Vandergast (2 of 10) - The Vandergast Project

Thanks for your help Tomken, deGaffer and Akarge (and everybody else).

"Are you completely crazy?" Governor Culhane was livid, yelling at the AI. "You tell me that making our fleet vaporize itself when a Sa'arm ship shows up is a BENEFIT?"

"Sir, it is the price, not the benefit. The Confederacy allows you to build ships for your project, manned mainly by non-Confederacy personnel, namely concubines, with modern FTL engines so you won't need six months for a single flight to Earth. The price for that is that at least the captain and two officers must be sponsors and their responsibility is to prevent modern equipment from falling into the hands of the Sa'arm. I only mentioned that the easiest way would be to prepare the engines with a self-destruct device."

The Governor was fuming. The repetition by the AI didn't make it sound any better for him. He was so enraged that he wasn't able to think straight. When the Governor didn't calm down after ten minutes and continued swearing at the Confederacy and the AI's, the AI came to the conclusion that it might be wise to get help from someone who was better prepared to handle the Governors emotional state than the AI was. The AI's first choice would have been the aides to the Governor, but since the AI hadn't expected this severe reaction from the Governor, it wasn't sure if other humans might react the same way. Fortunately it had other opportunities.

"Excuse me sir, I would like to offer my help here..."

The calm voice penetrated the rage of Governor Culhane for a moment. He was totally surprised to hear the voice of Winnie, the avatar toy he had created for his children two years ago. The avatar had the shape of a teddy bear and the Governor never had discussed anything of importance with it. "What the hell are you doing here? Has the AI no more arguments than to throw my children's toys at me?"

"No sir, sorry sir, but the AI isn't really able to handle you when you are in a rage like this. Though I don't know much about space ships, I might call for support from Wanda and Tinkerbelle, the avatars of Centurion Fred Fish and Lieutenant Joacim Zelle. They know much more about technology than I do." Of course that was not true. But the Governor had never thought of Winnie being more than a plaything for his children and therefore wasn't expecting him to know of these things. Winnie was good enough to penetrate the emotions but he was not the avatar to present complex solutions out of this mess. "We might call the Lieutenant or the Centurion if you like."

"No, the avatars will do for now." Culhane was not willing to throw his anger at his aides. They weren't responsible for this. By making this decision he calmed a little more, preparing him for a more rational discussion.

Within seconds, the two faerie-like avatars appeared. Normally the avatars were not forced to appear somewhere by an AI, so they were momentarily surprised and showed it. "Huh?? Where am I? Uh oh, the big big boss! Hello sir. What's the matter, sir? Ah, the AI is informing me... I totally understand that you are furious. I would kick some AI's ass if I were more physical."

The Governor could not hold back a little grin seeing the avatar Wanda acting like this. His anger subsided a little more. "Winnie said you might have some suggestions that don't raise my blood pressure. I'm willing to listen to you since you might be more qualified than the colony's AI here."

"May I summarize first?" Tinkerbelle asked. Without waiting for an answer she continued "You might be allowed to build ships with modern FTL drive but the modern engines are not allowed to fall into the hands of the Sa'arm under any circumstances. Forget the self-destruction for a while. We have several options here. The first option might be to not be detectable by a Sa'arm ship. Do we have this option with old technology ships? Do we have this option with modern ships? The answer is no. There are several known circumstances where Sa'arm ignore a ship, but it isn't a safe bet."

"Second, we might get away fast enough if a Sa'arm ship shows up," Wanda spoke. "In most cases this will be the solution used. Unfortunately there might be encounters where we can't run fast enough, even with the damn biggest engines available. Therefore we have to look at our other options."

"Third, we might fight the enemy," Tinkerbelle took over again. "Unfortunately your plan doesn't include trained gunners and the ship will be unarmed. Right sir?"

"Yes, that's right. The whole concept was about concubines operating the ships and it was clear from the beginning that we won't build armed vessels. Maybe that's the problem and we have to build a regular armed fleet instead of our defenseless old-timer fleet."

"Just wait a second before you dump your plan," Wanda interrupted the Governor. "Your currently planned ships are not allowed to carry heavy weapons, but the suicide bomb attached to the FTL drive is a weapon too. It is not necessary that it explodes within the ship. Did you see the Star Trek series? They ejected their warp cores all the time to save the ship."

"Yeah, that leaves a ship without FTL drive making it easy prey for the incoming Sa'arm," the Governor said.

"Not necessarily," Wanda disagreed. "A self-destructing FTL drive can be as destructive as the heaviest torpedoes. It might blow the follower or it might distract them. In addition, our ship is not necessarily without FTL drive after ejecting the modern engines. How about ancient technology FTL engines as backup? Backup systems are an uncommon concept in Confederacy ship design because modern Confederacy machines don't fail or can be rebuilt by replicators, but under the special circumstances of a battle, backup systems are a good concept. So given the distraction of an exploding FTL engine, there is a chance of escape even if there was no chance before ejecting the FTL engine."

Winnie shook his head. "This is so confusing for my little head..."

Governor Culhane sighed, "I understand what you are suggesting. Why didn't the AI offer this solution to me?"

Tinkerbelle answered, "The AI offered the best solution for the problem from its point of view. An AI believes in thinking objectively most of the time and so it has its problems with subjective thinking. It thought that its goal was the most important and so the disposal of some property and only a few sponsors was absolutely worth it, as long as the Sa'arm don't get our engines. Your goal on the other hand is to protect your people, and that includes concubines. You are willing to send your men into a fight when they are prepared for it and you accept losses in those battles, but you are not willing to dump your men. That is very noble and that is the reason why this whole colony follows your lead. For the concubines you are better than anything they expected after their pick-up."

"If you ever tell this to anyone I'll order the wipe-out of your entire memory," the Governor growled.

"Oh, oh, time to go," Winnie said. "He's obviously cured and on course again."

Things had changed a lot on Vandergast in the past year. A whole mountain was eaten up by replicators. They had created thirty cargo-lifter shuttles that were each able to lift 800 tons of freight off planet. They had created sixteen haulers that were able to transport 10,000 tons and had an old-fashioned FTL engine, good enough for interplanetary transport but too slow for effective interstellar travel. They had created the geostationary space station that was now orbiting Vandergast. People had been trained as pilots, scanner specialists, mining engineers, facility administrators and other new jobs. While a few key positions were reserved for sponsors, the main contingent was filled with concubines.

Six months ago there had been a small crisis. A lot of Marines had been jealous of their concubines who had something useful to do while the Marines were sitting around waiting to be called for battle. The problem was solved by letting Marines join the program as supernumeraries. That opened the way for six-hour shifts and two free weeks every month. The only stipulation set by the Governor was that at any time the industry had to be able to run without the Marines. It was easily fulfilled. The Governor was still hoping that 'his boys' would fight the Sa'arm soon.

The next project had been building a shipyard at the Lagrange-point L3 of the moon of Vandergast. The resources for that were not coming from Vandergast or its moon, which was only a useless silicate rock. The haulers were carrying replicators and the material for small warehouse stations to various asteroids. The last part of the puzzle was a hydrogen mining station at the ice planet Van-5. The mining at the surface of the planet was fully automated. The hydrogen was stored in five-ton pressure tanks and carried through a local transporter nexus to a geostationary storage station. From there a hauler would carry the hydrogen to the fuel station at the shipyard near Vandergast.

At the end of the year they had created their first Africa Class Destroyer and five Castle Class Corvettes, ready to be taken into battle whenever the Navy or Fleet Auxiliary was able to send transfer crews.

Currently the replicators were turning out automated armed battle platforms like crazy. Fred Fish was working on the design for the first Vandergast fleet vessel. Fred had abandoned the idea to take the plans for an old ship and modify it. All those ships had been designed for specific races and specific uses. None of them would really be a fit for the humans and their use of it. The newly designed ship was a heavy transport, 450 meters in length. It would be equipped with a modern and an ancient FTL engine, a set of ion thrusters and two ancient fusion power plants. More than three quarts of the ship's volume was used for the machinery. That still left more than enough room for passengers, freight and shuttles. The final design had 560 cabins for crew and passengers and two hangars for a shuttle and 12,000 tons of freight each in containers. Sixty crewmen would be needed to man the ship. A hundred crewmen would be there to handle four-hundred passengers from Earth.

The plan for encounters with Sa'arm forces was simple. Flee as fast as possible. In case the ship was caught in orbit or fleeing was otherwise impossible for other reasons, the captain of the ship would order the ejection and self-destruction of the primary FTL engine. The self-destruction mechanism was deeply integrated in the FTL engine. It was designed to not only vaporize everything within a range of fifty kilometers. It would also produce a massive multispectral pulse to fry the Sa'arm sensors. That hopefully would buy enough time to escape to hyperspace with the second FTL engine.

Governor Culhane was pissed. The man standing before him had introduced himself as Commander Richard Claymore. His orders from Headquarters were to take over the Vandergast shipyard. The orders, explained by the AI, were pretty clear. Since the shipyard would contain naval ships, there should be a Fleet Auxiliary officer in control of it.

"Sir, I'm aware that this is an uncomfortable situation," Commander Claymore said. "I assure you that I'm not happy with this either. Instead of sending some pilots to take the ships away as expected, they sent me to guard them." Commander Claymore took a deep breath. "May I speak openly sir?"

Governor Culhane was curious. "Yes, Colonel."

"Sir, I practically fled from Gangriel, the planet where I lived for the last two years. I am asking for asylum on Vandergast. I'd ignore Headquarter's orders and accept the lowest jobs just to not be sent back to Gangriel."

The Governor looked at Commander Claymore. "That's wrong with Gangriel?" he sub-vocally asked the AI.

<There is no information available about the social situation of the colony. Despite that, Gangriel is a functioning military frontline colony.>

"Okay, since the AI can't explain this from an independent point of view, you'll have to explain this," the Governor said.

"Sir, as I said my previous home planet was Gangriel, a planet near the front line. We live in geospheres deep underground and the colony is organized like a fortress under siege. The only duty for concubines on Gangriel is to please their sponsors. Describing the situation on Gangriel as emotional stress for both, sponsors and concubines, is a heavy understatement. This causes a lot of unpleasant situations, mainly for concubines. Then Headquarters asked for a volunteer for a distant colony named Vandergast. Clara, one of my concubines told me rumors she had heard about Vandergast. I did some quick research. After that I didn't wait another minute and volunteered."

"So you retreated from the war?"

"No sir! I am happy supporting the fleet to fight the Sa'arm but I am scared what Gangriel has made out of me and those I knew from Earth. I have seen my former wife die at the hands of a former good friend. I treated my concubines like shit myself. I was terrified when I realized what a monster I had become. I had the chance to change all of that. I had the chance to rescue my family once again. Humans are not made to live under Confederacy rules only. We need our own additional rules. All that I've heard about Vandergast leads me to the conclusion that you have done a wonderful job here."

Commander Claymore took another deep breath. "I was a consultant for the transportation industry back on Earth. I was freshly divorced from my wife Emma, but we still did weekend trips together with the kids and joint friends. We stumbled into a pick-up during such a weekend trip to Disneyland. There had been myself, my former wife Emma, our ten-year-old son Rudolph, our fifteen-year-old daughter Henna, my brother-in-law Archibald and his wife and their eleven-year-old twin daughters Vanessa and Clarissa. There were another five close friends and their families. We had all just checked in for the weekend when the interdiction field went up. It was one of the really big pick-ups with plenty of time. I found out that three of my friends and my brother-in-law were sponsors too. Since we were all disgusted by the idea of incest, we decided to swap our children. That meant also swapping our wives because the children had to go with either father or mother. All of us felt comfortable with this solution. We had known each other for a long time and we trusted each other. I ended up with Clara, the wife of my brother-in-law, and my nieces. One of my best friends got Emma and the children. I wasn't unhappy with that solution. Later that day we had filled all our empty slots with more concubines. I picked June, a student helper at the park, who had a very nice body and loved to work with children. We had a great time testing each others sex skills. My CAP score was 6.9 at that time and so I left Earth with those two concubines."

Governor Culhane silently canceled his next meeting.

"Our mood went down when we heard about our new home. Gangriel was a frontline colony and it did not sound like it was an even more dangerous place than Earth would have been. Most of the concubines felt they had been betrayed and there was a small riot that led to the death of five of them."

"When we reached Gangriel, even the sponsors felt betrayed. The Governor of Gangriel enforced discipline with isolation and the disconnecting of pods from the main power plant, leaving them with just enough power for survival on a hostile planet. The situation eased a little when the geospheres were built, but then the Governor's agents started to spy on all the private communication within the pods and to play psychological games with everyone who seemed to be dissatisfied with the whole situation.

The Governor has a whole battalion of hand-selected agents. Concubines were truly treated as property, worth less than a replicator or a space suit. Sponsors who treated their concubines well were bullied by the Governor's Agents and given the most unpleasant jobs. Under these circumstances it was only a matter of time until one of the concubines that I knew from my previous life was killed. The woman and her whole family suffocated during the shut-down of their pod because their sponsor died in a battle against a Sa'arm attack.

We had a single Civil Service Decurion with no support from the Governor or the administration of Gangriel. Normally he gets the surviving dependents. But in this particular case the pod had been cut off of from the power plant for a week and the Decurion simply missed the message that the pod was shutting down completely. Emma, my former wife, was killed when she spoke out loud against this situation. This shock finally woke me up and I realized what we had all become." Commander Claymore's eyes were tearing while he told his story.

"When the opportunity arose to leave Gangriel, I took the chance. For an unknown reason the colony's AI conspired with me. It diverted several logs so that the agents of the Governor didn't hear too much of what I was doing. The AI suggested a new CAP test for me and assured me that I would reach 7.2 or more, allowing me to take two more concubines with me. I managed to trade my children back from their current sponsors. Henna was in real bad condition, both physically and mentally. She had had three different sponsors over the two years and every one of them had treated her worse than the previous one. I also managed to get Henna's one-year-old baby Louis from her first sponsor, my good friend to whom I had entrusted with the safety of my daughter back on Earth."

"On the day of our departure, Governor McGregor himself visited me for a talk. He ordered me to recruit sponsors for Gangriel, since there were a lot of empty pods. He asked me to fill some pods with unassigned slaves and bring them home because Gangriel had run short of concubines. The AI quietly qualified those orders. It told me that they were not official orders from Headquarters and the Governor had no authority over me as soon as I left the planet."

Governor Culhane reached in a drawer of his desk and produced a half-full scotch bottle and two glasses. He poured the golden liquid in the glasses and offered one to the Lieutenant Colonel.

"Sir, I was second administrator of the Gangriel Shipyard. I'm qualified for this job. But I would also be willing to work under one of your men. I'll do any job to stay."

<The orders from Headquarters are clear,> the AI threw in.

The Governor rolled his eyes. "Oh shuddup. This is no longer a case of following orders. This is about doing the right thing at the right time."

<That is an interesting interpretation. Is this again something I should discuss with some of the avatars?> the AI asked.

"Good idea," the Governor growled. "For now, welcome to Vandergast. You'll be second administrator of the shipyard, where everything regarding the naval ships is your responsibility alone. We'll see how this works. For your private situation, I order you to get all the help you can. Centurion Evans Benish is an excellent man. Go visit him." With this the Governor dismissed the man.

<Sir, Gangriel is one of the early colonies. According to the report of Commander Claymore it's on the brink of failing. It seems that Governor McGregor succeeded in keeping the inner situation of Gangriel secret. We need to inform Headquarters about every piece of information we can get from both the sponsor and his concubines.>

"Do that. You can add that I will gladly help to discipline McGregor and his gang."