Unexpected meeting. Chapter 3
The hangar was lit by dim backup lighting. A hole was cut out in the iron wall of the hangar, which was holed like a sieve, with a laser cutter. When the cut line closed, a piece of iron crashed to the hangar deck. Behind the opening on the floor covered with fragments of iron and plastic, one could see the human body. Next to it lay an electromagnetic pulsed grenade (EMIG) of a licked form, the whole body of which was perforated with small holes.
- You look at the EMIG - this is not an army model!
- Yes, obviously the thing is not for mere mortals. Now it is clear why we had problems with neural networks. We need to return - I now have to re-calibrate the scanner. If he will work at all normally. Neural networks are also worth checking out.
- What to do with it?
- We pack it. We also take the EMIG - such things, even used ones, do not roll at every corner. The commander was sure that someone else was on the ship - now he is not. By the way, that thing will also need to be picked up from here, ”he prodded towards the ship carrier.
- Hey, Fak, don't you want to help us?
A man standing not far away put a rotor cannon on them, which began to unwind with a whistle. The people standing in the doorway looked at each other, laughed, and set to work. Ten minutes later they left the hangar.
***
Lex and Laer sat in opposite taps 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 going on below. Laer looked at Lex. When their eyes met, she felt an emotional wave of disappointment, loss, discontent with hints of anger. Lex looked away.
- How long have you been with Fink? - quietly asked Laer.
Lex paused, thinking about something intently, and answered just as quietly.
- You have either congenital or neural network capabilities for empathy. I should have known about this earlier.
- I'm sorry about that.
- Fink is a very reliable partner. Was ... How is your neural network?
“When EMIG went into defense, but now everything is fine,” Laera lied because, in fact, to her own amazement, her neural network didn’t seem to notice a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation, only a notification about the triggering of the electromagnetic protection circuit appeared.
They were silent. When the noise below subsided, Lex waited another ten minutes and began to climb down. Laera paused and crawled after him. They descended through the ventilation shaft and climbed into the hangar through the cut-out opening. Lex spun around on the spot as if trying to look at something and quickly went to his ship-courier. He was not afraid of controlling the space, as the triggered EMIG probably burned everything out of the hangar. Laer followed him.
Before the ship, Lex stopped and walked around the perimeter. Having found nothing suspicious, Lex called the neural network interface and called the control center of the nearest technology. In the list that appears, he chose a point with the image of a single spacecraft, in front of which his identification number was displayed. After the selection, a structured list of available functions appeared, from which Lex activated the identification procedure and access to the ship item. The neural network tried to establish a remote connection with the ship and in a couple of seconds gave the message: “Contactless connection with the ship is established. Expect identification data. ” Lex presented a picture: on a white background, slowly turning over with powerful paws, the livor was walking (the predator of the cat family on Lex’s home planet), as if standing still, the livor stopped and yawned, while his ears were pricked, and the mustaches in front mused funnyly.
- Lex Orton, Daona 37 welcomes you, - the melodious voice of the ship broadcast to the neural network - Attention! Because of the powerful electromagnetic impulse, the protection of the main authorization line has been triggered. The main line is deactivated. A backup line L1R1 is involved.
Lex mentally addressed the ship.
- Daona 37. Open the ramp. List the available neural networks in view.
Lex's list of available neural networks appeared before his eyes. The first was his, he moved to the list of functions of the second neural network. There he saw only the neural network identifier and its name “Laera-S” - all other information was closed for viewing. He assigned guest access to the ship to the user of this neural network. All these actions took no more than ten seconds of time. Ramp slowly moved forward.
Lex and Laer climbed the advanced ladder of the courier ship. They passed a small airlock compartment, a corridor and got inside the cabin. Lex sat down in his chair.
- Can? - asked Laer.
- Yes, sit down, of course. You have guest access to the ship.
- No longer afraid that I will give you away?
- If I wanted to do this, I would simply push me to the mine. To the bottom, I would hardly have flown alive.
- I'm not with them.
- With whom?
- I have a contract. I have to do it. I am a very expensive specialist, believe me. Your purpose of arriving here is to ensure the delivery of the goods to the destination. Our goals are the same regardless of customers.
- And if they did not match?
“Then you would hardly have survived in the control center,” the girl honestly admitted.
- Frankly. It is easy to guess about my customer, knowing who I am. And you?
Laera was silent, looking at Lex and thinking about 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 a freelance employee at the NBS,” Laera finally said after a short pause.
“That ... explains a lot,” Lex said slowly.
Laere's revaluation of Lex came almost instantly. The accumulated statistics on the background behavior of Laera and the last drop of information about her received - everything went into a single picture. Lex realized and understood the danger of the situation in which he had fallen into the control center, when, at first glance, the defenseless girl, in fact, controlled everyone. The needleball, probably transferred to the sector's work mode, covered everyone at once from the point where it was located. It was necessary only by chance to give up, for example, by imitating a fall. And Lex was not sure that his neural network would have worked out such a situation automatically to anticipate - the aggression would not have been manifested explicitly. And when did they find her? She already controlled the entire hangar and probably knew about them. In such a situation, the presence of the NBS agent is perceived ambiguously. On the one hand, this may be luck - obviously, that Laera is clearly an uneasy employee of the NBS - rather, she is a versatile person from the NBS, about the possibilities of which Lex could only guess. But, on the other hand, who knows what directives she 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”, just because the situation has developed, to help never in a hurry.
- Daona 37. Search for information nodes. Setting a special connection with any of them, the priority code for my personal identifier.
A few minutes later came the answer from the ship.
- No information nodes found.
Lex looked at Laeru.
“The normal connection seems to be completely drowned out.” Or we left the contact area. Which is very strange, since there are practically no such “holes” in the SPM space.
- Can I try?
Lex hesitated, but professional curiosity got the better of him. “And what am I losing, all the same, access will not be the captain. It will be interesting to see what it will do and how the situation will develop, considering what AI is installed on the ship ... It’s probably a silly idea, given the situation ... But you don’t encounter an NBS agent every day, thought Lex.
- Daona 37. For the user with the “Laera-S” identifier, change the guest access for navigator access.
The neural network of Laera issued a request-invitation to establish an authorized connection with the ship. Laer answered in the affirmative.
- Laera-S, Daona 37 welcomes you. You have a navigation level access to the ship. Primary identification procedure has been launched. I expect identification data.
Laer imagined a picture of the sunset, which she observed daily when she recently rested on a closed elite resort planet in the center of the SPM. Although Laera was not tied to some kind of mandatory performance of tasks, being an absolutely independent and independent employee, she did not so often allow herself to be left to herself. In the end, she often carried out covert escorts of high-ranking SCM officials. A stylishly dressed slender woman with expensive jewelery, emphasizing her charm favorably, effectively fit into an elite society alongside a high-ranking escorted person. The persona usually did her best to achieve more than just the location of Laera, the male part of society envied the person being followed, the female part of society experienced a gamut of feelings from admiration to hatred. Laer often experienced the pleasure of these moments of their female unconditional power. However, it was still an exhausting job, because, although it was not worth much to take care of external threats, it was necessary to closely and intuitively follow what was happening next to his ward. Rigged gross violation of the minutes of meetings, misconduct or specially created provoking situation that could be used the next day against the reputation of a person in the media. Charming girl as if easily and naturally extinguished and resolved critical moments. It was worse if it was necessary to fend off a physical threat - it was necessary not only to protect the object, but also somehow not to "light up." However, such situations were extremely rare exceptions. Trips, meetings, parties, resorts - all this was apparently similar to the rest, but did not replace it in full. Therefore, Laera well remembered those moments when she really could afford to relax without thinking about anything else. “It will be necessary to take breaks in work more often,” the girl thought.
“Identification data is accepted,” she heard the voice of the ship.
- Daona 37, run the procedure for changing the identification data.
Laera repeated the same procedure with the image of the sunset she remembered so much, but already without unnecessary thoughts and desires.
Laera quickly figured out the ship's navigation interface settings. Augmented reality replaced the control panels located in front of it with the necessary information, graphs, diagrams, and various information obtained from scanners. Formed information space for the navigator. In the center of the table instead of the 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 unwinding bright orange glow - signaling and warning the neural network that part of reality is not real. Laer closed her eyes. The glow changed to red and only the objects of augmented reality remained. “I haven’t been working with such equipment for a long time,” thought Laer.
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 general equipment teams in one way or another. Of course, it was necessary to understand very well what is happening in the process of their implementation, to know the sequence of issuing commands and the expediency of using them in various conditions. The reliability of neural network and electronic equipment was high, and it was believed that it would be much more likely that motor, navigation or generator equipment would fail than a multiple-duplicated ship control system.
This ship could be operated by a person without a neural network at all: manually perform navigation measurements and calculations, set low-level controls, such as thrust vector, generator set operating parameters, life support systems. The vast majority of people with similar knowledge and experience engaged in the development and construction of ships, as well as their maintenance and repair at large shipyards. The presence of such ships at the station wagon was justified due to the specifics of their work. If the ship's control system is damaged, the wagon could connect to it directly, effectively replacing the ship's AI with a part of its implants and a neural network. In the case of problems with their neural networks, 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 transfer the data for connection.
Laera turned to navigation scanners by launching a hidden search for any information access points. While the system was processing the request, Laera tried to get direct access to the long-distance transmitter. The ship system immediately blocked work with any equipment using low-level protocols. Then Laer went to the trick. She identified a part of her neural network environment, isolated it, merged with the virtual environment allocated by the ship and began to increase the volume of information requests for navigation equipment, adding special code structures to it. Laera was waiting for a vulnerability in the neural network architecture to work - the virtual handler had to interpret part of the data stream as a command, while the intravirtual space was “conceived”, which made it possible to forward the data stream through the first-level neural environment monitor and execute the command directly, as resolved by the ship's AI. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI of the Daon type and a powerful own neural network. Laera increased everything and increased the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship didn’t seem to notice this. “Strangely, the Daon series, though special, is no longer considered the most up-to-date. The AI ​​here is clearly specially trained or even non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute has already passed, and Laer has about one and a half minutes left to ascertain the lack of communication, report this to Lex and not cause suspicion on his part.
Laera abruptly stopped the flow of information from herself, called her extensive library of unauthorized control of equipment, found the type of ship, activated and sent a short-lived virus disguised as a request for data from the ship's scanners. This was an extreme measure, since the “flare” of combat viruses was not encouraged, but Laera considered that this is the situation in which its use is justified. After sending the virus, she blocked a direct connection with the ship, transferring all interaction with him through a virtual environment. A few seconds later, a report came from the virus about the partial interception of control and getting the captain's access to the ship's systems. Laer tried to make a low-level connection to the ship's communications equipment. But suddenly she received a powerful blow from the AI ​​resisting the invasion of the ship. Daona blamed on her almost everything she had received before. All the data obtained 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. A virus downloaded in the middle of the information flow tried to activate, but the anti-virus system of the neural network did not allow it to fully unfold. The semi-working virus began to generate and pour its requests to the Laer neural network, some requests were marked as “especially dangerous” by the neural network. Laera tried to further 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 that fell on her while exchanging with the systems of the ship. This lasted until the virus in the ship controlled by Laer and the virus in the Laer neural network, which was formally controlled by the ship, clashed for controlling access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to the algorithms known to it. As a result of collisions and violations of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she loses control when requests for setting up equipment from her virus sometimes managed to be answered by someone else. Finally, Laera ordered the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate it. 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 caught her breath. My head was heavy, my temples pounded. However, pressure, pulse and other medical parameters were normal - the neural network retorted the load. It took only less than a minute. “I haven’t received such a blatant surrender for a long time,” the girl thought, “And it didn’t work out purely.” Laera reestablished contact with the ship.
- Daona 37, search for the nearest information nodes.
- Communication equipment is not available.
"Well, what a day ?!", Laer pleaded.
- Daona 37, what is the reason for the inaccessibility?
- Instability of operation of all interface submodules of communication units.Suspected invasion of the system. The procedures of diagnostics and restoration of the communication subsystem have been launched. Launched a self-test system ship. The communication system will be available in two hours thirty six minutes.
Apparently as a result of the partial control of the AI ​​of the ship, the chaotic operation of the undeactivated virus, sometimes responding to the inquiries of its virus, conditions were created that “hung up” the ship’s communication system. “This is a very interesting and quite 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 activities of the companion, but had not had the opportunity to get acquainted with the detailed reports of the ship’s systems, because for some time he had not received any answers to his inquiries, was now actively trying to understand what had happened. He saw the command reports, his neural network found and analyzed inconsistencies in them, but the overall picture of the incident did not develop. Finally, Lex received a notification about the launch of a self-test of the ship's systems and the restoration of normal operation of the communication subsystem, which will be inoperative for the next two and a half hours. Lex shook his head and looked at Laerou.
- As far as I understand, the issue of trust is fully clarified between us.
Laer received a notification about the change of access level on the guest. She felt not so much a sense of guilt for not having broken equipment in time, but rather professional shame for inappropriate, sloppy and illiterately performed actions. She did not remember such confusions from the time she studied at the academy. She used to work quickly, clearly and reliably. Immediately, under the monstrous time limit, she retreated from the rules and order, relying on the known capabilities of an AI ship of a given type and the power of her neural network: she did not isolate the connection, weakly isolated the involved neural network sector, instead of preliminary study after implementation she immediately gave command to command . A few minutes after it was over, she no longer seemedpossible risks were worth getting trouble-free access to a long-distance transmitter.
- Daona 37. Upon completion of the ship inspection, prepare a detailed report on the inspection results and actions to normalize the equipment operation. Confirm command.
- It is accepted, captain, at the end of the ship's check to prepare a detailed report on the results of the check and actions to normalize the operation of the equipment.
- Daona 37. What is the status of a long-distance transmitter? In detail.
- Telecommunication equipment is working properly, but it is impossible to work with it due to a comprehensive check of the ship’s communications subsystem. A failure of the interface submodules of all communication units was fixed. The alleged cause is an unknown type of attack on the ship’s information infrastructure. The intended source is a team member with navigational access.
- Daona 37. Create a universal channel of low-level access to equipment, disconnect the long-distance transmitter from the ship’s communication system and connect to the channel of low-level access.
- Completed, passing the parameters of the low-level access channel.
Lex received the data and connected to the telecommunication equipment through the neural network. When interacting with the transmitter, there was no need for a very high decision-making speed and quick analysis of the priority of answers with multiple simultaneous input requests, such as managing the entire ship, so Lex was easy. 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 you needed to know the order of their issuance, but Lex already had macros - painted lists of command sequences. Using the mental-visual interface of the neural network, Lex quickly prepared the transmitter for operation.
- Laer, I will try to use long distance.
“We'll be spotted right away!”
- Are there any other options? You put a regular connection for more than two hours.
Laera said nothing.
- Yes, in any case, I did not find any repeater nearby. Communication is well suppressed. I need to report the incident somehow. So far there is such an opportunity and we generally can use this ship. Therefore, I will try to send information about the seizure.
- Do you manage directly?
- Yes. So you could leave a message and get out. It would automatically go over the availability of the equipment. Now I have to be in touch. While I am cracking this transmitter, they will definitely detect us. And then as lucky as I can, I will have time to finish the program before the guests come here, or maybe not.
- I can stay here and complete the transfer. The situation is my fault, ”Laera admitted.
- I'm afraid.
Laera, who had never expected such an answer, looked at Lex.
- What?
For a while, Lex took the pleasure of contemplating the uncomprehendingly feminine face of astonished bewilderment. Then he just laughed, trying to shed his own psychological tension.
- I am afraid that if you are left here alone, then this ship will have to be written off for scrap later.
Laer half turned away from him and even relaxed a little.
- I can insert into the transfer any of your message. Surely this information will go to the NBS, if it is its area of ​​interest.
“Thank you, Lex, no need.”
Lex grunted.
“Then you should see the ways of departure.” With the transmitter, I will start working as soon as you leave the hangar. After ten minutes will begin the transfer, which will go a couple of minutes. Fourteen minutes later we should not be in the hangar! This is ideally of course ...
- It is better to leave through the same hole, to us it is located closer than all the other rooms.
- I think the same. The only problem is that you need to climb up the mine. And I’m not sure that the second time I’ll be just as lucky if our acquaintance with his rotary cannon appears.
- I will prepare a snag in the fifth technical room from the entrance. As if someone is cutting metal there. It will give time.
- How much time do you need?
- In five minutes I will manage.
“Okay, work and leave the hangar.” As you crawl through the hole, in about five minutes, I will knock out the gates of the hangar. There will be a leak of atmosphere. The hole will be small, it will block the automatics, but it will take time - I have enough to transfer. There will also be strong interference from the hyperfield emitters.
Laera left the ship, quickly reached the necessary room and quickly constructed a snag from the extracted items from her backpack. The deception consisted of several blocks of effects simulating each other, similar to those sold for entertainment, only much smaller and more 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 a radio exchange, the fifth just glowed in the infrared range, the other blocks also performed some of their tasks. Laera settled in at four minutes and ran to the hole in the ventilation shaft.
As Laer descended from the ship, Lex began working with the transmitter. After giving commands to initialize the equipment, he aimed the transmitting complex toward one of the hangar’s wings. "How well the ship is standing nose to the gates of the hangar," thought Lex. "Otherwise, the whole ship would have to be deployed, then all would have fled." Lex did not know how well the signal would go; he never used the transmitting complex outside of space, so he unscrewed the transmitter to the utmost power, and he also added a few percent over the limit, using the equipment's fine tuning capabilities, using low-level access.
The transfer took place in the so-called fifth dimension - hyperspace. Scientists themselves were confused about what exactly happened at the moment of activation of the transition point, mainly writing off extensive mathematical theories with beautiful pictures containing “funnel-shaped” drawings. There were several theories. According to the most common theory, an entry point was formed, whose behavior most resembled 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 sucked by it, ejected and structured from the point of release. According to the theory, during the passage of a hyperspace tunnel, the flow of time inside it, relative to the time outside it, depended rather interestingly on the distance to the exit point: at short distances, time slowed down significantly,on the far - accelerated. It would seem - here it is the old dream of humanity about teleportation - one can not only “jump” far, but also save time. But in practice, there were a lot of theoretical limitations and technological difficulties 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 studied quite well. At these distances, the time inside and outside the tunnel varied approximately equally, but the distances were impressive. With the accumulated statistics of the work of specific equipment and dexterity, it was possible to pierce distances far enough and accurately. Methods and equipment were significantly different for transmitting data or sending ships through hyperspace. When transmitting information,usually there was a base station repeater, the location and parameters of which were known. The transmitting subscriber had time synchronized with this station, or corrected it using known nearest pulsars, made an accurate position calculation, obtained the necessary parameters and transmission vector, formed a transition point with the transmitter complex and emitted signals from directional antennas into the channel.
After Laera left the hangar, Lex waited five minutes and gave the command to start the ship’s generator and begin to prepare the equipment. The front lower panels on the ship shifted and several platforms with various equipment located on them moved from the bowels of the ship. A few minutes later, when the long-distance transmitter was ready, Lex sent a command to a couple of volleys from the laser gun to the point at which the transmitting complex was focused. The silence of the hangar was cut through by two dry whistling sounds created by the gun pump generators. After a moment, the air began to leave the noise through the hole. An alarming siren rang through the hangar and red warning lights came on, warning of the danger. The internal security gates began to slowly close with creak.Several invisible laser beams left the extended platforms. A discharge cracked loudly and the helium-hydrogen plasma emitted by directional accelerator injectors erupted, swept into space at a speed of one and a half thousand kilometers per second, shining laser beams like guide rails. After half a minute, the energy storage device charged again, the process was repeated and another portion of the created solar wind was carried off into space.
- Daona 37, what are our coordinates? I requested coordinates four minutes ago!
- Captain, the review is too small, I cannot correlate the existing piece of the star chart with the known space in the SPM. Moving to the LCF system to determine the coordinate shift. Passing preliminary data. I need six more minutes to clarify.
"What the heck!? To correlate the appearance of constellations with a point in the SPM space never took more than two minutes. This is generally a matter of seconds for the AI, ”thought Lex.“ The hole needed more to be done. Yes, even the plasma interferes, I guess. In any case, there is no time to wait. ” Lex chose a set of navigation data, opposite which the maximum confidence percentage of 14% was displayed. Five minutes later, part of the white-hot emitters of the hyperfield turned black. Illumination in the hangar flashed 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 went out. A weak accretion disk was formed near the entry point, rotating in the plane of emission of the plasma. Navigation equipment recorded a local distortion of the space-time metric. Lex began sending the prepared message,which contained a brief report on the current situation. At the twentieth second, the tracking system recorded a gravitational perturbation and recommended repeating the transmission. Lex restarted the transfer. After a minute, Lex quickly gave the command to complete the transfer complex. The transition point, left without external make-up, will collapse, making, finally, the characteristic narrow bi-directional energy release, directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and beautiful in the combined infrared, X-ray and gamma spectra.left without external make-up, it will collapse, making, finally, the characteristic narrow bi-directional energy release, directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and looking beautiful in the combined infrared, X-ray and gamma spectra.left without external make-up, it will collapse, making, finally, the characteristic narrow bi-directional energy release, directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and looking beautiful in the combined infrared, X-ray and gamma spectra.
Sluice doors from the side of the hangar almost closed. Lex quickly got up and ran for the exit. In the corridor, he paused and pulled out a small backpack from one locker. Running down the ramp, he gave the command to the ship to lock. The ramp slowly began to clean up and when Lex reached its base, he had to jump onto the cold floor of the hangar from a height of about one meter.
- Captain, the coordinate offset is determined, - the ship's voice rang out - The current sector number is P8-N4-P1 in LCF format. Hyper transfer of data is successful with a probability of 0%. Going into standby mode. End of communication.
Lex ran toward the hole in the vent shaft. There was only one thought in his head: “Yes, it’s generally unrealistic - one jump is limited to the range of one light year, and there are a dozen jumps from the place where they met the ship to the current sector number.” When a few meters 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 in the direction of the technical room, from which incomprehensible sounds were coming, and the second toward the gate. Lex successfully hid in the ventilation shaft and, briskly making his way upstairs, he heard the bang of the explosion and the indiscriminate shooting that had begun.
Unexpected meeting. Chapter 3
Text version: 1.0.0.
Date of first publication: 03/10/2016.
Last edited Date: 03/10/2016
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 2 - previous chapter.
Chapter 3 is the current chapter.
Chapter 4 is the next chapter.
Comment from the author and abstract
Comment on the author.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my reflections on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some reflections on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications 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.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the nearly completed regular inspection of the ship and cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my reflections on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some reflections on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications 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.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the nearly completed regular inspection of the ship and cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
- You look at the EMIG - this is not an army model!
- Yes, obviously the thing is not for mere mortals. Now it is clear why we had problems with neural networks. We need to return - I now have to re-calibrate the scanner. If he will work at all normally. Neural networks are also worth checking out.
- What to do with it?
- We pack it. We also take the EMIG - such things, even used ones, do not roll at every corner. The commander was sure that someone else was on the ship - now he is not. By the way, that thing will also need to be picked up from here, ”he prodded towards the ship carrier.
- Hey, Fak, don't you want to help us?
A man standing not far away put a rotor cannon on them, which began to unwind with a whistle. The people standing in the doorway looked at each other, laughed, and set to work. Ten minutes later they left the hangar.
***
Lex and Laer sat in opposite taps 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 going on below. Laer looked at Lex. When their eyes met, she felt an emotional wave of disappointment, loss, discontent with hints of anger. Lex looked away.
- How long have you been with Fink? - quietly asked Laer.
Lex paused, thinking about something intently, and answered just as quietly.
- You have either congenital or neural network capabilities for empathy. I should have known about this earlier.
- I'm sorry about that.
- Fink is a very reliable partner. Was ... How is your neural network?
“When EMIG went into defense, but now everything is fine,” Laera lied because, in fact, to her own amazement, her neural network didn’t seem to notice a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation, only a notification about the triggering of the electromagnetic protection circuit appeared.
They were silent. When the noise below subsided, Lex waited another ten minutes and began to climb down. Laera paused and crawled after him. They descended through the ventilation shaft and climbed into the hangar through the cut-out opening. Lex spun around on the spot as if trying to look at something and quickly went to his ship-courier. He was not afraid of controlling the space, as the triggered EMIG probably burned everything out of the hangar. Laer followed him.
Before the ship, Lex stopped and walked around the perimeter. Having found nothing suspicious, Lex called the neural network interface and called the control center of the nearest technology. In the list that appears, he chose a point with the image of a single spacecraft, in front of which his identification number was displayed. After the selection, a structured list of available functions appeared, from which Lex activated the identification procedure and access to the ship item. The neural network tried to establish a remote connection with the ship and in a couple of seconds gave the message: “Contactless connection with the ship is established. Expect identification data. ” Lex presented a picture: on a white background, slowly turning over with powerful paws, the livor was walking (the predator of the cat family on Lex’s home planet), as if standing still, the livor stopped and yawned, while his ears were pricked, and the mustaches in front mused funnyly.
- Lex Orton, Daona 37 welcomes you, - the melodious voice of the ship broadcast to the neural network - Attention! Because of the powerful electromagnetic impulse, the protection of the main authorization line has been triggered. The main line is deactivated. A backup line L1R1 is involved.
Lex mentally addressed the ship.
- Daona 37. Open the ramp. List the available neural networks in view.
Lex's list of available neural networks appeared before his eyes. The first was his, he moved to the list of functions of the second neural network. There he saw only the neural network identifier and its name “Laera-S” - all other information was closed for viewing. He assigned guest access to the ship to the user of this neural network. All these actions took no more than ten seconds of time. Ramp slowly moved forward.
Lex and Laer climbed the advanced ladder of the courier ship. They passed a small airlock compartment, a corridor and got inside the cabin. Lex sat down in his chair.
- Can? - asked Laer.
- Yes, sit down, of course. You have guest access to the ship.
- No longer afraid that I will give you away?
- If I wanted to do this, I would simply push me to the mine. To the bottom, I would hardly have flown alive.
- I'm not with them.
- With whom?
- I have a contract. I have to do it. I am a very expensive specialist, believe me. Your purpose of arriving here is to ensure the delivery of the goods to the destination. Our goals are the same regardless of customers.
- And if they did not match?
“Then you would hardly have survived in the control center,” the girl honestly admitted.
- Frankly. It is easy to guess about my customer, knowing who I am. And you?
Laera was silent, looking at Lex and thinking about 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 a freelance employee at the NBS,” Laera finally said after a short pause.
“That ... explains a lot,” Lex said slowly.
Laere's revaluation of Lex came almost instantly. The accumulated statistics on the background behavior of Laera and the last drop of information about her received - everything went into a single picture. Lex realized and understood the danger of the situation in which he had fallen into the control center, when, at first glance, the defenseless girl, in fact, controlled everyone. The needleball, probably transferred to the sector's work mode, covered everyone at once from the point where it was located. It was necessary only by chance to give up, for example, by imitating a fall. And Lex was not sure that his neural network would have worked out such a situation automatically to anticipate - the aggression would not have been manifested explicitly. And when did they find her? She already controlled the entire hangar and probably knew about them. In such a situation, the presence of the NBS agent is perceived ambiguously. On the one hand, this may be luck - obviously, that Laera is clearly an uneasy employee of the NBS - rather, she is a versatile person from the NBS, about the possibilities of which Lex could only guess. But, on the other hand, who knows what directives she 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”, just because the situation has developed, to help never in a hurry.
- Daona 37. Search for information nodes. Setting a special connection with any of them, the priority code for my personal identifier.
A few minutes later came the answer from the ship.
- No information nodes found.
Lex looked at Laeru.
“The normal connection seems to be completely drowned out.” Or we left the contact area. Which is very strange, since there are practically no such “holes” in the SPM space.
- Can I try?
Lex hesitated, but professional curiosity got the better of him. “And what am I losing, all the same, access will not be the captain. It will be interesting to see what it will do and how the situation will develop, considering what AI is installed on the ship ... It’s probably a silly idea, given the situation ... But you don’t encounter an NBS agent every day, thought Lex.
- Daona 37. For the user with the “Laera-S” identifier, change the guest access for navigator access.
The neural network of Laera issued a request-invitation to establish an authorized connection with the ship. Laer answered in the affirmative.
- Laera-S, Daona 37 welcomes you. You have a navigation level access to the ship. Primary identification procedure has been launched. I expect identification data.
Laer imagined a picture of the sunset, which she observed daily when she recently rested on a closed elite resort planet in the center of the SPM. Although Laera was not tied to some kind of mandatory performance of tasks, being an absolutely independent and independent employee, she did not so often allow herself to be left to herself. In the end, she often carried out covert escorts of high-ranking SCM officials. A stylishly dressed slender woman with expensive jewelery, emphasizing her charm favorably, effectively fit into an elite society alongside a high-ranking escorted person. The persona usually did her best to achieve more than just the location of Laera, the male part of society envied the person being followed, the female part of society experienced a gamut of feelings from admiration to hatred. Laer often experienced the pleasure of these moments of their female unconditional power. However, it was still an exhausting job, because, although it was not worth much to take care of external threats, it was necessary to closely and intuitively follow what was happening next to his ward. Rigged gross violation of the minutes of meetings, misconduct or specially created provoking situation that could be used the next day against the reputation of a person in the media. Charming girl as if easily and naturally extinguished and resolved critical moments. It was worse if it was necessary to fend off a physical threat - it was necessary not only to protect the object, but also somehow not to "light up." However, such situations were extremely rare exceptions. Trips, meetings, parties, resorts - all this was apparently similar to the rest, but did not replace it in full. Therefore, Laera well remembered those moments when she really could afford to relax without thinking about anything else. “It will be necessary to take breaks in work more often,” the girl thought.
“Identification data is accepted,” she heard the voice of the ship.
- Daona 37, run the procedure for changing the identification data.
Laera repeated the same procedure with the image of the sunset she remembered so much, but already without unnecessary thoughts and desires.
Laera quickly figured out the ship's navigation interface settings. Augmented reality replaced the control panels located in front of it with the necessary information, graphs, diagrams, and various information obtained from scanners. Formed information space for the navigator. In the center of the table instead of the 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 unwinding bright orange glow - signaling and warning the neural network that part of reality is not real. Laer closed her eyes. The glow changed to red and only the objects of augmented reality remained. “I haven’t been working with such equipment for a long time,” thought Laer.
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 general equipment teams in one way or another. Of course, it was necessary to understand very well what is happening in the process of their implementation, to know the sequence of issuing commands and the expediency of using them in various conditions. The reliability of neural network and electronic equipment was high, and it was believed that it would be much more likely that motor, navigation or generator equipment would fail than a multiple-duplicated ship control system.
This ship could be operated by a person without a neural network at all: manually perform navigation measurements and calculations, set low-level controls, such as thrust vector, generator set operating parameters, life support systems. The vast majority of people with similar knowledge and experience engaged in the development and construction of ships, as well as their maintenance and repair at large shipyards. The presence of such ships at the station wagon was justified due to the specifics of their work. If the ship's control system is damaged, the wagon could connect to it directly, effectively replacing the ship's AI with a part of its implants and a neural network. In the case of problems with their neural networks, 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 transfer the data for connection.
Laera turned to navigation scanners by launching a hidden search for any information access points. While the system was processing the request, Laera tried to get direct access to the long-distance transmitter. The ship system immediately blocked work with any equipment using low-level protocols. Then Laer went to the trick. She identified a part of her neural network environment, isolated it, merged with the virtual environment allocated by the ship and began to increase the volume of information requests for navigation equipment, adding special code structures to it. Laera was waiting for a vulnerability in the neural network architecture to work - the virtual handler had to interpret part of the data stream as a command, while the intravirtual space was “conceived”, which made it possible to forward the data stream through the first-level neural environment monitor and execute the command directly, as resolved by the ship's AI. The trick is very old and has not been used by anyone for a long time, but Laera had templates specifically for AI of the Daon type and a powerful own neural network. Laera increased everything and increased the exchange, but the artificial intelligence of the ship didn’t seem to notice this. “Strangely, the Daon series, though special, is no longer considered the most up-to-date. The AI ​​here is clearly specially trained or even non-standard for this series of ships, ”thought Laera. About half a minute has already passed, and Laer has about one and a half minutes left to ascertain the lack of communication, report this to Lex and not cause suspicion on his part.
Laera abruptly stopped the flow of information from herself, called her extensive library of unauthorized control of equipment, found the type of ship, activated and sent a short-lived virus disguised as a request for data from the ship's scanners. This was an extreme measure, since the “flare” of combat viruses was not encouraged, but Laera considered that this is the situation in which its use is justified. After sending the virus, she blocked a direct connection with the ship, transferring all interaction with him through a virtual environment. A few seconds later, a report came from the virus about the partial interception of control and getting the captain's access to the ship's systems. Laer tried to make a low-level connection to the ship's communications equipment. But suddenly she received a powerful blow from the AI ​​resisting the invasion of the ship. Daona blamed on her almost everything she had received before. All the data obtained 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. A virus downloaded in the middle of the information flow tried to activate, but the anti-virus system of the neural network did not allow it to fully unfold. The semi-working virus began to generate and pour its requests to the Laer neural network, some requests were marked as “especially dangerous” by the neural network. Laera tried to further 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 that fell on her while exchanging with the systems of the ship. This lasted until the virus in the ship controlled by Laer and the virus in the Laer neural network, which was formally controlled by the ship, clashed for controlling access to communication equipment, but due to its partial activation, it worked according to the algorithms known to it. As a result of collisions and violations of work on low-level protocols, Laera realized that she loses control when requests for setting up equipment from her virus sometimes managed to be answered by someone else. Finally, Laera ordered the virus to remove traces of its presence in the ship's system and deactivate it. 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 caught her breath. My head was heavy, my temples pounded. However, pressure, pulse and other medical parameters were normal - the neural network retorted the load. It took only less than a minute. “I haven’t received such a blatant surrender for a long time,” the girl thought, “And it didn’t work out purely.” Laera reestablished contact with the ship.
- Daona 37, search for the nearest information nodes.
- Communication equipment is not available.
"Well, what a day ?!", Laer pleaded.
- Daona 37, what is the reason for the inaccessibility?
- Instability of operation of all interface submodules of communication units.Suspected invasion of the system. The procedures of diagnostics and restoration of the communication subsystem have been launched. Launched a self-test system ship. The communication system will be available in two hours thirty six minutes.
Apparently as a result of the partial control of the AI ​​of the ship, the chaotic operation of the undeactivated virus, sometimes responding to the inquiries of its virus, conditions were created that “hung up” the ship’s communication system. “This is a very interesting and quite 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 activities of the companion, but had not had the opportunity to get acquainted with the detailed reports of the ship’s systems, because for some time he had not received any answers to his inquiries, was now actively trying to understand what had happened. He saw the command reports, his neural network found and analyzed inconsistencies in them, but the overall picture of the incident did not develop. Finally, Lex received a notification about the launch of a self-test of the ship's systems and the restoration of normal operation of the communication subsystem, which will be inoperative for the next two and a half hours. Lex shook his head and looked at Laerou.
- As far as I understand, the issue of trust is fully clarified between us.
Laer received a notification about the change of access level on the guest. She felt not so much a sense of guilt for not having broken equipment in time, but rather professional shame for inappropriate, sloppy and illiterately performed actions. She did not remember such confusions from the time she studied at the academy. She used to work quickly, clearly and reliably. Immediately, under the monstrous time limit, she retreated from the rules and order, relying on the known capabilities of an AI ship of a given type and the power of her neural network: she did not isolate the connection, weakly isolated the involved neural network sector, instead of preliminary study after implementation she immediately gave command to command . A few minutes after it was over, she no longer seemedpossible risks were worth getting trouble-free access to a long-distance transmitter.
- Daona 37. Upon completion of the ship inspection, prepare a detailed report on the inspection results and actions to normalize the equipment operation. Confirm command.
- It is accepted, captain, at the end of the ship's check to prepare a detailed report on the results of the check and actions to normalize the operation of the equipment.
- Daona 37. What is the status of a long-distance transmitter? In detail.
- Telecommunication equipment is working properly, but it is impossible to work with it due to a comprehensive check of the ship’s communications subsystem. A failure of the interface submodules of all communication units was fixed. The alleged cause is an unknown type of attack on the ship’s information infrastructure. The intended source is a team member with navigational access.
- Daona 37. Create a universal channel of low-level access to equipment, disconnect the long-distance transmitter from the ship’s communication system and connect to the channel of low-level access.
- Completed, passing the parameters of the low-level access channel.
Lex received the data and connected to the telecommunication equipment through the neural network. When interacting with the transmitter, there was no need for a very high decision-making speed and quick analysis of the priority of answers with multiple simultaneous input requests, such as managing the entire ship, so Lex was easy. 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 you needed to know the order of their issuance, but Lex already had macros - painted lists of command sequences. Using the mental-visual interface of the neural network, Lex quickly prepared the transmitter for operation.
- Laer, I will try to use long distance.
“We'll be spotted right away!”
- Are there any other options? You put a regular connection for more than two hours.
Laera said nothing.
- Yes, in any case, I did not find any repeater nearby. Communication is well suppressed. I need to report the incident somehow. So far there is such an opportunity and we generally can use this ship. Therefore, I will try to send information about the seizure.
- Do you manage directly?
- Yes. So you could leave a message and get out. It would automatically go over the availability of the equipment. Now I have to be in touch. While I am cracking this transmitter, they will definitely detect us. And then as lucky as I can, I will have time to finish the program before the guests come here, or maybe not.
- I can stay here and complete the transfer. The situation is my fault, ”Laera admitted.
- I'm afraid.
Laera, who had never expected such an answer, looked at Lex.
- What?
For a while, Lex took the pleasure of contemplating the uncomprehendingly feminine face of astonished bewilderment. Then he just laughed, trying to shed his own psychological tension.
- I am afraid that if you are left here alone, then this ship will have to be written off for scrap later.
Laer half turned away from him and even relaxed a little.
- I can insert into the transfer any of your message. Surely this information will go to the NBS, if it is its area of ​​interest.
“Thank you, Lex, no need.”
Lex grunted.
“Then you should see the ways of departure.” With the transmitter, I will start working as soon as you leave the hangar. After ten minutes will begin the transfer, which will go a couple of minutes. Fourteen minutes later we should not be in the hangar! This is ideally of course ...
- It is better to leave through the same hole, to us it is located closer than all the other rooms.
- I think the same. The only problem is that you need to climb up the mine. And I’m not sure that the second time I’ll be just as lucky if our acquaintance with his rotary cannon appears.
- I will prepare a snag in the fifth technical room from the entrance. As if someone is cutting metal there. It will give time.
- How much time do you need?
- In five minutes I will manage.
“Okay, work and leave the hangar.” As you crawl through the hole, in about five minutes, I will knock out the gates of the hangar. There will be a leak of atmosphere. The hole will be small, it will block the automatics, but it will take time - I have enough to transfer. There will also be strong interference from the hyperfield emitters.
Laera left the ship, quickly reached the necessary room and quickly constructed a snag from the extracted items from her backpack. The deception consisted of several blocks of effects simulating each other, similar to those sold for entertainment, only much smaller and more 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 a radio exchange, the fifth just glowed in the infrared range, the other blocks also performed some of their tasks. Laera settled in at four minutes and ran to the hole in the ventilation shaft.
As Laer descended from the ship, Lex began working with the transmitter. After giving commands to initialize the equipment, he aimed the transmitting complex toward one of the hangar’s wings. "How well the ship is standing nose to the gates of the hangar," thought Lex. "Otherwise, the whole ship would have to be deployed, then all would have fled." Lex did not know how well the signal would go; he never used the transmitting complex outside of space, so he unscrewed the transmitter to the utmost power, and he also added a few percent over the limit, using the equipment's fine tuning capabilities, using low-level access.
The transfer took place in the so-called fifth dimension - hyperspace. Scientists themselves were confused about what exactly happened at the moment of activation of the transition point, mainly writing off extensive mathematical theories with beautiful pictures containing “funnel-shaped” drawings. There were several theories. According to the most common theory, an entry point was formed, whose behavior most resembled 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 sucked by it, ejected and structured from the point of release. According to the theory, during the passage of a hyperspace tunnel, the flow of time inside it, relative to the time outside it, depended rather interestingly on the distance to the exit point: at short distances, time slowed down significantly,on the far - accelerated. It would seem - here it is the old dream of humanity about teleportation - one can not only “jump” far, but also save time. But in practice, there were a lot of theoretical limitations and technological difficulties 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 studied quite well. At these distances, the time inside and outside the tunnel varied approximately equally, but the distances were impressive. With the accumulated statistics of the work of specific equipment and dexterity, it was possible to pierce distances far enough and accurately. Methods and equipment were significantly different for transmitting data or sending ships through hyperspace. When transmitting information,usually there was a base station repeater, the location and parameters of which were known. The transmitting subscriber had time synchronized with this station, or corrected it using known nearest pulsars, made an accurate position calculation, obtained the necessary parameters and transmission vector, formed a transition point with the transmitter complex and emitted signals from directional antennas into the channel.
After Laera left the hangar, Lex waited five minutes and gave the command to start the ship’s generator and begin to prepare the equipment. The front lower panels on the ship shifted and several platforms with various equipment located on them moved from the bowels of the ship. A few minutes later, when the long-distance transmitter was ready, Lex sent a command to a couple of volleys from the laser gun to the point at which the transmitting complex was focused. The silence of the hangar was cut through by two dry whistling sounds created by the gun pump generators. After a moment, the air began to leave the noise through the hole. An alarming siren rang through the hangar and red warning lights came on, warning of the danger. The internal security gates began to slowly close with creak.Several invisible laser beams left the extended platforms. A discharge cracked loudly and the helium-hydrogen plasma emitted by directional accelerator injectors erupted, swept into space at a speed of one and a half thousand kilometers per second, shining laser beams like guide rails. After half a minute, the energy storage device charged again, the process was repeated and another portion of the created solar wind was carried off into space.
- Daona 37, what are our coordinates? I requested coordinates four minutes ago!
- Captain, the review is too small, I cannot correlate the existing piece of the star chart with the known space in the SPM. Moving to the LCF system to determine the coordinate shift. Passing preliminary data. I need six more minutes to clarify.
"What the heck!? To correlate the appearance of constellations with a point in the SPM space never took more than two minutes. This is generally a matter of seconds for the AI, ”thought Lex.“ The hole needed more to be done. Yes, even the plasma interferes, I guess. In any case, there is no time to wait. ” Lex chose a set of navigation data, opposite which the maximum confidence percentage of 14% was displayed. Five minutes later, part of the white-hot emitters of the hyperfield turned black. Illumination in the hangar flashed 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 went out. A weak accretion disk was formed near the entry point, rotating in the plane of emission of the plasma. Navigation equipment recorded a local distortion of the space-time metric. Lex began sending the prepared message,which contained a brief report on the current situation. At the twentieth second, the tracking system recorded a gravitational perturbation and recommended repeating the transmission. Lex restarted the transfer. After a minute, Lex quickly gave the command to complete the transfer complex. The transition point, left without external make-up, will collapse, making, finally, the characteristic narrow bi-directional energy release, directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and beautiful in the combined infrared, X-ray and gamma spectra.left without external make-up, it will collapse, making, finally, the characteristic narrow bi-directional energy release, directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and looking beautiful in the combined infrared, X-ray and gamma spectra.left without external make-up, it will collapse, making, finally, the characteristic narrow bi-directional energy release, directed perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the accretion disk and looking beautiful in the combined infrared, X-ray and gamma spectra.
Sluice doors from the side of the hangar almost closed. Lex quickly got up and ran for the exit. In the corridor, he paused and pulled out a small backpack from one locker. Running down the ramp, he gave the command to the ship to lock. The ramp slowly began to clean up and when Lex reached its base, he had to jump onto the cold floor of the hangar from a height of about one meter.
- Captain, the coordinate offset is determined, - the ship's voice rang out - The current sector number is P8-N4-P1 in LCF format. Hyper transfer of data is successful with a probability of 0%. Going into standby mode. End of communication.
Lex ran toward the hole in the vent shaft. There was only one thought in his head: “Yes, it’s generally unrealistic - one jump is limited to the range of one light year, and there are a dozen jumps from the place where they met the ship to the current sector number.” When a few meters 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 in the direction of the technical room, from which incomprehensible sounds were coming, and the second toward the gate. Lex successfully hid in the ventilation shaft and, briskly making his way upstairs, he heard the bang of the explosion and the indiscriminate shooting that had begun.
Unexpected meeting. Chapter 3
Text version: 1.0.0.
Date of first publication: 03/10/2016.
Last edited Date: 03/10/2016
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 2 - previous chapter.
Chapter 3 is the current chapter.
Chapter 4 is the next chapter.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/391323/
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