market. Pin-for-pin compatibility's hard to find in a several-generation upgrade."

     "To be fair, though, the reason you were using that particular Cortex spinoff was the reason a hell of a lot of other people did. If someone was going to go after any upgrade market, makes sense they'd choose that one."

     And that's nothing but truth, Silver thought as Pete nodded again. Luck always played a part, and finding out key technical details early had given him time over the last year-plus to guide the production choices in this direction. The luck was, as he'd said, that Flint's design choices also led to what made perfect sense for a system design. While Silver was a respected advisor – and on the board of several of the key companies – he couldn't have convinced them to make a high-end embedded computer system that didn't have a clear ROI.

     Planning was the other part, and it looked like both had paid off.

     "Look here," Peter was saying, producing a tablet from a case at his side. "Sampling and fitering on this scan done in a fraction of the time, making the scans overall thirty-two percent faster."

     Silver gave a silent whistle. "Thirty-two percent? That's even more than I would have guessed."

     "Just the start, too. My people back at the lab are working on optimizing the code now. The expert system and machine learning group's updating our entire approach to the overall ship maintenance and inspection processes; we figure we can get a lot more reliable autonomy on even some pretty complex tasks, which'll save us a ton of bandwidth."

     Peter went on, and Silver didn't have to feign interest; Flint's entire MIROC concept had always been – being honest with himself – cool as hell, and the older man's enthusiasm and razor-sharp intelligence hadn't been dimmed by age yet. The "Bells" were some of the best-designed robots Silver had ever seen, well-suited to inspection, safety, and maintenance of just about anything that could be reached from the ground, and IIS also had semi-autonomous inspection drones, large and small, for use in places the Bells couldn't fit, all based around a highly flexible operating architecture.

     The Carpathia project may not even realize just how good a bargain they got with Pete.

     Silver found himself following Peter back to the MIROC enclosure itself, and for the next couple of hours the two of them went over the new design, with Silver finding a few new suggestions to make, Peter demolishing them, and then both of them finding a better way to do what they wanted – increasing speed, reliability, or other aspects of the Bells and MIROC's central systems.

     "You need to talk to Werner," Silver said, tapping on the external wall of MIROC. "I'm blanking on the name right now, but one of the people on the design team for the living quarters has come up with what looks like really good shielding for electronics. I know you've been working on making the Bells able to work in vacuum, but if you have to go outside on the hull…"

     "We've been using hardened electronics," Pete said, "but this new processor's not going to meet those specs. Or if it could, it'll take months or years to get the certs. You're right, we need to look into that, or the new Bells can only function inside the ship." He frowned. "Just in case, I'll leave Zygmunt and Pummerin using the old design. Can always upgrade 'em later if everything works out."

     "Makes sense to me." He glanced at his phone. "Holy sheep, look at the time."

     Pete gave a snort of laughter. "Holy sheep?"

     Silver closed his eyes in embarrassment but managed a smile. "My sister insisted I clean up my language when my first niece was born, and that was fifteen years ago – and two more nieces and a nephew kept that rule in force."

     "Well, gol-ding it, I've been there myself," Pete said with a grin. "But you're right, it's getting on in the day. What you say we go for dinner?"

     His stomach rumbled. "I am in favor of that course of action."

     He let the older man lead the way, feeling an odd thread of concern weaving through the otherwise justified satisfaction of the day. It slowly dawned on him that it wasn't just concern. There was, to Silver's consternation, an actual, discernable touch of guilt, that he was arranging to potentially make use of Peter Flint's pet gadgets for his own purposes.

     Well, why shouldn't I have a touch of remorse at the thought? I have nothing against most of the people here. They're involved in something that must be stopped, but that doesn't make them all villains, unfortunately.

     They got into Flint's truck and pulled out, heading for one of the on-base restaurants. Seeing the satisfied cheer on his companion's face, Silver shoved his regrets to the side. We are still some months from the final choices.

     It was still possible, he told himself, that nothing would have to happen to Pete, or his Bells, that the Group's other approaches could put a definitive end to Carpathia.

     I would very much prefer not to have to kill him.

 

Chapter 31. Safety, Security, and Spaceships

Days to Launch: 100

     "I really should be getting used to the scale of these things, Werner," Stephanie said, staring up, "but my mind keeps getting boggled again every couple of months."

     "Can't blame you. Everything we're doing here is… unreasonably huge."

     During most of its construction, Carpathia's massive curved drive plate had sat solidly on the ground below, on the same supports used for the casting. Relatively low spaces had been bored out to allow workmen and MIROC's Bells to work on the elements like the sprayer insets and sensor emplacements, but from any distance it had looked as though it were just set down on the desert in a gentle depression.

     Now, however, the entire ship – in outline similar to a nosecone of a missile supported by the shock absorber assembly – sat several meters off the cleared-away earth, stone, and sand. The support structure had been reinforced, but also had wide apertures through which even decent-sized trucks could pass.

Somehow, this change emphasized the titanic size of Carpathia, nearly half a million metric tons of steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, and electronics being held aloft on a spiderweb circle of steel more than a third of a kilometer around. Dust drifted from that delicate base as trucks rolled in one dark opening and, after some time unseen, drove out another archway.

"Kilotons of explosives." She shook her head. "What a nightmare."

The German engineer chuckled. "It does give one pause, yes. But this is not old dynamite or black powder, just waiting for a spark to send it up. This will not explode without the right detonators, which will most certainly not be put in place until launch is imminent.

"Speaking of which, Director, the living quarters are all certified. I would recommend personnel begin to accustom themselves to their new homes."

Stephanie couldn't restrain a grin. "I will get that schedule set up immediately." The smile faded into another flash of awe. "My God, we're really doing this. A hundred days from now."

"And then months in space, yes. It may become a bit boring."

Her first instinct was to protest that going into space on a nuclear spaceship couldn't possibly be boring, ever. But she'd spent a lot of time going over not just the technical but the social and psychological elements of spaceflight. "We've done our best to mitigate that. With hundreds of people onboard, at least we've got better chances for social interaction, and it's not like we built it to submarine specs."

"Gott, no, that would be terrible. Especially with most of us being civilians." Stephanie's phone buzzed, and Werner paused to let her answer.

"Director Bronson here. I'm already on my way to the meeting."

"That's good," York's deep voice replied. "You've also got some final releases and certifications for your signature down here."

"When don't I? I think my hand's signing documents while I sleep."

"Unfortunately, I haven't seen it wandering the hallways authorizing actions on its own."

"Don't worry, I'll be there in a few." She looked to the right. "Coming, Werner?"

Werner Keller shook his head, face now devoid of his usual good humor. "I'm afraid not. Safety and post-incident review."

Stephanie winced. "Joe Buckley, right?"

"Yes. It appears to be a typical workplace accident, but given the circumstances we have to treat it with all seriousness."

Buckley, one of the project's best mechanical techs, had been working on the forward radar array when something had gone wrong; his safety harness had failed and he had slid down the curve of the ship, then flown free and plummeted hundreds of feet towards the ground.

By itself that would have been fatal, but fate apparently found a simple fall far too mundane; instead, Joe Buckley had plunged headfirst through an opening just barely wide enough for him, leading to one of the support footings that was in the process of being poured. Fortunately for him, it was virtually certain that the impact – and being impaled by in-place rebar – had killed him instantly, before the concrete began burying him.

It was less fortunate for those who had to stop the work and then extract the mangled remains from the footing.

"Good luck, Werner."

"Oh, I do not think it will be a problem. It is just a very macabre and sad duty we have." He shrugged. "At that, the Carpathia project has been very safe, all things considered."

As Werner set off in the direction of his meeting, Stephanie turned towards hers. She knew, statistically, that he was right; an experimental, rush-priority project employing so many people could not avoid some accidents, and seven fatalities over almost two years really wasn't excessive.

It still hurts when I hear of one. Somehow I feel like it's my fault, no matter how stupid that is.

With an effort, she banished the depressing thoughts from her mind. Showing a positive, optimistic face to the world was the Director's job description.

By the time she reached the main Carpathia conference room, she had her smile back, and shoved open the doors dramatically.

Heads turned, and in the moment they were all looking at her, Stephanie shouted, "One hundred days!"

Laughs and a spatter of clapping answered her as she proceeded down to her spot at the huge curved table. "The initial launch charge array is being assembled – just came from looking at it," she said, sitting down and nodding to York, Captain Lín, and the others. "Tell me we have security plans already in place?"

"We do, Director," Ben Robinson said. "I got part of that delegated to me, and I've been working with military and civilian reps to make sure it's covered. Peter?"

"We've assigned about half the Bells to do patrol duty," Flint answered. "Loaded them up with additional conditional analysis software, backed by trained machine learning elements to observe activities all over. They can crawl on the plate even upside down, so they can patrol the whole space easy. They're not needed for tech work quite so much now, so it's a good way to keep expanding their applications as we go."

"We've got multiple human security agents watching everything we can, too," said Hailey Vanderman. To her surprise, Vanderman had resigned from his top spot at the CIA to become security oversight on the project, working both under her and Captain Lín. "MPs from the Special Forces, some of the best intelligence people I could draft from the various agencies." He gave a half-shrug. "It's as secure as we can reasonably expect. This installation's too big and open for complete operational security, though."

"I understand, Hailey." Too many people, too many ways in, too much open space, it all added up to vulnerabilities to people like Vanderman – and she couldn't argue they were wrong.

Time to move on. "Eva, you have an update for us?"

Dr. Filipek smiled. "We've scheduled the main shipment for the antimatter so you will have a month to perform the final tests and transfer work. Three separate containment units are being shipped; each one carries more than enough antimatter to carry out the full mission."

Shipping antimatter. Never imagined I'd hear people talking about that. "Dr. Nagel? I heard you and the rest of MatterPrint have been catching up?"

"Just barely," Nagel, head engineer for MatterPrint, mimed wiping sweat off her forehead. "We finally figured out that issue with the charge units coming off the print stage during printing, and just finished a run of a hundred without problems; all of them passed inspection."

Thank God for that.  "All sizes?"

"Ten different sizes in that run, covering the whole range," confirmed Chari Nagel. "We think that clears out the last outstanding issue and should be able to deliver all the charges."

"Thank you, Dr. Nagel. Captain, much as I don't like the subject, what about the armament?"

"Well in hand, Director. High-powered pulsed laser cannon and powerful coilguns represent our best offenses – the latter able to be armed with nuclear shells based on the drive charges."

Stephanie already knew about that, having seen the live test in which a nuclear shell was fired to detonate ten kilometers away; that had been done as far from any inhabited areas as they could manage, since the detonation was an actual ground burst. The flash and shockwave had been impressive, as had the looming mushroom cloud from the site.

It was still good news, she reminded herself. The Carpathia would need to be able to defend itself. More importantly, even that ground burst had shown drastically lower levels of fallout than any prior similar detonation; the ICAN-II technology was proving itself already.

"But let us not consider them merely weapons," Captain Lín went on. "If we have to do any exterior work on Fenrir, we may need to cut very large pieces away just to reach critical areas; our lasers are capable of extremely precise work." With that reminder, he went on to detail the smaller, multi-targeting point defenses, in case missiles or projectiles were fired at Carpathia.

Reports continued, and Stephanie's spirits rose as the generally positive tenor of each penetrated. The four ACES – Alien Contact Expeditionary Shuttles – had been completed and mounted to their exterior cradles on Carpathia. Tiny compared to the nuclear-pulse vessel, the ACES were still huge on prior spaceship scales, massing nearly a thousand tons each in their own right; that included their own small-scale nuclear pulse drives, supplementary chemical-reaction and ion thrusters, and room for twenty crewmembers and appropriate equipment and cargo.

The main sensors – radar, automated and manual imaging, high-sensitivity magnetic and radiation sensors, and more – were installed. The C&C – Command and Control – center, already familiarly referred to as the bridge, was undergoing final testing. Electromagnetic screening, which would deflect radiation away from the vital areas of the vessel, appeared to be installed and functional, though absolute verification couldn't be done until the ship was in vacuum.

"Living quarters are all certified," she told the assembled group. "All passengers should begin to familiarize themselves with their quarters and related areas – the labs, dining halls, and so on."

"Personal baggage limits?" asked Audrey Milliner. That was probably a major concern for a publicist and presentation expert. Stephanie glanced to York.

"None in the traditional sense," York said with a quick grin. "Carpathia could lift twice its mass and more if it wanted to. You're bound by reasonable space limits – check out your cabin and available space first. Also, don't bring anything you can't pack away for acceleration, nothing so fragile it can't take some fairly serious jolts."

"And," said Hailey Vanderman, "everything brought aboard will be examined thoroughly." He met everyone's gaze in a slow survey of the table. "Obviously we have to mostly trust everyone on board, but you are all aware that we have had more than one attempt to damage this project directly. Declare anything that you think is, or could reasonably be mistaken for, a weapon or something that could be used for sabotage."

"That describes an awful lot of laboratory equipment," pointed out Chris Thompson.

"It does, and we recognize a lot of you will have to bring some such devices with you, in addition to the equipment installed onboard," Hailey conceded. "That is why you should declare it. It will look far better for us to know about the explosive chemical assortment you use for some kind of test assay, than for us to find it as an unpleasant surprise when we check your baggage. In some cases, we may just say you cannot bring something aboard, but we will try to minimize that.

"Still," he went on, "our job is to try to assure your safe journey. Understand that there are hostile elements, and we may have to inconvenience you to prevent someone from – apologies for being dramatic about this, but I am deadly serious – killing us all."

There was a moment of silence, but the majority of people finally nodded.

"Thank you, Hailey," Stephanie said. "People, try not to make his job more difficult. Most of us don't need to bring anything on board that should be a problem." She brought her smile back. "Instead, let's get ready for the most important trip humanity's ever made!"

"Amen to that!" Angus Fletcher said, and bumped fists with Peter. "Looking forward to seeing my spaceship cabin!"

"I think we all are." She looked at her phone. "I've got a telecon with the President shortly, so if there's no other pressing business, meeting adjourned."

With the quiet chaos of thirty people rising and gathering their materials around her, Stephanie took a deep breath.

One hundred days to launch.

 

What could possibly go wrong now?