Worldship Praxis

1 EMERGENCE

1 EMERGENCE

2253 A.D. DAY ONE AT TAU Ceti

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NINA PINGED MY EAR. “Approaching Oort cloud of Tau Ceti. Data burst received from assembler swarm. Lasing increased, mag field intensified to compensate.”

The assembler Nanos must have arrived at, and had time to analyze, the planet in the Tau Ceti system designated PB0023, but privately renamed by the human crew as ‘Cradle.' There was a great deal of hopeful anticipation that Cradle would be Earthlike in more ways than size.

“Priority message received. Andiki Hive detected on PB0023”. The Andiki had attempted to swarm Earth after the Folly War nuclear exchange had made most of Earth uninhabitable, due to glaciations and fallout.

The Andiki were insectoid, warm-blooded and intelligent in ways far from human. The best description of the typical Andiki was that of a four-foot long praying mantis, that, unlike its earthly counterpart, lived in vast hive constructions, harvested and consumed virtually anything organic, and used technology uniquely suited to a locust-like migratory plague upon whatever planets they encountered.

The Andiki had arrived in 2051 A.D., several years after the evacuation of Earth into space. Humanity was well positioned to deal with this locust plague from space, using biochemical and Nanotech weaponry on the newly established hives. Humans would have never chosen to colonize in those conditions, but the Andiki were not able to overcome their hardwired swarm response to planetary biomass. The radioactivity killed them faster than the human weapons could. By 2054, the last of the Andiki were exterminated.

“I’ll take the data burst on my node,” I said. The data download link appeared on my interface node and opened with my query. Planetary data hive information, data on the other three planets and the T. Ceti stellar cycle, and then a red paged Andiki spacecraft file.

“Wake crew 32 and launch ten Torch-ships to take out that enemy ship, Nina”.

“Crew 32 wake sequence initiated, Torch-ship prelaunch check started. Time to launch, approximately 25 minutes”. It would take the crew about ten minutes to revive from cryo-sleep. Even the Body Nanos could not restart body processes instantly, but they came close. During the waking process, the crew would receive downloaded instructions, updates on recent events, and whatever nutrients were needed.

“Reprogram all assemblers within one light minute of the planet, and send them to harvest the hive resources and disassemble the insects.”

“Assemblers reprogrammed and dispatched. Crew 32 awakened and proceeding to the torch-ship bay. Total human crew decanted currently is 17287, including you,” Nina stated. “Assemblers in asteroidal zone are extracting metals for defense ship, dispatching assemblers for the colony build. Colony and the ship should be functional in nine hours”.

“That sounds good. Have Colonist Group Two decant, and prep Arc ships assigned to Colony Two. Plot and lay in a course to Van Maanen’s Star, and begin course adjustments”.

“Course plotted and laid in. Distance to target 6.13 light-years, 61.89 years Solar at current velocity”.

“Wonderful. I’ll be in my quarters looking over the situation stats.”

I walked to the lift and entered for the one-mile shuttle to my quarters. I thought that the situation was proceeding quite nicely. We had arrived at the system with four planets, two Jovian and two Terrestrial, one of which had land plants and sea life. The hive we needed to destroy was a new infestation, with no other colonies detected. Why the hive ship had not even received a new Queen, or it would have departed already!

The lift door opened, and I walked up the walkway to my quarters. It was a small place. You would think that space would not be at such a premium on a 100 by 800-mile ship! Nonetheless, it was home, packed with computer equipment, info stored in various formats, a gene-modified miniature Dire Wolf panting and wagging his tail in welcome.

“Who did you eat today, you old hound?” I asked Fido. Fido wagged his tail a couple more wags, turned around and headed for his food bowl. Whatever else, Fido knew what was important.

I sat down at my station, turned on the display, and downloaded the information bursts I had stored in visual mode. Updates appeared and were as expected. The Torch-ships had engaged and destroyed the hive ship, and the hive was shredding at a logarithmically increasing rate, as the assemblers reproduced. The Torch-ships split into two task forces, with half of the ships taking up guard orbits around Cradle, and the other half headed to the new defense ship build-site to oversee and start up the systems as soon as the ship assembly was completed. The Arc ships carrying Colony crew two would dock at the new ship before they continued to the colony site.

The prompt sounded, and a Holo appeared of Sheila, my girlfriend. She was a gorgeous petite dark haired 23 years old (Adjusted) of Asian descent. Sheila said, “There you are. How would you feel about some company?”

“That would be great. I need somebody to wade through all this data.”

“Oh, no way. I will not waste this body on hours of office frustration. I will see if Tom is handy.”

I said, “I was just kidding! The new neural upgrades had it all presorted before I even opened the files. Also, Nina had already collated all the data. Just come on by, and wear something tight! I get lonely doing all the work by myself.”

“Yeah, sure. I bet you and Nina have some perverted relationship going while I’m not around. I swear that you are sweet on that machine!”

“Well, a man has his needs, ya’ know. See you in 10, then?”

“10 or 15. I am a lady, after all.”

I said, “That sounds vaguely ominous. Okay, see you then.”

I continued the data review and was just getting to the agenda schedule for the colony- build. A ping announced a link to Nina, who said, “Arc ships E, F, G, and H have departed. Total human colonists number 19,283. They are on a light burn trajectory to the Defense ship locus. The transit time is 10.25 hours, and the ship should have been functional for about two hours by the time they arrive. Praxis continues on corrected course to Van Maanen’s Star at 0.11 C velocity. Torch-ships will rendezvous with Praxis in 12 hours.” Torch-ships were built as high-speed destroyers and reconnaissance ships, able to reach speeds a bit over one-half light speed. By this time tomorrow, the Cradle colony would be up and running, with a defense ship guarding it against orbit, assemblers system-wide building orbital habitats, a new world ship, and setting up manufacturing facilities for everything the colony might need.

The Arc ships carried the genome of virtually every plant and animal species still existing when the migration started and had reconstructions of many species that had previously gone extinct. Any of these species could be modified on site for any planetary conditions that might be encountered. The Biota and Nanotech that the Arc ships carried could terraform the other terrestrial planet, make Cradle more Earth-like, and bleed hydrogen and helium from the two Jovian planets as needed.

Enough work. I said “Good night, Nina.”

“Good night, Tech Director Sadow.” Nina’s link icon disappeared.

The door chimed, and Sheila opened it and bounced into my lap, spilling my scribbled notes and alarming Fido. He stalked over and sniffed her leg, allowed her to ruffle his ears, and then returned to his lounger bed with a sigh.

She kissed me energetically and laughed huskily. “Is that a ferret in your underwear, or are you happy to see me?”

“Oh, it’s a ferret. You wanna see it?” I started to peel the tight, soft, dark dress from her shoulders. Let us draw a curtain at this point. Beyond this point, there be x-rated dragons.