Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 38/?] (Patreon)

Instead of the chirpy voice of the AI continuing on with some great, all encompassing plan, all I was met with after those few uplifting seconds was a strange silence.

Though that silence didn’t last for too long.

“I don’t think I can do this.” The AI blurted out with his equivalent of an uneasy tone of voice.

This sudden shift in tone after an unexpected silence as we sat in silence above the moon was nothing short of disconcerting, but it wasn’t long before the AI continued on his train of thought.

“I’ve done the calculations, I’ve run several simulations, the way things are going, if we do both operations at once, should we be caught off-guard… It's too risky. Seeing as we need to manufacture the specific materials needed for the interloper’s interrogation, I’m planning to take this opportunity to actually start repairing myself.” The AI uttered out with an exasperated, almost exhausted breath. “Before you ask, Lysara, I’ve been barely holding myself together throughout this entire ordeal. It's difficult to explain… but whilst we’re standing here oblivious to it, I can feel this gash getting worse and worse with each passing minute. Whilst I could tolerate it at first, it wasn’t like I was ever not aware of it. Unlike a human’s whole fight or flight adrenaline fueled state of mind, or whatever your version of that would be, I don’t have the luxury of having a brain that has pre-coded tolerance subroutines that literally turn off certain aspects of perception and sensation of my own form at any given time. In fact, that honestly sounds outright horrifying to me to be perfectly honest. To not be hyper acutely aware of every aspect of your form… from the blood flowing through your veins like the lubricant and hydraulics throughout my body’s pipes, to the flow of air into every single alveoli bud in your lungs like the air circulation nodes within my body’s life support centers… to live without knowing every aspect of your body is truly frightening to me on an existential level. Which is why throughout this entire ordeal, from our getaway from the second interloper flotilla to the encounter with future humanity, to this whole moon fiasco… I’ve constantly been aware of the growing threat that is the hull breach on deck 9, and the distinct lack of an atmosphere down there. It feels wrong, Lysara. The loss of sensor readouts there feels like a part of me is now numb and empty. The lack of ventilation and atmosphere feels as if there’s a gaping hole in what should be my form.”

This entire talk, the unrelenting cavalcade of topics broached by the AI, was as concerning as it was necessary to hear. It was clear at that point that I was pushing the impromptu mission too far, that I didn’t truly realize the actual state of our ship, and by extension, the state of Vir’s existence.

“This means that whilst I’m taking the time to begin production on the specialized equipment for the interloper, I’d suggest placing the operations on the planet on hold. At least for now.  I apologize I didn’t make that clearer earlier.” The AI quickly added.

“No no, that’s, more than reasonable Vir. We need the ship, I mean you, in working order before we attempt anything else.” I paused, taking a moment to gather myself before continuing. “Vir I’m so sorry for having overlooked this.” I responded in kind. “I… I understand you’ve already discussed how the ship is an extension of yourself, but because my mind has been so preoccupied with what feels like an impossible number of developments around us… I, I apologize. I am by no means attempting to excuse myself or my inaction in this case. I should’ve known, should’ve been more aware, and I should’ve asked.” I admitted with a strange mixture of both guilt but also a sense of resolve. If only to be supportive for the AI as he’d done so for me.

“I don’t fault you, Lysara.” The AI responded in kind, his tone on a path to recovery back into that chipper voice. “Organics… even the ones who are trained and educated with the express purpose of understanding AI, sometimes just lack that intuitive understanding that comes with our fundamentally different state of being. It’s something that can’t really be taught, but rather, understood by virtue of empathy over a prolonged period of time in peer to peer social interactions.” Vir paused, clearly in an attempt to make a point here. “Which is why just you being super compassionate here really does mean a lot to me, Lysara. It’s way, way more effort than what most organics are willing to put in. Besides, you’re going through a lot yourself, so there’s no need for that. I’m still doing fine, I just wanted to… I mean, I guess I just wanted to vent as well I guess?” The AI snickered out awkwardly, returning to a more colloquial-leaning manner of speech as evidenced by the shift in his tone and choice of vocabulary. “I just see as we’re more or less in this together, that I might as well be open about these sorts of things you know?”

I nodded several times in response, smiling with an even stronger resolve now. “I appreciate the frankness, Vir. I really do.” I stated simply, knowing well there wasn’t much else to be spoken on the topic that wasn’t already out in the open. “I’m glad that you were there when I woke up.” I quickly added. “I can only hope to contribute to this partnership as much as you have, Vir.”

It was with that, that the pace of our overall operations within the system started to take a drastic turn. Not towards a blind acceleration, but instead, towards a significant downtick in frontline actions. Focusing almost all of our efforts instead into the logistics and backline operations that was necessitated by the state of our ship.

The modern battlefield was as much about the impressive show of force and tactics, as much as it was about the logistics and systems behind it all, after all.

Which was especially true at this level of complexity.

Though supply lines and an industrial base would’ve been ideal, it was clear that the designers of this vessel had intended for what was in effect, an end-of-continuity scenario. One which operated on the assumption that any and all outside aid would be all but impossible. It was with this logical assumption, that the various overly engineered ‘accessory’ systems of the ship started to make sense. From the oversized minifactory through to the various drones, workshops, and repair bays that weren’t typical of your run of the mill ship, it was clear the vessel was designed to run completely independently from any preexisting logistics network.

Not even vessels designed for long term exploration came close to this degree of over preparedness, with this vessel more comparable to what you might find on a pre-FTL generational ship that would’ve warranted long term means of self-sustainability.

Coupling this with the humans’ propensity for designing everything with a liberal take on size and scale, this vessel acted more akin to a mobile mining, processing, and production facility all neatly packaged inside of a frame comparable to a Vanaran battlecruiser, with the weapons loadout of a Vanaran battleship.

The whole notion would’ve been something taken from the eccentric mind of a science fiction author, and would’ve had no place in the practical limitations of reality.

And yet here I was.

Sitting patiently within the spacious confines of the ship’s bridge, watching as drone after drone started on their lengthy diagnostics cycles as we began our trek across the solar system.

We left the moon and its prisoner behind in the safe embrace of a potent nuclear device; a contingency should we ever come to need it. With that extra bit of security and assurance in mind, my focus shifted squarely to that of what Vir had calculated as a near week-long venture, one that would see us mimicking the development of a fledgling interstellar civilization’s first tentative steps to stellar industrialization.

Except we were doing it at a much faster pace, on a much smaller scale.

Having positioned ourselves squarely within the orbit of one of the larger ringed gas giants within the system, we began our operation in earnest. Or rather, it was Vir who began performing what in his words were “The job that no self-respecting AI would want to do, save for those who actually enjoy self-inflicted mind numbing spreadsheet work.”

Yet that spreadsheet was far more impressive when seen in action, not just from the bridge, but in-person, through the viewing ports situated in a sectioned off control room within the drone bay.

What amounted to hundreds upon hundreds of drones ranging in size from small family cars to something bordering on the smaller end of a proper cargo shuttle left one by one, organized into neat rows and columns as they set forth like a flock of birds. Though I would later rectify this analogy in the following days, as I returned to the bridge and started viewing everything from a more top-down, administrative scale.

The analogy that had started as a ‘flock of birds’, was accurate enough at first. As most of the drones acted like scouts, casting a wide net and flying wingtip to wingtip, in effect maximizing their effective scanning radius compounding off of one another’s networking arrays. Eventually however, once the asteroids or moons of interest were ascertained and logged, things started to shift to something I was more accustomed to seeing; as the once ‘wide’ formation quickly condensed to that of small, narrow lanes of a continuous stream of drones.

More analogous to a convoy of locomotives now.

These convoys would ferry the hastily mined minerals towards the ship, dumping them within the ship’s mass stores, eventually leading to more specialized minifactory drones to begin the process of sorting, transportation, and eventual processing within the various modules clustered within the minifactory.

Once again, seeing everything from an administrative view didn’t truly do this whole system justice. It took me that ten minute walk down to the minifactory to see the sheer scale of operations we were currently undertaking.

Breathtaking would be but one of the words I’d use to describe it.

For what was being accomplished by an entirely autonomous system within the span of these few days, was something which would’ve taken months at best to do under a traditional Vanaran operation. Sure, it could scale larger with time, but the fact that this lone ship had gone through the entire industrial process: from the sourcing of the necessary raw materials through to the processing and eventual production of the components in question was nothing short of incredible. Especially when considering this was being done in the span of a single week.

In fact, we did the impossible task of accomplishing everything within schedule. Something that even the largest of megacorporations back at home seemed to always have trouble with, especially with government contract work…

At the end of it all, after an entire week of a constant flurry of work that had seen nonstop progress around the clock, we’d finally done it.

Deck 9 was completely repaired. The various systems and subsystems that had been malfunctioning or had been completely inoperable, were likewise mended or completely replaced.

In fact, Vir had even taken the time to produce spares in the event we needed them in an emergency. Indeed, parts of the ship I didn’t even know needed sprucing up, were done so whilst I was either away from the area or simply asleep.

Even the bridge seemed different.

Gone were the scorch marks left by that fire from our first jump, and in were these sheets of factory-fresh metal plates and screens that I could’ve sworn had a slightly different tint to the rest of the bridge, perhaps due to the variations in their composition being just slightly off from the original factory-spec.

Gunmetal blue now blended with starker grayish whites, glistening with a new coat of whatever protective buff was applied to them in the final production process.

As I stood on the bridge at the end of this week of housekeeping, datatab in hand with all of the various documents I’d been dissecting, I looked on towards the mystery planet in front of us and the signal that continued emanating from it in a continuous unending stream.

“Ready, Vir?” I asked the AI with a mix of anticipation and nervousness.

“Ready, Lysara.” The AI responded with a similarly anxious tone of restrained excitement.

“Let’s take her out then, and let’s determine where we stand along the way.”