USD: 2 Days Since Comm Failure

Location: Nu Crateris, Outer System, Hades Orbit, SR Hot Rescue

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Lavigne led the way onto the SR Hot Rescue’s bridge. As he glanced around, he felt a slight sense of déjà vu; the room’s layout reminded him of an inner-system warship he had served on as a midshipman. Almost. The room felt like it belonged inside a Federation warship museum, the high-tech consoles lighting up with holographic projection displays.

As he took the command seat and sat down, even more holographic HUDs activated. The information density felt astonishing and even threatened to block his view of the others working on the bridge. It was nothing like the Grazhdanin’s bridge, which had almost all analog screens and required a half dozen crew to monitor systems just to account for one of the informational HUDs on display in front of him.

Abbey’s voice came through a speaker attached to the headrest of his chair. “Try touching the display!”

Lavigne hesitated before reaching out to touch one of the floating screens. His heart skipped a beat as the haptic feedback made it seem real, as if the screen was part of the actual console. The interactive sensation was both thrilling and unnerving in equal measure.

“Are these nanites?”

“No, it uses magnets,” Abbey replied cheerfully.

Lavigne suppressed his indignation. Nanites, or magnets, it didn’t matter. It was easy to see how a small crew could handle the ship even without much training. It was obviously using an integrated GAI and ample amounts of automation.

The first NAI that looked at it would probably be able to hijack the computers and seize the entire ship without any of the manual safeguards and redundancies most ships relied on. He let out a long sigh as he scanned the other consoles.

Logan had taken up the communications and sensor officer position, while Daniel had already gone to work taking charge of the tactical and combat drone console. Morrison walked back and forth behind three crewmen who had taken up the helm, navigation, and engineering.

That was it.

Five officer consoles to run and command an entire frigate sized ship. The entire human crew only consisted of twenty-six, and they only needed half of the non-officers for sub-consoles that weren’t even present on the bridge, but in various damage control positions and other local nodes like the loading bay.

He spent some time to adapt to the interface, checking each screen and familiarizing himself with each one. The others all did the same thing, and after ten or so minutes, he felt like he’d entered some bizarre realm. It took years to train and learn a bridge station, and yet in less than an hour he felt like he had a solid enough grasp of the automated systems that he’d be able to manage as the captain.

Sure, he was cleared as an engineering bridge officer, and that previous knowledge of how things worked was invaluable, but the entire setup was ridiculous.

Logan chimed in, “Hey this is pretty easy. Also Abbey has transmitted a report on the new borehole, it should be ready for when finish deorbiting.”

Lavigne frowned at the casual chatter; it certainly wasn’t going to be the same bridge he was used to working on.

Morrison raised an eyebrow, asking, “Why did we need to dig a new hole?”

Logan explained, “The crust is rotating at a slightly different rate than the d-field layer and the inner core layers. The old hole has become misaligned.”

“So, the planet has three different layers that are all freely spinning in relation to each other?” Morrison inquired.

Logan nodded. “The d-field isolates the ‘magma’ layer from the crust and core. It also acts as a pressure relief from the crust. The moon is actually very low mass for its size because it isn’t nearly as dense as you would expect.”

Morrison grunted, “So that’s why it doesn’t just spit out a squirt of lava at us when we poke it.”

Logan didn’t answer, instead staring at Morrison and his choice of words like he was crazy. Daniel interrupted the interplay with a report.

“All drones are loaded and ready for tactical operations.” He said professionally.

Lavigne nodded. At least someone was taking things seriously, and he shot Morrison a warning look. The NCO nodded and moved on to managing his three crewmen.

Lavigne checked the drone bay on his own console and confirmed Daniel’s report. He wasn’t sure how needed the combat drones were going to be, but there was also an entire bay of engineering units that would be capable of integrating with the expedition’s units and providing repairs or construction capabilities if needed. They’d also be able to make repairs to the SR Hot Rescue as well.

The ship specs lit up, showing the ship’s full readout.

| SR Hot Rescue |

|Class: Rescue Vehicle! |

|First Production Year: Yesterday! |

|Categorization: Rescue! |

|Single Hull Length (Bow to Stern): 243m|

|Single Hull Beam: 99m|

||Armament||

|12x Single 32mm Point Defense Cannons, AP rounds |

|6x Single 6cm Point Defense Laser Turrets |

|1x Single HV 152mm Rail Turret, 1kg projectile|

|4x EWCLS|

||Systems||

|Bow D-field: 128cm D-lens|

|Plasma Fusion Reactor, 4 Rod Configuration, Small|

|Military 4-Waveform Tunnel FTL Drive|

|Bi-phase Military Class Linear Drive|

|Magneto plasma Thrust Vectoring System, Class III, Ports: 148|

|Proprietary A31 Planetary Class D-field Molten Rejection System|

|Advanced Heat Resistant Plating and Cooling System|

|Advanced Thermal Battery and Heatsink Underplate Layer|

|Extended Robotics Equipment Bay|

|Extended Combat Drone Delivery Array|

The ship lacked a internal workshop and refinery, but their mission was placing them in the position of having refined metals and supplies near at hand. They’d just need to rip whatever was needed from the ancient moon’s structure. They did carry a small supply of more delicate parts that would be difficult to fabricate, as was standard on most ships.

No, repairs were the least worrying thing. The expedition report had mentioned the Heaven’s Fire encountering active resistance while infiltrating through the magma layer. A3123Y had obviously engineered the Hot Rescue with that in mind, considering the multiple systems dedicated to protecting the ship from over-heating.

The addition of a non-standard D-field was… non-standard. He wasn’t even sure how the ‘Molten Rejection System’ operated, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to dive into the specifics, either. The advanced ceramic alloy plating had its own dedicated cooling underlayer that would suck what little heat made it through the insulating material and into a massive thermal battery and heat sink array.

The fact that the battery could output the same levels a medium fusion reactor array could for days made him not want to look into the numbers even more. It did come at the cost of mass and space, taking up almost a third of the ship’s insides. There was also the small issue of what would happen if the battery was breached and the contents spewed into the ship.

Probably no worse than a fusion core failure, but the battery was a much larger target. There were some safeguards present that probably would allow the battery to just destroy the rear half of the ship instead of everything, but the design was not something Lavigne thought would want on a combat vessel.

The small armaments and lack of missiles allowed the rest of the space to be devoted to engineering and the drone bays.

Morrison finished with the helm, navigation, and engineering stations, nodded to Lavigne. “All stations reporting ready, Captain.”

Daniel nodded as well. “Tactical is ready.”

There was a pause as everyone looked at Logan, who realized he was supposed to report as well. “Communications and Sensors, A-Okay!”

Morrison grunted and approached the captain’s dais. “Think the ship can handle going through liquid rock, sir?”

“I think so. What worries me is the report that Hades seemed to try to ‘reject’ the Heaven’s Fire by increasing pressure and temperature as they dived through.”

Logan rotated in his seat to look at them. “Abbey over-engineered the ship for that, though. Even if Hot Rescue is much smaller, the special D-field can resist diamond-creating pressures. The vacuum gap created prevents convection and conduction… and—”

Morrison raised a hand. “Spare me the technical details, as long as it works, boy-o.”

Logan’s eye twitched once before he turned away, muttering. Lavigne felt a twinge of regret. Despite his avoidance of the specifics on the tech earlier, he would have loved to pick the young man’s mind on things in more depth. The time for it was just not now.

“It is quite the ship, isn’t it, Sir?” Morrison remarked, turning back toward the captain’s console.

Lavigne nodded. “It’s like something out of the history books, but with more advanced technology than our inner warships.”

“Kind of like a nannie ship, eh?”

“Considering those don’t allow humans on board, I have no idea. But it might as well be, considering it was made by one, Sergeant.”

“A bit unnerving, Sir.”

Lavigne eyed the man, then his gaze slid to Logan. “Don’t be so hard on him. He’s got a good head for engineering and he’s at that age. Everything is exciting. Ertan knows I’m having a hard time keeping that bit damped, too.”

“Needs a bit of discipline, Sir.”

“This isn’t actually a naval vessel, and we aren’t in the navy. Well, he isn’t in the navy.”

“We’re on a ship, though.”

Lavigne couldn’t argue that they weren’t, but Logan’s voice cut through over the quiet chatter on the bridge. “Captain, the laser borehole is complete. Abbey reports we are cleared for deorbit burn and alignment with the tunnel.”

Lavigne nodded, then addressed everyone on the bridge. “This is a rescue mission, but let’s not end up in need of rescue ourselves. I’m afraid of what A31 would do.”

There was a slight chuckle, but Lavigne felt a pinch. He was being honest about that worry. He’d never interacted with NAIs before, but if Abbey was any indication, they were terrifying.

“Helm, start deorbiting burn on planned trajectory. Monitor our progress.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” The standard reply came back, and the SR Hot Rescue’s main Linear drive lit off.

A timer appeared on the main screen, showing that it would take less than thirty minutes for them to reach the borehole’s entrance. It was a short trip.

The ship fell through the sky rear first, periodically firing off a pulse of the main drive to keep their speed under control.

There was a palatable tension on the bridge as the ship crossed the delineation of the surface and subsurface hole.

“Helm, cut our speed by 25%.”

“The AI is managing our course, Sir?” The helmsman looked slightly lost as he examined his console’s screens. Morrison, noting his confusion, beelined for the man’s station.

Logan spoke up, “You can change the GAI’s max S-Rate and it’ll correct our descend speed.”

Morrison pointed to one of the inputs, and the crewmen adjusted the control.

“Got it, Captain.”

The ship let out a stream of plasma to slow their descent further. They were still going to what felt recklessly fast, but the GAI seemed content and the D-field happily reported they were well within its operating velocity. That would drop when they entered the magma layer, but it was the narrow confines of the borehole tunnel that made him nervous.

Just before they transited into the red shimmering liquid, Abbey’s cheerful voice came through the ship’s speakers.

|Luck for all of you |

|Belief in your abilities |

|Succeed, without doubt! |

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Next time... Chapter 151 – Fire and Rescue (Part 3)

See you, Space core