Exile in Syberia
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Unit Log, VeeMech TDR-1-74-01107C-J
Date 3018-08-03 22:14:21, Log Entry 11
So, the past three days have been insanely busy. Spanner and Ripley managed to force the blast door open a bit more, and we’ve make some impromptu repairs on the hydraulics, so it’s now what I’d like to call vaguely operational. I think the blast door is locked away again, but I’m not exactly an expert on hydraulics, so I’ll have to take Ripley’s word for it.
That leaves us with the next obvious task: the DropShip. If you’ve never seen one, Leopards are big: there are airliners that are certainly as long, but they’re nowhere near as bulky as a Leopard Class DropShip is, which more closely resembles a factory building with stubby wings and a slanted front, with giant engines on the other end. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the time I saw Space Shuttle Endeavour in Los Angeles with my parents. The Space Shuttle was certainly big, roughly the length of something like a Boeing 737. The Leopard was around twice as long, twice as tall, and twice as wide as I recall Endeavour to be…well, assuming my memories are accurate and that actually did happen.
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Leopard Class DropShip, in space
Which reminds me: speaking of possibly faulty memories, my son turns 1005 today. So, um, happy birthday, kiddo? Yeah, that’s depressing to contemplate.
I try not to think of my family, my friends, and everyone I ever knew as being dead for centuries, even though in this universe they certainly are. Instead, I try to think of them as just separated impossibly far away, and that the differences in time, then, are irrelevant. That was easier to do, though, when I thought I’d just woken up here, and that my point of departure from my previous life and timeline was immediate. But discovering that, instead, I’d been dormant, memories from this universe lost, for a couple hundred years doesn’t help with that. Has time been moving at the same pace in my home universe? If so…well, humans don’t live to be more than two hundred years old, so they’re still gone.
I’d originally thought, especially after seeing my old, burnt-out body, that maybe the reason I’d forgotten everything from my time here on Syberia was due to damage, or an imperfect transfer of the computers that make up my mind between that ‘Mech body and this one. Now, contemplating exactly what it would take to actually get home, between the thousand-light year distance, the thousand years of time, and the whole being in a whole different universe thing, and I begin to wonder if I’d intentionally asked Major Thaddeus Wescott there to help me forget, and hoped to just not ever be woken up again.
Yeah, this line of thinking is going to get me nowhere. Focus on the immediate problem, solve that, then work on the next problem. Repeat as needed, or until you can’t solve the next problem. Maybe I’m stuck here. Maybe not. Maybe someday I’ll know for sure. That day, though, is not today.
So, the next problem: getting into the Leopard. Not surprisingly, while the Leopard seems incredibly huge when I’m in my human-sized drone, it seems notably less so when I look at it in my 10-meter tall ‘Mech body. At that scale, it feels more like an oversized general-aviation plane, like maybe a Cessna Caravan, or even better, the wonderfully ridiculous Antonov An-2 oversized biplane. Yeah, that’s probably a better comparison.
The external hull looked pretty banged up overall, but I didn’t see any hull breaches that might prevent it from flying again, and I suspect that the ship hadn’t crash-landed so much as been knocked around when it was getting ready to leave the bunker’s hangar and take off. The landing gear looked a little trashed, and would need to be repaired if we’re ever going to move it, and there’s the small matter of being able to lift a 1900-ton DropShip to do that, but…we’ll see. Of course, I’m not an expert on DropShip maintenance or piloting, so I’m not sure how valid my opinion is in the first place. Fortunately, Spanner, who not an expert has knowledge on repairing stuff, seems to agree. We’ll need to see at some point if the hangar doors are intact enough to open if we intend to extract the Leopard from here, under its own power or not. Once we’re able to access the onboard computers, though, we’ll have a more clear idea of what kind of shape the ship’s in, and whether or not it’ll ever fly again.
We’re going to try that tomorrow, though. Right now, my neural nets evidently need to re-index, or whatever excuse Spanner and Glyph are using to explain to themselves why I need to kind of sort of sleep, so I’m going to do that, and we’ll see if my Terran Hegemony IFF codes can get me in the door to the Leopard tomorrow.
Unit Log, VeeMech TDR-1-74-01107C-J
Date 3018-08-04 23:38:01, Log Entry 11 – Supplemental A
So, yeah, that actually worked. There was enough power left in the battery reserves on the Leopard that, once I was able to find the right set of instructions, I was able to interface with the controls for one of the ‘Mech bay doors, and get it, and then the other doors, to open. So we’re in, and have begun to catalog what we’ve found aboard. And, oh my, have we found some things.
First off, Major Thaddeus West. Can I call you Thad? Yeah, I’m going to call you Thad. Well, Thad, I found your ‘Mech. That sure is a nice Highlander you had there. I’m not sure if I’m reassured or more confused that your early remains weren’t there, either. In fact, the lack of human remains anywhere around this base is confusing: I’m not sure if it’s a good sign or a bad sign.
So, yeah, fully-intact HGN-732 Highlander still set up for its human pilot. Running when parked. Quite the barn restoration find, right?
But, that’s not all we found. Two of the other cubicles had what appeared to be partially-stripped-down ‘Mechs in them, though these look to have already been converted to use Syberian computer cores in place of cockpits. One is very clearly a Stinger, the ubiquitous 20-ton scout ‘Mech that later spawned into the transforming Stinger Land-Air-Mech. The other was its larger 45-ton cousin, the Phoenix Hawk, similarly partially disassembled, their spare parts stowed along with them.
The last ‘Mech cube appears to have just been used for random cargo. Spare weapons, heat sinks, even a couple ‘Mech arms were stored here, but there were two crates that in particular stood out.
One wasn’t terribly large, but was labeled "K-0 Fax Machine". That’s…well, it could prove useful. The K-0 was an early attempt by the Star League to produce an FTL communications device, prior to the invention of the much more successful hyper-pulse generators. Only able to send 200 kilobytes in a single message, in a signal that radiated out at 10 light-years per day, they didn’t hold a candle to those later HPGs, which were just around the corner. They’re *small* though, not much bigger than a briefcase, so with some luck, I can have one integrated into my communications gear and, just in case someone is out there, I may be able to communicate with them.
The second box was a bit larger, and was labeled a bit differently: "Primary Neural Net, M-4 SDS Drone". That…had far-reaching implications. The M-4 was a used as a test bed for drone WarShips, a predecessor to the M-5 Caspar drones built on the hulls of the 680,000-ton Lola class destroyers. For the M-4, the Star League used the older and less capable Baron class destroyer, a 480,000 ton ship with half the acceleration and much less firepower and armor than the Lola class, as a test bed, until the ships, and their AIs, were reportedly decommissioned when testing was complete.
So, what was an M-4’s core doing here? Was there a Baron class destroyer missing its main core somewhere here in the Syberia system? Was this core still intact, with an AI sitting in hibernation inside? If not, could my mind be copied into it? For that matter, my old buddy Thad mentioned I’d arrived in Syberia in a computer core they’d found compatible with the local AI tech used on the AutoMechs. Was that this core?
If this SDS core is intact, and we can either find the ship it was installed in, or install it in another automated ship, it could be my ticket out of the Syberia system. It might mean copying my mind into that core, or it might mean getting an AI that’s already in there to work with me, but either way, the possibility is there.
I’m going to try not to be too optimistic here: there’s a lot of steps between where I’m at now and that possibility of leaving to consider, but I’m a step closer. There’s more immediate concerns, though.
First, we’ve got three BattleMechs here in various states of repairs. That Stinger and the Phoenix Hawk are both partially disassembled, but Spanner’s going to go through both and see if they could be refurbished and made operational again. If so, that would be a way to get Manx back operational again. There’s also the matter of the 90-ton assault ‘Mech in the room, so to speak, and whether we can convert Thad’s Highlander to an AutoMech. All three of these ‘Mechs are more conventionally-humanoid in their layout, which means they may also be a good option for me to transfer my own computer cores into.
I know what you’re thinking: “Go for the Highlander!” But the thing about Highlanders is that they’ve quite literally given up their right hand for a Gauss Rifle, and I’m right-handed. Is it possible that my Syberian friends here can modify the ‘Mech by removing that Gauss and adding a hand back in, along with some other gun? Maybe. In fact, that’s one of the things Spanner’s going to evaluate.
Meanwhile, the Phoenix Hawk, if it can be brought back to operational condition, might also be a perfect choice. It’s very humanoid in form, and while it’s got some forearm-mounted guns, carries its main weapon, a large laser, like an oversized pistol. And while it might be 15 tons lighter than my current body, it’s also a bit taller, 50% faster, can jump farther, and has nearly as much armor. Like I said, it might be perfect, which worries me: how often do things go perfect?
Lastly, there’s the Stinger. It’s a third the mass of my current ‘Mech body, and, at 8 meters, is even shorter and smaller than Glyph or Manx, who both have about a meter in height and 15 tons on it. It’s as quick as the Phoenix Hawk, but only just, carries much less armor, and its weaponry is similarly light. It is, however, truly humanoid in layout, and carries its main armament, a medium laser, like a big pistol, too. It’s certainly not an ideal choice, but if I can mostly stay out of the fighting, I can probably make it work.
All that depends, though, on what Spanner finds when he goes over them. So, for now, that’s a worry for tomorrow, while right now, it’s time to give my poor brain a break.