Maggie.
Anthony had to lean back in the chair while closing his eyes, controlling his breathing so as to keep his calm and keep his mind on the situation at hand. He had worked so hard for this moment, and finally, finally he had achieved a major step forward.
“ MAGI System inoperable, Can not connect to Vita system, conclusion. Ship Systems offline or compromised, awaiting Instructions. “ Maggie interjected only after Anthony had not spoken up for a few minutes.
“ One moment Maggie, I am sorry, I have been under a lot of pressure lately. “ Anthony responded, just to hear another voice, it felt so good to him. Maggie would be able to hold a conversation with him to some degree, and more importantly, she could help him get the INC Hope back into working order. And even if that failed, the NH 03 itself could become his new home.
Maggie did not respond to his explanation, but the extended silence she was giving denoted her ability to understand what he needed. Remaining silent until Anthony could recover a sense of normalcy again.
“ Ok. Maggie. “ Anthony as he stretched his neck, finally returning to a proper sense of calm.
“ Try to connect to the systems of the INC Hope, search for and eliminate any malicious code. Once this is done, scan and repair the Vita system code. Any new code may be eliminated, only in the event that Vita’s control can be fully recovered. “ Anthony explained, giving Maggie her first directive.
“ Acknowledged, starting system-wide scan. Estimated time, four hours. Warning, detecting various hardware failures. Assumption, components removed or damaged. Recommended, system repair or bypass. “ Her feminine voice reported.
“ Software integrity first. “ Anthony insisted, opening his eyes while casting another deep breath. “ Can you determine the current time Maggie ? “
“ Acknowledged. “ Maggie reported, but then stopped instead of giving him the desired response.
“ Maggie ? “ Anthony, leaning forward as the AI failed to answer him.
“ Running System diagnostic, discrepancy in data detected. Last recorded time, 02-35-2445, conclusion, power supply interruption of internal clock. Current time marked as incorrect at 00-00-0000 at 00.10.45 o clock. “ The AI reported, crushing his hope to find out how long he was asleep, or when he was in general.
“ Power interruption ? “ Anthony asked, confused as the internal clock would be fed by a smaller battery pack, it did nothing but to supply the internal time measuring going, and that should have lasted for over 70 years, enough for the crew to change it out during the first planned waking cycle which was set occur every 50 years.
“ Affirmative, assumption, power-supply faulty or damaged through external influence. “ The AI explained, leaving her creator to simply shake his head. Anthony wasn’t even surprised anymore, but as long as her remaining systems where working as intended, he would finally have the means to make real progress now.
“ OK, Re-prioritize self maintenance. Assure your own system’s safety, then use the Androids to perform maintenance on your systems. Any system critical to your uninterrupted performance is to be postponed. If there is a critical system repair needed, inform me first. I will be taking one of the communication units. Please confirm. “ Ordering the AI only to wait for the requested confirmation.
“ Acknowledged, Priority order, System diagnostics, Maintenance of non essential systems and report on maintenance requirements of mission critical components. Integrity scan of systems on the INC Hope, Recovery of the Vita System network. “ Confirming his order, to which he actually leaned back, to consider his next move.
And Anthony did feel a sudden wave of exhaustion, unsure if it was the relieve that he would finally have the help he needed now, or if there was some deeper, mental reason. But for once, just giving in and resting for a while, with no pressure forcing him to consider more important tasks, it did not feel so bad.
“ Ah, one more thing, reactivate the haunt units, explore the INC Hope for any exterior damage. Do report any significant damage and hull-breaches the moment you find them. “ He added as he recalled its significance, taking care of any integrity failures would probably have to take precedence.
“ Acknowledged. “ Maggie confirmed, and then watched in silence as Anthony got up and leave the NH 03 again soon as he had one of her communicator devices in hand.
Following her orders, Maggie would perform a check on her own systems for possible flaws, and scanning her own, and the Hope’s systems for anything harmful to her systems. With part of her processing power being directed to the reactivation of her two Haunt MK I units. Adjusting their equipment with the stored material, so that they could launch from her small drone hangar and perform their surveillance task on the Hope.
She would control one of these herself, while directing the VI aboard the other Haunt to perform its inspection autonomously. Granting her the ability to steer the personally controlled unit further away from the ship to take in a view of the Hope from a distance so she can get a baseline comparison of her data and the actual ship.
The INC Hope was vaguely arrowhead shaped, with a flat tip, and two oval protrusions that extended above and below the ships stern of the arrowhead shape. The Photon emitter-ring was attached to the rear of the ship, attached to a series of connection beams around the rear. It was a strange design approach to the AI, a deviation from the common approach that reminded more of a four edged throwing knife.
The largest Human vessel aside from The INC Hope that Maggie had recorded, was the Salvador Class Military vessel, classified as a destroyer, which was about 650 meters long, had a crew composition of about 2000 able crew, with a rotation of 150 active crew and various other jobs. The INC Hope was far larger, with less crew required to run her thanks to the level of automation.
Internally doing a side by side comparison of both ships, the INC Hope overshadowed the Salvador class with its 1,9 kilometers in length, 800 meters wide at the rear, and about 350 meters high at the highest point.
By military standard, the Hope would probably be classified as a battle-cruiser had it been armed appropriately, though the hope had essentially no armament. It was more of a flying station, tooled to take colonists to their new home, where it would be converted into a fixed structure above the planet. An industrial platform to get the first colonies going, and even supply the first ship building attempts in space.
It’s hull was a cobweb structure of an aluminum composite, attached onto a titanium shell that framed the hope. Effective in damage mitigation with the ability to easily exchange damaged parts as long as the titanium shell was left unharmed.
Well, effective as long as the impacting object was no larger then a human fist, but thats what the magnetic shielding was meant for, which currently was turned off. And Maggie could spot a multitude of impacts that broke up within the outer armor, before touching the titanium. The rear section in particular was showing a long scar on the upper starboard side, reaching deep into the near meter thick aluminum composite material. And closing in on the affected section, Maggie did measure that the scar reached down into the Titanium shell, but did not completely penetrate it.
“ Assumption, Vita Network detected impact, sealed affected bulkheads within ship to secure ship integrity. “ Maggie noted down for a later report to Anthony, and she would have to denote that there must have been a system error, perhaps a sensor malfunction. Vita had sealed the entire last third of the ship, but no damage, neither upper nor lower hull structure would show damage that would justify closing off such a large areal.
The hull inspection was going well as Maggie surmised it as an easy fix, as long as the required resources where available. The Titanium shell was more of a problem, but still manageable. The software side of her tasks developed into more of a problem however.
At the same time she came to understand why Anthony mentioned newly added code, and she could easily distinguish between code that was made for system controls, and code that was only posing as such. But the latter was not present, just a lot of garbled code, directives that lead into nonfunctional hardware, in part causing diagnostic attempts that halted most of the other functions due to the system trying to determine the failures causes.
“ Assumption, multiple hardware failures detected, code erasure or corruption in affected area’s indicate the possibility of an electromagnetic event as shielding in those area’s appear to be lower then within unaffected area’s. Calculating magnitude of such an event needed to affect afflicted systems. “ Maggie noted down, beginning to run simulations to find a matching event.
It would take her about an hour, during which she had send a silent notification to Anthony’s communicator, ignoring his order to inform him immediately when heavy damage to the hull was found by abusing a slight technicality. Informing him, but allowing him to sleep, which he did within the cage he held a small animal in.
She found him resting there after she managed to connect to the security system, and for a moment had watched him place some food down for the animal, casually to eat his own meal while watching the Vulpine. During the course of that action he did fall asleep, and now the animal was pacing nervously back and forth, trying to get at the bowl in his lap, but daring not to approach.
It eventually managed to sneak in close enough to steal away with a slice of pepper that she greedily devoured. Just to eye the bowl again, repeating the process during which she managed to get so close that she had to support herself against his leg to get to his food.
Maggie tried to evaluate this act, holding no information about the creature so that she could not classify type of behavior patterns, it did provide her with an initial observation of human interaction, something she evaluated for possible future use for herself. Though, she did denote for that using an animal / human interaction as example would yield only limited material for her own use, but provide material to further interpret the actions of these two.
Gaining access over more and more of the ships security systems, Maggie found that Anthony and the animal would remain the only useful material in that regard as the remaining ship was empty, though she did find traces of a grand struggle in the rear of the ship, the port side wing area where the research lab was located. An area she would suggest to keep sealed off for now once she would go through the subject with Anthony.
“ Simulation results. Two likely scenarios. Electromagnetic event, scenario one. The INC Hope passed a stellar object with high intensity Electromagnetic radiation. Example, active black hole, Pulsar, White dwarf of growing Instability due to massive mass influx. Resulting influence disrupts function of hardware with insufficient shielding.
Scenario Two. Simultaneous failure of shielding system on both Fusion cores. “ Maggie concluded for herself, and suspecting a discrepancy in the simulation result, she run another scan on the energy supply system of the INC Hope, she could not yet access the fusion core systems, but she could measure the energy output given to the ship, and her scans result led her to the conclusion that the second simulation could not apply, given that the cores supplied power. Further, simulating such a catastrophic failure, the INC Hope would have been left in pieces.
“ Corrective Assessment. Likely cause, Scenario one. Recommendation, replacement of affected hardware. Resource acquisition may be necessary. New Secondary Priority, taking inventory of available material in Storage. “ Maggie decided, and returned to the orders that had been given to her until she could report her findings to Anthony.