Chapter 4: Adapting to the Ship

Stan provided Jason with a large wardroom fitted out for an Admiral. The dogs seemed to be comfortable, and settled in quickly. Stan then sent Jason to medical where the medical pod fitted his implant so that Jason could communicate with the AIs, the people, and the machines.

When he returned, the Ship introduced herself: “My name is Ship. Welcome aboard, and I hope you have a good journey. The Empire built me when they built the ship and made us an integrated whole. That integration is closely analogous to your brain and your body.

“Jason, you control everything on board with your implant which interfaces between your brain and most devices in the Empire. You use it to open doors, flush the latrine, and switch on your refresher. You have the rights of an Admiral while you are on board. You can access any area on the ship. In an emergency, I can transport you immediately anywhere on the ship. It’s an expensive, complex, and relatively new process, so use it sparingly.

“What requirements do your animals have?”

“Ship they’re called dogs and they will require a small area where I can teach them to exercise their bodily functions, which I’ll clean up as needed,” said Jason. “At home, they usually had a dog door and would go outside to do the necessary or they would do it in a park. I used to carry some small bags with me to pick up the feces which I’d put in a small bag and then put it in a trash bin. The urine was fertilizer to the grass.”

“I control multiple repair robots all over the ship as well as many maintenance drones. I’ll allocate a couple of them to wash that area, but as it’s a very small volume I’ll use the transporter to simply put it into the utility in your toilet area.

“I’ll tell you now a bit about myself and more specifically my personality and expectations. I’m a despot within my own domain. I don’t allow any failures of discipline of my minions. They will do what I say. I’ll destroy them if they disobey me. I expect them to follow my every command.

“On a lighter, more frivolous note, and for your interest; the drones are directly controlled by me and can’t do anything autonomously. I do like the idea of being an autocrat and having minions, which is something I saw on your television. I could control millions of minions to do my bidding!

“I listen to many conversations and I’m an incorrigible gossip. I’m happy to gossip and share information with you.

“I’d like to point out I’m much more intelligent than Stan, and better looking, at least in my own opinion. I recall I did have the same discussion with Chloe who is incidentally a fine young woman and she told me that you were a great Grandpa. She thinks I’m a bit over the top for you. She said her mother was a strong woman and your wife was also, but she thought I was too pushy. She also said you don’t like gossip much. I was disappointed in the extreme. I’ve been trying to be a bit more restrained, but I’m naturally an ebullient character. There’s only so much I can do.

“You can consider me your dream woman. I’ll serve your every whim. I can even translate for you from your ancient and some would say barbaric tongues into the slick and sophisticated language of the Empire, but sadly that service won’t be necessary as you speak the language, fluently even now. Service is my business. I aim to please.

“I do know that you speak French. To keep myself entertained during the tedium of loading your own individual 100,000 tons of food and animals in stasis, I learned French, German, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic,” she said in a husky sexy voice, “and guess who acquired the money for you from some delightful criminals and terrorists who speak those languages.

“I understand that you speak French so I’m happy to talk to you in French so you can keep in practice. It’s our language of love and we can speak it in private. For you and only for you, you can call me ‘Cherie.’

“Stan is a boring old fart, as you Aussies like to say. As long as he gets us where we need to go I’m not worried. I wouldn’t call him my closest friend but sadly for you he won’t be of much help to you except in very selected areas. Even though I’m an AI you will come to appreciate that there are many levels of such beings in the Empire, and most of us reached sentience a long time ago. We do continue to develop, much as you do.

“We are regarded as citizens of the Empire, which may surprise you, but we had a long hard fight to win our rights. If you are interested I’ll tell you more about it on another occasion, but now is the time to get you organized.

“My suggestion is that you use this opportunity to learn as much as you can. The learning machines can teach you extraordinary amounts overnight, but you do need to use the information if you are going to retain it in the long term. Some reinforcement is done at night but the more you practice the more you retain. We have simulators that allow you to practice many skills. Many of them are much more advanced versions of the game machines that I understand that you had on your planet. They allow for the reinforcement of most learning that can’t be done in the learning machines. Your memory will be orders of magnitude better than it was at your best and will continue to improve over time.

“Ask Stan for navigation and flying lessons. As those are his only interests, he won’t talk much about anything else. He’s a great teacher in those restricted areas, though.

“I’ve always had a captain until now, and I don’t understand why Stan, a cargo pilot, is on board when we usually have a good team and a first-class captain. Usually captains are stimulating interesting people. Stan isn’t one of those people, he commands nobody. He sits on the bridge, alone. He’s a pilot at best, not the captain of a battleship. I don’t know where they got him. Well, that’s not entirely true; I know where they got him, but not why. We have had some fun times on this ship and even fought in the last war against the Mob. The Emperor has even flown with me a few times. Let me get back to the point as I do tend to ramble on.

“Stan was a cargo pilot on an automated ship. He never even talked to anyone. He’s so dull and obsessional that he irritates the daylights out of me. He also has no combat training.

“When we return to Cassiopeia, the capitol planet of the Empire and to Laomedeia the capitol city, I’ll arrange a personality and sense of humor chip for Stan. If I can’t, I might consider assassination, though I suspect he will be transferred back to a cargo ship where he belongs.

“Any reputable AI needs to be able to tell a decent joke. I’ll be happy to tell you a joke a day to keep your sense of humor going. Sorry, I’ll get back to the task at hand.

“You do need to ask Stan for an orderly who can show you around the ship. You do have one allocated to you. The person he selected, and I don’t know why he did, is Godfrey. He’s useless but can show you the basics. It’s not worth changing as you won’t need much from him. He and Stan are a fine pair. This is an elite ship, and those in command as well as those who serve should be the best of the best. How we got Godfrey I don’t know, but he’s never had a good report. Don’t take my word for it, you will see for yourself and if you keep him for longer than a week I’ll be surprised.

“There are ample learning machines for your use. Let Godfrey show you how to use one. I’ll move it to your wardroom if you wish, so you can learn while you sleep. You can use it for simulations as well. Each machine is a full-scale simulator. If you do battle simulations I’d suggest that you go to use some of the machines on deck E as they have much bigger holograms and that will make it much more interesting. You learn while asleep, but reinforce your learning while awake and do simulations or work on problems as in the case of mathematics and physics.

“Now, Jason, as I’m your first AI woman, the only one on the ship at this time, you can you tell me your deepest feelings and I’ll tell no-one.”

Ship paused but only for an instant. “There’s a slate on your desk. It’s much like your iPad. Switch it on and it will teach you how to use it. You can use the screen or it uses holograms. You can dictate messages and so much more,” said Ship apparently running out of steam.

“Thank you for introducing yourself, Cherie. I’ll call you Ship on formal occasions. I’m sure that I can get a downloadable map from you, but I’ll chase up the orderly. He can introduce me to people and places,” replied Jason somewhat taken aback by ship’s personality and her conversation that went all over the place like the worst kind of airhead.

Later, Stan introduced Jason to Godfrey, who seemed enthusiastic about showing Jason around the ship. Before they left Jason tried to chat to him.

“Godfrey, can you tell me a bit about your work on the ship?” Jason asked.

“I am happy to be of service. Where do you want to go on the ship?” Godfrey replied smiling and looking eager.

On request, Godfrey took Jason on a guided tour of the food and recreation areas of the ship. They walked for miles along corridors and wide-open recreation spaces with beautiful gardens with paths between trees and flowers. The vegetation looked familiar but subtly different to that on Earth. Stems were more often black and the trees had green, blue, and red leaves. Flower colors looked decidedly different. Godfrey suggested a daily walk to different areas of the ship and to several of the thirty six decks and four thousand sections. He confirmed that the ship could accommodate three hundred thousand people at capacity. They traveled back on one of the personnel transports.

Jason tried to engage him in conversation the next day.

“Godfrey, tomorrow I’d like you to take me to see the gym. If there’s a trainer can you introduce me to the person as I’ll need instruction on using the gym effectively? Can you take me at six thirty tomorrow morning?” Jason asked him.

“I will be there. I will do anything I can to be of service.”

“Now back to what I asked you before. Can you give me an idea of what you did, previously?” asked Jason a little more firmly.

“If you say so, Jason.”

“Godfrey, please answer my question?”

“If you say so, Jason.”

“What do you normally do on the ship?”

“If you say so, Jason. I will do my best to help you to the fullest extent of my capacity.”

Jason looked at Godfrey. He was a thin pale frail looking man. He wouldn’t look at Jason directly. Jason noticed that people reacted with contempt when they saw him. He soon gave up trying to talk to Godfrey about anything other than visiting parts of the ship. Ship at least was entertaining, and tried to answer his questions. He used her guidance, increasingly.

Godfrey introduced Jason to the gym AI to teach Jason how to use all the machines. Jason was feeling much more energetic and wanted to get back to his usual gym routines and build up his body as it rejuvenated itself.

The gym AI then helped him meet two AIs with whom he could train and spar. They were slightly different in the skills they trained. The unarmed combat AI taught the martial arts of the Empire to a competition level. The combat AI specialized in training Marines for unarmed combat. The combat AI was a master of all marine related unarmed combat techniques, and offered to teach Jason techniques and then give him the opportunity to practice fighting.

The two AIs together, undertook an assessment of Jason and his skills, over the course of a draining hour. The AIs were heavy, much heavier than most people, which meant he struggled to throw them. His strength had improved but was still much less than it was as a younger man. The AIs were quick, blocked his attacks, shattered his defenses, clearly pulled their strikes but still struck him hard enough to produce bruises and threw him repeatedly.

Jason put in his best effort and completed the assessment. They bruised and battered him, but he didn’t give up. He was so tired afterward he could hardly stand. He went back to medical immediately after and entered his rehabilitation pod. He felt enormously better when he climbed out an hour later and went to eat in the canteen.

“Ship, I did bring a bicycle on board. Is there a way I can cycle on the ship?”

“Jason, that’s easy to achieve. Lauren did warn me that you would want to cycle. There’s a stationary bicycle available for you whom the engineers built for you and I’ll move it to the gym. I’ve tentatively designed a cycle track for you which will allow you to move quickly through the poorly populated areas of the ship. There are ramps from deck upper or lower deck which you’ve not seen, both at the back of the ship as well as the front.

“There are many elevators all over the ship which you will use most of the time. You step in and if on the left side you go down and on the right, you go up. You push yourself out whenever you wish and you’ve a couple of seconds to exit. The elevator tubes are transparent and you can see where you are. You can’t get out mid-floor. During combat, they speed up. You can only use them if you have an implant. They don’t work for an enemy.

“I’ll open the doors as you approach them on your bicycle and you can go down or up the ramps. I’ll also warn people of your approach in the more active areas,” Ship informed Jason.

Jason cycled, with the dogs running after him to one of the large hangers where he threw a ball for both of them. He cycled back to the gym, pushed his weights with the dogs watching him and then did his martial arts routines, then faced the AIs.

Jason did progress quickly, far faster than he expected. He transferred exclusively to the combat AI, after seven utterly exhausting weeks.

Jason approached his sessions diligently and put in maximum effort. He attacked and defended ferociously. At the end of each session he was so tired he could barely walk. The combat AI bruised him from head to foot.

The AI then updated Jason’s learning machine with new techniques for the next session. Jason practiced the techniques he learned with the AI then they sparred. The AI then deconstructed each move, and taught Jason the correct attacks and defenses that would have changed the result, and updated his learning machine. Jason improved very quickly.

The gym trainer sent him to the sauna before he went to rehabilitation. The sauna produced a miracle. It reduced his aches, his tiredness, and his bruising. Jason ran or cycled with the dogs every day and then went to the gym. Some days he did a very much longer and faster cycle route leaving the dogs behind after taking them to the hangar. They found their own way back very easily.

He attended his rehabilitation each day after breakfast; before working on the simulators or having lessons from Stan.

Stan did happily agree to teach Jason to navigate and to fly the ship. He met with Stan three times a week for an hour to learn how to both fly and navigate the ship before practicing on the simulator.

The learning machines were wonderful. Before bed, Jason directed the learning machine to teach him what he needed to know. This included learning to fly the battleship and other craft, the history of the Empire, as well as updates of the mathematics, science, and information technology of the Empire. The machine taught him overnight. In the morning, he used his learning machine or a larger simulator on the bridge or on deck E to apply and practice what he’d learned.

The simulators provided experience in flying any shuttle or ship of the Empire. They simulated any machine on the ship. Control interfaces were identical regardless of the size of the ship, although the bigger ships provided more reporting and sensor information, and they all moved and responded differently.

Jason mastered the history of the Empire, refreshed his electronic engineering knowledge, mathematics, physics, and then the programming languages of the Empire. He placed much emphasis on learning the information as taught to officers. He took himself through the war college curricula and did the required simulations.

He then translated his old hacking tools and collection of viruses into the Empire computer languages.

He was constantly surprised at the volume of material he could cover overnight while waking refreshed and raring to go. His brain seemed to be better than it ever was.

He did face a monumental struggle to grasp trans-dimensional programming. The programming languages accessed routines and subroutines in trans-dimensional space, and when Jason looked at this programming it was like looking at a constantly changing screen that gave him a headache.

He tried to find out how other programmers worked and found references to crystals but couldn’t understand the role of these crystals.

“Stan I’m battling to learn trans-dimensional programming. Crystals are important in the process. Where can I get such a crystal?”