March 10, 2016 at 10:05Unexpected meeting. Chapter 3
The hangar was lit by dim backup lighting. An opening was cut out with a laser cutter in the iron wall of the hangar perforated like a sieve. When the cut line closed, a piece of iron fell with a roar on the hangar deck. Behind the opening on the floor, strewn with fragments of iron and plastic, the human body was visible. Next to him lay an electromagnetic pulse grenade (EMIG) of a licked shape, the entire body of which was perforated with small holes.
- You look at the EMIG - this is not an army model!
- Yes, obviously a little thing is far from for mere mortals. Now it’s clear why we had problems with neural networks. We need to return - now I have to re-calibrate the scanner. If at all it will work fine. Neural networks are also worth checking.
- And what to do with this?
- Pack it. We also take EMIG - such things, even used ones, do not lie on every corner. The commander was sure that someone else was on the ship - now he is gone. By the way, that thing will also need to be taken away from here, ”he jabbed toward the courier ship.
“Hey Fack, do you want to help us?”
A man standing nearby placed a rotary gun on them, which began to spin with a whistle. People standing in the doorway looked at each other, laughed, and set to work. Ten minutes later they left the hangar.
***
Lex and Laera sat in opposite branches of the ventilation tunnels above the level of the hangars. Lex listened to the echoes of human speech coming from below, trying to understand what was happening below. Laera looked at Lex. When their views met, she felt an emotional wave of disappointment, loss, discontent with shades of anger. Lex looked away.
“How long have you been with Fink?” She asked quietly.
Lex was silent for a moment, intently thinking about something, and answered just as quietly.
- You have either congenital or neural network abilities for empathy. I should have guessed this before.
“I'm sorry it happened.”
- Fink is a very reliable partner. Was ... How is your neural network?
- When EMIG worked, it went into defense, but now everything is fine, - Laera lied because, in fact, to her own amazement, her neural network seemed to not notice a powerful surge of electromagnetic radiation, only a notification appeared about the operation of the electromagnetic protection circuit.
They were silent for a moment. When the noise below subsided, Lex waited another ten minutes and began to climb down. Laera hesitated and climbed after him. They went down the ventilation shaft and climbed out into the hangar through a cut-out opening. Lex spun around, as if trying to examine something, and quickly went to his courier ship. He was not afraid of controlling the space, since the triggered EMIG surely burned everything out within the hangar. Laera followed him.
In front of the ship, Lex stopped and walked around the perimeter. Finding nothing suspicious, Lex called up the neural network interface and called up the control center for the nearest equipment. In the list that appeared, he chose the item with the image of the only spaceship, in front of which his identification number was displayed. After the selection, a structured list of available functions appeared, of which Lex activated a procedure for identifying and gaining access to the ship. The neural network tried to establish a remote connection with the ship and after a couple of seconds it issued a message: “Contactless communication with the ship has been established. Waiting for identification data. ” Lex presented a picture: on a white background, slowly fingering with powerful paws, there was an lion (a predator of a cat family on Lex’s home planet), as if standing still, here the lion stopped and yawned,
“Lex Orton, Daona 37 welcomes you,” the neural network broadcast the melodic voice of the ship. “Attention!” Due to a powerful electromagnetic pulse, the protection of the main authorization line worked. The main line is deactivated. The backup line L1R1 is activated.
Lex mentally turned to the ship.
- Daona 37. Open the ramp. Give a list of available neural networks in sight.
Lex saw a list of available neural networks. The first was his, he moved to the list of functions of the second neural network. There, he saw only the identifier of the neural network and its name “Laera-S” - all other information was closed for viewing. To the user of this neural network, he assigned guest access to the ship. All these actions took no more than ten seconds of time. The ramp slowly advanced.
Lex and Laera climbed the extended ladder of the courier ship. They passed a small airlock compartment, a corridor and got into the cabin. Lex sat in his chair.
- Can? Asked Laera.
- Yes, sit down, of course. You have guest access to the ship.
“Are you not afraid that I will hand you over anymore?”
“If she wanted to do this, she would just push me into the mine.” I would hardly have reached the bottom alive.
“I'm not with them.”
- With whom?
- I have a contract. I must fulfill it. I am a very dear specialist, believe me. Your goal here is to ensure the delivery of goods to your destination. Our goals coincide regardless of customers.
- And if they did not coincide?
“Then you would hardly have survived at the control center,” the girl honestly admitted.
- Frankly. It's easy to guess about my customer, knowing who I am. And you?
Laera was silent, looking at Lex and pondering her answer. The pause dragged on.
“Laer, we either trust each other or not.” The situation is complicated. And preparation is no guarantee - see how Fink stupidly died.
“I'm an NBS freelancer,” Laera finally said after a brief pause.
“That ... explains a lot,” Lex said slowly.
Re-evaluation of Laera at Lex came almost instantly. The accumulated statistics on Laera's background behavior and the last drop of information about her obtained all came together in a single picture. Lex realized and understood the whole danger of the situation in which he found himself in the control center, when, at first glance, the defenseless girl, in fact, controlled everyone. Needleman, probably transferred to the sector mode of operation, covered everyone at once from the point where she was. It was only necessary to accidentally give up, for example, simulating a fall. And Lex was not sure that his neural network would have worked out such a situation automatically in anticipation - aggression would not have been manifest in an explicit form. And when did they find her? She already controlled the entire hangar and probably knew about them. In such a situation, the presence of an NBS agent is perceived ambiguously. One side, it can be luck - it’s obvious that Laera is clearly an uneasy NBS employee — rather, she’s a universal from the NBS, about which Lex could only guess. But, on the other hand, who knows what directives it has there - the NBS is a very closed organization, and such organizations do not like “extra” or “random” people in their affairs and “just like that”, only because the situation has developed, to help never in a hurry.
- Daona 37. Search for information nodes. Installation of special communications with any of them, priority code by my personal identifier.
After a couple of minutes, the answer came from the ship.
- No information nodes were found.
Lex looked at Laer.
“The usual connection seems to be completely drowned out.” Or we left the communication area. Which is very strange, since in the SCM space there are practically no such “holes”.
- May I try?
Lex hesitated, but professional curiosity prevailed. “And what am I losing, all the same, access will not be captain’s.” It will be interesting to see what it will do and how the situation will develop, taking into account which AI is installed on the ship ... Stupid, probably, an idea, taking into account the situation ... But not every day you encounter an NBS agent, ”thought Lex.
- Daona 37. To the user with the identifier “Laera-S” change guest access to navigator access.
The Laer neural network issued a request-invitation to establish an authorized connection with the ship. Laera answered in the affirmative.
- Laera S, Daona 37 welcomes you. You have a navigational level of access to the ship. Initial identification procedure started. Waiting for identification data.
Laera imagined a sunset picture that she watched daily when she recently rested on one closed elite resort planet in the center of SCM. Although Laera was not attached to some kind of obligatory fulfillment of tasks, being an absolutely independent and independent employee, she did not so often allow herself to be left to herself. In the end, often she carried out secretive escort of senior officials of the SCM. A stylishly dressed, slender woman with expensive jewelry that favorably emphasizes her charm, effectively fit into an elite society next to a high-ranking accompanied person. The person usually did her best to achieve more than just Laer’s disposition, the male part of society envied the follower, the female part of the society experienced a gamut of feelings from admiration to hatred. Laer often enjoyed these moments of her female unconditional power. However, it was an exhausting work, because, although it was not necessary to take great care of external threats, it was necessary to closely and intuitively monitor what was happening next to his ward. A fraudulent gross violation of meeting protocols, misbehavior or a specially created provocative situation that could be used the next day against a person’s reputation in the media. The charming girl, as it were, easily and naturally extinguished and resolved acute moments. It was worse if you had to fend off a physical threat - you had to not only protect the object, but somehow not “light up”. However, such situations were extremely rare exceptions. Trips, meetings, parties, resorts - all this was outwardly like a vacation, but did not replace him in full. Therefore, Laera well remembered those moments when she really could afford to relax without thinking about anything else. “It will still be necessary to take breaks in work more often,” the girl thought.
“Identification data accepted,” she heard the voice of the ship.
- Daona 37, start the procedure for changing the identification data.
Laera repeated the same procedure with the image of the sunset she remembered, but without any extra thoughts and desires.
Laera quickly figured out the settings for the ship's navigation interface. Augmented reality replaced the control panels located in front of it with the necessary information, graphs, charts, various information received from scanners. Formed information space for the navigator. In the center of the table, instead of a hologram of the image of the ship, Laer saw a three-dimensional coordinate grid, various points with captions, lines connecting segments of other lines, and other navigation information. Laera shook her head slightly - the picture remained stable, part of reality was reliably replaced by virtuality. Only peripheral vision caught the unstoppable bright orange glow - signaling and warning the neural network that part of reality is not real. Laera closed her eyes. The glow changed to red and only objects of augmented reality remained. “For a long time I did not work with such equipment,” thought Laera.
Such technologies were used only in special orders. On all modern ships, full-fledged manual control has long been replaced by voice, visual, neural network in their various combinations. It all came down to the fact that the crew members formed in one way or another the general equipment commands. Of course, it was required to understand very well what happens in the process of their execution, to know the sequence of issuing commands and the appropriateness of their use in various conditions. The reliability of neural network and electronic equipment was high and it was believed that propulsion, navigation or generator equipment would be much more likely to fail than a multiple duplicated ship control system.
This ship could be controlled by a person without a neural network at all: manually perform navigation measurements and calculations, set low-level control, for example, the thrust vector, the parameters of the generator set, and the life support system. The vast majority of people with similar knowledge and experience were engaged in the design and construction of ships, as well as their maintenance and repair in large shipyards. The presence of such ships in wagons was justified due to the specifics of their work. If the ship’s control system is damaged, the station wagon could connect directly to it, actually replacing the ship’s AI with a part of its implants and a neural network. In case of problems with their neural network, generalists could manually control the ship - they had all the knowledge, experience and skills for this.
- Daona 37, create a virtual environment with double standard parameters.
- The environment is created, I am transmitting data for the connection.
Laera turned to navigation scanners, launching a hidden search for any information access points. While the system was fulfilling the request, Laera tried to gain direct access to the long-distance transmitter. The ship's system immediately blocked the work with any equipment using low-level protocols. Then Laera went on a trick. She singled out part of her neural network environment, isolated it, merged it with the virtual environment allocated by the ship, and began to increase the volume of information requests for navigation equipment by adding special code constructs to it. Laera was expecting a vulnerability in the neural network architecture to work - the virtual processor had to interpret part of the data stream as a command, while the “virtual” space was “conceived”, which allowed to forward the data stream through the monitor of the first level neuroenvironment and execute the command directly, as allowed by the ship AI. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI like “Daona” and a powerful own neural network. Laera was increasing and increasing the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship did not seem to notice it. “Strange, the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI like “Daona” and a powerful own neural network. Laera was increasing and increasing the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship did not seem to notice it. “Strange, the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI like “Daona” and a powerful own neural network. Laera was increasing and increasing the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship did not seem to notice it. “Strange, the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part.
Laera abruptly stopped the flow of information from herself, called up her extensive library of unauthorized equipment control, found the type of ship, activated and sent a short-lived virus, disguised as requesting data from the scanners of the ship. This was an extreme measure, since the "exposure" of war viruses was not encouraged, but Laera considered that now it was the situation in which its use was justified. After sending the virus, she blocked direct communication with the ship, transferring all interaction with it through the virtual environment. A few seconds later, a report came from the virus about a partial interception of control and gaining captain access to the ship's systems. Laera tried to make a low-level connection to the ship's communications equipment. But she unexpectedly received a powerful blow from the ship that resisted the invasion. Daona dumped on her almost everything that she had received from her before. All received data were modified and presented as reports from the ship's scanners. For Laer, the return attack from the ship came as a complete surprise. The neural network tried to analyze the incoming information, was heavily loaded, and then ceased to have time to process the input data. The virus, loaded in the middle of the information flow, tried to activate, but the antivirus system of the neural network did not allow it to fully deploy. A semi-working virus began to generate and pour in its requests to Laera’s neural network; some of the requests were marked by the neural network as “especially dangerous”. Laera tried to additionally isolate the connection with the ship and, at the same time, not to lose contact with her virus in the system, filtering out the information flow of garbage, which fell on her during an exchange with ship systems. This continued until a virus in the ship controlled by Laera and a virus in the Laera neural network, formally controlled by the ship, clashed for control of access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. until the virus in the ship controlled by Laera and the virus in the Laera’s neural network, formally controlled by the ship, clashed for control of access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. until the virus in the ship controlled by Laera and the virus in the Laera’s neural network, formally controlled by the ship, clashed for control of access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. which the ship formally controlled, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. which the ship formally controlled, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. when it was sometimes possible to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. when it was sometimes possible to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship.
Laera took a breath. His head was heavy, pounding in his temples. However, pressure, pulse and other medical parameters were normal - the neural network fended off the load. It took only no more than a minute of time. “For a long time I didn’t get such an impudent change,” the girl thought. “And it didn’t work out clean.” Laera re-established communication with the ship.
“Daona 37, search for the nearest information nodes.”
- Communication equipment is not available.
“Well, what a day ?!” Laer prayed.
- Daona 37, what is the reason for inaccessibility?
- The instability of all interface submodules of communication units. Suspected system intrusion. Diagnostic and recovery procedures for the communication subsystem have been launched. The self-diagnosis of the ship system has been launched. The communication system will be available in two hours thirty-six minutes.
Apparently as a result of partial control of the ship’s AI, the chaotic operation of the unactivated virus, sometimes responding to the requests of its virus, conditions were created that completely “hung” the ship’s communication system. “This is a very interesting and rather unique situation. It will be necessary to analyze the surviving records, ”the girl thought and glanced at Lex.
Lex, who had previously observed the incomprehensible activity of the companion, but who could not get acquainted with the detailed reports of the ship’s systems, because for some time he did not receive answers to his requests, now he was actively trying to understand what exactly had happened. He saw team reports, his neural network detected and analyzed inconsistencies in them, but the general picture of what happened did not add up. Finally, Lex received a notification about the launch of a self-diagnosis of the ship's systems and the restoration of the normal operation of the communications subsystem, which will be inoperative for the next two and a half hours. Lex shook his head and looked at Laer.
“As far as I understand, the issue of trust is completely clarified between us.”
Laera received a notification of a change in access level on the guest. She felt not so much a guilt about the broken equipment at the wrong time, as a professional shame for inappropriate, inaccurate and illiterate actions. She did not remember such embarrassment since her studies at the academy. She used to work quickly, clearly and reliably. Immediately, in the conditions of a monstrous time limit, she departed from the rules and orders, relying on the known capabilities of the AI of a ship of this type and the power of her neural network: she did not pre-isolate the connection, poorly isolated the involved sector of the neural network, instead of preliminary study after implementation, she immediately gave the command for command control . A few minutes after it was all over, she no longer seemed to
- Daona 37. Upon completion of the inspection of the ship, prepare a detailed report on the results of the inspection and actions to normalize the operation of the equipment. Confirm team.
- It’s accepted, captain, upon completion of the inspection of the ship to prepare a detailed report on the results of the inspection and actions to normalize the operation of the equipment.
- Daona 37. What is the status of a long-distance transmitter? In detail.
- The long-distance communications equipment is in good condition, but working with it is impossible due to a comprehensive check of the ship's communications subsystem. Fixed a failure of the interface submodules of all communication units. The alleged cause is an unknown type of attack on the ship’s information infrastructure. The alleged source is a member of the team with navigational access.
- Daona 37. Create a universal channel for low-level access to equipment, disconnect the long-distance communication transmitter from the ship’s communication system and connect it to the low-level access channel.
- Done, I pass the parameters of the low-level access channel.
Lex received the data and connected via a neural network to long-distance communications equipment. When interacting with the transmitter, it did not require a very high speed of decision-making and a quick analysis of the priorities of the answers with many simultaneous input requests, such as when controlling the entire ship, so Lex was not difficult. Maintaining an active low-level connection was provided in the background - almost all known ship protocols were known to Lex's neural networks. Lex only needed to control the transmitter, like any other device, through a neural network. There were quite a lot of teams and it was necessary to know the order of their issuance, but Lex already had macro commands - painted lists of sequences of commands. Using the mental-visual interface of the neural network, Lex quickly prepared the transmitter for work.
“Laer, I’ll try using long distance communications.”
“They'll spot us right away!”
- Are there any other options? You put the usual connection for more than two hours.
Laera said nothing.
- Yes, in any case, I did not find a single repeater nearby. Communication is well jammed. I need to report what happened at least somehow. There is still such an opportunity and we can generally use this ship. So I’ll try to send capture information.
- Do you manage directly?
- Yes. So you could leave a message and get out. It would automatically be sent when equipment was ready. Now I have to be in touch. While I uncover this transmitter, they will definitely find us. And then how lucky - maybe I can finish the transfer before the guests come here, or maybe not.
“I can stay here and complete the transfer.” The situation is my fault, admitted Laera.
“I'm afraid.”
Laera, who had never expected such an answer, looked at Lex.
- What?
For a while, Lex pleased himself to contemplate the incomprehensible female face of amazed bewilderment. Then he just laughed, trying to relieve his own psychological stress.
“I'm afraid that if you leave you here alone, then this ship will then have to be scrapped.”
Laera half turned away from him and even relaxed a little.
“I can put some of your message on the show.” Surely this information will get to the NBS if this is the sphere of its interests.
“Thanks, Lex, no need.”
Lex grunted.
“Then you should see the way out.” I’ll start working with the transmitter as soon as you leave the hangar. Ten minutes later, the program will begin, which will go on for a couple of minutes. Fourteen minutes later, we should no longer be in the hangar! This is ideal, of course ...
- Better to leave through the same hole, it is closer to us than all other rooms.
- I think the same. The only problem is that you have to climb up the mine. And I’m not sure that the second time I’m also lucky if our acquaintance with his rotary cannon arrives.
- I will prepare a snag in the fifth technical room from the entrance. It’s as if someone is cutting metal there. It will give time.
- How much time do you need?
“I can handle it in five minutes.”
“Okay, work and leave the hangar.” As you climb through the hole, in about five minutes, I will knock down the gates of the hangar. There will be an atmosphere leak. The hole will be small, the automation will block it, but it will take time - I have enough for the transfer. There will also be strong interference from hyperfield emitters.
Laera left the ship, quickly ran to the desired room and quickly constructed a blende from the extracted items from her backpack. The deception was a series of effect-simulating blocks connected to each other, similar to those sold for entertainment, only much more compact and powerful. One was responsible for the sound, the second for a slight vibration, the third had to explode when changing the picture of the room, the fourth periodically emitted signals simulating radio communications, the fifth simply glowed in the infrared range, other units also performed some of their tasks. Laera laid in four minutes and ran to the hole in the ventilation shaft.
As soon as Laera descended from the ship, Lex began to work with the transmitter. Giving commands to initialize the equipment, he aimed the transmission complex from the side of one of the hangar sections. “How well the ship stands with its nose to the gates of the hangar,” Lex thought. “Otherwise, the whole ship would have to be deployed, and then everyone would have escaped.” Lex did not know how well the signal would go, he never used the transmitting complex in outer space, so he unscrewed the transmitter to the maximum power, and even added a few percent over the limit, taking advantage of fine-tuning the equipment using low-level access.
The transmission took place in the so-called fifth dimension - hyperspace. Scientists themselves were confused about what exactly happened at the moment the transition point was activated, mostly unsubscribing with vast mathematical theories with beautiful pictures containing funnel-shaped drawings. There were several theories. According to the most common theory, an entry point was formed, the behavior of which was most like a black hole, the parameters of which initiated the creation of an exit point. The space-time continuum at the boundary of the entry point was destroyed and absorbed by it, ejected and structured from the ejection point. According to the theory, during the passage of the hyperspace tunnel, the flow of time inside it, relative to the time outside it, rather interestingly depended on the distance to the exit point: at close distances, time slowed down significantly, on the far - accelerated. It would seem - here it is humanity's long-standing dream of teleportation - you can not only “jump” far, but also save time. But in practice, a lot of theoretical limitations and technological difficulties affected that did not allow the use of puncture technology in space from anywhere and anywhere. There was an optimal range of distances, the transition technique on which was well studied. At these distances, the time inside and outside the tunnel varied approximately the same, but the distances were impressive. With the accumulated statistics of the operation of specific equipment and dexterity, it was possible to punch distances quite far and accurately. Methods and equipment varied significantly for transmitting data or forwarding ships through hyperspace. When transmitting information, usually there was a repeater base station, the location and parameters of which were known. The transmitting subscriber had time synchronized with this station, or corrected it according to the known nearest pulsars, made an accurate calculation of the location, obtained the necessary parameters and the transmission vector, formed a transition point with the transmitter complex and, when the channel was ready, radiated signals from directional antennas into it.
After Laera left the hangar, Lex waited five minutes and gave the command to launch the ship's generator and initial equipment training. The front lower panels on the ship shifted and several platforms with various equipment located on them advanced from the bowels of the ship. A few minutes later, at the readiness of the long-range transmitter, Lex gave the command for a couple of salvos from the laser gun to the point on which the transmitting complex had previously been focused. The silence of the hangar was cut through by two dry whistling sounds created by gun pumping generators. After a moment, air began to escape with a noise through the hole that had formed. An alarming siren spread across the hangar and red beacons lit up warning of danger. The internal lock gate creaked slowly and slowly. From the extended platforms, several invisible laser beams went into space. The discharge loudly cracked and the helium-hydrogen plasma formed, ejected by directional injector accelerators, was carried into space at a speed of one and a half thousand kilometers per second, gilding the laser beams as if guiding rails. After half a minute, the energy store was charged again, the process was repeated and the next portion of the created solar wind was carried into space.
- Daona 37, what are our coordinates? I requested the coordinates four minutes ago!
- Captain, the review is too small, I can’t correlate the existing piece of the map of the starry sky with the known space in the SCM. I go to the LCF system to determine the coordinate shift. I transmit preliminary data. To clarify, I need another six minutes.
"What the heck!? It never took more than two minutes to correlate the type of constellations with a point in the SCM space. This is generally a matter of a second for AI, Lex thought to himself. The hole had to be done more. Yes, even plasma interferes, probably. In any case, there is no time to wait. ” Lex chose a set of navigation data, opposite which a maximum confidence percentage of 14% was displayed. Five minutes later, part of the white-hot hyperfield emitters turned black sharply. The lighting in the hangar blinked under the influence of strong interference. At a distance of half a million kilometers from the ship, the space flashed with a white flash and immediately died out. A weak accretion disk was formed near the entry point, rotating in the plane of the plasma ejection. Navigation equipment recorded a local distortion of the space-time metric. Lex began transmitting the prepared message, which contained a brief account of the situation. At the twentieth second, the tracking system recorded a gravitational disturbance and recommended that the transmission be repeated. Lex restarted the transfer. A minute later, Lex quickly gave commands to finish the work of the transmission complex. The transition point, left without external recharge, will collapse, finally making a characteristic narrow bi-directional energy surge directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and looking beautiful in the combined infrared, x-ray and gamma spectra.
The sluice doors on the hangar side almost closed. Lex quickly got up and ran to the exit. In the corridor he paused and pulled out a small backpack from one locker. Running down the ramp, he ordered the ship to lock. The ramp began to slowly clean up and when Lex reached its base, he had to jump to the cold floor of the hangar from a height of about a meter.
- Captain, the coordinate displacement is determined, - the voice of the ship was heard. - Current sector number P8-N4-P1 in LCF format. Hyper data transfer is successful with a probability of 0%. I go to standby mode. End of communication.
Lex ran toward the hole in the ventilation shaft. Only one thought was spinning in his head: "Yes, this is completely unrealistic - one jump is limited by the range of one light year, and to the current sector number there are about ten jumps from the place where they met the ship." When a few meters were left before the hole, a group of people appeared at the main entrance to the hangar. Having assessed the situation, part of the group moved towards the technical room, from which strange sounds came, and the second towards the gate. Lex successfully hid in the ventilation shaft and, briskly making his way upstairs, heard the pop of an explosion and the indiscriminate firing.
Unexpected meeting. Chapter 3.
Text version: 1.0.0.
Date of first publication: 03/10/2016.
Last edited: 03/10/2016.
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Comment from the author and abstract
Comment about the author.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my thoughts on the model of the controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological achievements, as well as some thoughts on scientific and technological progress, its role and consequences for the development of human civilization. The idea of the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but, in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
Annotation.
On a cargo ship, two former graduates of the Space Fleet Academy unexpectedly meet who have not seen each other for a long time. Both work on the task of ensuring escort of the cargo of the ship. However, after the next inspection of the ship and cargo on it is almost completed, events occur that impede the further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, the heroes have to find out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the general situation on the ship is clarified, another unexpected meeting follows, which not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also launches larger events in worlds inhabited by people.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my thoughts on the model of the controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological achievements, as well as some thoughts on scientific and technological progress, its role and consequences for the development of human civilization. The idea of the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but, in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
Annotation.
On a cargo ship, two former graduates of the Space Fleet Academy unexpectedly meet who have not seen each other for a long time. Both work on the task of ensuring escort of the cargo of the ship. However, after the next inspection of the ship and cargo on it is almost completed, events occur that impede the further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, the heroes have to find out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the general situation on the ship is clarified, another unexpected meeting follows, which not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also launches larger events in worlds inhabited by people.
- You look at the EMIG - this is not an army model!
- Yes, obviously a little thing is far from for mere mortals. Now it’s clear why we had problems with neural networks. We need to return - now I have to re-calibrate the scanner. If at all it will work fine. Neural networks are also worth checking.
- And what to do with this?
- Pack it. We also take EMIG - such things, even used ones, do not lie on every corner. The commander was sure that someone else was on the ship - now he is gone. By the way, that thing will also need to be taken away from here, ”he jabbed toward the courier ship.
“Hey Fack, do you want to help us?”
A man standing nearby placed a rotary gun on them, which began to spin with a whistle. People standing in the doorway looked at each other, laughed, and set to work. Ten minutes later they left the hangar.
***
Lex and Laera sat in opposite branches of the ventilation tunnels above the level of the hangars. Lex listened to the echoes of human speech coming from below, trying to understand what was happening below. Laera looked at Lex. When their views met, she felt an emotional wave of disappointment, loss, discontent with shades of anger. Lex looked away.
“How long have you been with Fink?” She asked quietly.
Lex was silent for a moment, intently thinking about something, and answered just as quietly.
- You have either congenital or neural network abilities for empathy. I should have guessed this before.
“I'm sorry it happened.”
- Fink is a very reliable partner. Was ... How is your neural network?
- When EMIG worked, it went into defense, but now everything is fine, - Laera lied because, in fact, to her own amazement, her neural network seemed to not notice a powerful surge of electromagnetic radiation, only a notification appeared about the operation of the electromagnetic protection circuit.
They were silent for a moment. When the noise below subsided, Lex waited another ten minutes and began to climb down. Laera hesitated and climbed after him. They went down the ventilation shaft and climbed out into the hangar through a cut-out opening. Lex spun around, as if trying to examine something, and quickly went to his courier ship. He was not afraid of controlling the space, since the triggered EMIG surely burned everything out within the hangar. Laera followed him.
In front of the ship, Lex stopped and walked around the perimeter. Finding nothing suspicious, Lex called up the neural network interface and called up the control center for the nearest equipment. In the list that appeared, he chose the item with the image of the only spaceship, in front of which his identification number was displayed. After the selection, a structured list of available functions appeared, of which Lex activated a procedure for identifying and gaining access to the ship. The neural network tried to establish a remote connection with the ship and after a couple of seconds it issued a message: “Contactless communication with the ship has been established. Waiting for identification data. ” Lex presented a picture: on a white background, slowly fingering with powerful paws, there was an lion (a predator of a cat family on Lex’s home planet), as if standing still, here the lion stopped and yawned,
“Lex Orton, Daona 37 welcomes you,” the neural network broadcast the melodic voice of the ship. “Attention!” Due to a powerful electromagnetic pulse, the protection of the main authorization line worked. The main line is deactivated. The backup line L1R1 is activated.
Lex mentally turned to the ship.
- Daona 37. Open the ramp. Give a list of available neural networks in sight.
Lex saw a list of available neural networks. The first was his, he moved to the list of functions of the second neural network. There, he saw only the identifier of the neural network and its name “Laera-S” - all other information was closed for viewing. To the user of this neural network, he assigned guest access to the ship. All these actions took no more than ten seconds of time. The ramp slowly advanced.
Lex and Laera climbed the extended ladder of the courier ship. They passed a small airlock compartment, a corridor and got into the cabin. Lex sat in his chair.
- Can? Asked Laera.
- Yes, sit down, of course. You have guest access to the ship.
“Are you not afraid that I will hand you over anymore?”
“If she wanted to do this, she would just push me into the mine.” I would hardly have reached the bottom alive.
“I'm not with them.”
- With whom?
- I have a contract. I must fulfill it. I am a very dear specialist, believe me. Your goal here is to ensure the delivery of goods to your destination. Our goals coincide regardless of customers.
- And if they did not coincide?
“Then you would hardly have survived at the control center,” the girl honestly admitted.
- Frankly. It's easy to guess about my customer, knowing who I am. And you?
Laera was silent, looking at Lex and pondering her answer. The pause dragged on.
“Laer, we either trust each other or not.” The situation is complicated. And preparation is no guarantee - see how Fink stupidly died.
“I'm an NBS freelancer,” Laera finally said after a brief pause.
“That ... explains a lot,” Lex said slowly.
Re-evaluation of Laera at Lex came almost instantly. The accumulated statistics on Laera's background behavior and the last drop of information about her obtained all came together in a single picture. Lex realized and understood the whole danger of the situation in which he found himself in the control center, when, at first glance, the defenseless girl, in fact, controlled everyone. Needleman, probably transferred to the sector mode of operation, covered everyone at once from the point where she was. It was only necessary to accidentally give up, for example, simulating a fall. And Lex was not sure that his neural network would have worked out such a situation automatically in anticipation - aggression would not have been manifest in an explicit form. And when did they find her? She already controlled the entire hangar and probably knew about them. In such a situation, the presence of an NBS agent is perceived ambiguously. One side, it can be luck - it’s obvious that Laera is clearly an uneasy NBS employee — rather, she’s a universal from the NBS, about which Lex could only guess. But, on the other hand, who knows what directives it has there - the NBS is a very closed organization, and such organizations do not like “extra” or “random” people in their affairs and “just like that”, only because the situation has developed, to help never in a hurry.
- Daona 37. Search for information nodes. Installation of special communications with any of them, priority code by my personal identifier.
After a couple of minutes, the answer came from the ship.
- No information nodes were found.
Lex looked at Laer.
“The usual connection seems to be completely drowned out.” Or we left the communication area. Which is very strange, since in the SCM space there are practically no such “holes”.
- May I try?
Lex hesitated, but professional curiosity prevailed. “And what am I losing, all the same, access will not be captain’s.” It will be interesting to see what it will do and how the situation will develop, taking into account which AI is installed on the ship ... Stupid, probably, an idea, taking into account the situation ... But not every day you encounter an NBS agent, ”thought Lex.
- Daona 37. To the user with the identifier “Laera-S” change guest access to navigator access.
The Laer neural network issued a request-invitation to establish an authorized connection with the ship. Laera answered in the affirmative.
- Laera S, Daona 37 welcomes you. You have a navigational level of access to the ship. Initial identification procedure started. Waiting for identification data.
Laera imagined a sunset picture that she watched daily when she recently rested on one closed elite resort planet in the center of SCM. Although Laera was not attached to some kind of obligatory fulfillment of tasks, being an absolutely independent and independent employee, she did not so often allow herself to be left to herself. In the end, often she carried out secretive escort of senior officials of the SCM. A stylishly dressed, slender woman with expensive jewelry that favorably emphasizes her charm, effectively fit into an elite society next to a high-ranking accompanied person. The person usually did her best to achieve more than just Laer’s disposition, the male part of society envied the follower, the female part of the society experienced a gamut of feelings from admiration to hatred. Laer often enjoyed these moments of her female unconditional power. However, it was an exhausting work, because, although it was not necessary to take great care of external threats, it was necessary to closely and intuitively monitor what was happening next to his ward. A fraudulent gross violation of meeting protocols, misbehavior or a specially created provocative situation that could be used the next day against a person’s reputation in the media. The charming girl, as it were, easily and naturally extinguished and resolved acute moments. It was worse if you had to fend off a physical threat - you had to not only protect the object, but somehow not “light up”. However, such situations were extremely rare exceptions. Trips, meetings, parties, resorts - all this was outwardly like a vacation, but did not replace him in full. Therefore, Laera well remembered those moments when she really could afford to relax without thinking about anything else. “It will still be necessary to take breaks in work more often,” the girl thought.
“Identification data accepted,” she heard the voice of the ship.
- Daona 37, start the procedure for changing the identification data.
Laera repeated the same procedure with the image of the sunset she remembered, but without any extra thoughts and desires.
Laera quickly figured out the settings for the ship's navigation interface. Augmented reality replaced the control panels located in front of it with the necessary information, graphs, charts, various information received from scanners. Formed information space for the navigator. In the center of the table, instead of a hologram of the image of the ship, Laer saw a three-dimensional coordinate grid, various points with captions, lines connecting segments of other lines, and other navigation information. Laera shook her head slightly - the picture remained stable, part of reality was reliably replaced by virtuality. Only peripheral vision caught the unstoppable bright orange glow - signaling and warning the neural network that part of reality is not real. Laera closed her eyes. The glow changed to red and only objects of augmented reality remained. “For a long time I did not work with such equipment,” thought Laera.
Such technologies were used only in special orders. On all modern ships, full-fledged manual control has long been replaced by voice, visual, neural network in their various combinations. It all came down to the fact that the crew members formed in one way or another the general equipment commands. Of course, it was required to understand very well what happens in the process of their execution, to know the sequence of issuing commands and the appropriateness of their use in various conditions. The reliability of neural network and electronic equipment was high and it was believed that propulsion, navigation or generator equipment would be much more likely to fail than a multiple duplicated ship control system.
This ship could be controlled by a person without a neural network at all: manually perform navigation measurements and calculations, set low-level control, for example, the thrust vector, the parameters of the generator set, and the life support system. The vast majority of people with similar knowledge and experience were engaged in the design and construction of ships, as well as their maintenance and repair in large shipyards. The presence of such ships in wagons was justified due to the specifics of their work. If the ship’s control system is damaged, the station wagon could connect directly to it, actually replacing the ship’s AI with a part of its implants and a neural network. In case of problems with their neural network, generalists could manually control the ship - they had all the knowledge, experience and skills for this.
- Daona 37, create a virtual environment with double standard parameters.
- The environment is created, I am transmitting data for the connection.
Laera turned to navigation scanners, launching a hidden search for any information access points. While the system was fulfilling the request, Laera tried to gain direct access to the long-distance transmitter. The ship's system immediately blocked the work with any equipment using low-level protocols. Then Laera went on a trick. She singled out part of her neural network environment, isolated it, merged it with the virtual environment allocated by the ship, and began to increase the volume of information requests for navigation equipment by adding special code constructs to it. Laera was expecting a vulnerability in the neural network architecture to work - the virtual processor had to interpret part of the data stream as a command, while the “virtual” space was “conceived”, which allowed to forward the data stream through the monitor of the first level neuroenvironment and execute the command directly, as allowed by the ship AI. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI like “Daona” and a powerful own neural network. Laera was increasing and increasing the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship did not seem to notice it. “Strange, the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI like “Daona” and a powerful own neural network. Laera was increasing and increasing the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship did not seem to notice it. “Strange, the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI like “Daona” and a powerful own neural network. Laera was increasing and increasing the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship did not seem to notice it. “Strange, the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part. the Daon series, although special, is no longer considered the most modern. AI is clearly specially trained or non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute had passed and Laer still had about one and a half minutes to ascertain the lack of communication, inform Lex about this and not arouse suspicion on his part.
Laera abruptly stopped the flow of information from herself, called up her extensive library of unauthorized equipment control, found the type of ship, activated and sent a short-lived virus, disguised as requesting data from the scanners of the ship. This was an extreme measure, since the "exposure" of war viruses was not encouraged, but Laera considered that now it was the situation in which its use was justified. After sending the virus, she blocked direct communication with the ship, transferring all interaction with it through the virtual environment. A few seconds later, a report came from the virus about a partial interception of control and gaining captain access to the ship's systems. Laera tried to make a low-level connection to the ship's communications equipment. But she unexpectedly received a powerful blow from the ship that resisted the invasion. Daona dumped on her almost everything that she had received from her before. All received data were modified and presented as reports from the ship's scanners. For Laer, the return attack from the ship came as a complete surprise. The neural network tried to analyze the incoming information, was heavily loaded, and then ceased to have time to process the input data. The virus, loaded in the middle of the information flow, tried to activate, but the antivirus system of the neural network did not allow it to fully deploy. A semi-working virus began to generate and pour in its requests to Laera’s neural network; some of the requests were marked by the neural network as “especially dangerous”. Laera tried to additionally isolate the connection with the ship and, at the same time, not to lose contact with her virus in the system, filtering out the information flow of garbage, which fell on her during an exchange with ship systems. This continued until a virus in the ship controlled by Laera and a virus in the Laera neural network, formally controlled by the ship, clashed for control of access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. until the virus in the ship controlled by Laera and the virus in the Laera’s neural network, formally controlled by the ship, clashed for control of access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. until the virus in the ship controlled by Laera and the virus in the Laera’s neural network, formally controlled by the ship, clashed for control of access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. which the ship formally controlled, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. which the ship formally controlled, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to one known algorithm. As a result of collisions and disruptions of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she was losing control when sometimes she was able to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. when it was sometimes possible to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship. when it was sometimes possible to answer someone else’s requests for setting up equipment from her virus. Finally, Laera gave the command to the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate. After that, it was no longer difficult to break the connection and clear the isolated space of the neural network allocated for this session with the ship.
Laera took a breath. His head was heavy, pounding in his temples. However, pressure, pulse and other medical parameters were normal - the neural network fended off the load. It took only no more than a minute of time. “For a long time I didn’t get such an impudent change,” the girl thought. “And it didn’t work out clean.” Laera re-established communication with the ship.
“Daona 37, search for the nearest information nodes.”
- Communication equipment is not available.
“Well, what a day ?!” Laer prayed.
- Daona 37, what is the reason for inaccessibility?
- The instability of all interface submodules of communication units. Suspected system intrusion. Diagnostic and recovery procedures for the communication subsystem have been launched. The self-diagnosis of the ship system has been launched. The communication system will be available in two hours thirty-six minutes.
Apparently as a result of partial control of the ship’s AI, the chaotic operation of the unactivated virus, sometimes responding to the requests of its virus, conditions were created that completely “hung” the ship’s communication system. “This is a very interesting and rather unique situation. It will be necessary to analyze the surviving records, ”the girl thought and glanced at Lex.
Lex, who had previously observed the incomprehensible activity of the companion, but who could not get acquainted with the detailed reports of the ship’s systems, because for some time he did not receive answers to his requests, now he was actively trying to understand what exactly had happened. He saw team reports, his neural network detected and analyzed inconsistencies in them, but the general picture of what happened did not add up. Finally, Lex received a notification about the launch of a self-diagnosis of the ship's systems and the restoration of the normal operation of the communications subsystem, which will be inoperative for the next two and a half hours. Lex shook his head and looked at Laer.
“As far as I understand, the issue of trust is completely clarified between us.”
Laera received a notification of a change in access level on the guest. She felt not so much a guilt about the broken equipment at the wrong time, as a professional shame for inappropriate, inaccurate and illiterate actions. She did not remember such embarrassment since her studies at the academy. She used to work quickly, clearly and reliably. Immediately, in the conditions of a monstrous time limit, she departed from the rules and orders, relying on the known capabilities of the AI of a ship of this type and the power of her neural network: she did not pre-isolate the connection, poorly isolated the involved sector of the neural network, instead of preliminary study after implementation, she immediately gave the command for command control . A few minutes after it was all over, she no longer seemed to
- Daona 37. Upon completion of the inspection of the ship, prepare a detailed report on the results of the inspection and actions to normalize the operation of the equipment. Confirm team.
- It’s accepted, captain, upon completion of the inspection of the ship to prepare a detailed report on the results of the inspection and actions to normalize the operation of the equipment.
- Daona 37. What is the status of a long-distance transmitter? In detail.
- The long-distance communications equipment is in good condition, but working with it is impossible due to a comprehensive check of the ship's communications subsystem. Fixed a failure of the interface submodules of all communication units. The alleged cause is an unknown type of attack on the ship’s information infrastructure. The alleged source is a member of the team with navigational access.
- Daona 37. Create a universal channel for low-level access to equipment, disconnect the long-distance communication transmitter from the ship’s communication system and connect it to the low-level access channel.
- Done, I pass the parameters of the low-level access channel.
Lex received the data and connected via a neural network to long-distance communications equipment. When interacting with the transmitter, it did not require a very high speed of decision-making and a quick analysis of the priorities of the answers with many simultaneous input requests, such as when controlling the entire ship, so Lex was not difficult. Maintaining an active low-level connection was provided in the background - almost all known ship protocols were known to Lex's neural networks. Lex only needed to control the transmitter, like any other device, through a neural network. There were quite a lot of teams and it was necessary to know the order of their issuance, but Lex already had macro commands - painted lists of sequences of commands. Using the mental-visual interface of the neural network, Lex quickly prepared the transmitter for work.
“Laer, I’ll try using long distance communications.”
“They'll spot us right away!”
- Are there any other options? You put the usual connection for more than two hours.
Laera said nothing.
- Yes, in any case, I did not find a single repeater nearby. Communication is well jammed. I need to report what happened at least somehow. There is still such an opportunity and we can generally use this ship. So I’ll try to send capture information.
- Do you manage directly?
- Yes. So you could leave a message and get out. It would automatically be sent when equipment was ready. Now I have to be in touch. While I uncover this transmitter, they will definitely find us. And then how lucky - maybe I can finish the transfer before the guests come here, or maybe not.
“I can stay here and complete the transfer.” The situation is my fault, admitted Laera.
“I'm afraid.”
Laera, who had never expected such an answer, looked at Lex.
- What?
For a while, Lex pleased himself to contemplate the incomprehensible female face of amazed bewilderment. Then he just laughed, trying to relieve his own psychological stress.
“I'm afraid that if you leave you here alone, then this ship will then have to be scrapped.”
Laera half turned away from him and even relaxed a little.
“I can put some of your message on the show.” Surely this information will get to the NBS if this is the sphere of its interests.
“Thanks, Lex, no need.”
Lex grunted.
“Then you should see the way out.” I’ll start working with the transmitter as soon as you leave the hangar. Ten minutes later, the program will begin, which will go on for a couple of minutes. Fourteen minutes later, we should no longer be in the hangar! This is ideal, of course ...
- Better to leave through the same hole, it is closer to us than all other rooms.
- I think the same. The only problem is that you have to climb up the mine. And I’m not sure that the second time I’m also lucky if our acquaintance with his rotary cannon arrives.
- I will prepare a snag in the fifth technical room from the entrance. It’s as if someone is cutting metal there. It will give time.
- How much time do you need?
“I can handle it in five minutes.”
“Okay, work and leave the hangar.” As you climb through the hole, in about five minutes, I will knock down the gates of the hangar. There will be an atmosphere leak. The hole will be small, the automation will block it, but it will take time - I have enough for the transfer. There will also be strong interference from hyperfield emitters.
Laera left the ship, quickly ran to the desired room and quickly constructed a blende from the extracted items from her backpack. The deception was a series of effect-simulating blocks connected to each other, similar to those sold for entertainment, only much more compact and powerful. One was responsible for the sound, the second for a slight vibration, the third had to explode when changing the picture of the room, the fourth periodically emitted signals simulating radio communications, the fifth simply glowed in the infrared range, other units also performed some of their tasks. Laera laid in four minutes and ran to the hole in the ventilation shaft.
As soon as Laera descended from the ship, Lex began to work with the transmitter. Giving commands to initialize the equipment, he aimed the transmission complex from the side of one of the hangar sections. “How well the ship stands with its nose to the gates of the hangar,” Lex thought. “Otherwise, the whole ship would have to be deployed, and then everyone would have escaped.” Lex did not know how well the signal would go, he never used the transmitting complex in outer space, so he unscrewed the transmitter to the maximum power, and even added a few percent over the limit, taking advantage of fine-tuning the equipment using low-level access.
The transmission took place in the so-called fifth dimension - hyperspace. Scientists themselves were confused about what exactly happened at the moment the transition point was activated, mostly unsubscribing with vast mathematical theories with beautiful pictures containing funnel-shaped drawings. There were several theories. According to the most common theory, an entry point was formed, the behavior of which was most like a black hole, the parameters of which initiated the creation of an exit point. The space-time continuum at the boundary of the entry point was destroyed and absorbed by it, ejected and structured from the ejection point. According to the theory, during the passage of the hyperspace tunnel, the flow of time inside it, relative to the time outside it, rather interestingly depended on the distance to the exit point: at close distances, time slowed down significantly, on the far - accelerated. It would seem - here it is humanity's long-standing dream of teleportation - you can not only “jump” far, but also save time. But in practice, a lot of theoretical limitations and technological difficulties affected that did not allow the use of puncture technology in space from anywhere and anywhere. There was an optimal range of distances, the transition technique on which was well studied. At these distances, the time inside and outside the tunnel varied approximately the same, but the distances were impressive. With the accumulated statistics of the operation of specific equipment and dexterity, it was possible to punch distances quite far and accurately. Methods and equipment varied significantly for transmitting data or forwarding ships through hyperspace. When transmitting information, usually there was a repeater base station, the location and parameters of which were known. The transmitting subscriber had time synchronized with this station, or corrected it according to the known nearest pulsars, made an accurate calculation of the location, obtained the necessary parameters and the transmission vector, formed a transition point with the transmitter complex and, when the channel was ready, radiated signals from directional antennas into it.
After Laera left the hangar, Lex waited five minutes and gave the command to launch the ship's generator and initial equipment training. The front lower panels on the ship shifted and several platforms with various equipment located on them advanced from the bowels of the ship. A few minutes later, at the readiness of the long-range transmitter, Lex gave the command for a couple of salvos from the laser gun to the point on which the transmitting complex had previously been focused. The silence of the hangar was cut through by two dry whistling sounds created by gun pumping generators. After a moment, air began to escape with a noise through the hole that had formed. An alarming siren spread across the hangar and red beacons lit up warning of danger. The internal lock gate creaked slowly and slowly. From the extended platforms, several invisible laser beams went into space. The discharge loudly cracked and the helium-hydrogen plasma formed, ejected by directional injector accelerators, was carried into space at a speed of one and a half thousand kilometers per second, gilding the laser beams as if guiding rails. After half a minute, the energy store was charged again, the process was repeated and the next portion of the created solar wind was carried into space.
- Daona 37, what are our coordinates? I requested the coordinates four minutes ago!
- Captain, the review is too small, I can’t correlate the existing piece of the map of the starry sky with the known space in the SCM. I go to the LCF system to determine the coordinate shift. I transmit preliminary data. To clarify, I need another six minutes.
"What the heck!? It never took more than two minutes to correlate the type of constellations with a point in the SCM space. This is generally a matter of a second for AI, Lex thought to himself. The hole had to be done more. Yes, even plasma interferes, probably. In any case, there is no time to wait. ” Lex chose a set of navigation data, opposite which a maximum confidence percentage of 14% was displayed. Five minutes later, part of the white-hot hyperfield emitters turned black sharply. The lighting in the hangar blinked under the influence of strong interference. At a distance of half a million kilometers from the ship, the space flashed with a white flash and immediately died out. A weak accretion disk was formed near the entry point, rotating in the plane of the plasma ejection. Navigation equipment recorded a local distortion of the space-time metric. Lex began transmitting the prepared message, which contained a brief account of the situation. At the twentieth second, the tracking system recorded a gravitational disturbance and recommended that the transmission be repeated. Lex restarted the transfer. A minute later, Lex quickly gave commands to finish the work of the transmission complex. The transition point, left without external recharge, will collapse, finally making a characteristic narrow bi-directional energy surge directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and looking beautiful in the combined infrared, x-ray and gamma spectra.
The sluice doors on the hangar side almost closed. Lex quickly got up and ran to the exit. In the corridor he paused and pulled out a small backpack from one locker. Running down the ramp, he ordered the ship to lock. The ramp began to slowly clean up and when Lex reached its base, he had to jump to the cold floor of the hangar from a height of about a meter.
- Captain, the coordinate displacement is determined, - the voice of the ship was heard. - Current sector number P8-N4-P1 in LCF format. Hyper data transfer is successful with a probability of 0%. I go to standby mode. End of communication.
Lex ran toward the hole in the ventilation shaft. Only one thought was spinning in his head: "Yes, this is completely unrealistic - one jump is limited by the range of one light year, and to the current sector number there are about ten jumps from the place where they met the ship." When a few meters were left before the hole, a group of people appeared at the main entrance to the hangar. Having assessed the situation, part of the group moved towards the technical room, from which strange sounds came, and the second towards the gate. Lex successfully hid in the ventilation shaft and, briskly making his way upstairs, heard the pop of an explosion and the indiscriminate firing.
Unexpected meeting. Chapter 3.
Text version: 1.0.0.
Date of first publication: 03/10/2016.
Last edited: 03/10/2016.
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