Tech Mage Read online

  A lot of the ship’s systems were integrated into the hull, the nanites themselves forming what a ship needed, including weapon blisters on the hull, on demand. Engineering was mostly power generation and super-capacitors to clean and smooth the energy output of the reactor. Really, a powerplant room would be a more accurate description, most of the ship’s systems weren’t in the back.

  At the moment, I could see the empty place in the center of the room where the reactor would go. It was also the only place the floor was open, which had allowed them access to study the super-capacitor technology below the reactor. There were two chairs in the room, with a similar platform table as in the bridge, just smaller, that could be used to control all the systems.

  The chairs were the only things on the ship that weren’t made from nanites. I suspected though there used to be more, no doubt anything not part of the ship itself had been stripped out over the last seventy years.

  I think the most eerie thing about it was it didn’t seem all that alien to me. Once the underlying technologies were understood, it was almost an intuitively human design, but without that understanding the scientists of the past would’ve been baffled.

  Diana said, “We can remove the supercapacitors, otherwise the ship seems to be one solid piece.”

  I nodded, “There’s other components through the walls, but there’s no way to get to them without power.”

  Jemma asked, “Can you duplicate it?”

  I said, “I believe so. I just need to duplicate the fusion reactor since it’s not made of the nanites. The list of materials I’d need to do so is on Diana’s tablet. Of course, we’d also need enough hydrogen to power it long enough to get out to Jupiter. Oh, and chairs, we need chairs.”

  Diana asked, “What about dark matter, and anti-matter?”

  “The ship creates the latter, and it captures the former.”

  Jemma asked, “What about the nanites? The ship itself.”

  I smiled, “The ship has energy to matter conversion, that’s used primarily for nanite replacement. Once we have power to the ship, the ship can build another ship. It makes sense to just focus on the chairs and reactor. The ship could build five ships at once, given the insanely high-power requirements to convert energy to matter. Of course, in a week, those five can build twenty-five, and in the third week those twenty-five can build one hundred twenty-five, then six hundred in the fourth week. That’s seven hundred fifty-five in a month. In five weeks, you’d have over three thousand.”

  Jemma’s eyes bugged out.

  “In short, the limiting factor will be in gathering enough of the exotic materials needed for the reactor.”

  Jemma asked, “Why can’t the ship create that?”

  “It’s too big. The ship is made up of nanites. It takes crazy amounts of power for it to create a nano-sized amount of matter in the matrix needed to create one nanite at a time, as one complete component of the ship. The power required to build something macro is just… impossible. You can’t create a little bit of it at a time, or it’d be a pile of sand, instead of one large piece. Oh… I’m an idiot.”

  Jemma smirked and raised an eyebrow.

  I blushed, “The aliens can’t do it that way, but with my help we could. I could take that pile of sand as raw materials, and then make the reactor with my magic. Still, that’s just a shortcut, and I’m the only one on the planet that can do it. It’d be worth it though, to conserve the elements that are rare on our world.”

  Jemma nodded, “Obviously we’ll be having Diana figure out how to build the reactors, perhaps with a team, and perhaps that newer and stronger ship, but in the meantime, we could build up a fleet in the next five years.”

  Diana said, “I think I’ll get started on that, who knows how long it’ll take to get approval to tear out the part and do a power test in the desert. You’ll get me the software as well?”

  I nodded, “As soon as it’s powered up. Most of it’s there already, in the firmware.”

  My mind raced as I considered the possibilities.

  The approval took three days, and I used the time to get settled. I hoped my sister was okay, there was no way for me to communicate with her while I was in this installation, but I had plans to drop her a secure message once we got in the real world again. There wasn’t much for me to do, not until the ship was powered up, so I tried to relax. The whole alien ship thing was hard to forget though, and I started to wonder at the wisdom of what we were doing.

  I knew Diana had several groups working on the scientific theory and math of the several systems. As far as I knew they didn’t know about the ship, and they must’ve thought it was just high-tech government breakthroughs. Each of them studying a small piece and only Diana seeing the big picture. Regardless, that was mostly speculation, it was all locked down and no one was talking about what they were doing. I also knew it would take a long time before humanity came up with their own design of a larger and stronger ship.

  I suspected I might have my own insights into that idea though, once the alien was powered up and I could see the full picture.

  Regardless, it was three days later, and the four of us were on an apache heading south, just in case when I powered up the nanites that made up the supercapacitor I would be unable to shut down the secondary quantum connections to the ship’s home box, which I assumed was on their planet.

  It actually worried me a bit, what would be their reaction if I was successful? Would they think we failed to power it more than a second or two again, or would they be able to tell we disconnected their ability to monitor and locate the ship.

  It was a risk, even if it worked it was a risk, so I wasn’t all that surprised it’d taken the admiral three days to get permission.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  Cassie asked, “Did it hurt?”

  I gave her a look, but she just grinned back. I’d grown used to her hotness over the last few days, so things hadn’t been quite so awkward in my mind.

  “In the eighties, there were reports of UFOs around nuclear power plants.”

  Cassie tilted her head, “Go on.”

  “Well, we’d had the ship for thirty years by then, what if they suspected we found a way to disable the quantum connections they use to track their ships. Fission and fusion are both nuclear reactions, the ship’s sensors can detect nuclear activity. What if they were looking for the ship?”

  Diana said, “That’s very likely.”

  I nodded, “So, what happens when we power it up in the middle of the mountains, with no cities nearby to power, do you think that might set off some alien bells, that they might check it out, or have they given up on that avenue of investigation.”

  Cassie frowned, “What would you suggest.”

  I said, “It’s all moot if I can’t disconnect the connection, but if it does work, I’d suggest moving it to a navy base. Whoever is up there monitoring us, will most likely believe we’ve just brought another nuclear sub on-line, when we power it up fully. Unless Diana has an idea on how to block their active scans.”

  Diana said, “The ship’s shield should do it. But that has to be dropped when people get on and off.”

  I bit my lip, “I might be able to power a shield in engineering before we turn it on. Then maybe set up a thing where either the engineering shields or external shields had to always be on, one or the other.”

  Cassie nodded, “Look into that, moving the ship is the last option.”

  We arrived in the New Mexico dessert, there was absolutely nothing around us as we landed, outside of scrub and rocks. The rotor spun down as we got off, and we moved away from the helicopter. I had the supercapacitor, it was lighter than it looked, but still plenty heavy.

  I took a deep breath, and mentally crossed my fingers as I brought up my magic. I flooded the device with it, and that time I also powered up the nanites. The quantum connections between the nanites were obvious to me, as were the others that led to another place. It was immediate communicat
ions, much like was described by Einstein’s spooky action at a distance known as quantum entanglement.

  There was a part of me that wanted to follow that in my mind, with my magic, and see just what was on the other end. Would I get into the alien’s computers on their home world? What could I do with that? Learn designs for other ships, other technologies, and who knew what else. Their whole fleet was probably connected through their home box monitoring. Of course, I resisted the temptation, the longer they were connected the more danger we were in.

  Still, it tempted me for a split second.

  The quantum connections weren’t breakable of course, but in essence they were nothing but a wireless transmitter. I was able to override the security and in essence shut down that reporting function, which was just as good. They could tell it was connected, but without the device reporting where it was, they couldn’t trace it, and may even just assume it was off.

  In a way, that was both good and bad, because they’d know we’d activated part of the ship, but they wouldn’t be able to find it now. What kind of response would that elicit? If they were as paranoid as humans, I’d expect to be invaded.

  I stopped powering it.

  “I can only stop it from sending data, I can’t break the connection. That means they’ll know we powered it up, but they won’t be able to find it.”

  Cassie said, “On the helicopter, let’s not wait around for them.”

  The four of us piled back on, and Cassie took us up and headed north.

  Cassie asked, “Options?”

  I touched Diana’s tablet, and sent the software I’d promised, then nodded.

  “Options. I can create a new ship, sort of, using the current ship as raw materials. In essence, remake the nanites and discard the atoms that are quantum entangled with their home world. I can do that before we power it up, and also set up the reactor shielding so they won’t detect it when it powers up. Then we make copies of the ship from that copy.”

  Cassie said, “That sounds like a plan, so they won’t even notice for a micro-second when it’s turned on?”

  “Exactly. I also have a risky proposition. I also believe I can invade their black-box system, and most likely pull all that information. In other worlds, I’d be able to read how big their fleet is, where it is, what other types of ships they have including weapon systems, and so forth. I might even be able to learn their philosophy, and why they’re really hanging around. Of course, while that’s going on, they’re going to know we powered up a piece of the old ship. They won’t be able to trace it, but it’ll be active for a lot longer than a few seconds for me to accomplish all that.”

  Cassie nodded, “That’s… tempting as hell. Type up a proposal for it, with risks and rewards, and I’ll try to get it approved. As for the other plan, that one seems pretty risk free?”

  I replied, “It is, I’ll use a small part of the ship as a proof of concept first, to make sure my understanding is complete and I don’t mess anything up. They won’t know we’re doing any of it, when I rebuild the ship or when we power it on. It will take a while though, hours, possibly days if I have to stop and rest. The ship is large, it’s a lot for my magic to change. The proposal to steal all their other stuff is on your phone.”

  Cassie smirked, “Ask first next time.”

  “Yes, maam.”

  I’d also sent that message to my sister, she’d left me one as well. She was settled, and doing okay, but she missed me, her friends, and her old job. I hoped they caught Dale soon, so she could go back to her real life, but I wasn’t holding my breath either.

  Might as well get started on the flight. Essentially, I used my magic to rebuild what was already there, minus the second entangled particle. Now that I knew where it was and how it all worked, it was easy enough to do. Easy to understand and direct, but not without effort. Even that small part of the ship took me about five minutes, and my power and mind felt a little drained. Reading tech and absorbing knowledge was easy for my magic, re-assembling matter was decidedly more energy intensive. I decided to rest, and I’d power it up when we got back and verify it was all still working.

  And it did, work that is.

  I also kept the entangled particles that I’d separated, and I bonded them together. If my greedy plan was approved, I’d need them later to connect my magic to so I could explore their systems.

  Chapter Five

  “You look tired,” Diana noted at breakfast, two days later.

  I smiled, “Late night. I managed to finish up the ship. We can power it up, but I assume no joyrides.”

  Jemma snorted.

  Diana said, “No. Too risky. We need to stay hidden until we’re ready to face them, if in fact they ever confront us.”

  “Any news?” I asked Cassie.

  She shook her head, “No, I suspect they want to verify this first stage works. Perhaps even make a bunch of copies, before we risk you diving into their systems. In short, get the maximum benefit and level of preparedness we can get, before we introduce further risk.”

  That made sense, yet without better and more powerful designs, I suspected even a few hundred scout ships wouldn’t make a lick of difference, except perhaps to get a lot of people killed. But… it was reasonable to wait I supposed.

  “They?”

  Cassie rolled her eyes, “The general, joint chiefs, and the president, most likely.”

  I nodded.

  Rebuilding the ship wasn’t all I’d done the last two days either. I’d been… playing. Let’s just say that if I ever ran across Dale Gibbons again, I wouldn’t need help to paste his ass. It was something I hadn’t reported either, call me paranoid, but I had a feeling they’d object. In essence, the nanites disconnected from the ship and a nuclear power source were worthless for everyone on the planet, except for me, since I could power them with magic.

  That opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities, but I was sure they’d have denied me permission since they weren’t reproduceable for anyone else. Not unless they could create a pocket-sized nuclear reactor. On the good side, it didn’t violate my signed contract not to talk about the technology or share anything I learned about it outside the group.

  Call it… insurance. I hadn’t forgotten the way I’d been recruited, it was in a way that would’ve made Dale proud, threatening and blackmailing me and my sister like that, but since they were the government it was all legal. Nope, I hadn’t forgotten that at all, and it wasn’t lost on me that at some point I’d be expendable. They needed my magic for the moment, but eventually they’d be able to build ships on their own without my intercession, as soon as Diana figured out how to manufacture the exotic alloys in the fusion reactors.

  My usefulness might be extended if they approved the greedy plan, but that wouldn’t last longer than it took for me to put the data and specs of all their ship types on a tablet. Although, then they’d have to manufacture it, they might wait until I build them prototypes that could reproduce themselves first.

  Or I could just be paranoid.

  The only one I really sort of trusted was Diana, she was a total geek, and all about the science. She was also nice and upbeat. She was the kind of woman I’d want to date, if dating any of them wasn’t a horrible idea. Jemma ignored me for the most part and was all business, and Cassie always had a teasing smile or playful comment, but I suspected either of those ladies would kill me and not lose a wink of sleep over it, if they were ordered to.

  Enough about that, I hoped I was being paranoid, both about the aliens and the humans, but my gut told me I was in a lot more danger from my fellow humans in this installation than I was from the aliens.

  “Speaking of maximum benefit?”

  Cassie nodded, “You have a go to power it up, and start five copies.”

  I ate a piece of bacon, and then took a sip of coffee. Despite my worries, I was also excited. The technology was incredible and a blast to play with.

  We finished breakfast, and we headed for sub-level fiv
e.

  We had to be cautious, but it wasn’t brain surgery. I used my magic to power up the nanite set up in a shield configuration in engineering, the spare reactor had already been set up. Once the shield was active, I powered up the reactor. Once the reactor was up and running, I withdrew my magic, the reactor kept the shield going that would stop the aliens from scanning a new nuclear reactor on the Earth.

  There was one snag, the computer made up of trillions of nanites was a lot smarter and more powerful than the one that was formed in the desert, using a much smaller amount of nanites. My magic was a match for it however, as I overrode its security and set its access. At that point, the computer worked for us, not the aliens.

  Also, it wouldn’t be an issue going forward, as those changes would be replicated out to the copies.

  “We’re good. The four of us have access to the ship, anyone else would be seen as an intruder. Any of us can add others if we wish, for when it has pilots.”

  Cassie asked, “Is it sentient?”

  “To a limited degree. I wouldn’t want to try to hack it, without my magic. It’s aware, powerfully so, but that awareness is small and relegated to the ship. It doesn’t have a big picture, if that makes sense.”

  I tapped the table, and a hologram of all the ship’s functions came up. There were some blinking red lights along part of the hull.

  Jemma asked, “What’s that?”

  I replied, “It has to rebuild part of itself, part of the hull was damaged in the crash, so it’s already replacing those nanites and self-repairing itself.”

  That was completely true, but it was also missing some nanites that I’d appropriated. I just left that part off.

  I added, “I’m going to direct it to create the resources for another spare reactor, and I’ll assemble it before it stores it away. I’m also directing it to create copies. The copies will also have black boxes of sorts, similar to what the aliens have. I assume you want to be able to track your ships?”