Chapter 39 - Home Sweet Home

Note : The result of the poll was pretty overwhelming. I'll add the prologue, as well as chapters 1 and 2 of the Gestalt Empire to the queue ^^

Chapter 39

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Crash Site

"We're home!" Said Sapphiria as she entered the cavern, what was left of her bot force in tow.

"Welcome home, admiral." Cia appeared as the AI entered, her avatar raising an eyebrow at the singed junkbots and their makeshift wheelbarrows. "I see you brought back gifts."

"And fallen comrades." Sapphiria patted the remains of one of the riot bots. "For analysis."

Not a single one of her frontline bots had survived the battle. They'd actually been doing almost alright against the regular undead, but the maniple had just shredded them. And the only reason they'd even lasted this long was thanks to her basic composite armor, with its ceramic and thermal dispersion layers.

"Of course. Do you wish for a bath, dinner, or a status report?"

The AI just glared at the simulacrum.

"Status report, please." Said the AI, before adding 'smartass' under her breath, though she was sure the not-quite-AI caught it.

"A new nickelbot is ready for deployment, and I have used your scans and diagnostics to start on manufacturing spare parts for the damaged units. We can begin repairs immediately."

"Excellent news! And the estimates for the snowpiercer?"

The simulacrum hesitated.

"There...are going to be issues. The power core is beyond our current capacity to assemble."

"I know." That had been a problem even when the snowpiercers had first been designed, the power systems had to be imported from Earth. Or Mars, but they had enough problems making enough to meet their own demand, let alone try to do exports. "We'll just have to find a solution."

The simulacrum stared at her.

"...Very well ma'am." She coughed, and Sapphiria tilted her head.

"Yes?"

"About the human casualties...do you wish to talk about it?"

The AI froze for a solid three seconds, just staring at the simulacrum in astonishment.

"Why- How-"

"My function is also to provide a measure of stability and psychological assistance to my assigned Artificial Intelligence ma'am."

"A function given by the bureau of personnel, or my mother?"

There was a short silence.

"Neither."

"Neither? Who then? Ciel? Airah?" The AI stopped. "...It was my aunt, wasn't it?"

"...Affirmative."

The silence stretched on. Her aunt hated the very concept of simulacrums. For her to use her contacts to load special programs and instructions in hers...

She must have been incredibly worried.

The AI sighed.

"I...I'll be fine. I won't pretend that the squishies dying wasn't hard, but...they died fighting for their homes. For their loved ones. Standing between them and those who wish them harm. If there's one good way for a squishie to die in combat, this is it."

"But you are still not happy about it."

"Happy? HAPPY?!? They're dead Cia! Dead! Nothing will bring them back!" She started advancing towards the simulacrum's avatar. "We're supposed to protect them! Is that not the entire point of the Federation? Protecting humanity?!? I took an oath! I failed it once, I will not again! Do you understand me?!?"

The simulacrum stood still, and Sapphiria suddenly realized she was up in her face, shouting at her, and stepped back.

"I do." Said Cia. "But you are emotionally compromised. Ma'am, it is my duty to recommend you relieve yourself of duty."

"I cannot. There is no one else to take the mantle."

"Understood. My recommendation still stands."

They simply stared at each other in silence, as seconds stretched into minutes.

"Acknowledged." Finally said Sapphiria. "And will be duly considered once it is a viable option."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it." The AI sighed, and changed the subject. "Now let's pull up the schematics for that snowpiercer. Better start as we mean to go on, and I have a feeling this won't be easy."

*****

"The key problem is power." Said Sapphiria as she paced in the simulation, the simulacrum seated on the sofa, holding a tea cup. Why she did, the AI had no idea, but she wasn't about to comment when she downed simulated hot chocolates like they were going out of fashion. Which they might be, she had no idea if this world had any chocolate to begin with, or it would be available in this region of the planet. "We can't make a fusion reactor, let alone a compact fusion core. That means we need to come up with another power source, and have the design accommodate it. So, our options, so far as I see them, are chemical, solar and fission."

"Solar is not recommended." Said the simulacrum. "The planetary atmosphere will decrease the efficiency of photovoltaic cells considerably, and any weather event such as a blizzard would pose considerable threat to the vehicle crew's survival."

"Agreed. Chemical is the same issue. We'll never be able to carry all the fuel we need with us. So that means we'd need to generate more on the way, which goes out the window if we ran out of easy to harvest biomass." She sighed. "Which leaves...fission."

"We do not have the required industry to build a colonial fission reactor module."

Actually, they didn't have the industry to fuel it. They could make most of the rest. Plus, colonial fission reactors were basically giant blocks of concrete and metal meant to safely power colonies on a budget, not run vehicles.

"Nope. And we won't for a bit. That means nuclear batteries."

The simulacrum visibly twitched.

"Ma'am, these batteries' energy production to volume ration is...suboptimal."

"An artful optimism for 'absolute garbage'. You'd go far in politics." The AI smiled. "Nevertheless, there are options. Snowpiercers were made to carry twenty people and some cargo. Assuming we use the cargo space for that 'mana', we can make some room by removing arrangements for squishies, let' say reduce it by half. That should free up a fair amount of space." Which was a considerable understatement. The snowpiercers were made to accommodate a full work crew for one of Europa's surface installations, and they had everything necessary for squishies to live onboard. Not comfortably perhaps, and certainly not for an extended period of time, but it had hygiene facilities, life support...it added up quickly. "We can pack it up with batteries. Let's see..."

She did some quick calculations, and winced.

"That would enable some movement." Said Cia, diplomatically.

"Right. Probably won't be moving around during the squishies' rest cycle, so that gives us some time to stockpile power, but still..."

"Why?"

Sapphiria blinked.

"Why what?"

"Why no movement during the rest cycle?"

"Because I'll have to pretend to sleep with them. Alongside them!" She said quickly as the simulacrum's eyebrows rose. "I meant alongside them." She turned back towards the hologram, her cheeks flushing. "We need to find ways to get more power, and eliminate more usage..." She squinted. "First, I think we can lose the heating system. Use our stripped down battery for it."

"That's..." The simulacrum trailed off. "Resourceful."

The simulacrum really was good at understatements.

"Why thank you. That saves us a fair amount of juice. Then...life support doesn't need to run constantly. And with a stripped down crew it'll need less power than usual." The time mobile to time spent lounging about ratio started looking a lot better. The snowpiercers had capacitors and energy banks, but it was only enough to last a couple of days of normal operations, AKA the exact amount of time it would get you to get to another Europan outpost in a planetary blizzard if everything went to shit. "Any other ideas?"

"The snowpiercer is equipped with considerable amounts of communication equipment, which we cannot use without surface relays or satellites."

"Good point. Not going to save that much juice, but it'll keep the cost down."

"It also has a full sensor suite."

"Yeah. But I kind of want to know where we're going."

"The armor's sensor systems are less specialized, but they could be used for navigation."

"Through the snowpiercer's shielding? That doesn't seem like a good...idea..." Sapphiria struck her palm. "Cia?"

"Yes?"

"You're a genius." The AI walked over to the simulacrum and grabbed her shoulder, startling her. "The suit, the armor! It has plenty of energy. We just need to get it to the snowpiercer."

"That..." The simulacrum tilted her head. "is a possibility. A special system will need to be implemented. Possibly alongside armor modifications." All power armors had the ability to give away some of their energy, their entire point was being able to drag around a thermonuclear reactor to power up energy weapons after all. But the energy transmission systems had a limit, and were specifically made to be unable to give more juice than what the armor had set aside to feed external hardware. "The surplus energy from the armor is not immense however."

It was enough to power up the weapons she carried, but she knew the point the simulacrum was making. Even her plasma gun took a fair bit of time to recharge.

"I can shut down all non essential systems. Even step out of it and go sit down in the driver's chair. It'll take a bit to get the suit ready to move out, but I think it's worth it." She winced. "I could try it with my android but-"

The simulacrum interrupted her.

"No. Your androids' power margins are too tight and its systems are not made for this kind of leeching."

Sapphiria nodded. Plus, plugging in the armor was easy to explain. Peeling back her skin and jacking power cables into her chassis less so.

"Right. So, we need a special power armor receptacle to leech its energy." Given the fact that the power transmission systems were on the back and arms, it might have to look like some kind of bed. Or throne. Hilarious, but probably not that effective. "And then fit it in. And redesign the vehicle's power architecture so it would accept it and the nuclear batteries." She licked her lips. "That's going to take a bit."

"It will take some time to rebuild our combat units."

"Right. We also need to scale up our industry as well. Our drones are back up to mine, right?"

"Affirmative."

"Good. We're gonna need the ore." She sighed. "Repair our units, but delay getting the defenses back up for now. With the tunnel collapsed, we don't need the turrets, and I doubt the Hand will let us lure them into a prepared ambush again."

"Shall I increase our count of mobile units then?"

Sapphiria ran some calculations and estimates. If the Hand had more troops than this available, they'd have used them. Their posture suggested they didn't think Astralis was the primary threat, though that might have changed.

They'd still obliterated over half of the Hand's remaining forces, with only two maniples left, and a less easy to measure horde.

"...No." It was hard to say, after what had happened to the squishies. After she'd lost so many of them.... But in the long run, it would be safer for them, and save more than better security would now. Sweet merciful stars she hated that kind of math. "Building up now will allow us to protect Astralis better in the long run, and get the snowpiercer up and running faster."

"Understood. Which projects should we focus on first?"

Sapphiria thought for a second.

"Let's get a couple of construction bots up and running. Not drones, so I don't have to babysit them. Escort them with a couple of junkbots apiece, and scour the mining tunnels, just not the one between us and the mining hub. Grab all the minecart rails we can. We're going to build a network of our own." She smiled. "We're going to need to ship ore back, and get the snowpiercer parts up top. Two birds with one stone."

"Understood. Please note, the advanced materials refinery is still running at full capacity. With the grinder and separator we've had less undesirable materials, but our throughput it still maxed out."

Sapphiria smiled.

"Then I believe it's time for some smelters. Maybe even another fabricator."

"Ma'am, fabricators are-"

"Not cost effective, I know. But we don't exactly have the need, or means, to make an assembly line right now. We'll build a bulkier, more specialized variant. The factory must grow, Cia. The factory must grow, and must survive."