Tech Mage Read online

  There were five different ship types. The scout like we had was the most common one, and they had energy beams as a basic protection. Then there were three types of warships, a quarter, half, and full mile long version, and similarly shaped like cigars, but equally fatter as they grew in length. The smaller one took three of the same size reactors as the scout. The half mile warship took eight, and the full mile warship took sixteen.

  The quarter mile version would take a month to build, the half two months, and full three months. That wasn’t intuitive, I’d have thought the build time would be longer than that for the mile-long version which would have much more than just twice the mass of the half mile one, until I realized the sixteen reactors once brought online after a week of building would power eighty energy to matter converters, and the ship would finish building itself. The two smaller ones worked similarly, the initial build was just a week to bring up engineering to get the reactors installed and online. Then the ships finished building themselves.

  All three warships had the energy beam weapons, a more powerful and potent one, but they also had anti-matter missiles, and close-range anti-matter beams. Otherwise they were very much like the scout, except they had permanent quarters, bathrooms, and the like, while the scout ships were more like shuttles that could form temporary versions of that in the cargo section for long term surveillance.

  They had five thousand of the quarter mile warships, two thousand of the half mile warships, and one thousand of the full mile warships. That latter one seemed to be positioned around their home planets for protection.

  The fifth ship was a five-mile-long behemoth, with a hundred and fifty reactors. Like the scout, it only had beam weapons, war wasn’t its purpose. There were only twelve of those, and they were purely for settling a new planet. The ship would carry millions along with everything a new colony would need to get started. I imagined it would also be useful for relocating a planet’s population in case of dire emergency.

  Another reason to suspect they were peaceful explorers, was that despite having millions of ships, none of them were in combat at the moment, and they were monitoring tens of thousands of alien worlds throughout fifty galaxies.

  Despite all I’d learned, the only truly new technology was the anti-matter beam and anti-matter missiles, the rest was just… building bigger, and something I’d have probably been able to figure out on my own, just like I’d adopted the nanites to make my suit of powered armor.

  Regardless, I decided to recommend we don’t build the warships. I suspected there was a chance they’d let it go, if all we had was the scout technology. Not for sure, but there was a chance. If we started building warships, we’d become a threat that even the most peaceful of beings couldn’t ignore.

  Hopefully, they’d take my advice. If not, I’d probably help, I didn’t feel comfortable making the decision for them.

  Oh, one more thing, that absolutely terrified me, and I wouldn’t even think about much less divulge to the general.

  Through the network connections, I could connect to every single one of their ships, and then order the nanites to break their bonds and disperse. Not all at once, but it’d only take me a split second for each one. No mass murder for me thanks. I was actually tempted to destroy the link I had, before some power-hungry idiot figured out that little detail.

  In hindsight, it was kind of obvious, just not a thought that was intuitive to me, mostly because I wasn’t a violent man. Although, I wouldn’t mind seeing Dale again, some people just needed killing.

  I let my magic go and came out of it, and as requested I gave the tech discoveries to Diana, and all the social stats, where they were, how many ships they had, settled planets, aliens they monitored, and my own observations and beliefs to Jemma.

  Obviously, there was a lot of raw data I left out, or it wouldn’t have fit on Jemma’s tablet, but it wasn’t stuff that was all that important.

  “The only thing new is the two new weapons, and even that’s not really new, since it just involves new applications of created anti-matter. In other words, no knew scientific theory, just two new practical applications.”

  Jemma sighed, “There’s been no change in the scout’s location. Either they didn’t detect it or they’re talking about what to do about it.”

  I nodded, “It would’ve flagged in their command center, so will ours, whenever a ship is disconnected or reconnected to the network while being powered off or on. My magic powering and activating the connection counts.

  “I suspect the latter explanation is likely. Even without transmitting any data, the links coming back up would’ve been noted and flagged by the system. With millions of ships who knows how long they’ll take to decide what to do, if their bureaucracy is anything like ours it could be a decade.”

  Cassie and Diana laughed.

  Jemma nodded, “Take the rest of the day off if you want, but you need to keep your phone on if you leave the base. I imagine we all need to shop for food, too.”

  I nodded, no more free mess-hall, although there were places on base to eat, I was sure. I also needed to pick up new transportation.

  I got lucky, picked up a nineteen seventy Corvette Stingray LT-1 for a steal. Mostly because it didn’t run, and it was a broken-down piece of shit rusting in some old guy’s yard. But… it had all original parts. It was a pain, keeping magic a secret sometimes, I’d gotten spoiled the last six weeks working with people in the know. Regardless, I got the thing towed to the base, and when no one was looking I suddenly had a mint condition fully restored LT-1.

  Sometimes I really loved my magic.

  By the time I got it insured and registered, and picked up some groceries from the commissary, it was getting late. Hell, I didn’t really want to cook, and it was our first night back near a city of any size in six weeks. I did a quick web search with my magic and then called Diana.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s late notice, but I don’t suppose you want to grab dinner in the city? I’m thinking steak, it’s a nice place according to reviews.”

  I grinned at the startled silence.

  She replied, “Sure, give me twenty minutes.”

  “Alright, I’ll pick you up.”

  Which was easy enough, her being two doors down and all.

  She snorted, “See you then.”

  I took a five-minute shower, shaved, and threw on a pair of dark gray dockers, a dark blue collared shirt, and shoes. I looked in the mirror to double check my appearance, and that’s when I realized I still had a smile on my face, and I was excited about tonight. Not because we were in civilization either, I had a raven-haired and green-eyed face on my mind.

  Damn it.

  Whatever, she was just a good friend, something not all that common in my life, or that’s what I told myself. Sure, I had plenty of buddies from college, but no real close friends. I suspected that was more about me having to hide my magic and who I was from human friends more than anything else. I’d never been close to other mages I’d known either, because until I ran into alien tech my power was cool in a geeky kind of way, but kind of crap in comparison.

  That explained my growing attachment to Diana to my satisfaction, but there was a nagging doubt that I was just trying to baffle myself with bullshit as I headed toward the door.

  I knocked on hers when I got there. The apartments had external doors like a motel.

  “Just a minute!” I barely heard, and I turned around.

  It was a nice place, with mountains in the distance, and a lot of green. I took a deep breath to relax, and then turned around as I heard the door open, and my breath caught.

  The geek was dead. No lab coat, which I swear she’d never taken off before in my presence, and her midnight black hair was down and flowed to the bottom of her shoulder blades like liquid shiny silk. Not a pen in sight, not on the cute and tight red dress she had on that showed off her lithe and toned athletic figure, or the black shoes with three-inch heels. Also, no glasses, con
tacts? The hot librarian had left, there was just… hot. She was absolutely enthralling, beautiful and sexy, and she had a shy smile on her face.

  I was so screwed, because despite the stunning new look, it was the least impressive thing about her. I reminded myself it was a bad idea to try to date the head the scientist of a secret alien technology project run by scary government people.

  She smirked, which shook me out of my shock.

  “You look great, ready?”

  She nodded, “Thanks,” and pulled the door shut as she stepped out.

  As we walked toward the car she asked, “Is that a 1970 LT-1?”

  Holy hell, she was perfect.

  “Yes, it is.”

  She was twenty-nine, and the smartest person I’d ever met, there was no way it could work. Yeah, I wasn’t buying that either. Had this snuck up on us both, or was it just me?

  I also wondered if it was a date, since it didn’t feel at all like our usually casual dinners in the mess hall. That was answered when I found myself opening her door, and when she gave me a shy excited smile as she slipped into the passenger seat, while her green eyes sparkled. Of course, that excitement could’ve been about the car, I frowned at that thought.

  I took a deep breath, again, as I rounded the car and got in.

  The car purred as I started it up, and I pulled out and onto the street, while she fiddled with the radio.

  She said, “You need satellite radio in here, this thing is ancient. Love the rest though.”

  I smirked, and then pulsed my magic.

  She gasped, as the radio kind of melted, and then reformed into a satellite radio. Sure, I’d had to cheat a bit, I didn’t have the right parts, but a couple of the nanites made up the lack of more modern electronics.

  She laughed, “Better,” and she went back to fiddling until she found a country station.

  Country music? Bleh.

  Honesty, it was kind of a relief, I’d thought the woman was perfect, but clearly, she wasn’t.

  We had a good time that night, steaks, good food, and she was either completely artless or the best player I’d ever met, but I was betting on that first one. Both of us avoided talking about work, and we went through the sometimes awkward but exciting dance of a first date.

  I hadn’t been really sure it was a date, at least not until I paid for the meal and she didn’t object or try to pay half. It was an exciting thing, navigating the landmines so to speak, and she was a special woman.

  It was also somewhat of a shock that I’d changed in the last six weeks of being stuck in an installation, it was the first time I’d been on a date with a beautiful woman, where scoring hadn’t been the point. Shallow perhaps, but a lot of guys were in college, I guess I was growing up. That said, it was certainly on my mind as a secondary goal, she was stunning.

  Enough about that, except to say I hoped it wasn’t our last date too, as I gave her a goodnight kiss at the door.

  Chapter Seven

  “Can I talk to you a minute, Cass?”

  It was the next morning, and I was back at the secure building we had across from the large hangars, coffee in hand. There wasn’t much for me to do at that point, it’d be another five days before the next twenty-five ships were done, and I needed to assemble the reactors.

  Cassie studied me a moment, then nodded and walked off.

  I followed her to a conference room, and she shut the door behind me.

  Cassie asked, “What’s up?”

  I’d been giving it a lot of thought since yesterday, except perhaps during my date with Diana.

  “I understand operational security, but can you tell me if the general and president wants to be exposed. The general said yesterday it was just a matter of time, before that happened, and I’ve been considering that ever since.”

  Cassie tilted her head, “Why?”

  I frowned, “There’s also the aliens. Consider this, the cigar shape is used for wormhole transitions, the thinner a ship the less energy it takes to open one up of sufficient size.”

  Cassie nodded, and made a go on gesture.

  “Okay, the point is the alien scouts were designed to scout other systems. I don’t know if that’s even our plan, or even on our radar yet. Has it occurred to anyone making the decisions, that the current shape isn’t necessary except for wormholes? Not only that, but the only system on the ship that requires more than fifty percent power to run is the wormhole drive.”

  She tilted her head.

  I shrugged, “The craft can look like anything, or even be smaller, like a jet or small cargo plane. I could reconfigure it to look like an aircraft, with wings, for the purpose of exploring our own solar system and operating in atmosphere. In short, people that saw it would assume it’s just a next generation fighter, with space capabilities, without knowing the technical specs behind its operation, anyway. More than that, the alien scout out there might believe it’s our tech, instead of just a copy of theirs. Reverse engineered from theirs, but ours, you know?

  “Say, a third of the size of what it is now, in the shape of a jet of some kind, and with a half-sized nuclear reactor. That would generate enough energy for all the systems, and although it’d only be able to build two copies at once, it could do so at a third of the time, so six a week, or thirty-six a week for six of them. You get the point. The weapons and shields would be just as powerful as the larger version, the only limiter would be that they’d be solar system craft only, unless you want to build a carrier.”

  She asked, “A carrier?”

  I shrugged, “Sure, a big cigar ship with landing bays? Or just leave them here for Earth defense, and just use scout sized craft whenever or even if it’s decided to explore other solar systems. Just… giving options.”

  She asked, “Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”

  I snorted defensively, “I sort of did, buried in minutiae. The capability is buried in the spec sheets, no doubt missed on the political side of things and the people making the decisions. How can I anticipate a need if I’m kept in the dark as to intentions? It wasn’t until we moved onto Peterson yesterday, which was a surprise, that I even considered the idea. I’d have mentioned it, if I was in the loop, and could’ve anticipated the need. Even now I’m guessing, for all I know the president wants it leaked for political reasons, and in that case this whole conversation is a waste of time.”

  She smirked, “Good point, but don’t push it.”

  I nodded, “I totally get operational security, and I’m not criticizing that need, I happen to agree with it. Just saying, you can’t have that and expect to fully utilize my expertise and magic. Things fall through the cracks when you compartmentalize, limiting the end result to only one person’s vision.”

  She sighed, “Show me?”

  “Sure,” I grinned.

  She giggled, “Let’s go.”

  I ignored the giggle and bright smile, and I was pretty much immune to her angelic appearance at that point. It was her… management style.

  We left the conference room, then the building, and headed for the hangar.

  It looked much like any other aircraft hangar. Metal walls, doors, and roof, smooth concrete floor. The only major difference was the fifty alien ships in the vast space. I picked one on the end with plenty of room left, and we went inside of it and back toward the engineering space.

  “This might take a few minutes.”

  The ship was off, so I powered the nanites in the wall to pull out the spare reactor, then used my magic to tear it apart and rebuild it into two reactors of half the size. I did the same with reactor in engineering, so a reactor and a spare became four new reactors. I plugged one of the smaller ones into the ship, and I powered it up.

  That took a good twenty minutes, and I felt a bit drained, but the reprogramming part would be almost effortless. It was something that would’ve taken me hours though, as I experimented to get it right, if I hadn’t been experimenting with the nanites and disparate systems for the la
st six weeks when it came to my armored suit, which I still hoped to never have to use.

  Still, it was comforting to know I had it.

  “We should get off for this part.”

  She nodded, and we left the ship.

  I implemented the program, and the ship flowed and changed, it did look a lot like liquid metal, but I knew it wasn’t. It was just trillions of nanites flowing, so small the naked eye couldn’t detect the disparate pieces.

  Three sleek planes took shape that looked like jets, they were reminiscent shape wise of a stealth bomber, but about twice as large and made of shiny light gray metal. Kind of in between a bomber and cargo plane, but it looked deadly. The cockpit had enough room for two seats, and to stand, and there was standing room in the back-cargo space. For a moment, they were all joined together with tethering conduits, to maintain power to all the nanites, until the two separated ships powered on their reactors, then the tether was sucked back into the hulls.

  I said, “Only one has a spare reactor, the other two will take about ten hours to build up the raw materials for theirs, and I’ll assemble them tomorrow morning.”

  Cassie smiled, and it was one of the rare times it actually lit up her hazel eyes.

  “That’s fantastic. I’ll go brief the general, see what he wants to do.”

  I returned to the building. I wondered a lot of things. What the plan would be with the aliens, what they planned to do with the technology that put America on top, what the aliens would do when they finally made a decision and did something, or maybe they’d just continue watching? I also knew I’d be the last one to find out. I wanted to be involved, but I was just the tech guy.

  I also thought about dancing green eyes that I couldn’t get out of my head, and I wondered if I was nuts. I’d never looked for anything but a little fun in my college years, after a serious breakup in high school. Well, not until then, that is.

  Diana gave me a blushing smile as we sat down for lunch, we were eating on base. There was an odd mix of awkwardness after last night, along with a surprising level of comfort. She was back to hot geek, with her lab coat and boring earth toned clothes. I wondered if she did it on purpose, so people took her more seriously and didn’t focus on her looks. After seeing her dressed to the nines, and sexy beyond belief, I’d have to say she did.