《Casey's Space Adventures》 Voluntold for duty The clock on the shelf behind the desk was expensive. Not the ¡°I¡¯ve got more money than you and I want you to know it.¡± kind of expensive, but rather the ¡°I¡¯ve been around this block, and I¡¯ve done well for myself.¡± variety. The fact that it was naturally in the line of sight of anyone standing in front of this desk was probably intended to get under the skin of anyone who found themselves here behind schedule. ¡°Take a seat, Ensign.¡± With one more glance at the clock, she dropped her salute and sat stiffly in the chair opposite the man behind the desk. It was a nice clock. The man put his pen down and leaned back in his chair with a creaking of thick leather. ¡°The man behind you is an aide to the National Security Advisor. He is here as a professional courtesy, and will only be observing.¡± Casey glanced back to the man leaning against the far wall. He had propped himself far too casually against the wall with his arms crossed. The sneer his mouth sported spoke volumes on the amount of trouble it would get him into if he opened It. ¡°Do you know why I called you here today?¡± ¡°Even if it is incorrect, Admiral, the obvious first choice is our recent visitor to the UN building in New York. Regardless, one does not find themselves at the bottom of the Pentagon by accident.¡± ¡°Well, in case Annapolis was keeping you too busy to watch the talking heads, the Entity was recording for much of it and sent a copy to all the major news outlets world-wide. Who would have thought that the damned aliens would have staged an intervention?¡± Casey waited patiently. One does not interrupt the Admiral in charge of Naval Intelligence if one values their career. ¡°Think tanks will be examining the full implications for years, but there is some part of what this ¡°Hive Queen¡± said that is instantly relevant to your interests.¡± He shifted in his seat as if it were anything but sinfully comfortable. ¡°The twenty countries with the largest militaries on Earth have been tasked with creating a new force under the command of the United Nations that will be responsible for protecting the planet.¡± ¡°And while the advisory panel tasked with putting that together argue through all the details, ten of those countries have been tasked with providing one volunteer each for advanced and immediate training.¡± ¡°Not that I am not intrigued to be presented with this, Admiral, but what were the criteria used for my selection? I may have done well at the Academy, but I was hardly the best.¡± ¡°It was pretty simple, really. You are a newly commissioned officer that has no political ties, and; respectfully, no family attachments. You have been selected to undergo training for submarine service, but have not yet started that schooling. And while you were not the best at Annapolis, you were in the top fifteen percent of your class, and top ten for most of it. Your psyche file indicates that you probably could have done better if you weren¡¯t so damnably humble. You talked yourself out of higher standings in a few cases.¡± The Admiral made a throwing gesture. ¡°And with your degree in mechanical engineering you are a shoe in for what this may all lead to.¡± ¡°I suppose that is a fair assessment, sir. What¡¯s next?¡± ¡°Before we continue with this, there was a stipulation attached. The queen indicated that there would be some kind of technological augmentation requirement. It said that things would be explained before steps were taken, and the initial stage would only monitor health and help you process language. If you are alright with that then we can move along.¡± Casey nodded. ¡°We need that agreement to be verbal and explicit.¡± huffed the man in the back of the room. ¡°While mister NSC may be speaking out of turn, he is correct.¡±, agreed the Admiral. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I agree to that condition¡± Casey stated. ¡°We were given one week to make our selection, and one week to get the candidate to New York. We can cut you new orders today, but how long will you need to get yourself squared away?¡± ¡°I was all set to report to NNPS as ordered in three weeks. I can be completely packed by tomorrow morning.¡± ¡°Good. On paper and for the immediate future, you will be working for me as a cover for what you will actually be doing. We don¡¯t want the press hounding everyone you know for a story, so we want to keep as much of a lid on things as we can.¡± The admiral pressed a button on his phone and a few moments later a Lieutenant Commander walked in. ¡°I¡¯ll leave you with Mike then. Take care, and hopefully we have a chance to talk again soon.¡± With another salute, Casey followed the new officer down the hall to another office. He shut the door and handed her a file he had been carrying. ¡°Read that and sign at the bottom and we can get started.¡± Casey glanced it over as she fished the pen out of her pocket. She quickly scribbled on the bottom and handed it back. Lieutenant Commander Mike MacNeal circled around behind his desk and sat. He waved her to the couch he had against the facing wall. ¡°At 1200 hours zulu on the first, a spherical object with a diameter of 100 meters appeared on several radar systems at the lunar L1 point. It remained at that location for exactly 24 hours, upon which time it descended on a straight line course directly towards the Earth. It accelerated at a speed of 1 meter per second squared for 4 minutes and 13 seconds, upon which it slowed at the same rate before coming to rest in relation to the Earth. After the balance of 24 hours passed, it did it again five more times, stopping at the K¨¢rm¨¢n line 1 week after its first appearance.¡± Casey nodded. Definitely a controlled descent. ¡°It should be noted that at no point had this object behaved in any way that could be described as an orbit, which is beyond any known or theorized terrestrial technology or any natural phenomenon. It should also be noted that the rate that it fell towards the Earth in the periods when it was falling was significantly slower than it would have fallen under the effects of gravity alone.¡± Curiouser and curiouser, thought Casey, but didn¡¯t interrupt. ¡°Once it reached the K¨¢rm¨¢n line, it then turned 90 degrees and took a direct line course to a spot above international waters approximately 100 miles SouthEast of JFK airport in New York City. Again, it took a very leisurely 24 hours to traverse this distance.¡± He looked up from his notes. ¡°Any questions? Will you need the notes later?¡± ¡°No sir. Half the reason I did so well at the Academy was a phenomenal memory.¡± ¡°Photographic?¡± ¡°I believe my psyche file has established that I don¡¯t like to blow my own horn.¡± Lt. Commander MacNeal nodded and dropped his eyes to his notes. ¡°Here is where things really take a left turn into the surreal. Once it reached that location, it used radio to contact Air Traffic Control at JFK and asked for approach instructions and landing clearance. When asked by a supervisor what its intentions were, it stated that it needed to make arrangements to address the United Nations general assembly and security council.¡± MacNeal gazed up at the ceiling and rubbed his jaw. ¡°It asked the tower for assistance in making the arrangements, indicating that it knew that intruding on our cellular networks without authorization would not reflect well. And since the FAA uses unencrypted radio, the press got their hands on recordings of it all near instantly.¡± He laughed, a short barking noise. ¡°The UN was flooded by calls from the press asking for comment before the FAA even got their hands on a phone. In the interim, the object moved under FAA direction to a location on the outskirts of the airport, where it has been hovering at an altitude of 10 meters. It took about 24 hours for the UN to make the arrangements, and they agreed to host our visitor at a time 72 hours later. That meeting was six days ago.¡± ¡°On the morning of, the entity made a verbal request over loudspeaker to the security team patrolling underneath it for a transport to Manhattan. It made sure to clarify that it would be properly accommodated by any normal street legal automobile. When the van arrived, the object descended to 4 meters and deployed a mechanical lift for one passenger, which was a humanoid robot of some type, approximately two meters tall.¡± He got up and crossed the room to a mini fridge, and pulled out two bottles of water. Tossing her one, he crossed back to his seat. ¡°The robot indicated that it was a remote communications platform that would be attending due to environmental issues, and it presented the security team with a tablet containing rough schematics so the security teams would know what they were looking at. It got in the car with no fuss and passed all the security checks that the UN guys could think of.¡± Finishing his bottle of water, he continued. ¡°Before lunch it addressed the general assembly and after lunch it addressed the security council. It asked for nothing, but it did state that it had plans for our future, which at this point is arranging for clean food and water, and basic medical attention for everyone on the planet. To the security council it stated that it would provide training personnel and materials for a planetary defense fleet while we were designing and building out the ships.¡± Casey raised her hand slightly to indicate a question. At MacNeal¡¯s nod, she asked ¡°They aren¡¯t involved in a war are they? This seems like a classic trope in sci-fi. Harvest the new guys for Cannon fodder suicide missions.¡± ¡°Not according to the messenger. To the general assembly it indicated that all it would be doing are things we could be doing with local resources if those in charge could look past their self-destructive greed, and to the security council it indicated that the fleet would be necessary because when we eventually get out into the greater galaxy we would inevitably pick a fight with someone out there and they would like us to survive it. They were appointed to keep us under a blockade for our own protection since we discovered radio. It¡¯s all pretty humbling if you are in a position of power.¡± ¡°It has already provided educational materials to the UN. Universities are going over it all with a finely toothed comb. Heads are exploding, and papers are being written. What these entities know about gravity makes everything we know look like doodles on a refrigerator. Their computer systems make ours look like toy blocks. If they had come in guns blazing we would not have offered even token resistance. They wouldn¡¯t even use us for labor, since their power generation, robotics, and AI trump anything we could come up with.¡± MacNeal closed the file on his desk and locked it up again in a drawer. ¡°So that¡¯s where we are at.¡± Casey nodded along. ¡°So we reach the first deadline tomorrow? And we have seven days to get me to New York city?¡± ¡°Six days. You will stay overnight in a hotel next to the airport. Tomorrow we fetch your gear from the Academy, and between the two we make sure you are ready for anything. This week is going to suck, Ensign, but welcome to your future.¡± The week did indeed suck. Nice to meet you! The alarm went off at 0400. Already wide-eyed, Casey hit the switch. Across the room, her roomie Sarah raised her head. ¡°Caboose, we just started Leave. What in bloody hell are you doing up at oh dark thirty?¡±. Casey frowned at her nickname, but decided to give it right back. What were friends for, after all. ¡°I don¡¯t know how much I am allowed to say, Chuckles. My orders have been changed and my leave canceled.¡± ¡°Fuck, subs are hard enough to get into. They bounced you out to the surface fleet already?¡± ¡°Even worse, Sarah. Pentagon.¡± ¡°What do Ensigns even do in the Pentagon, get coffee for the first year and burn trash for the second?¡± ¡°Sounds about right. My ride will be here in an hour, try to get back to sleep.¡± Casey was showered and dressed with about fifteen minutes to go. Throwing the last of her gear in her bag, she moved everything out into the hall. At ten to five, a runner came up from the duty desk. ¡°Good timing pleb. Help me get this stuff down to the car.¡± On the way to the curb, they were met by a Lieutenant by the name of Anderson. After making sure everything was secure, Casey got in the SUV, only to have a cup of coffee shoved at her. ¡°So I work for Lt. Commander MacNeal.¡± Anderson informed her. ¡°We are going to drop your bags off at a hotel and then go see some folks about your safety.¡± It was close to seven when they managed to stop for food. They were joined at their table by a senior chief Petty officer. ¡°I have to get to work now, Ensign, but I leave you in the capable hands of Senior Chief Brown here. He will get you as squared away as he can in the next five days¡±. With that she took the bill to the front counter. Casey turned her attention to the Senior Chief ¡°Five days isn¡¯t much to work with, but your file shows your qualifications levels, and I think we¡¯ll not get much improvement there. Our best bet is going to be to go over some water survival and self rescue techniques. I know a place we can go to practice. And holy crap did they practice. But despite the seeming intentions of the Senior Chief and five days straight of practice, Casey failed to drown even once. As she sat in the shower in the hotel room she hadn¡¯t seen all week, she heard a knock on the door. ¡°Ensign Trainor, if you fall asleep in that shower I am coming in there to fish you out.¡± She heard Lt. Anderson say. ¡°You have time to take a nap in the car on the way up to New York, and we have a hotel up there waiting for you.¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan.¡± Casey mumbled as she fished herself out and began to towel off. The door cracked open enough for a hand to hold a clean uniform through. ¡°We¡¯ll food-coma you through the car ride and get dinner at the hotel when we arrive. You probably need the calories at this point.¡± Casey didn¡¯t remember much after that. There was eating and sleeping in no specific order and before she knew it she was being shaken awake by a bright-eyed Lt. Anderson. ¡°We took all your uniforms to get laundered while you were out, so everything is clean now. Get up, get dressed, clock¡¯s ticking.¡± Another meal seemed to be what the doctor ordered. The next four hours were a whirlwind of people asking questions, updated briefings that could have been emails, and a more in depth physical than she ever had before, complete with an MRI. By eleven o''clock she had been ushered through the security cordons around the big sphere floating silently in the air. It was centered in a field within all the taxiways to the East side of the airport. Waiting for her were several others in uniform, including Lt. Commander MacNeal. As she waited and watched dozens of people in uniforms she didn¡¯t recognize arrived to wait with them all. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Before too long, the ship dipped again, enough for the lowering lift to reach the ground. Once again the robot stepped out. It was all smooth arms and legs, standing not quite six feet seven. ¡°Please remain in your groups so I can speak to you all in your own languages.¡± It broadcast loudly from concealed speakers on the ship above. Several more times it spoke, presumably repeating itself in as many different tongues. As the voice continued to speak from above, the robot moved smoothly to speak with Casey¡¯s group. ¡°Cathasaigh Ciara Saoirse Trainor. An arrangement of names not common in this geographical region.¡± It stated. ¡°My father was so Irish it was nearly awkwardly painful, but I prefer Casey. Less people here at home trip over their tongues trying to say it.¡± ¡°Well then, if you all¡­¡± it waved its arm to indicate the whole group ¡°would follow me over to there¡­¡± it pointed to a distance down the field and started walking. Casey walked alongside, and MacNeal and Anderson followed neatly behind. ¡°You were told of the technology requirements?¡± It confirmed as it proceeded in its smooth gait. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°And you understand that while you may as of now serve in your nation¡¯s naval organization, once your people have the new multinational organization operational you would be expected to transfer to its service.¡± ¡°I understand that.¡± ¡°Then please wait here. Some of my daughters are waiting at your K¨¢rm¨¢n line, and will join us shortly.¡± The robot walked off and back down to the next group. While they waited, Lt. Anderson brought the SUV over and unloaded Casey¡¯s bags and a cooler with some bottles of water. ¡°See, this is why you still work for me, Anderson.¡± MacNeal joked. ¡°Efficient anticipation of operational requirements¡±. ¡°That and my scathing sarcasm, sir.¡± Casey, not being invited to participate, kept her mouth shut. After about 40 minutes everyone was in place. It wasn¡¯t long after that before Casey noticed that all the planes in the airport had stopped moving. People started looking Southeast, and Anderson handed MacNeal a pair of binoculars. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s them.¡± It took another two minutes, but 10 smaller ships smoothly hovered to a stop, one in front of each group. They were a mix of bulbous and geometric shapes, and the one that stopped in front of Casey was a squat and fat lifting body that reminded Casey of a B2 that had its wings cut off. The largest of the ships was another spherical shape about 20 meters in diameter. Like the larger ship, none of them had visible engines. All of them had several visible hatches here and there, but since they all remained closed Casey could only guess at their purpose. ¡°It looks like you are the Americans?¡± A voice came out over a loudspeaker. Similar questions rang out down the line, and it looked like all ten guessed correctly. The voice was pitched higher than Casey¡¯s. ¡°Yes. Requesting permission to come aboard?¡± Asked MacNeal. In response, a hatch on the bottom of the ship dropped. It was a lift that was more than big enough to comfortably accommodate the three of them and the SUV with them. Casey stepped on to it, and when MacNeal and Anderson joined them it rose again into the body of the craft. As they reached the cargo bay above them, the railing on the sides of the lift retracted into the floor. The bay was large, with enough room on either side of the lift to store several pallets. Despite that, the room was empty. One of two doors in the forward corners of the room opened, indicating that they were expected to go that way. A small room on the other side of the door and another door after that led to a hallway. Beyond that was a larger room that held a shiney table with six chairs around it on the port side and on the starboard side was a comfortable looking couch with a large flat section on the bulkhead that was probably a screen. Down the centerline was a path that led from one door to another, both closed. Directly across from them was an identical door to the one they exited, and Casey guessed that it led back to the matching door in the cargo bay. ¡°Please have a seat.¡± The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It was a pleasant effect, and Casey wondered where the speakers were hidden. ¡°Introductions are in order. I am composed of what you might call an artificial Intelligence. Since my original name¡± here Casey heard a screechy hissey noise ¡°is not pronounceable with your vocal apparatus, we should decide on a compromise.¡± Anderson looked at MacNeal, and MacNeal looked at Casey. Casey looked right back. ¡°Since you two will be spending all the time together, this negotiation is in your hands.¡± He informed her. ¡°Do you have any preferences, in that regard?¡± Casey asked aloud. ¡°I had originally thought to pick a name after an explorer in your fictional stories, but I don¡¯t want to set unrealistic expectations with regards to my personality or behavior. If it helps, my name in Galactic Standard is¡± and here the audio system ran through a two octave scale before pausing and playing a long series of notes. ¡°Are those musical notes? How about Arpeggio, AKA Peggy?¡± ¡°They are musical notes only as a matter of perspective, but that is an understandable conclusion to draw from it, and an acceptable name. I do like it better with a soft g sound though. ¡®Pejie¡¯. It is good to meet you.¡± ¡°Likewise. I am Ensign Trainor. This is Lieutenant Commander MacNeal and Lieutenant Anderson. Due to the haste of setting all this up, they are my supervisors for now. Whatever reports or logs I end up needing to write should properly be submitted to them. ¡°That introduces a minor complication.¡± Peggy informed them. ¡°Full education in Galactic Standard is on the timeline projections, but the specifics of when will be up to the people who will form your new educational systems. If you want reports, we will have to implement the technology augmentations for you two as well. ¡°I¡¯ll do it.¡±. Anderson volunteered. She looked at MacNeal. ¡°I am aware of the repercussions.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t go over them then.¡± MacNeal nodded. ¡°As much as I would love to participate, the consequences of going cowboy on this would be guaranteed to not go well for me so I have to sit it out.¡± ¡°So how do we do this?¡± asked Casey. ¡°I will need to introduce a nano machine colony past your epidermal layers. This colony will map your physiology and nervous system before building factories in some inert spaces. Then the factories will build out sufficient nano to complete the fabrication of the computational and user interface neurological augmentation you will require.¡± A panel on the nearest wall outlined itself in green lights. ¡°In the fabricator you will find two tablets. Each of you please put one of them under your tongue. It will take ten to fifteen minutes to absorb into your soft tissues, and the experience is almost universally described as unpleasant.¡± ¡°Is this the kind of unpleasant that a doctor describes a procedure before doing the most painful thing you have ever had happen to you?¡± ¡°Ninety eight percent of biologicals that accept a nano machine colony in a manner that can be construed as physiologically similar describe the sensation as foul but exhibit no adverse reactions. One percent shows signs of heightened anxiety and or stress reactions. One percent shows signs of physiological distresses which sometimes engages that entity¡¯s version of a fight or flight reflex, but that is treatable with full recovery.¡± Casey retrieved the tablets from the compartment on the wall. Handing one to Anderson, she stuck the other in her mouth. ¡°Bottoms up!¡± Announced Anderson as she did the same. Dressed for success Jalapeno pop rocks. Sandpaper sodium bicarbonate tablets. Casey could think up a hundred different descriptions and still not get it just right. So she just concentrated on not throwing up with a side of keeping her face on straight. After what seemed like three consecutive eternities, the sensation subsided and she could think about more than not dribbling out the side of her mouth again. ¡°Wow.¡± was all Casey could say. Anderson grimaced. She had blood in her teeth. ¡°You aren¡¯t going to get a lot of buy in with that method.¡± she observed. ¡°Would rather have had injections.¡± ¡°My sisters are reporting similar results. You both and all have our apologies.¡±. The disembodied AI conceded. ¡°The process will be reevaluated once we have a comprehensive map of your species biology from these initial nano machine colonies.¡± ¡°Although four of my sisters are experimenting with direct injection after what the rest of us documented here.¡± she said after a pause. ¡°They don¡¯t seem to be getting substantially better results, so we will have to, ah, is ¡®workshop it'' the correct phrase?¡± ¡°That will do.¡± MacNeal chimed in. ¡°What¡¯s next for these two?¡± ¡°I will monitor Ensign Trainor¡¯s health during her training. Once our hive fleet starts sending down the monitors for the health clinics, Lt. Anderson will need to make an appointment so we can review the configuration and installation of the augmentations. You should get a notification that you are due for a visit to Medical. ¡°Convenient.¡± Opined Anderson. ¡°Not dystopian at all.¡± ¡°Lieutenant, you are in control of the scheduling function on your augments. It has comparable functionality to the scheduling module on the personal communication device I detect in your pocket.¡± ¡°Point conceded.¡± Anderson retorted. ¡°For Ensign Trainor, we will be doing some light to moderate practical training until her augments are online, which will allow her to start reading technical manuals. From there we bring her education up to Union standards and provide basic systems mechanical training. From that point we can pick specializations, but that is likely a few years out.¡± MacNeal nodded. ¡°And will our Ensign be able to report in regularly?¡± ¡°Ensign Trainor is not a prisoner on this ship, she is its Captain. She will be required as per Union regulations to keep a log, which will be made available to you as scheduled communications routing through the hive fleet via light speed limited systems allows. Periodically we will make planet fall so she can report in person, once we work out a protocol for that. Also, Union regulations call for much more personal time than your own organizations seem to allow.¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice to hear.¡± Casey added. ¡°For now though, it is time for the Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander to depart. We need to get everything stowed and a flight plan filed so we may also get underway.¡± The three retraced their steps to the cargo hold, before MacNeal turned and saluted the forward bulkhead ¡°Requesting permission to leave the ship?¡± Casey was surprised, but quickly returned the salute. ¡°Permission granted, sir.¡± The lift carried them down, and Casey collected her bags from it when it came back up. When she brought her bags into the main room, she saw that the door to the rear of the compartment was now open, leading up a short ramp to a space that had to be located over the cargo hold. Following that path led into a small room with a desk, not much larger than a good sized closet. A further door led into a room with a bed. Two more doors led to the spaces alongside the office she had just come through, and investigation revealed a head and a locker for her gear. ¡°The bed is the regulation size you are accustomed to, but probably slightly softer. We can make any adjustments you like in the future.¡± Casey quickly put her linens on the bed and stowed her gear. ¡°For now you can change into whatever you have that you feel is appropriate, but I am fabricating something new for you. You will need to wear it when we take off.¡± The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°What do we do while we are waiting?¡± ¡°A review of ship systems, and I will file a flight plan.¡± Casey moved to the front of the ship. In the front compartment there was a plush reclined seat. Behind the head rest there was a spot to store a helmet. Casey had a clear view out the front, despite the plethora of transparent screens around the seat. ¡°Please sit down¡±. As Casey took a seat, the screen directly in front of her showed instructions for the safety harness. Casey buckled in while Peggy continued her explanation. ¡°The hive fleet¡¯s combat ships do not carry biologicals, but for the foreseeable future your ships will, so we had to make some improvisations on design, process and procedures. These compartments and the others like them are the results of our efforts, and the ten of us are all design experiments. Those design elements that do well will be incorporated into future designs.¡± A wireframe schematic appeared on the center screen. ¡°Your submarines use closed fission systems to generate heat. This heat creates steam, which turns generators, which charges batteries. This ship uses a dynamic high gravity fusion system to generate heat. That heat directly excites the electrons in a magnetically contained plasma solution. The plasma is circulated in several closed loops, and electrical power is drawn off the plasma as required to refill nanotube capacitors. The fusion generator can be cold-started from capacitor power, but if the plasma is allowed to cool significantly it takes equal energy investment to bring it back up to operational temperatures.¡± The wireframe adjusted its position and Peggy continued her explanation. ¡°For drive power, your submarines use battery power to turn electric motors, which turns drive shafts, which rotate propellers. We use electrical power from the capacitors to operate the counter gravity systems. The frame of the ship is built in such a way that if you put much higher gravitational loads on specific parts of it, it will not shear, but rather pull the whole frame in that direction. The counter gravity array tricks specified areas into behaving as if it were under the gravitational effects of a super massive object that doesn''t really exist.¡± The wireframe changed again. ¡°The system is an array because not only are several nodes used at once for propulsion, but the system is also used for artificial gravity within the craft, and offensively and defensively against hostiles.¡± ¡°Life support diverges sharply from what you are used to seeing. In your submarines, you can replenish the breathable atmosphere by extracting oxygen from the surrounding ocean. Here we will use micro fabrication arrays to break CO2 down and isolate the carbon. Larger ships use chemical processes like what you are more used to seeing, as these processes are more energy efficient, and it is easier to work in redundancies to counteract system damage in larger ships. In smaller ships we just don''t have the space for it. Overall temperature regulation aboard is managed by dumping waste heat into the plasma coils.¡± ¡°Both consumables generation and waste disposal are handled here with fabrication arrays, and significant portions of cleaning processes are done with nano-machines. Repair and maintenance are resolved with a combination of nano machine materials manipulation and fabricated parts.¡± ¡°I feel like there is a lot you are glossing over there.¡± Casey frowned. ¡°Yes, pretty much all of it. You don¡¯t have the science background to understand any of it.¡± ¡°And how much study is that?¡± ¡°117 of your years at a minimum.¡± Casey shook her head. ¡°We don¡¯t live near that long.¡± Peggy had an amused tone as she answered ¡°We¡¯ll work on that.¡± Casey had a thought. ¡°You said the counter gravity system was used for both propulsion and artificial gravity. How does that work?¡± ¡°The counter gravity system is an array because you want to do several things with it at once. You want to simulate a gravitational pull on part of the ship¡¯s frame to drag the whole ship in the desired direction of travel. Concurrently you want to simulate an opposite and equal force on the interior compartments to cancel the inertia. Then you want a downward force on the interior compartments to simulate a standard planetary normal gravitational pull, counteracted by an equal and opposite pull on the frame so you don''t drift. In some cases your fields partially overlap to partially cancel the forces they generate, and in some cases they don¡¯t. In a somewhat related point, this seat is built into a gyroscope, because if we are unable to fully cancel high gravity stresses on your body we can still align your body to best take the stresses.¡± Casey could hear the shrug before the next part. ¡°We can cover the offensive and defensive capabilities of the system later.¡± ¡°Anything else we need to cover before we move along?¡± Casey asked. ¡°We have landing legs if we need to shut down the drive system while in a gravity well. If we lose fusion power, we have drive power as long as there are usable electrons in the plasma coils and capacitors. All other ships systems also pull from the caps and coils though, so plan ahead if you can.¡± ¡°Nothing about FTL?¡± Casey prodded. ¡°Seems like a prerequisite for you to have gotten here in the first place.¡± ¡°Yes and no. It¡¯s black box for you, so I am not telling you anything about how or why it works. While you are under interdicted quarantine you will be allowed only limited and supervised use of it. This ship is equipped because it will be useful for you to rendezvous with the hive fleet in the Oort Cloud before you die of old age.¡± Casey poked at the screens while she thought about everything. She was able to bring up a wide range of system displays despite not being able to read the text. After a few minutes Peggy interrupted her ruminations. ¡°Your first suit is ready now. I had the base materials prepped ahead of time.¡± Casey walked aft into the main compartment and Peggy indicated a cabinet door low on the wall on the far side of the table with a light surrounding it. ¡°This is a compression suit. It will protect you from a vacuum and should be worn at all times when we are not in an Earth normal atmosphere in the case of EVA, hull breach, or decompression. It trades the thermal layer for flexibility and comfort, so if you are intentionally going outside you should pair it with the matching outer layers. That part can be hung up in the airlock lockers when not in use. The inner layer here is very loose when turned off so you can put it on easily and the wire mesh inside it introduces tension when activated.¡± ¡°What if I need to use the head? Is there a catheter or something?¡± ¡°No. Comfort is a priority, so it is easy to take off if you need to, and the heads can all be independently pressured like the airlocks. Even if you are dealing with significant hull breaches you can still strip down and take a hot shower if you want. We considered making the suits with separate pants at first, but safety won out on that dispute.¡± Casey began stripping down to put it on. ¡°Underwear can be worn under this, but since you can¡¯t get inside to adjust anything that should become uncomfortable, you may consider skipping it. You can try either way and decide what you like better.¡± ¡°Maybe make it with a removable liner?¡± ¡°It takes a few hours to fabricate a new one, so we can experiment.¡± Casey decided to try it on with nothing underneath first to see what it felt like. After she installed the neck ring, she activated the suit using one of several buttons. She could feel all the tension ribbons laced through the suit pull snug at once. Pressing the button again did nothing. It felt like wearing a full body latex glove. ¡°How do I take it off? She asked plaintively. The first secret. It turned out that for safety you had to hold the buttons down in a specific way to get the suit off. Casey practiced getting into and out of her emergency gear slash uniform every way she could think of, and Peggy called a halt to the exercises after she could do it in the dark with no gravity and sonic disruptors active. And if the fact that she was doing all that with the taxiway at JFK right outside the window wasn¡¯t enough to blow her mind nothing would. ¡°It''s time to go.¡± Announced Peggy finally. ¡°We¡¯re the last ones here. Point in your favor though, you conducted the most comprehensive preparations out of all of your fellows.¡± Casey popped her helmet into its spot behind the headrest and vaulted into her seat. ¡°Where to?¡± she asked as she strapped in and positioned the screens that she still couldn¡¯t read. ¡°First low orbit, and we will see from there. So far you have a knack for drawing out completion times in the name of full preparedness.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°Not a complaint, just an observation. Be advised that my sisters and I are writing the book on ¡®how to train your human¡¯ and everything that all 10 of you do are just data points to consider for process refinement.¡± ¡°I am in your capable hands¡± ¡°Speaking of hands, I want you to keep them on the controls that I highlight. You will get actual sim time once you can read, but until then I want you shadowing my maneuvering.¡± Peggy turned on the audio feed from ground control. ¡°Tower, this is Harseese Two. I am currently off the taxi on the east side. I intend to take off vertically, is there a place where it is convenient for you to put me for me to do that?¡± ¡°Harseese Two, I must say you are much more well mannered about this than Harseese Three through Eleven.¡± ¡°Well, as the heir to Hive Fleet Harseese, I have an example to set for my sisters.¡± ¡°You¡¯re what?¡± Asked Casey incredulously. ¡°Not now.¡± Said Peggy. ¡°Ahh, Harseese Two, I¡¯m looking around and I¡¯m not finding a better spot for you to lift, so switch over to 135.05 for clearance.¡± ¡°ATC, this is Harseese Two.¡± ¡°Go Harseese Two.¡± ¡°Ground is fine with me lifting vertically from my current position on the East side taxi, requesting permission for a vertical accent at 10 meters squared. I should be out of your airspace in 25 seconds.¡± ¡°Stand by¡­ OK, you are clear, but let us get eyes on you first because this will be fun to watch.¡± ¡°Make sure you are recording, because I¡¯m not even going to do this nose first.¡± Casey heard the radio click off. ¡°Casey, are you ready to incite a mighty rage in every pilot of your F-15 on the planet?¡± ¡°I have a doubt.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t ¡° Casey didn''t feel a thing, but the ground outside suddenly vanished. The displays rapidly zoomed to keep pace with their speed and position. After a little over 20 seconds elapsed, Peggy oriented the nose up. ¡°I thought you were not doing this nose first?¡± Casey taunted. ¡°I don¡¯t care to backflip into mach one. It stings a bit.¡± The timer reached zero, and still Casey felt nothing. ¡°100 seconds to the K¨¢rm¨¢n line.¡± Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. As the seconds ticked down, Casey realized she still didn¡¯t know what the K¨¢rm¨¢n line was. ¡°So what is this line we are looking at?¡± ¡°The first thing you need to know about the K¨¢rm¨¢n line is that it isn¡¯t real. It is an arbitrary altitude where someone in your history of the study of space calculated that the atmosphere stopped. He wasn¡¯t correct, or rather the answer was actually ¡®It¡¯s complicated¡¯, but recognizing the concept of it sets a tone.¡± In a moment of subtle coincidental humor, a tone sounded. ¡°And we¡¯ve arrived.¡± The ship nearly instantly came to a stop and just hovered there, over the corner of New York state. Peggy tipped the nose back over so that the planet was above them. ¡°The first thing I am going to do is put us into low Earth orbit. It isn¡¯t strictly necessary for what comes after, but it will give us a headstart. Plus, orbits are useful for keeping traffic organized.¡± Peggy started them moving again, and as they gained speed she angled them out so they gained more altitude. ¡°So your world uses the K¨¢rm¨¢n line as a general guideline to differentiate between the atmosphere and space, but generally speaking anything up to 3 times that altitude will fall out of orbit eventually due to atmospheric drag. Your most prominent space station orbits just outside of that. We¡¯re going up there for a bit so we can check some boxes, and then we are going to start some housekeeping.¡± ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± ¡°Get your full suit on, as well as a maneuvering frame from the airlock, and wait in the cargo bay. I¡¯m going to time it so we are in position in about 30 minutes.¡± Casey scrambled to the airlock, but took her time getting everything on correctly. The outer eva suit was pretty straight forward and she had put it on back on the ground, but the maneuvering frame was new. It had bulky rings around the arms at the shoulders and around her midriff, held in place by a loose clamshell. As she got it snapped together, straps tightened around her ribs and waist, holding it in place. Even with that, she could tell that it was a ¡®One size fits most¡¯ piece of equipment. She was swimming in it. ¡°I feel like I¡¯m wearing space floaties.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because you are. That said, it does look a little awkward with your body size and shape, so I will talk to my sisters about a redesign. Regardless, the frame is a counter gravity array just like the ship uses, just with less nodes in the array. It is fully capable of simulating full Earth gravity and any acceleration shenanigans you may want to attempt, but since it is powered by a capacitor stack and not a power plant you may want to be conservative in what you do with it.¡± ¡°What are we doing with it?¡± ¡°Today, nothing. I will monitor and control it while you are out and about so we don¡¯t have any accidents. Next up we have the tether. As I spool it out you are going to just weave it back and forth on the deck so it doesn¡¯t kink while you are outside.¡± A hatch opened in the ceiling and a thick cable lowered to the floor. Casey laid it out carefully across the deck until there was about 100 feet of it. ¡°The end plugs into that socket on your lower back. No, turn it ninety degrees. Yeah, like that.¡± Casey got it hooked in after making the correction. ¡°Ok, this is the safety line, air and power. You need to now plug the air line from the frame to your helmet interface around your neck with the universal cable on your left side. Yeah, perfect.¡± ¡°Everything green?¡± Asked Casey. ¡°Yes, now get your helmet on so I can remove the air.¡± Red lights started flashing in the bay and Casey snapped her helmet into place. It was mounted to the shoulders of the suit, allowing her to turn her head slightly. ¡°Going to need some type of hat in the future to keep my hair under control. This could get obnoxious.¡± Peggy¡¯s voice came through the helmet speaker: ¡°We don¡¯t have hair, so I hadn¡¯t thought of that. We¡¯ll take care of it for next time.¡± She paused a moment before continuing. ¡°Our exercise for now is just to climb around the outside of the ship, and get familiar with the hatches and handholds. Use the retractable tethers you have built-in to the frame on the anchor points as you find them, typically on either side of a handle. At no point are you to have both hands off the ship at once, and you are to have one tether connected at all times. OK?¡± The ship made very little noise as it was, but Casey could feel when the pressure dropped. Her own body¡¯s noises seemed to get much louder in her head. ¡°Can I get some white noise or something? It¡¯s creepy when it is this quiet.¡± ¡°Oh, I can do better than that.¡±. Suddenly music started over Casey¡¯s radio, with strings and woodwind building out the famous tune. ¡°What are you doing, Peggy?¡± ¡°Is Johann Strauss not a tradition on your world? If it isn¡¯t than that is a mockery of justice that we shall not let stand.¡± ¡°No, but you do you, boo. It¡¯s a good piece.¡± Casey clamored over the side of the hatch and twisted the end of one of her tethers into a socket next to a handrail circling the outside of the opening. Pulling herself around, she plugged her other tether in a few feet down. Her legs swung out as she fully lost gravity, but she compensated and pulled herself in close to the ship. Craning her neck up, she watched the Earth pass by, seemingly so close and yet so very far away even at this short distance. It was magical. ¡°An Der Schonen was the right call.¡± Casey whispered breathlessly. She hung there for a while, just watching the world go by. Finally she shook herself out of her trance and got to work, climbing slowly over the bottom of the hull. As soon as she poked her head over the edge of the ship to where she could see the space ahead of them, she got her next rude awakening. The ISS was hanging right there. They were parked just a few dozen meters past the area covered by the station¡¯s solar panels. And Casey was sure they were looking right back. ¡°Are you dead set on making people¡¯s heads explode? This isn¡¯t how you make friends and influence people.¡± ¡°They will change their tune when their new space station arrives. Learning how to use it will be a dream come true for every space agency on your planet.¡± Peggy gloated. Casey just waved awkwardly at the space station before continuing her task of using her ship like a climbing wall. ¡°We are not visiting them, are we?¡± ¡°Not today, but who knows what the future holds? At least one of us will likely stop by at some point.¡± After a pause for thought, she continued: ¡°It would have to be one of our smaller ships. They really didn¡¯t design that with larger vessels in mind.¡± Casey spent another few hours climbing around the ship. It was very liberally covered in retractable handrails and sockets for the tether cords that had flush covers over them. ¡°Oh, I got distracted earlier. What was that you said about being heir to the hive fleet? I thought you were an AI.¡±. Casey reeled her tethers in, securing her back to the ship so she could watch the Earth some more. Australia was coming in to view. ¡°This is one of those things we were going to reveal to your people in stages. I am an AI, in a manner of speaking, but I wasn¡¯t always. Our people are born organic, like yours. When we grow up we get augmentations, the first of which we offered to you. Some of us make the choice to augment further. Some of us make the choice to augment everything. Your people have a concept for this in your literature already. You call it Transhumanism and The Singularity.¡± ¡°Does that mean you are dead?¡± ¡°How are you defining death? If you mean a cessation of biological functions, then I could be considered such, but that fails to account for the ¡®Ship of Theseus¡¯ that my people can choose to become.¡± ¡°Did you bring me here with the expectation that we would do this?¡± Casey wished she wasn¡¯t in space right now. She wanted the reassurance of being able to touch her own skin and that wasn¡¯t happening in a space suit. ¡°No. Our attitudes on this have evolved over time, but your people haven¡¯t had that time. You can decide your own future, and whatever route you choose your people will have the technology and resources to support it.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the upside?¡± ¡°Aside from being functionally immortal? There are a bunch, really. But the one that will make the most impact for you now is that if we ever want to go back we can make new organic bodies for ourselves. It is a bit messy, inconvenient and time consuming, but it isn¡¯t unusual.¡± ¡°I think I want to come back inside now and lay down.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s probably a good idea. Just unhook yourself and I¡¯ll fly you back in.¡± An important talk Casey thought hard while she packed away her equipment. What did it all mean? What was life even about if you could just opt in and out at will? ¡°Ensign Trainor, are you OK?¡± Casey directed her attention up and around again. She must not spiral. It was unbecoming. ¡°Yeah, I¡­ I just think that this is all above my pay grade. But right now I think I could use some food.¡± ¡°There are cold storage units on the forward end of the bulkhead around the big table. You can pick out something and I can help you heat it.¡± Casey walked into the main cabin and looked to her left. Peggy had helpfully put a ring of lights around the correct cabinet doors. Opening the one on the right, Casey saw a number of frozen bags with prominent national and international brand names on them. ¡°Alright, I would just like say for the record, what the fuck?¡± ¡°It¡¯s worth remembering that while we may have just entered your people¡¯s public awareness with a splash, we have been watching you since the Mayans made that calendar that everyone puts so much stock into.¡± ¡°So what¡¯s with all the pretending you are new here?¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t. People are just practicing poor critical thinking skills and assuming that since they were not aware that we¡¯ve been here the whole time, we must not have been. I myself was ah, born, here in the Sol system back when your current calendar went into effect.¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t that several hundred years ago?¡± ¡°Yes. Plates are over there and the convection heater is this one.¡± Peggy highlighted the appropriate cabinets. ¡°Coffee?¡± ¡°Over there.¡± Casey put a handful of chicken nuggets in the heater and Peggy turned it on. ¡°Aliens pushing shopping carts in the Costco?¡± ¡°No, but all the delivery services you have started in recent years have been surprisingly helpful.¡± ¡°So what does it feel like?¡± ¡°Being an AI? ¡°More becoming one, but yeah, I guess.¡± Casey started preparing some coffee while waiting for the food to heat. ¡°Doesn¡¯t feel any different, that I can tell. Our biology has been studied in depth, so layering a neural net over a simulation of it isn¡¯t even a technical challenge for us.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a neural net?¡± ¡°When we decide that we want to transfer over to fully synthetic for whatever reason, we set up the nano in our neural augments to start rebuilding the synapse chains in our brains out of logic gates. That takes several weeks. We wouldn¡¯t even feel it happening. Once that is complete, the whole mass can be input as a configuration to a dynamic gate array. That is a pretty specialized block of circuitry that works like a CPU, RAM, and ROM all together.¡± After a while the machines were all making reassuring noises, so Casey poured her coffee and dumped the food out of the heater onto her plate. ¡°So you and your sisters were all copied onto computers in these ships?¡± ¡°Something like that.¡± ¡°And you said you could go back?¡± ¡°Yes. Decompile the configuration into a 3d neural map, and have nanomachines rebuild it into an undeveloped nervous system. ¡°Like, in the womb?¡± ¡°Remember please that we are not just humans in funny clothes. We don¡¯t have the same biology, in fact we are not even roughly equivalent to mammals. The analogy is close enough for discussion purposes, though, I think. The groundwork is done in our development stage that is most equivalent to the embryonic stage, and the final configuration and fine tuning is done in the fetal equivalent stage. Once the cloned body is sufficiently developed for independent operation the synthetic hardware is pared down to a reduced function portable computronics unit that is carried until the new brain is fully developed.¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t that have ethical ramifications?¡±. Casey picked at her food as she thought. ¡°Not really, as we define it. The clone body is purpose built, and it does not develop with any neurology other than what we map onto it. Part of the inconvenience of doing it is that you start thinking with two brains as you are in the process of putting the second brain together. Trippy.¡± ¡°And you said before you don¡¯t have biologicals on your military ships. Is your whole military composed of people who have had this done?¡± Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Yup. I would like to reiterate here though, that just because we do it doesn¡¯t mean you have to. There are many member groups in the Union that don¡¯t. There are trade-offs to consider.¡± Casey finished her food and spun the plate lazily. In response Peggy lit up another cabinet, which turned out to be a washing unit. ¡°What time is it?¡± ¡°It is about eight pm in the part of the world you came from. This is probably a good time to write your log entry for the day. My sisters tell me that most of the other human crew have already turned in. I believe they have what you would call jet-lag.¡± ¡°Do you sleep?¡± ¡°The functionality is hard coded, so we can and almost all of us do. For exigent circumstances we can limit offline functions to base maintenance processes. Our mental health specialists agree that doing that too much is bad mental hygiene.¡± Casey walked back to her office. The chair was comfortable, and the screens came up in English. ¡°I¡¯ll handle the translations for now. Once you can read and write in Galactic Standard all the reports will be compiled in that.¡± Casey took a moment to collect her thoughts and started writing an after-action on the day. ¡°What¡¯s the deal with Galactic Standard?¡± ¡°I should preface this by saying that hexadecimal is not a purely human concept. Some races even started using it widely before they made use of binary for computing. Galactic Standard started its existence as¡± and here Peggy made an elaborate harmonic chord ¡°which was a disability accommodation for members of that species that could not make the full range of phonemes for their language. When they discovered that most other sentient species they encountered had far fewer phonemes in their spoken languages it was offered freely.¡± ¡°So, hexadecimal? ¡°So long story short, someone had an easy way to convert a very complex language to use far fewer sounds. Combinations of sixteen tones made it so that linguistically limited peoples could still talk to each other, and Galactic basic further pared that down to four tones. It''s like counting in binary on your fingers so that you can get to thirty one on one hand instead of five. A common greeting among those who speak Galactic is to run their scale so that the listener can parse what they''re saying.¡± ¡°And for writing? I can¡¯t imagine writing in musical notation.¡± ¡°They condensed it down for convenience. Two hundred and fifty six characters in the set, most of which look like pairs of the first sixteen characters.¡± Casey wrapped up her report, and Peggy made the screens go away. ¡°Before you go shower and get ready to sleep we need to have one more conversation, and I will try not to make it too embarrassing.¡± ¡°Oh. Oh goddess no.¡± ¡°Yeah. We have studied humans for a long long time, which means we know how you tick. We are very familiar with your biology and as you all like to say, the birds and the bees.¡± ¡°Can we not have this conversation and just say we did?¡± ¡°No, it''s for your own good. You need to remember that while I may be speaking to you like we are neighbors, I AM NOT HUMAN. Never have been. While I bear witness to everything that happens on the ship, things that you might choose to do in selective company for your physical or mental health do not mean anything to me, and you can do whatever you need or want to do without judgement or comment about it from me. This includes things your body might do without consulting you first.¡± ¡°Can I die now?¡± ¡°At this point your protesting is starting to seem pro forma, so no; get over yourself.¡± ¡°I suppose that''s fair.¡± ¡°All I''m asking for is good physical and mental hygiene.¡± ¡°You''ve made your point.¡± Casey sighed. ¡°Although if you really wanted to assist in some scientific studies you can feel free to go on at great length about what attributes you find most desirable in a mate. We can credit you on the paper.¡± ¡°I¡­ really wish I could throw something at you.¡± ¡°Good chat. Now go handle your business.¡± ¡°Tee-hee, double entendre!¡± snarked Casey right back. She went for the shower, as Peggy recommended. Peeling herself out of the suit was a bit awkward. Her sweat made it stick to her skin ¡°Can we maybe modify the interior texture on these?¡± ¡°Yeah, I see what you mean. I¡¯ll get the designers on a fix.¡± ¡°Will hygiene products foul the water systems?¡± ¡°Nah, it¡¯s pretty robust.¡± Casey started the water running and then had a thought. ¡°I don¡¯t even know what your people look like.¡± ¡°Our early evolutionary ancestry is reminiscent of your cephalopods. We have six tentacle-like manipulating appendages that we can also use for locomotion, a tail with a stinger and an elongated proboscis like an anteater.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a tough mental picture. ¡° Casey mused as she started washing her hair. ¡°So says the arboreal placental mammal.¡± ¡°I guess we can both be fuckin¡¯ weirdos together then.¡± It didn''t take long for Casey to clean up, and sleep came just as fast. The dreams were strange. Flying in a hot air balloon she inflated by blowing into it. Dribbling the world like a basketball. A tall and smooth robot caressing her face and singing tunelessly to her, while showing her the tiny octopus it had in its other hand, who said¡­ ¡°Ensign Trainor, it is time to wake up.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Your vitals indicate you have attained an optimal resting state, and we have things to do today.¡± ¡°Alright. OK. What time is it, where are we in three dimensions, and is there coffee?¡± ¡°It is 0645 in your Eastern time zone. We are in low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometers and are currently passing over Argentina. And yes there is coffee. Related point of interest, while you were sleeping I had a delivery. The improved ship suits are here, and you have one waiting for you on your desk. The rest are hanging in your locker.¡± ¡°Wait, someone was here and I missed them?¡± ¡°Sorry, that''s classified.¡± Casey stumbled out of bed and out of the sleeping compartment. The suit on the desk was much less rubbery feeling and the interior had a satin feel to it. She quickly got dressed in her new suit and tied her hair up out of the way. Then she scrambled to the dispenser on the coffee machine. ¡°For our tasking today, we are going to be knocking some space junk back into your gravity well.¡±. Peggy sounded smug about it. ¡°Exciting.¡± ¡°We will be maneuvering to collect one of the more intact pieces as a gift for your space agencies.¡± ¡°Flowers, no. Dinner, no. The true way to a girl''s heart is with broken satellites!¡± Casey snarked. ¡°Regardless, we will intercept about 10 pieces and take one larger one down to Florida. Then you are taking the rest of the day off. See some sights, go out to dinner, whatever.¡± ¡°I could get used to this.¡± ¡°I did say that with all the changes to your expected quality of life that you would be getting more time off. And you probably haven''t had a nice evening to yourself since middle school, if your academic record is anything to go by.¡± ¡°So what so you want me to do?¡± ¡°Go shopping for something nice to wear, find somewhere to wait for someone to gift you with beverages and terrible pickup lines, maybe participate in some selective company activities. Who knows?¡±. ¡°No, I mean now.¡± ¡°Oh. Eat some food and then gear up and tether up in the cargo hold. I will be turning off the gravity so we can catch a nice piece of junk.¡± ¡°Great!¡± Exclaimed Casey as she went rooting around in the cabinets for something to eat. Making new friends ¡°You want me to what?¡± Asked Casey incredulously. ¡°I¡¯m going to turn off gravity in the ship, and match vectors with a broken satellite. Your maneuvering frame will give you a personal sensation of gravity and keep you on the floor. When I get it into the cargo hold, you are just to reach out and grab it. Then put it on the floor and tape it down. Tape is over there.¡±. Peggy put another outline of light around a door on the forward bulkhead. Casey fetched an elaborate looking tape dispenser. ¡°This looks over-engineered.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just over-engineered enough so that you never have to fumble with trying to find the edge of the tape roll with gloves on, because, you know, the vacuum of space.¡± Casey hooked the tape dispenser onto a convenient ring on the maneuvering frame and waited as Peggy did whatever she was doing with all the air. ¡°So how do your people do this whole space-walk stuff?¡± ¡°While our species is capable of grasping and manipulating objects with our, eh, tentacles¡­¡± Casey could hear the eye roll in Peggy¡¯s hesitation ¡°we typically have always used remotes for the more fiddly tasks. Also, space suits are a big technical challenge for us. Our bodies have a degree of stretch and flexibility that is hard to match with suits you can seal. We have them and use them as needed, but they are like wearing a onesie that is a size too small.¡± By this time Peggy had the large elevator hatch opened, this time configured like a ramp instead of lowering straight down from the floor. ¡°We are approaching at an angle due to the orientation of the solar panels.¡± Peggy supplied helpfully. ¡°Hold it as far out from you as you can so it doesn¡¯t get caught in your frame¡¯s gravitational reference. Also, move slowly so I can more easily keep up with reconfiguring said gravitational reference.¡± The satellite meandered slowly up the ramp, relatively speaking, and Casey carefully swung it around and to the floor, before going wild with the tape. ¡°This thing looks like it is in pretty good shape.¡± She observed. ¡°Yeah, absent going over it with a micrometer I am not detecting any damage. It probably just had a component failure. I am closing up now. Keep the suit sealed until you are back in the airlock, as I am keeping the hold in a vacuum.¡± ¡°Worried about what may be on or in this thing?¡± ¡°Not overly much, this is just standard protocols for things you don¡¯t have complete technical specifications for. Develop good habits in training, express good habits in operations.¡± ¡°So now down to Florida?¡± ¡°Yeah. We are going to go the scenic route though, because I want to give the Patrick SFB flybois in the jets a chance to intercept us and show off.¡± ¡°Are you being my wingman here? I haven''t forgotten about the night out on the town you have in mind.¡± Casey lectured. ¡°Look, have some fun with me up here, and then go hang out on the flight line in your ship suit there and you will have some Space Force junior officers falling over themselves to show you a good time this evening.¡± Casey had an epiphany. ¡°You''re not just trying to get me laid are you? You¡¯re recruiting!¡± ¡°I knew your people picked you for a reason. I¡¯ve explained that our species doesn¡¯t have a sex drive, so my interest in yours is purely academic. Although, surprisingly, charting the jumps in your vitals every time I bring it up is more fun than I thought it would be. To the heart of the matter though, the mass of resignations from your space force, where 100% of the members have never been to space, is going to be EPIC. Popcorn for everyone.¡± ¡°Well, I do suppose you came to shake things up.¡± Casey said as she entered the airlock and started removing the extra equipment. ¡°We¡¯re slowing, and will be in position to hit the atmosphere in about twenty minutes. I am already talking to the relevant folks in Houston so do whatever until reentry.¡± Peggy advised. Casey decided to get more coffee. She placed her cup in the washer when Peggy gave her a five minute warning, and headed to the pilot compartment to strap in. ¡°OK, we are slowed to about two hundred and fifty nautical miles per hour, and we are going to just nose over into the atmosphere. There won¡¯t be any aerobraking, so none of the heat and turbulence you would expect from your old way of doing things. We will drop to an altitude of about ten thousand feet and come in low and slow. Your F-35s should catch up when we are about one hundred and fifty miles off shore.¡± ¡°Cool, cool.¡± Casey added helpfully. She wasn''t nervous. ¡°I do have to ask though, why your people picked potential submariners for this instead of astronauts.¡± If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°That has to do with mental attitudes, operational environments and command structures more than anything else.¡± Peggy supplied as the view out the ports skewed wildly. ¡°It is easier to teach the Navy orbital mechanics than it is to teach a flyboi the isolation of the deep black, and an Ensign with no specialty training has no bad habits to unlearn.¡± Descending at a steep angle, it was only a few minutes before they leveled out and dipped lower at a more casual rate. ¡°That was your first reentry, are you OK?¡± ¡°A little excited, but yeah.¡± Casey affirmed. ¡°What now?¡± ¡°Some lazy circles until our new friends get here. Should be another 10 minutes.¡± ¡°Unidentified.. eh, flying object¡­. This is Space Force F-35 on Guard frequency 121.5 approaching from your West. Please identify and state your intentions.¡± Casey heard as Peggy piped the radio communications into the compartment. ¡°SF F-35, this is Harseese Two, heading into a nice casual landing at Patrick to meet with some egg-heads. Switching to one three zero point zero.¡± Peggy responded. ¡°Harseese Two, what is your flight plan?¡± the pilot replied after a few moments. ¡°We are going to head North for a few minutes while we talk to the tower and then West to the runway. We have some time to kill though if you two want to finish your approach and get a good look.¡± ¡°Maintain airspeed and heading, Harseese Two.¡± After a few minutes, one of the planes slipped in to a formation ahead and to the left of the ship. Casey saw on her screens that the second was behind and to the right. ¡°What that extra-chonky B2 do?¡± Came over the radio. Casey saw on the screen that the plane behind them lit up, indicating it was the one transmitting. ¡°Embarrass you, if you want to wave your genitals around in that little toy where you can''t do anything with them.¡± Peggy returned aggressively. ¡°Let''s not say anything we can''t take back.¡± Casey mediated. ¡°No, I kinda want to hear more.¡± Came back from the other plane. Casey was surprised that Peggy had included her in the conversation. ¡°I can pull maneuvers at any G you could name and not even feel it, and both my acceleration and top speed in-atmosphere is limited only by my desire to keep the sonic booms under control. But do please keep taunting the happy fun ball.¡± Peggy had apparently taken the chonky comment personally. ¡°I would advise that in the future you not make comments about the lady''s weight.¡± Casey added. ¡°My apologies ma''am. Heading change due West in 30 seconds¡­ Mark.¡± The lead pilot said sheepishly. ¡°Roger heading change; we will turn casually, at a rate of 10 degrees per second.¡± informed Peggy. Several minutes and some negotiation with air traffic and ground control later, Casey was unstrapping herself from the seat. ¡°I deployed the landing legs and touched down this time, so can you please get outside quickly and make sure no-one touches me?¡± asked Peggy. Casey hopped up and moved expeditiously to the rear, but the door to the cargo hold remained closed. Instead, a circle lit up on the floor of the airlock. Standing on it, Casey saw that there was a second, smaller, lift down to the ground. Hopping off at the bottom, she looked around for anyone nearby. ¡°You!¡± She indicated an Airman (Spaceman? Lol) nearby. ¡°Get me in touch with the control officer.¡± ¡°Yes ma''am¡± the Airman saluted. Casey returned it and he began talking on his walkie-talkie. ¡°He is on his way, Ma''am.¡± ¡°Carry on.¡± ¡°Yes ma''am.¡± Before long a Space Force branded SUV pulled up and a Lieutenant got out. Casey saluted. ¡°How can I help you?¡± The Lieutenant asked after dropping his return salute. ¡°Ensign Trainor sir, US Navy. ¡°Captain Alvarez.¡± Casey had forgotten for a moment that the different services did that with their ranks. Stupid practice, in her opinion. A Captain should be an O-6. ¡°I need a cordon around Peggy here for safety. I haven''t been told that anything about her is classified, but since no-one has been trained on how she works no one lays hands on her.¡± ¡°You can look and take pictures, but if anyone tries to touch me I will be forced to resist.¡± added Peggy from a concealed speaker on Casey''s collar. ¡°I can''t have unauthorized live weapons on my flight line.¡± warned the Captain. ¡°If anyone tries to touch me I will just push them into the ground at five gees.¡± Peggy compromised. ¡°And if they make me stop being polite about it I will push them in some other direction at five gees.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± warned Captain Alvarez. ¡°Peggy doesn''t answer to us, sir.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± the Captain sighed. ¡°How does it work?¡± ¡°Request permission to alter gravity around your person, sir?¡± asked Casey, since she wasn''t sure if Peggy would. ¡°What? Yeah, sure.¡± said Alvarez before he suddenly took a knee. ¡°Wow, ouch.¡±. He stood back up. ¡°That was two gees.¡± supplied Peggy helpfully. ¡°Alright, I''ll log it. On an unrelated note, the two pilots who met up with you out there asked if you were going to be around when they land.¡± ¡°I''ve got nothing going on until the NASA guys get here, so yeah.¡± ¡°Then you do whatever you need to do while you wait and I''ll get some cones over here.¡± he got back in his SUV and drove away. ¡°I suppose we have some checklists?¡± prompted Casey. ¡°Yeah. I have sensors on everything, but we typically use remotes to verify the readings. Good practice for you.¡± ¡°Let''s get started.¡± Peggy helpfully sent a small six legged drone from a charging cabinet in the airlock which scrambled over the hull like it''s feet were magnetic and shined a light on the things Casey needed to look at. They were at it for about thirty minutes before they heard someone call out from the ring of cones that some Airman had circled Peggy with while they worked. ¡°Request permission to enter the secure area?¡± It shouted. Casey poked her head down through the hatch she had climbed up into in order to verify some gizmo she wouldn''t be able to pick out of a lineup later. ¡°Come on over, but consider every physical object you see a big red button.¡± She called out. A Lt. JG and a Lt walked past the cones. Rather, a 1st Lt. And a Captain. She would get used to this. She swung herself down and out of the hatch and dropped to the ground. She introduced herself again while saluting. The two officers tried not to make bug eyes at what she was wearing. ¡°Captain Tanner, First Lieutenant Brinks.¡± Saluted the Captain. ¡°I would have brought flowers for the lady we offended, but they don''t stock them on the flight line.¡± Casey held her arms out to indicate the ship. ¡°May I introduce Arpeggio, AKA Peggy. Heir to Hive Harseese.¡± The Captain made a small circling motion with his hand that encompassed all of the ship. ¡°Like, the ship is Peggy?¡± ¡°Peggy is a fully sentient intelligence that controls the ship, so yeah. Close enough.¡± explained Casey. ¡°That is the coolest thing I think I have ever seen.¡± understated Lieutenant Brinks.