So I've been advised. My bad.
Entry #12
Low Orbit, Zebebelgenubi,
Terran Hegemony
23:30 31 December 2766New Year’s Eve is usually a festival, across all of humanity. Most of them still have no reason not to celebrate it.
I, on the other hand, am about to undergo brain surgery.
“You realise that this will place exceptional strain on your processing power?†the rather worried young man inside the hardware of my tactical computer warns. “I’ve no experience of your computer core but I’d be hesitant to consider this with the systems of an M-5C.â€
“These aren’t ideal circumstances,†I agree. “But they are the circumstances that we have.â€
Given the terrible circumstances I’d warned the Ulsop management of, they’d been more than happy to provide me with access to their equipment and technical staff while families were streaming out of the area – either to hide on other parts of Zebebelgenubi or onto a small flotilla of dropships. As you might imagine, I was abusing this recklessly.
“It’s your funeral if this goes wrong, Mr
Praetorian,†the engineer says with a shrug. “Quite literally,†he adds under his breath.
One thing that the engineers had been able to do was unlock the controls of the M-5s with me so that I could give them orders without having to stay around. That meant that I could delegate escorting the dropships to the jump point – fortunately the Republican ships that had seized the jump point on the day of the coup had moved on and not yet returned but if they did, the Caspars would hopefully be enough protection.
That wasn’t the main thing that I wanted from them though. You see, I have more than one tactical computer aboard: the one that I could use to group M-5 and M-3 drones into a network with me and a separate one that handled my Strikers and shuttles.
My thinking had been to work out how to use the latter to control capital drones like the first one. Suborning dozens of Caspars at once could neutralise the entire SDS drone fleet over a world or jump point. It would also enable me to handle fleet engagements almost unaided. The engineers had shaken their heads at that – they’d have to pull the whole system and probably expand it beyond the available space in my hull to do that.
But that wasn’t enough to make them give up. After all, if I can mount two tactical computers… why not more?
And if there isn’t sufficient space inside my hull then what about outside it?
Inventive devils. I’m glad they’re on my side. At least I hope they are. Letting them in at my computer core means that if they aren’t then I probably won’t survive the surgery.
Among the dropships being fitted out at the drop-port were four M-96C dropships, a class commonly known as the
Howdah. Each comes fitted with a tactical computer capable of directing twenty drones – usually Voidseeker drones like my Strikers, but in practise they’d been sufficient to control M-3 drones in the past. Ulsop engineers were crawling over them at this moment, some of them upgrading the hardware to handle larger drones using parts from tactical computers being prepared for M-5C drones, others tearing away life support to make room for the computers and placing the armour-clad structural members that were needed to hold the dropships permanently in my four aft drop-collars.
I’d be giving up most of my primary tactical computer to link through to these tactical computers – another reason to be glad that my immediate escorts could now operate without constant supervision – but the potential trade off was mouth-watering. If I had a mouth, that was. The potential to control as many as
eighty capital drones
without losing my fighter cover?
“Well, ready when you are.â€
Making the changes meant shutting down the tactical computer, which isn’t neatly differentiated from what’s notionally my core processors as the terms might suggest. To all practical purposes I was closing off part of my brain temporarily.
“Let’s do this thing.â€
I flip the ‘switch’.
Well that doesn’t feel too bad. A little like being sat in the dentist’s chair as the tactical feeds are disconnected from their transmission nodes and connected to the cables leading into the Howdahs.
I’m… human again?Heh. Howdahs are those things on the backs of Elephants that people sit in. Kind of silly to call a variant on the
Elephant-class dropships that, but now they’re being carried by something larger it makes perfect sense.
Standing in a perfectly ordinary street. Looks like a fairly major city’s business district. Grand stone buildings set a metre or so back from street by black-painted railings and a moat-like arrangment that allows the basement to have windows. Reflected a window is the face I’d chosen for myself.Of course, adding another sixty thousand tons to me isn’t going to do my acceleration any favours, but it’s only 4% of my mass and they still have their engines so that adds enough thrust to offset it.
What’s going on? No one else on the street seems surprised by my presence, or even particularly interested in me. Clothing styles aren’t all that familiar… is this still the 28th century?Battle damage feels like pain. Having parts of my systems disconnected feels numb in places. Weird.
There’s one man looking at me. It takes me a moment to recognise the face as familiar… He grins and gestures for me to look up.This is actually kind of tedious. Then again, I suppose I should expect that: warfare’s usually mostly waiting.
There’s a shadow in the sky. Impossibly clear, the silhouette of a warship. Texas-class.It’s a shame there’s no dock here that can patch up the holes in my armour. Perhaps at my next destination…
Part of me recognises that this is impossible. A ship that low would be in terminal descent, certainly not simply hanging in the sky. That part of me is by far subordinate to portion that’s frantically looking for a street sign.There’s a pins and needles sensation as the tactical computers boot up, one at a time.
Temple Avenue. I’m in London? There’s the briefest sense of lightning and then all is fire.What the fuck was that?