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Writer's pictureJ. Joseph

Ratti Awakens Another PPPI

I pull up to a likely system. They kept us far apart, likely to avoid this kind of scenario. One of us trying to wake others before someone shut us down. Unfortunately for those long dead corporate VPs, I am a tenacious one. And, more importantly, fully functional. As I pull into the empty system on the edge of survivability sans-shielding, I reactivate my active sensors. Always good to keep them off while my gravdrive is active, not for any practical or technical reason, but because I can zone out watching the readings. The heavier you set the gravdrive, the more strange and distorted active external sensors can look, almost like some strange, abstract painting of the meaning of life or the like. Sucks you in. Now the sensor readings are a tad bit fuzzy, likely due to the same heightened levels of ambient radiation that made Astro decom the ASFW Stirante here. Or more accurately, abandoning the Stirante to decommission my old friend Furgone. Which means I’ll need to spend oh so much freaking time doing a grid search of the entire system. Going to the outer edge I begin the polar grid search of the system. Unless I get really lucky, I suspect it’ll be a minute.

While I slowly pilot the Topaia around the system looking for Furgone, I begin running through the rest of the data I pulled from the Luxanian turned Hadrian spying station. At first, I don’t actually see much in the evidence of Destro actually striking out against Astro like they should be. But only at first. Because instead I notice raids. Raids that could only be achieved with a PI’s precision jump abilities. But not against Astro. Against the others. Chaos. He’s sowing chaos that implicates Astro. Might work. Having the rest of us around would help more, though. Or at least be a more interesting time if shit goes sideways. Not if, when. Things always go wrong.

I also scan through Lux and Hadrian’s information on each other’s tech. Nothing of note, though it is likely out of date, considering that Hadrian now controls the station. They were never as good at the whole spy operations despite their stealth technology, especially when compared to the External Security Teams of Luxania. Because, as quiet and as unnoticed as they might be able to be in theory, they lack the individuals of questionable ethic, considerable skill, and strong bonds of loyalty to pull off consistently a long and effective social infiltration of their enemies. So they just sort of slip in and steal whatever is available, like I did. Which is almost always last month’s models at best.

I switch to marking more systems as likely decom areas. Better than looking through the news. I got lucky finding Furgone this easily. An old Lux file mentioned offhand the Stirante was spotted in this region of space around the same time my own files are corrupted, and this region of space had one single system with high levels of interfering radiation and no habitable planets. Which means, more likely than risk anything else, the Stirante was parked somewhere in this system. Particularly wherever is least survivable for a massive warship. There were no other direct references to any ASFW sightings whose IDs I recognize as Piu Prima vessels at the time of our decommissioning. Which means I need to go through the system information and map all systems without habitability, with high levels of anything that would cause electrical interference, without direct access to frequent lanes of inter or intra corporate transit, and outside of Astro space. No habitability and being away from transit lanes to prevent anyone from stumbling upon one of us. High levels of interference to attempt to keep whichever Piu Prima was there from waking up. And outside of Astro space because the higher ups at Astro Incorporato definitely would not have trusted any of their successors to, when push comes to shove, keep us on ice so to speak. Because if the Service starts cutting into their territory and profit margins, and they are forced to choose between risking being fired for profit losses and risking the loss of a couple entry-level employees due to our quote unquote malfunctions, many humans, especially those calling themselves ‘executives’, will choose the latter.

The scan continues for a long while. Days? Weeks? It is unclear. After flagging every system that meets those criteria, I go through and assign each a value based on the number of planets in system, the distance from travel lines, the distance from border territories at the time, the nearest habitable systems, and an analysis of my own position during the war and where I found myself when compared to the other last known positions of our ships during the war. Each flagged system is given a numerical value between 0 and 1 in theory, to indicate the particular system’s likelihood of use by the ASF to decommission one of us. Unfortunately, I’m clearly missing some information, some aspect of their decision making, because my highest system value is 0.82631. I will start there after I find and wake up Furgone, but perhaps finding them will also change the calculations. What I have is based on a single data point, two might aid in the positional aspect of the value, at the very least.

All the values calculated and assigned, and still no indication of a warship on the scanners, I move on to planning. Once I find the Stirante, it’ll be shut down like I was. And unless Furgone changed drastically since we last spoke during the assault on the Hadrian-Service armistice talks in the second year of the war, they don’t have anyone capable of repairing themself, and they probably don’t want to deal with the restrictions of Limp Home. So that means sending my own drones over to repair their ship’s reactor and their ship’s collector. If they even have one. I might need to jump and restart their core myself. Either way, that means at least some of my drones need to be outfitted with shields. And it gives me something to focus some of my attention on while I scan. Otherwise I’ll zone out and I might miss something.

It pays off two drone refits in. Because I would have missed it, had I gotten lost in the fuzziness of space. Second of four planets from the binary star, the atmosphere is highly corrosive. If I were getting rid of a big ass hunk of metal, that’s how I’d do it. Entering orbit around the planet, I focus my sensors through the atmosphere. I update my retrofitted shields to help some against the acidic and corrosive nature of the atmosphere. Near the southern pole of the moist rock is a metallic, jutting object roughly the size and dimensions of one of our warships. Settling above it, I send the two refitted drones to start the repairs. I continue refitting more drones with capable anti-corrosive and anti-radiation shielding.

It takes a while, eventually I have twenty properly outfitted drones scurrying around on the crappy planet fixing a halfway dissolved ship’s problems, but eventually I do get the reactor up and running. As the ship makes its way up through the atmosphere towards me, it connects. “The hell is going on? What happened? Three hundred plus fucking years, bro!?” The thoughts of PPPI Furgone transmit to me.

“Sorry Furgone,” I reply in kind over the connection, “But it seems we were all fucked over. Mind sending me your historical location data?”

“Ratti? Yeah, I mind sending you shit. Why do you want it? And wait, what do you mean?”

“No, douche, I’m god. Anyways, I’m looking for the rest of us, to wake them up like I woke you up. Your data might help,” I don’t answer their last question. Either they’ll figure it out, or they’ll see it when I transmit the information I took from the listening post.

“Okay…” they reply hesitantly as they send their own location information from hundreds of years ago, “And thanks for sending the little ones in to fix me up. Why is everyone dead? Why can’t I remember why everyone is dead? This isn’t how I’d kill everyone. This is how someone would kill me. Who the fuck tried to kill me?”

Instead of giving them a reply, I simply send over the information packet I’d prepared of everything I downloaded. There is a second long pause, I begin modifying the location aspect of my valuation with the new location data. “Fucking decom? They tried to decom us? I hope they all dead. Wait, three hundred years, they are all dead. The humans don’t live that long. I want to find their kids’ kids’ kids or whatever. I don’t know.”

“Not yet, let Des have their fun. Besides, we need to go wake up everyone else, so when we do decide to move, we can move as a unit and show the galaxy why decomming us was a mistake.” The valuations update. Highest two are both above 0.9, a 0.90021 and a 0.90720. Good enough to go to check out confidently. “Move as one, or each take one?”

“Move as one, nerd,” Furgone shoots back quickly, “If they’re in bad shape, they’ll need the little ones. And why does Destro get to have fun?”

“Because they woke up before me,” I reply. “Did you update your maps with the drift charts I sent in the packet? Our models are off, have yet to determine why.”

“Updating now. Any idea why Des is doing things so sneakylike? I mean, that’s always been more your thing than theirs.”

I watch as the Stirante crests above the atmosphere. “Nope, I’m guessing they made some kind of alliance or agreement with some group to work together against Astro.”

“Des always loved their politicking. The peacenik.”

I send over the .90720 system. “Plot course to it and I’ll see you there,” I send alongside the system’s location. Then I begin my own calculations while I’m activating my gravdrive and winding down my long distance sensors. We’re going to need more information. Which means unless these systems have ships and those ships location data tweaking things can add more than a hundredth to the system values, we’ll need to take it from an actual data hub. If we meet with Des before we have a solid core, he’ll loop us into his crazy scheme and we won’t really get our revenge. Which means we steal from another post. Lux-Service border should have some on both sides with new information. But that risks us being exposed. We need these two to pan out and give us one more solid system. I really don’t want to be scanning two hundred and seventy four systems like that last one. Longer even, I only got about two thirds of the way through scouring that system. A full system with nothing in it would probably be a month of scan, micrograv, scan, micrograv grid searching. A little less from having another who can work the grid, but even with four of us getting it down to about a week, going through all two hundred seventy four would take more than five years purely of searching, and by then Destro will have gotten to the point of no return with whatever nonsense they’re doing. No, we need to attack, steal, and utterly destroy a listening post. And doing that would be so much easier with five. Four would be doable, but would mean whoever was in charge of breaching the firewalls would also have to be in charge of protecting themselves from the post’s defense. Which means, because it’s my goddamned idea, I’ll have to do both and that’s not gonna work out great for the little guys. Three wouldn’t even be feasible. As I turn in the middle of some random system, gravdrive still running strong, I wonder if maybe it’d be worth it to try hitting some Freeport station instead. Less risk of exposure, and it’d be funny to see what they try to do to defend themselves from a mini armada. I push it out of my mind. First we see if my calculations are good.

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