LIGHTNOVELONLINE 14. Outfitted
Once we were en route to our next destination, both Sarah and I had a chance to open the packages our captain had given us. I was surprised and grateful to see Piper had picked us both up some real clothes.
She'd guessed the sizes and it was all basic utility-wear, but I now had three pairs of low-cut white panties, three plain stretchy white bras, two pairs of low-cut dark grey leggings, and three light-grey t-shirts. Sarah's package contained a similar assortment, but she received actual pants rather than leggings and her t-shirts were white.
The engineer and I both stepped into our cabin to get changed, but to give each other some privacy we faced in opposite directions. It was a routine thing and I was used to having roommates, very few people in the Navy got their own private quarters.
Getting into a bra and panties triggered another huge bout of euphoria for me. Putting on those distinctly feminine garments and seeing how they looked on my new body was like another dream come true. They weren't even anything fancy, literally just generic stretchy white fabric, but it still filled my heart with joy to wear them.
The happy feelings started my tail flapping back and forth, which I knew would probably attract some comments from Sarah. I really didn't mind that though, it was actually kind of fun. Maybe I just liked the attention, after spending most of my life trying to avoid being noticed.
Sure enough I felt her hands grab my tail a few seconds later as she teased, "If you get this happy about plain white undies, I can't wait to see how much this thing wags when you get your paws on something sexy."
I let out a little squeak and tried to pull my tail free. I managed to get it out of her hands by twisting around, and the two of us wound up facing each other. I was still grinning and my cheeks were red from my reaction to her hands on my tail, while Sarah just had a small smirk on her face.
Like me, she was currently dressed in nothing but plain white panties and a stretchy white bra. And it suddenly hit me, that while the simple undergarments were an affirming, euphoric experience for me they might be something entirely different for the engineer.
My expression quickly sobered as I asked, "Are you handling this ok? You're right it's a happy moment for me, but I know this wasn't your choice."
"I'm ok Amanda," she stated. "Honestly, you don't have to worry about me all right? I'm fine, I'm managing, and it'll take a lot more than some girly undies to upset me."
I watched her for a few more moments, then finally nodded "Ok Sarah. I'll try and keep that in mind. Sooner or later it'll sink in and I'll stop worrying so much about you."
She grinned, "You can keep on fussing over me if it makes you feel better? I don't mind, I just don't want you to be stressed out on my account."
That left me feeling awkward and I had no idea how to respond, so I eventually turned my attention back on my new clothes. I pulled on a pair of the leggings then one of the shirts, and finally I slipped my shoes back on. At the same time Sarah got into her new pants and a shirt.
Once I was fully dressed the reasoning behind the leggings made sense. The low cut panties and leggings left room for my tail, where pants with a proper waistband wouldn't have worked. The leggings had the added bonus of showing off the contours of my legs, which left me smiling again.
Sarah and I both stowed the rest of our clothes, then we left our cabin in time to see Piper emerging from hers.
While we were both getting changed into our new outfits our captain took the opportunity to put on something more comfortable. She was in a loose yellow t-shirt and a pair of bright green shorts, and had slip-on shoes on her feet. It was almost a shocking change, after a few days of seeing her in the baggy grey coveralls then her 'business outfit' today.
Piper blushed slightly as me and Sarah stared. Then she reminded us, "This ship's been my home for a long time, and I normally don't have anyone else on board. I'm used to being a lot more casual on days-long flights, ok?"
"Of course boss," Sarah nodded. With a wry smile she nodded at the redhead's current outfit and asked, "Even more casual than that?"
Her cheeks got a little brighter but the captain shrugged and responded, "You ever have a place to yourself for a few quiet days? I'm sure you didn't spent a lot of that time in your dress uniform."
Sarah suppressed a giggle and teased, "Well I hope you're not over-dressed on our account. I'm sure both Amanda and I can handle it if you feel the need to get even more ah, casual."
Meanwhile I busied myself by getting a glass of water, as I tried not to think too much about our captain lounging around the ship in nothing but her underwear. Or perhaps not even that.
Piper didn't seem bothered by the engineer's taunts, and the two of them got some drinks as well.
"So how's your project coming?" our captain asked as the three of us sat around the table.
Sarah had a sip of her drink then responded, "I've finished patching a standard interface cable into her very-not-standard I/O array. I'm ninety-nine percent sure I've got it figured out, so it should work just fine. Next step is to test that, by plugging it into a terminal and see if we can talk to her."
After a pause she added, "If that goes well, and if you say it's ok, then it's just a matter of plugging that cable into the ship's data bus."
I stayed quiet for now, this stuff was both out of my league and above my pay grade. And I still had some misgivings about AI in general, though I was starting to come around. Especially after a few long conversations with Sarah.
Piper looked thoughtful as she sipped her drink, then after a minute or so she nodded "Ok. Inventory's going to take us a day or two at least, so we'll leave that and start it tomorrow. We'll try this test of yours with what's left of today. I take it if this works, we'll be able to talk with the AI?"
"That's right," Sarah nodded. "If it works we'll be able to speak with her. We can tell her about my idea of patching her into the rest of the ship, see if she's interested."
Ten minutes later the three of us were down in the secondary hold. Me and Piper were standing back a few paces, the captain was leaning against the Hammersmith's computer core as she watched. Sarah had a rugged Navy-issue portable terminal balanced on top of the large black cylinder, and she was holding the end of the cable she'd spent several hours patching into the back of the pod earlier today.
The cable terminated with a sturdy oval-shaped connector. Inside were the polished ends of several dozen fibre-optic cable threads. Many of them flickered and pulsed with multi-coloured light.
Sarah connected the cable to a port on the side of the terminal, and the screen immediately flickered to life.
At first the screen almost seemed to glitch. Random characters and what looked like computer code appeared then vanished, followed by what looked like a rapidly-scrolling dump of data.
Piper and I remained silent while Sarah watched the screen. After a minute or so she started reaching for the keyboard, when the screen blanked out for a moment. Then it flickered to life once more, but this time it was an image of a person. The head and shoulders view was immediately recognizable as the blonde woman I met when I was inside the healing pod.
Sarah smiled and asked, "Jenny? Can you hear me?"
"Yes Lieutenant Holloway," the AI responded. "This is an unexpected surprise. Though it's rather limited, compared to how I am accustomed to interfacing with people."
Our engineer grimaced, "Sorry about that. The neural interface is an absolute marvel, but this was the best I could do without getting back inside there with you. And please, call me Sarah."
The AI smiled, "Very well Sarah. That's a nice name. I trust you're managing your new situation all right?"
"I'm ok," the cute blonde replied. "Amanda's been paying close attention to me, I'm sure I'll be fine with her watching over me."
That made me blush again, not just what Sarah said but her tone as well. Like she somehow managed to make it sound like I was interested in a lot more than just her health and well-being.
The image on the screen made a show of looking around, not that she needed to. There was a small camera on the terminal and I assumed it had a wide enough field of view that she already knew me and Piper were there as well.
Sure enough she added, "Hello again Amanda, and hello Captain Piper."
"Hi," I replied awkwardly. It felt weird to me, talking to a program on a computer terminal. Even if she did look and act like a human.
Piper didn't speak yet. She was still leaning against the Hammersmith computer core, she had her arms folded over her chest and a serious look on her face. Her only response was to nodd slightly in the direction of the terminal.
"Ok," Sarah stated. "Rather than waste any more time on pleasantries, let's get to the point..."
She quickly explained her idea to Jenny, and sort of reiterated it for the captain as well. By connecting her to the ship's data bus, the AI would be able to access the Demeter's computer and through that she could access all the ship's functions. We'd be able to communicate and interact with her almost like she was one of the crew, and she'd be able to help by taking over some functions from the ship's computer. She'd be able to handle those functions much faster and more efficiently.
After Sarah finished, both Piper and Jenny looked thoughtful for a few moments. The AI spoke up first.
"I appreciate the offer Sarah. I would enjoy having more freedom and being able to communicate with the crew on a more informal basis, rather than only when you were in need of serious medical care. Having said that, I'm not programmed to operate a ship. Although I'm confident I could learn, probably very quickly. Rather than replacing your computer core it would be safer and easier for me to work with it."
She paused a moment, then suggested "Think of it like having a crew member who was directly interfaced with the computer, rather than replacing the computer. I could monitor sensors, comm frequencies, engine status, et cetera. I could do all of that simultaneously, and alert you if anything came up. Or I could take direct action if necessary, and if authorized by Captain Piper."
Our captain still had that thoughtful look on her face for another minute or so before she finally spoke up.
"Sarah," Piper asked, "I'm not an engineer or a computer technician, so in simple terms what's the tech advantage here? You've said the AI core in that thing is more advanced that the Demeter's computer, can you give me some kind of comparison? How much more advanced is it?"
Our engineer replied, "The Demeter's core is about what you'd expect for a jump-capable ship this size. It's civilian grade hardware. It can run the numbers for up to a level-one jump, it can auto-pilot the ship between worlds on a level-zero jump, and it can monitor the sensors and trigger alerts based on some detection algorithms. If you were trying to plot a level-one jump while the computer was monitoring the sensors, you'd probably notice it slowed down. The jump would take longer to plot while the sensor sweeps would become slower."
She continued, "That block of hardware you're leaning against from the Hammersmith is a couple orders of magnitude more capable than the Demeter's core. It's military hardened and can manage jump plots up to level-two, along with navigation and helm, sensors, track thousands of targets simultaneously, manage multiple defensive and offensive batteries, and everything else a medium-sized warship would need. It also weighs two tonnes. Jenny's core has roughly twice the capacity of the Hammersmith's, but squeezed into about a fortieth of the mass. Like she said, she's not meant to control a ship, but she's more than capable of doing so."
I felt my eyebrows going up as I asked, "How? How could she be so advanced, in such a small size?"
Piper shrugged, "Despite what they teach at Imperium-run schools, Imperium tech isn't the most advanced in the galaxy. I'm sure they have some amazing stuff here and there, but it takes a long time for any revolutionary advances to get adopted and go mainstream."
Sarah agreed, "If you have a Navy with over twenty thousand ships, spread across a few thousand systems, it's going to take a very long time before you're ready to replace your standard widget with a new incompatible widget. Even if the new one's that much better."
"And after you make the decision to upgrade," she added, "It's still going to take several decades for those changes to propagate through the entire fleet."
The captain nodded quietly, then after another minute or so she came to a decision. "Sarah, Amanda, why don't you two head back up to the mess. Amanda, maybe you can get started on dinner. I'd like to have a private conversation with the AI."
