Stellar Navy

Chapter 02

And while military AI were banished from the navy, it was still illegal to kill them, given the fact that they are conscient beings and all that. So, the hand full of the ships became scattered like the ronins of old Japan, frustrated, bitter and utterly misanthropic.

To give you an example, the record of this particular ship that I'm about to command said it suddenly turned off its artificial gravity and then back on, dropping a ton of equipment on its owner. Understandably, the owner's son gave it away, since you have no law to prosecute an AI, and nobody would buy it after that "incident".

And this is an example of those rare legal loopholes. My commission program falls into the special projects' category. Also, one of the conditions to recommission an AI ship is to make it part of a special project. Of course, somebody probably thought of it as a research project or a black ops mission, but, there you have it, I'm it's captain. Again, all technically legal, but not what this program was about.

I looked at the silhouette of the ship. The white panels added on its grey hull in order to give her the look of a luxury craft looked somewhat weird and at the first glance, you could not recognize the shape of a military corvette. Or a crazy AI that matter. I remember reading an article that another AI ship suddenly veered off into a sun, taking its own life along with it crew aboard. I made a decision to learn a everything I could before I set one foot on its decks.

- Does it have a flight manual? I asked the dock master after I finished browsing through the available ship records.

- I don't know!

That's a shocker.

- Well, I'm not getting on that thing without some research.

- Suit yourself. shrugged the dockmaster again. It's not going anywhere.

Did I mentioned how much I hate shrugging? He must have very well-developed trapezius muscles.

I went to my quarters and created the open positions announcements for crewmembers and sent them via the proper channels. Luckily, today most ships are automated, requiring only a small crew. Corvettes, being even smaller than other ships can be operated with even less people. And I also had only two weeks for getting it ready, it was doable, but not if I was alone. After all the documents were done, I went to learn more things about the ship.

In the navy archive center- basically the equivalent of a library, necessary since you were not allowed to access it wireless- a very young guy, with a face that still had traces of spots, guided me enthusiastically. I have to admit, while I did not think much of him at first, he really helped me. One of the things he explained to me was the fact that the ship automatically received a sample of my voice, my finger prints and my retina and a profile comprised of my vital signs and other identifying data. Basically, a biosignature. So, all I had to do was to confirm it from a scanner inside the ship. After that all the rest of the crew could be registered in the same way with the captain's approval. Then he transferred to my terminal a lot of materials about the AI used to control the ships, mostly of course about the Tengu Class.

- Can I see it?

- See what? I asked

- The Tengu ship.

- Not unless you want to join the crew.

- Can I? asked the young guy visible more enthusiastic.

Great, another perfect example of a teenager with dreams of glory.

- Well, let me see, I said in a thoughtful voice, do you have any criminal conviction on your record and are you currently serving your sentence?

- No, I do not, he said, very eager and full of hope.