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He touched down on an automated landing platform and locked the controls down. A moment later theshuttle descended belowdecks and was cycled through the airlock. Captain Keyes gathered his duffelbag and stepped onto the flight deck.
Lieutenant Hikowa was there to meet him. She saluted. “Welcome aboard, Captain Keyes.”
He saluted. “What do you think of her, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Hikowa’s dark eyes widened. “You’re not going to believe this ship, sir.” Her normallyserious face broke with a smile. “They’ve turned it into something . . . special.”
“I saw what they did to my starboard shuttle bay,” Captain Keyes remarked sourly.
“That’s just the start,” she said. “I can give you a full tour.”
“Please,” Captain Keyes said. He paused at an intercom. “Just one thing first, Lieutenant.” He keyed theintercom. “Ensign Lovell, plot a course to the system’s edge and move thePillar of Autumn on anaccelerating vector. We will jump to Slipstream space as soon as we get there.”
“Sir,” Lovell replied. “Our engines are still in shakedown mode.”
“Cortana?” Captain Keyes asked. “Can we have power to move the ship? I’d like to get under way.”
“The engines’ final shakedown is in theta cycle,” Cortana replied. “Operating well within normalparameters. Diverting thirty percent power to engines; aye, sir.”
“And the other systems’ status?” Captain Keyes asked.
“Weapons-system check initiated. Navigational nodes functioning. Continuing systemwide shakedownand triple checks, Captain.”
“Very good,” he said. “Apprise me if there are any anomalies.”
“Aye, Captain,” she replied.
“We finally have an AI,” he remarked to Hikowa.
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“We’ve got more than that, sir,” Hikowa replied. “Cortana is running the shakedown and supervising Dr.Halsey’s modifications to the ship. We have a backup AI to handle point defense.”
“Really?” Keyes was surprised; getting a single AI was tough enough these days. Getting two wasunprecedented.
“Yes, sir. I’ll see to the initialization of our AI as soon as Cortana is through running her diagnostics.”
Captain Keyes had meet Cortana briefly in Dr. Halsey’s office. Although every AI he had met wasbrilliant, Cortana seemed exceptionally qualified. Captain Keyes had posed several navigation problemsand she had figured out all the solutions . . . and had come up with a few options he had not considered.She was somewhat high-spirited, but that was not necessarily a bad thing.
Lieutenant Hikowa led him into the elevator and punched the button for D deck.
“At first,” Hikowa said, “I was concerned with all the ordnance on board. One penetrating shot and wecould explode like a string of firecrackers. But this ship doesn’t have much empty space—it’s full ofbraces, honeycombed titanium-A, and hydraulic reinforcements that can be activated in an emergency.She can take a tremendous beating, sir.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to test that,” Captain Keyes said. He checked that this pipe was in his pocket.