Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 65

65 Core Logos

“And that sums up the fifty-seven basic control mechanisms for the Prometheus Core,” said the Admiral. “Over the course of the next six cycles, we will go over the advanced control mechanisms.”

Admiral Chase had lectured them on the core they were going to be testing. The display behind her was filled with technical documentation, blueprints, and data readouts regarding the core itself.

Eva was almost in tears. Tiamat’s Transcendence was in full blast by this point.

She thought they were going to go look at the cores, play with them, fly them, that sort of thing. Her heart shuddered and her mind blanked the moment the Admiral’s lecture started.

After spending hours on the contract, and hours again on this technical information, Eva felt as though her brain was going to stay numb forever.

But she wasn’t alone. Similar to her, Redstar seemed like she couldn’t really keep up with the science and technical aspects of the project. She was here to pilot cores, not read manuals.

Merlin on the other hand was rather studious. He did his best to absorb the information as it was presented. But it was all rather dense, and even he could barely handle it.

Instead, he shut off his brain and simply took notes. He intended to review them later, when he had the chance. And the brainpower.

Miko however took to the whole lesson with great gusto. She pored over the information that was given, and seemingly understood what the Admiral was trying to convey.

.....

She even asked many questions about how the systems inter-operated, and the two immediately got into a techno-philosophical conversation that the others simply couldn’t follow.

No-one had the clarity that Miko had over Prometheus. Well, except the Admiral herself.

After the lecture, they all took an hour-long break to relax a little. Eva definitely needed the time to let her mind relax again.

The four pilots wandered out into the city a little, right near where the hangar was. They went into a few shops, ate some street food, took in the sights. They all felt like tourists, even though they were only there for a job.

Other than a few exchanges, the four didn’t really talk much during their break. They took the time to absorb what they had learned.

Well, except Eva. She hadn’t learned anything from the lecture.

The entire city was carved out of the asteroid, which had been almost completely hollowed out. It was then sealed and pressurized completely. The only way in or out was through the hangars.

The entire city itself had lined the asteroid’s interior, and wrapped around on the inside. When the pilots looked up, they didn’t see a sky or ceiling – just more city.

Although it was enclosed like Helios, it didn’t have room for a digital ceiling. To stave off complete darkness, there were numerous city lights that ran constantly.

It was as though it was nighttime, all the time.

They found an odd romanticism about how all the streets were brightly lit.

“It is like Paris at night,” said Merlin.

The others nodded, though they didn’t quite exactly understand him. Not one of them had been to Paris, much less at night. Redstar especially found it difficult to relate, considering she didn’t come from the refugees’ universe in the first place.

At some point the Chase siblings caught up to them and offered them a lift to the Admiral’s lab.

She pointed to the glimmering tower in the distance. It was in the middle of the city, and sat in the “bowl” opposite the hangar itself.

The pilots quickly agreed, as it would have been a rather long walk otherwise. So they entered the Admiral’s hopper and headed towards the city center.

As they sped past the different districts, it occurred to Eva that there wasn’t some insane bureaucracy at work here. Certainly nothing like on Helios.

Admiral Chase was the center of power on this rock. This was her charge, like any other warship would be any other admiral’s charge.

Except she didn’t fly any other warship. She had an entire city at her beck and call. There must have been hundreds of thousands of people in it, all of whom ultimately answered to her. And everything revolved around her research tower.

“How are you all enjoying Tartarus Base?” asked the Admiral. “Not that you got to see much of it. But you’ll get your chance over the coming weeks.”

“Are we stuck here on the asteroid?” asked Redstar. “I mean, I saw in the contract that we got shore leave. But it didn’t specify when or how.”

Commander Chase answered for his sister. She really wasn’t much of an administrator to begin with. All she cared about was her work.

“Depends, really,” he said. “We’ve planned for a week of shore leave every two weeks. But things could change, as previously mentioned”

“Though I’d really prefer if you stayed here and worked through your leave instead,” said the Admiral. “The faster we get done, the better for all of us. Plus doing so would contribute to your bonus clause.”

They all certainly liked the sound of bonuses.

After seeing a good portion of the city whizz by, the hopper entered the grounds to the secure lab. It was visibly guarded by a few light drones, which helped keep nosier folks at a distance.

Eva was certain that there were hidden defenses everywhere. This entire base was filled with layers of protection. It wouldn’t be this light right at the heart of it.

The Admiral stopped right at the front, got out of the hopper, and headed inside. The others followed right behind.

She swung by the administration desk and had the security team assign the pilots with the proper amount of security clearances. As they did so, one of the Admiral’s personnel came up to them.

The girl was rather slim and short, but had a strong stature. She was also rather young, and seeing as she worked here, was likely a prodigy like Admiral Chase.

And just like the Admiral, she wore a stone grey naval uniform. But instead of four slanted silver stripes, she had two silver circles.

Eva noticed that Commander Chase only had one. She quickly guessed that the girls’ rank must have been captain.

“Admiral,” she said. “Glad to see you back. Your reports.”

She immediately presented the Admiral with a datapad, then led the way to the lifts.

The two of them discussed base operations as they traveled upwards. Their conversation was rather short, as the Admiral simply wanted to be appraised of the status quo.

The pilots were amazed when they reached the top floors. It was completely wide open, and was surrounded by transparent metal windows on all sides. They saw the city sprawled around them in every direction out and up.

In the very middle were seven cores, all arranged in a semicircle. Each one was held up diagonally on thin splines. They were set at angles, which mimicked what position they would sit at depending on what chassis type was equipped.

Most were angled as though they were in fighters, while two of them were at steeper angles. They mimicked a standard mecha angle instead.

The cores were surrounded by various machinery, terminals, and sensors. Wires spilled out of them and into the various monitoring equipment. Tools were also strewn about, along with spare parts. And broken ones.

The cores didn’t look like anything special. In fact, they seemed like normal C-ranked military cores on the outside.

Every single one of them was familiar with the shape.

But when the Admiral invited them in for a closer look, Eva was completely shocked.

Typical flight decks were laden with flight controls, displays, buttons, switches, lights, meters, you name it. Some ships were so packed with them that they became targets for ridicule.

Prometheus cores had absolute minimal controls. The Admiral had completely removed the flight sticks and full control deck. Only a handful of buttons replaced it.

In place of where the sticks normally would be were a couple of grips. Though they moved slightly, they weren’t controllers at all. They were just something for the pilot to hold on to.

Eva’s mouth was completely agape.

“How the hell do we use this thing?” she exclaimed.

The Admiral’s mouth opened, then shut. Her voice held a hint of irritation.

“Didn’t you listen to my lecture?” she asked. “I listed out everything during it. Perhaps you should’ve paid more attention!”

Eva blushed at her admonition.

“Ah, sorry ’bout that!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got a difficult trait. Makes things like classrooms real tough for me.”

The Admiral sighed.

“You really should mention these things from the start,” she replied. “In any case, why don’t you hop in one, and I’ll walk you through it. Everyone, go ahead and pick your core. Oh! But not the middle one. That one’s mine. Still doing calibrations on it. Best not to interface with it yet.”

They all wandered a bit until they found the one they wanted. Eva ended up in the one to the right of center, but only because it was in a mecha position.

Once they were all seated, Admiral Chase gave them further instructions.

“Alright, like I had mentioned previously,” she began. “Connect with your DIs. But I’m going to open up functions one by one, alright?”

Eva had no idea what she was talking about, and so connected to the core like she would normally. It was usually a pretty standard operation. People plugged into their devices and vehicles through their DI all the time.

There were a number of benefits to this, mainly security. A core could be keyed to specific DIs, for example. They could also be used to control ancillary functions. Such as the media player.

When she plugged in, nothing much happened. Since these were prototype cores, none of the ancillary functions were available to her.

“Activating Stem CPU,” said the Admiral. “Keep steady.”

Eva suddenly felt a wave of energy flow through her. Or, rather, through her core.

Every circuit in the core became known to her, somehow. She felt electricity course through all of them. And she became vaguely aware of the installed modules and systems, but she couldn’t touch them. Like they were locked away behind glass.

The Admiral spoke again, but she sounded rather distant to Eva.

“Cerebellum CPU coming online,” she said.

The systems and cores that were previously out of Eva’s reach were suddenly made available. She was able to power them on and off with a thought. Both individually, and as a group.

More than that, she could sense and control exactly how much energy she sent into every system. The modules “talked” to her as well, and alerted her when she didn’t give enough power. Or gave too much.

And she could feel her core’s dimensions and edges. As though it was a part of her body.

Seemingly off in the distance, the Admiral said another phrase. They came out slowly, as though her words were as thick as honey.

“Cortex CPU online in three...” she said. “Two...”

When she said one, Eva’s senses exploded.

A vast sea of sensations suddenly flooded her, and threatened to drown her in it. A hundred thousand things demanded her immediate attention.

Lights flashing, bells whistling, neurons firing.

.....

In any other case, she would have been completely overwhelmed by it.

But she breathed deep and cleared her mind. Then, she felt herself surface from out of the viscous cacophony.

When she opened her mechanical eye, she was greeted by the direct feed from the core’s sensors. She was able to see through the core! With a thought, she adjusted her focus and looked around the room. Readouts and feeds from the sensors flooded her prefrontal cortex.

She also had plenty of warnings splashed up on her view. And she understood that the earlier bombardment were operational requests from all her systems and modules.

But now that she was aware, she ‘willed’ a diagnostic check. Her systems checked itself one by one and gave the green light.

In the blink of an eye, her core stabilized. It hummed with power as all systems synchronized within.

“What does everyone think of Prometheus?” asked the Admiral.

The cores astounded all of them. Forget those clumsy old controls. Those relics were part of the distant past. Human thought had merged with computer logic thanks to the Admiral’s technology.

Without a doubt, her tech was going to change humanity.

“You’re a fucking goddamned mad genius, Admiral!” Eva exclaimed. “This is absolutely amazing!”

But her words didn’t come from her mouth. Instead, her core had blasted them from its acoustic emitters.

It was so loud that the entire floor shook.