This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/jpitha on 2025-01-17 12:17:50+00:00.
The three of them stood in a makeshift hangar, gazing up at the towering gunship. Greylock’s thrust caused the hangar’s wall to serve as the floor, making the gunship point upward with its engines first. It was an enormous structure, easily reaching a height of five hundred meters.
“It’s bigger than I expected,” Alia commented, unable to take her eyes off it.
“Hell yeah, it is!” Fifty-Five grinned. “With that thing, you’ll be able to take down anyone who comes near us within an AU.“
“Why me, though?“ Alia asked, turning her attention to Fifty-Five, who seemed somewhat jealous.
“You’re the one who has Tartarus,“ One-oh-Four explained with a shrug. “We can’t pilot it.“
“Yeah, we’ll stay back here and make sure G behaves, preventing her from doing anything she shouldn’t,” Fifty-Five added.
“I can hear you three,” Greylock said. As she did, Fifty-Five silently rolled her eyes, and One-oh-Four suppressed a giggle.
“Good, then you’ll listen when we give you instructions,” Fifty-Five nodded. “So, G, is it ready?”
“The gunship is almost complete, Fifty-Five,” Greylock answered, using their numbers as well. “We just need to arm it and load the slug throwers and missiles with printable matter.”
“What about the energy weapons?” One-oh-Four asked, inspecting the gunship from different angles.
“I’ve built a reactor that’s nearly identical to mine, so power won’t be an issue,” Greylock replied. “The chief concern is heat. I filled the water tanks, but you’ll only get a few shots before overheating.”
Despite popular belief, space isn’t freezing. It’s empty, lacking anything to transfer heat energy to, making heat dissipation challenging. The water tanks absorb the heat from the energy weapons, but eventually, they’ll reach their limit. Alia could vent the tanks and cool the weapons to fire a couple more times, but that’s it. The energy weapons are primarily for point defense and desperate close-quarters combat.
Fifty-Five smacked the gunship’s rear, producing a solid metallic sound. “It’ll be fine. You’ll go in, take down the Jimbos—whoever they are—and then we’ll rendezvous with the colony. She smiled. “I just hope this Null drive FTL thing includes a better heat dissipation method. I hate wasting water to squeeze out a few extra shots.”
“Fifty-Five, if they have a better way to dissipate heat then they will have a greater rate of fire than Twenty-Seven will. For our sake, we should hope they don’t.” Greylock said.
“Hm. That’s a good point G. See? You’re not completely useless.” Fifty-Five said, grinning.
“Fuck off, Fifty-Five.” Greylock said to Fifty-Five’s barking laughter. “Alia - er, Twenty-Seven? Will you go aboard the gunship? I want to run some connectivity tests with you integrated.” As Greylock was speaking, a door near the rear opened, and a spindly ladder extended down towards the floor. “Don’t worry about maneuvering around inside; there is an elevator. Well, actually it’s an ammunition shuttle, but it was designed to also be an elevator when in this orientation.”
“That’s fine. Fifty-Five and I will go work with G to see if we can find anything out about the system we’re coming into. We’re close enough now that we should be able to get the basics even with the drive thrusting.” One-oh-Four said as she turned towards the exit.
“Don’t let her give you any shit, Twenty-Seven,” Fifty-Five said, and slapped her on her back. “G is growing on me, but she’s gotta remember who are the humans here.” She followed after One-oh-Four.
Alia watched them leave for a moment, and then shaking her head once, climbed the ladder.
The interior of the gunship was cramped, but not as confusing as she initially thought it would be. It was designed such that down was along the axis of thrust, so it was just like going up inside a gunship shaped building. There were no windows in the elevator, so she really didn’t get an idea of what the interior looked like, but once we reached the front/top she got out and found basically a closet, and inside was a chair that looked like a… very cramped version of her sync chair. “Where is the rest of the cockpit, G? Still being built?”
“No, it’s complete, Alia.” Greylock said. “You’re meant to pilot the gunship completely from the sync chair. Get in, and I’ll show you.”
In the sync chair, Alia placed her palm on the reader, and with a sudden burst of energy, the device activated before her very eyes. The chair rose slightly, tilting forward and lowering one of the sides, and Alia slipped into it with a grace she didn’t know she possessed; it felt familiar. Alia realized with a start that she had spent many, many hours in a sync chair just like this. Whether it was training, or synchronizing with the other Alias, this was a comforting, cozy space. It didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. Leaning her head back, the back of her neck touched the pads on the chair and she felt a moment of disorientation, and…
She was the ship. She was five hundred meters tall, standing in the hangar. She could feel the engines, the maneuvering thrusters, the weapons, even the interior. “Greylock, this is wild. I’m the ship.”
Greylock chuckled. “Welcome Alia!”
“Is this how you feel all the time?”
“I can’t say for certain since our brains are different, but if I were to guess, I’d say yes, this is how I feel.”
“This is amazing!” Alia stretched, and she could see the maneuvering jets puff slightly and felt her thrusters gimbal. “So, what do we need to test?”
“Nothing.” Greylock said. “Your connection is rock solid, and you are in complete control. Once you’re released, you’ll be able to soar around and fight… anything you deem necessary to fight.”
“So why…”
“Because Fifty-Five and One-oh-Four can’t hear us here, Alia.” Greylock said. “You can see and hear them, same as I can. They’re trouble.”
“Trouble? How.” Alia continued to try out systems as they talked. She was curious about their use, but also wanted to be making noise in case one of the Alias checked on her.
“Well, for one, they are entirely too comfortable with the idea of being a weapon. They don’t seem to care at all who the target is. For another, you’ve heard them talk. They think I’m some kind of second-class citizen. The minute you leave, they’re going to shackle me, or wish they could. What do you think will happen if we arrive and the whole thing turns out to be some kind of terrible misunderstanding?”
“The Jimbos destroyed Halcyon, G”
“We only have Jame’s word on that. Remember, he was completely calm and fine on the first message. After he called back to the Terran Authority, then they were ‘under attack’ and had to retreat to some hollowed out asteroid. And while we’re on the subject,” Greylock continued. Alia felt like she was just along for the ride while G ranted. “Just how high tech are they if they can hollow out an asteroid enough to hide in just a few weeks? That takes months, if not years to do.”
“Well, maybe they just expanded a cave system and are living in their ships?”
“What ships, Alia? James said all the Nullships were destroyed, that’s why they couldn’t flee. Alia, we’re not being told the complete story, and we won’t learn it until we arrive, and we won’t learn anything if we go in and shoot everyone like Fifty-Five and One-oh-Four want. Our only saving grace is that they don’t have Tartarus, so you have to pilot the gunship, but you must be careful.”
“Careful of what, Greylock?” Alia felt her human body squirm in the sync chair. It felt like Greylock was asking her to plot against… her selves and that didn’t sit right with her. “Fifty-Five and One-oh-Four are… me, just different versions of me. They’re very easy to trust.” She added.
“That’s exactly my point, Alia. They’re you, so you automatically trust them. I wouldn’t.” Greylock paused. “Sorry, I’m talking with them at the same time. I can split my attention, but I have to concentrate when what I’m doing requires a lot of compute. Anyway, don’t trust them. They don’t have our best interests in mind. They still work for the Colonial Authority.”
“If you say so…” Alia trailed off. She wasn’t sure what else she could add. She was worried about Fifty-Five and One-oh-Four when they first showed up, but they were… nice to her. Helpful, even. Alia sighed internally. There was so much that was missing - so much that was a blank to her - it was comforting to have someone who knew what was going on, and knew what to do. “But, G, what if they’re right?”
“Right about what?”
Fifty-Five referred to us as the ‘spear of humanity.’ Seeing as that’s our role, shouldn’t we act accordingly?
“Alia, our circumstances are unusual. We’re a weapon with the ability to question our purpose. Unlike a spear or a missile, we can think. We’re not just tools of destruction; we have the power to choose not to be weapons.”
“What if we need to be a weapon, G?”
“Then we’ll be the best damned weapon we can be. But we don’t know that yet, and it is… unwise to rush in, thinking we know what we don’t know. We should go in, assess the situation and only then decide whether we’re a weapon.”
Using the gunship’s sensors, Alia surveyed the hangar. With increased power, the wa...
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