We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 5: Chapter 7: Political Comeback

Book 5: Chapter 7: Political Comeback

Herschel

January 2330

En route to Omicron2 Eridani

Iwas floating in the section of the Bellerophon that held the SURGE drive. The unit was recognizable as such—after all, there are only so many ways to build a SURGE drive—but the Others had, of course, put their own spin on a lot of the design decisions. In particular, the drive seemed to lean very heavily on the main computer system for control and adjustment—unlike human SURGE drives, where that was handled by an independent subsystem. The SURGE controller accepted high-level commands and converted them to the detailed field adjustments necessary to make it happen. I wondered if there was something that could be learned about the Others from that.

We were on our way from New Pav to Omicron2 Eridani, and we were taking the opportunity to finally complete the Bellerophon repairs. The Others’ derelict had been holed in the Delta Pavonis attack, and although we’d repaired the hull breach, we’d never bothered to do anything about the drive and central computer damage. Instead, we’d built a set of pusher plates to transport the transport, so to speak.

But it was ungainly at best, having a ten-kilometer-long ship dragged along by a bunch of orbiting drive plates, all controlled by a completely separate system.

The raw materials we’d picked up at New Pav were invaluable in this regard. While we weren’t building a drive from scratch, we still had to replace major sections of the original. And the drive system necessary to move a ship this massive was literally bigger than a battleship.

“How’s it going?” Neil messaged.

I made a face, even though Neil couldn’t see me. “No problems, as such. Everything’s on track. Component tests have all passed. But once we drop in the main field coils, you know what comes next, right?”

“Well, I don’t know how much risk there is. We’ll take—”

“Being stranded in interstellar space feels like it would be a bad thing, Hersch.”

I sighed. “Which is why, as I was saying, we’ll shut down and load the pusher plates into a cargo bay before we do anything. We’re still fifteen years from Omicron2 Eridani. Plenty of time to debug.”

“Unless we blow ourselves up. I don’t see that being debuggable.”

“As always, you are a joy to be around, Neil.”

“I’ll be there in a few seconds. Then you can bask in more of that joy.”

At that moment, a telltale lit up on my head’s-up as the personnel hatch to the drive cavern opened. I turned in that direction and activated my telescopic vision. In a ship a kilometer in diameter, each cargo segment could hold up to a small town in volume, depending on how we configured the walls. In this huge space, it was ridiculously easy to lose something human size in the distance.

I spotted Neil’s manny floating away from the hatch as it closed behind him. Since we had installed small SURGE systems in our mannies, we’d spent a lot less time flying around in spaceship form inside the Bellerophon. Our Heaven vessels rarely had a problem, considering the size disparity, but being in a manny felt so much like being alive again. Plus the flying superpower, of course.

Neil zipped over to hover beside me. The drive cavern was in vacuum, so all conversations had to be by intercom, but that was, by now, as natural as talking, to the point where I didn’t even consciously notice which way I was communicating.

“I have news,” Neil said.

That was never good. Neil announcing he had news meant he had something he thought would make my head explode. Which also explained why he showed up “in person.” He wanted to see my reaction.

Neil could be a bit of a dick.

“And?”

“You know FAITH is running a slate on Romulus this election cycle.”

“Yeah, but their chances are—” I stopped as I realized what head-exploding news Neil was probably carrying. “They’re doing better than expected, aren’t they?”

“‘Fraid so, brother o’ mine. Much better. The population of Romulus was made up mostly of FAITH citizens when it was settled, and somehow, even several generations later, they still manage to have some of the same attitudes.”

“So it’s what? Genetic?”

Neil laughed out loud. “I’m not going to go there, but maybe some family traditions or something have survived. I think the Starfleet War went a long way to alienating a society that’s not what you’d call pro-science to begin with.”

“They’re not necessarily wrong,” I mused.

“What?”

I smiled at Neil’s shocked expression. “Hey, I’m not converting or anything. It’s just … ” I paused to organize my thoughts. “It’s barely been a couple of centuries since nearly all humanity died, and we’re still relatively few in number. Between the generational trauma involved and having to adapt to all these new alien environments, it may make people wary of any new and not absolutely needed technological and cultural change. FAITH doesn’t have to be advocating for preindustrial levels, just something a little less Star Trek, y’know?”

“That’s very broad-minded of you, Hersch. But they still think we’re abominations.”

“Well, we haven’t exactly been their favorite people traditionally, although I do think we deserve at least some cred for getting them off Earth.” I hesitated. “Does Will know about all this?”

“Are you kidding? He knows things before we do. For a guy who claims to have checked out from humanity, he sure seems to have a lot of information channels.”

“Hmmph. Well, no use pestering him. If he wants to talk to us, he will.”

“And it’ll probably mean more work for us.”

“Bet on it.”