Chapter 15

Perimeter drone Alpha-1 accelerated towards its goal, the distant planet Pluto that hung suspended in space. The drone directed it's sensors onto the planet. Two polar ice caps, atmosphere of methane gas, from the readings the planet was obviously dead. The drone did note one irregularity though. The sensors showed that Pluto had three moons instead of the one that was expected. The drone shot back a data transmission, noting the irregularity and asking for instructions concerning the two satellites. Other than that the drone began its job, it descended down onto the planet, the atmospheric heat flare made the drone look like a small sun dropping down through the atmosphere. It slowed to a steady landing on the uneven gravelly surface. Waiting half an hour for the outer metallic shell to cool down, then started up its replicator system. If anyone had been looking from the outside they would have noticed a small rectangular opening in four sides of the pyramid. Eight sets of pincer arms extracted themselves from inside the drone, extending down to the rocky ground began picking up rocks and sandy dirt. After about a hundred pounds of raw material was gathered Alpha-1 started to feed the replicator the material breaking it down to the subatomic level. During this stage the replicator can add or subtract atoms from the raw materials, creating new alloys, plastics, acids, bases, and any other compound imaginable.

Soon it had enough materials to start building a new drone. A beam of light shot out of it and molecule by molecule, atom by atom, the new drone was slowly coming together. Thirty minutes later, the new drone was completed. Alpha-1 then downloaded its core programming into the new unit and activated the new drone. Aplpha-2 came online without complication, noting its core programming, and began to gather material for the next drone to be built. The new AI, who adopted the name Lewis, had instructed the first drone to build ten drones then download their core programming into the new drone, after which that drone would go off too its designated position. Then the new drones would make ten more, and those ten drone would make ten more and so on and so forth. If Lewis wasn't watching the progress of the drone then they would go on forever, as it was he would only allow them to go up to a thousand and start their new job. Lewis broke the drones down into divisions, ten divisions in all, a hundred drones per division. He chose these names represent the divisions, which were; Alpha, Beta, Sigma, Delta, Echo, Gamma, Foxtrot, Hilo, Kappa, and Lambda. He stopped the drones at hundred per division and order them towards their positions. Then had them arrayed in a dartboard pattern, the Alpha were the outer line of defense surrounding the outer orbit of Pluto and the solar system. Betas were positioned between Neptune and Uranus. The Sigmas, Deltas, and Echos took up positions around Saturn, Jupiter and their satellites. Gamma, Foxtrot, and Hilos were positioned around Mars and Earth. And the last two divisions were spread out between the sun and Venus.

He decided to have a few of the drones monitoring the Earth defense ring, enter the atmosphere and assume key positions around the globe, providing global coverage. This would allow Lewis or the other AI to destroy nuclear arms in case they fired upon other countries. He made a note of this to Sam, who was acting like a nervous nelly for some reason he couldn't fathom. He also made a note to Mitch about some possibilities for another AI to actually control the flow of information on the Internet or to monitor it instead. But this suggestion goes further than just monitoring the Internet like Sam was, it means to actually emplace the AI directly into the Internet, it would then be the Planetary AI. From their the AI, could in fact keep close tabs on all the governments on the planet, see who's planning what, who's selling this to that organization, and so on and so forth.

Emily was walking down the corridor looking for Mitch and Jack. She finally found them in one of the labs; sitting at a table with their heads slumped down, asleep. She crept forward, making sure not to make a sound. She heard the rhythmic sounds of Mitch snoring. She noticed Jack had a small puddle of drool just creeping out of the corner of his mouth. She looked around for a second until she found what she was looking for. She picked up a large book; she didn't know where it had come from, heaved it over her head and slammed the damn thing on the floor. Mitch shot straight up like a cork in the water and fell over his stool. Jack jumped up screaming about bacon bits and jammed his knee on the table. She couldn't help it, she laughed her ass off. When the two realized what was going on they made very sarcastic faces, like exaggerating mock laughter.

"Very funny. Gave me a fucking heart attack why don't ya." Jack said, rubbing his knee.

"Evil bitch." Was the only thing that Mitch said.

"So, what's up?" Emily asked.

"Well, Lewis is a big pain in the ass, but he's getting the job done properly. The entire system is now online and covering every quadrant of Sol system." Mitch responded.

"Good, good, anything else?"

"Yeah, we've been working on some designs for ships, droids, and drones. You ever see 'Battlestar Galactica', the new one not the older version? Well I figured we could replicate the Cylon Centurions, the big metallic looking robots. Instead of calling them Centurions we call them Battle droids. We are short on man power so they could fill in the ranks until we get more recruits up here."

"Sounds good so far. Anything to add Jack?" Emily asked.

"For the droids, no. But I have come up with a few ship designs plus class names for the ships." Jack punched a few command keys and a holographic image shimmered over the table. A large ship hovered, its hull had a craggy aspect to it. The ship itself was shape like a devil's pitchfork, more rounded off without the sharp points. It reminded Emily of one of the ships from a 'Babylon 5' mini-series, Excaliber, or something like that.

"This is our Battle Cruiser class type ship. This ship holds a crew of just over a hundred. It has hyper drive engines, sublight engines, nine particle beam weapons, four main singularity cannons, plus rotating frequency shielding and cloaking device. The metaphasic armor gives the hull a rocky appearance. The ship is about four miles long by two wide." Jack stated.

"Jeez, that is one big ship." Emily said.

"Yeah, I know. It's hanger bay can hold sixty fighter craft, using a suspending rack system. There are a few more little details I'll explain later, but you get the gist of it."

"Quick question. Could you explain what the singularity weapon actually does?" Emily asked.

"Sure won't take that long to explain it. Basically, I designed a space cannon to fire two different types of singularity weapons. Both types are gravitational singularities. One is a small unstable quantum singularity, in other words a small Black Hole. The other weapon is the complete opposite of a Black Hole, which is a White Hole or a miniature 'Big Bang'. Something you should never use around a planet unless you're really pissed at the people on it. The White Hole emits gravity, plasma, and untold amounts of energy. The Black Hole sucks everything down into itself using gravity to pull and tear apart the object it has a hold on. Anything else?"

"No." Peeped Emily, sweat started to appear on her brow.

Jack began to click a few buttons again, this time a new design appeared on the holo-display. The new design was much smaller than the battle cruiser; in fact from the dimensions being displayed it would have to be a fighter craft type. The craft had a needle like nose, very similar to the rig that Mike was flying. The main difference was in the wings of the craft, which looked like they came from a "Tie Interceptor." Think 'Star Wars: New Hope', Darth Vader's personal start fighter with the wings bent at a forty-five degree angle.

"Ok, here I've reworked the design of the fighter craft that Mikes' used to piloting. Still has the same ball shaped cockpit, needle like nose, but I reinforced the wings. With our current power source, everything on the craft with be enhanced, shielding, thrusters, sublight engines, even the particle beam weapons. I've decided to name this class of ship; Cerberus after the mythical three headed dog of Hades. I know it's an old one, but I think it's a good name, unless someone wants to name it 'Thundercat' again." Jack said smartly.

Emily smirked at the mention of the incident. Mitch replied with a one-finger salute. Jack shift in his seat for a minute, then tapped the keys again this time another larger ship appeared on the display. Emily could tell that it wasn't as big as the battle cruiser, but it looked very impressive none the less. The way the ship was designed gave it an almost organic look to it, like it was almost alive. The shape of the craft looked similar to that of a spade from a deck of cards. The tail end of the craft looked like it had a giant X, it smoothly blended in on the hull while the lower end of the X curved inward.