Chapter 197: Chapter 197

"So I'm about eighty-percent positive these twin turrets are pulse-lasers," Sarah announced after inspecting yet another of the weapon systems stacked up in the Demeter's primary hold.

Rebecca shrugged, "I'm sure Tamsin will figure it out. So that's what, seven of these things that look in good shape? And two more that are probably only good for spare parts."

I nodded, "Right. Seven of these smaller twin turrets in good condition, two questionable. Plus the four larger units Sarah said looked more like beam lasers, of which two appear to be in working order while the other two have some damage."

Our engineer sighed as she looked around at the assorted salvage, "I'd sure love to take some time and experiment with this stuff myself. I really want to know how it works."

"And by how it works I mean both definitions," she clarified. "I'd like to figure out how to attach them to a mount and how to interface with their power and data ports. But I'd also really like to see one of these things in action. We're assuming they're full power primary weapons systems since they came off a warship, but I'm sure you've noticed this yourself Rebecca? They're a lot smaller and sleeker than the kind of hardware we're used to seeing on Navy ships."

"Are we sure they're not just point defence lasers?" I asked. "I'm sure a warship would have as much need for defences as anything else. More so really, since they'd be expecting to get into combat situations." Thıs content belongs to novel·fıre·net

Sarah shrugged, "I suppose that's possible, but my gut says no. I'm sure they're primary weapons, but like I said they're a lot more compact than what I'm used to seeing."

The boss seemed to be thinking things over as her eyes drifted over the collection of salvaged gear. In the end though she shook her head, "Sorry Sarah. I understand what you're saying, and maybe I'm a little curious about that sort of thing myself? It's not like we'd be outfitting the Demeter with any of this gear though, and we don't have anywhere to set one up so you can play with it. Plus I'd rather not risk punching any holes in our hull if one of these things went off by mistake."

"You've got two of those drones you can play with, remember?" she added with a smile. "You don't need any more toys. Especially not the big dangerous shooty kind."

The cute blonde pouted, but that quickly turned into a smile as she agreed, "Yeah good point. Alright boss, back to work then."

As the three of us moved on to the next pile of equipment I commented, "At the rate we're going this isn't going to take us seven hours, let alone seven days. It feels like we've only just started and we're already halfway through."

Rebecca smiled, "That just means we get a little more down-time while we're on our way back to Rolandan-2. Or are you in a big hurry to get back there?"

"Not really," I shook my head. Then my tail started wagging as I added, "And I'm always happy for more quality time with my girlfriends."

The boss rolled her eyes, but she kept that smile on her face. And Sarah's expression shifted to a bit of a naughty grin. Unfortunately girlfriend time would have to wait, since we still had more inventory to catalog.

It was only about thirty or forty minutes later when Sarah announced, "Aha! Here's another reason why I'm sure those twin turrets aren't part of a PDLS set-up. I'm positive these ones are their point defence lasers."

There were a dozen of them, of which all but one appeared to be functional. They were small too, about half the size of the Demeter's point defence lasers. Each one looked like a single pulse laser mounted on a gimbal with a range of motion that would cover about three-quarters of a sphere.

"Can we keep some of these at least?" Sarah asked. She even went so far as to try and do big pleading eyes while she puffed out her cheeks into an exaggerated pout. "Please Rebecca? Just a few of them? They're small enough we could actually use them on the Demeter. Heck I'll bet we could even fit a couple of these on the Artemis."

The boss sighed and rolled her eyes again, but after a few more seconds she actually relented. "Oh all right then. Just knock it off with the puppy-dog eyes, alright? We'll hang on to six of the good ones, we can move them into the secondary hold after we're done here."

Our engineer's eyes lit up as she grinned happily. Before she could respond though, Jenny spoke up from the open hatch that separated the main hold from the secondary one.

"Speaking of 'puppy-dog eyes'," the AI commented in a level voice, "One of the files we recovered from Idun's Re/Gen capsule featured canine modifications. Incase anyone's interested."

That got Sarah giggling, while I couldn't help smiling as well. Not that I was interested in that sort of thing for myself, my foxy enhancements were already perfect. But it was fun trying to picture my girlfriends with cute puppy ears and wagging tails.

"What kind of canine are we talking about?" Sarah asked. "I mean are you thinking of the small and cute kind, or something strong and fierce?"

I gave my girlfriend a look as I pretended to scold her, "Hey! Small and fierce aren't mutually exclusive you know!"

"Oh I know cutie! You're the fiercest little foxxo I've ever met," she grinned. Then she added in a 'stage whisper', "Especially when you're not wearing any pants."

My pretend-anger gave way to a smile as my cheeks warmed up a bit. Then I flicked my tail at my girlfriend and nodded, "And don't you forget it."

Jenny finally answered Sarah's question, and once again the AI kept her tone level as she responded, "In fact the file covers several points on both of those spectrums, from large dogs to small ones, from fierce and frightening to cuddly and cute."

"Nice," the cute blonde grinned. "You said there were seven of those files, right? So in addition to the pupper package, what other goodies did you get?"

The AI replied, "The other modification files included equine, bovine, leporine, and avine."

Sarah frowned, "Ok I understood at least some of those words..."

Jenny was still playing straight-man to our engineer's playful act as she translated, "That's horse-like, cow- or bull-like, rabbit-like, and bird-like. Along with the aforementioned canine, or dog-like."

"All those options have been added to my existing library," our AI continued. "Which as you know from Amanda and Cammie includes vulpine and feline options, as well as cervine. Which means deer-like."

Rebecca looked thoughtful as she commented, "That's a lot of options. It makes me wonder just how diverse the crew of that outpost was."

"I have wondered the same thing," Jenny admitted. "I don't have any information on how common such modifications were among the general population, but five demi-human mods in a crew of twenty-nine seems unusual to me. Perhaps it was something unique to that class of outpost, the way an all-female crew was specific to ships like the Kára. Or perhaps Idun was simply accumulating modification files for her own reasons, much as I am doing now."

A thought occurred to me and I frowned slightly as I asked, "You said before you recovered seven of those mod files, right? But you've only listed five of them. What were the other two?"

The AI replied, "You are correct Amanda. The sixth file is an expanded package of cosmetic enhancements. That is somewhat redundant for me, as I've already unlocked several of those parameters on my own."

"What sort of cosmetics?" Sarah asked.

Jenny explained patiently, "A much more diverse range of colours and styles, for hair and eyes and skin. And a more diverse set of options in terms of body sizes and shapes. As I said though, I'm already capable of achieving those sorts of changes on my own."

I prompted her, "That just leaves file number seven. What's the last one do?"

The hologram hesitated briefly before answering in another flat tone, "Let's just say those would be the sort of mods a person probably wouldn't want to share with anyone apart from their significant others. They certainly wouldn't be the kind of modifications one would openly discuss with one's coworkers."

As soon as she heard that my blonde girlfriend had a wide naughty grin on her face. And that left me feeling even more curious about what exactly those enhancements might do. Meanwhile Rebecca just rolled her eyes once more.

Then the boss spoke up before either Sarah or I could ask any more questions, "Did you have something to report Jenny? How's it going with the computer core in there?"

Our AI nodded as she replied in another serious tone, "Yes captain. We've completed our analysis of Kára's computer core. If you'd like to hear our report, Cammie and Jenna are waiting in the secondary hold."

Suddenly I felt bad about all the silly questions Sarah and I had been asking. And I found myself worrying that Jenny's flat tone and serious act was because her news wasn't going to be good. I didn't have a chance to say anything though, as my girlfriends and I followed our AI back into the other hold. We found Cammie and Jenna waiting there, next to the Kára's core. Sure enough the expressions on our shipmates' faces and the way Cammie's ears and tail were drooping left me with a bad feeling.

"So what have you found?" Rebecca asked, while looking down at the salvaged computer.

The core was a rectangular block about twice the size of the pedestal section below Jenny's capsule, and it was made of the same black material as her Re/Gen pod. There were a few open access panels along one side, while the opposite side was home to a dozen hardened interface ports. Finally a couple sturdy-looking mounting brackets were located on either end.

Looking down at it I couldn't help mentally comparing it to the Hammersmith's main computer core, which almost filled our secondary hold. And I hadn't forgotten what Sarah said back then, about how much more advanced Jenny was compared to both the Demeter's computer and that of our Navy ship. Odds were the Kára's core was even more capable.

"Most of the hardware looks to be in ok shape," Cammie answered, although her ears and tail were all drooping. "The primary processor looks alright, same with most of the secondary systems. Honestly there's actually not a whole lot of damage?"

"As far as I could tell there weren't no power surges or overloads," she continued, "It's all just physical damage. I reckon there must have been a heck of a jolt though, since a couple of them delicate sub-systems are actually shattered."

Finally the catgirl sighed, "That's the real problem. Those busted sub-systems include a couple secondary processors, along with two of the data storage units. The other six storage units look ok though."

Sarah winced when she heard that, and I could tell from Jenny's and Jenna's expressions that the prognosis wasn't good.

Rebecca could probably guess that too but she asked, "Can one of you spell it out for me? What's that mean exactly? Is the core dead? Or is there still some hope?"

Our AI kept her voice level but I could tell she was dealing with some difficult emotions as she explained, "This is well outside my area of expertise, but I believe the core can function without the secondary processors. It would limit some of her multitasking capacity, but she should remain functional. The real problem is the two broken data units."

Sarah took over at that point, "Losing two out of eight storage modules might be a minor problem, or it might be devastating. It depends how the data is managed at the hardware level, if there's any redundancy, and might even come down to luck of the draw as to which two were compromised."

"Basically it could mean nothing," the cute blonde elaborated, "Or it might be like a human losing a chunk of their frontal lobe. Until we know more about how those AI cores work at the lowest level, there's really no way to say for sure."

Jenny stared sadly at the computer core for a few seconds before commenting softly, "Unfortunately I don't know anything about the low-level hardware operations."

"So what's the final word?" Rebecca asked her. "What do you want to do?"

Our AI sighed, before slowly shaking her head. She was still trying to keep her voice level but the pain and sadness were even more clear when she made the decision.

"From the sound of it, it's almost assured that my sister would be greatly diminished. Combined with the fact that our war is long over and her purpose long past, I believe Kára would not want us to attempt to restore her."

"I'm sorry Jenny," I told her.

"Thank you Amanda," the AI replied quietly.

After a pause she focused on the captain and stated, "I know we've only just left the outpost, but I would like to return there as soon as possible. Between the undamaged components in both Kára's and Loke's cores we should be able to fully restore Idun. I would like to retrieve her Re/Gen capsule intact, then perhaps we can find a new home for her."

"Out of the three of them," Jenny added, "Idun has the greatest chance of making a full recovery. She is also the most likely to find a new purpose in life, as I've done here with you."

Rebecca nodded, "Of course Jenny. I'm sorry we didn't take the time to do this before setting out for Rolandan-2, or we could have got to work on that immediately."

"We're less than ten hours out from the asteroid base," I pointed out. "Any reason not to just turn around and head back there right now?"

The boss started for the ladderway as she replied, "It'll depend on our fuel situation. Let's head up to the cockpit and have a look."