Chapter 76. Another A.I.

The shock of this discovery made Simon rooted in place for over a minute before he remembered that he had to breathe.

There were hundreds of species in this galaxy alone and some of them were humanoids but none of them resembled a human this much.

The only difference was the pointy ears,other than that it was definitely a human avatar.

-Do we know if this avatar represents the inhabitants of this system?

He asked when he remembered how to speak.

-Unfortunately we don't know,the only way to find out would be to activate this shipyard's A.I and ask.

Theresa answered.

-We searched through the database but for some reason the data on the inhabitants of this system was wiped clean.

One of the computer tech's added.

This whole situation was getting more mysterious by the moment.

-Can you activate the A.I? and are you sure that the weapons are offline?

Simon asked.

-The weapons are disabled the same with the shields,we also set charges on the pathways leading to the computer core,just in case.

Reported Peter the ground forces commander.

-Then bring it online,I think it's high time we got some answers.

Hearing his order the technicians and engineers started connecting more power sources to power up the whole command center at once and hoped it would be enough to activate the A.I of this station.

If it turned out to be insufficient then they would go straight to the computer core and connect it to the power source directly.

Half an hour later they were ready to power up all the stations in the command center.

The lead engineer looked at Simon searching for the confirmation and when the admiral nodded he powered the power sources they brought with them and a moment later the whole command center was lit up as one console after another went online.

A few seconds later the alarm went off and they heard a voice through the speakers.

-Shipyard heavily damaged.

93% of the facility is exposed to the vacuum of space.

Initialization of the self repair routine.

Insufficient power.

Enacting self repair:Imposible.

Unauthorized personnel detected onboard.

Self defense routine initialized.

Initialization failed.

Unknown warship detected in the system.

Initializing interception routine.

Initialization failed all weapons offline.

The synthetic voice went through the procedures one at a time for a few minutes while the humans waited for it to finish.

In the meantime they went to all the consoles to see the display of the station status and to their surprise,all the power sources they connected supplied only 0.0002% of the power required to power up the whole thing and with the number of the devices they connected they would be able to power up a frigate.

-This thing is a power hungry monster,we would need the Thanatos reactors to power it up to even 5% of its required power.

Theresa said in shock,when she saw the power readings.

Everyone was shocked at this turn of events.

-Just what did they use to power this thing?

Simon asked no one in particular.

He saw the shipyard's power generators and they were the same size as the ones on the shipwrecks he surveyed for the last couple of days.

That meant that they had an enormous capacity for power production and it also explained the fire power of the ships that once fought here.

-Sir,Some of the power is being rerouted to the section near the computer core.

I can't say for sure what it is but it looks like an emergency power accumulator room.

The technician that was observing the sensors on their power sources.

-Let it be for now,we are trying to power up this place's A.I and I think that it needs more power than Athena to wake up.

Simon said,calming down the technician and the soldiers that were ready to blow the pathways sky high on the slightest sign of trouble.

He went to the energy distribution console and started searching for the back up power display.

It took him a moment but he found it and it displayed the charge status of 0.03%.

-It looks like this will take a while.

Simon said and opened communications with the Thanatos.

-Athena, prepare the big generators for transport.It looks like we'll need them to talk with these facilities A.I without waiting for a week to charge the emergency power batteries.

Also there is a device in my quarters that looks like a backpack.

Send it here as well and you should be able to use it as a relay to join us .

-The generators are being prepared and the device is also on its way to the hangar deck.

Athena responded.

-Great,the shuttle is on its way to pick them up right now,see you soon.

Simon said and cut communications.

All they could do now was wait.

The big generators were way more powerful than the standard ones they used now.

They had eight of them and they produced enough energy to power up a destroyer so if they combined them with the smaller power sources then they should be able to p[ower up more systems and possibly the A.I would get enough power to wake up from its slumber.

They had to wait for three hours to get the equipment and it took another to connect and activate them.

The moment they were active the power got restored to the whole deck and the emergency power batteries were recharging at a way faster rate than before.

The power level now displayed 0.005% of the required power.

It would still take another ten hours for the emergency power to recharge.

-Sir,you might want to see this.

One of the soldiers said, he was tasked with observing the shipyard's damage control console,just to be sure that the weapon systems won't just repair themselves.

Everyone thought that he was just overly paranoid,but they also knew that he survived more missions than any of them and this paranoia of his was probably what kept him alive.

The console now displayed the repair status of the station with a percentage of the repairs displayed next to every damaged section and the estimated time it would take to repair the damage.

When Simon saw this he asked one of the security teams to go to one of the areas that were damaged and now under repair to see what was repairing the damage.

He was almost sure that there were no drones or droids on this shipyard,at least they haven't seen any so far.

-Sir,This is something strange,there is no sign of any repair drones but the hole is visibly shrinking and it should be completely sealed within a few minutes.

The hole was the size of a truck wheel when they entered the compartment but now it shrunk to the size of a basketball.

Simon and the rest saw the video feed from the team helmet cameras and couldn't figure out how the hell did a hole repair itself?

-It's nanites.

Athena said after some time.

-Your telling me that the things repairing this station are nanites?

Simon asked when the initial shock passed.

Nanites are microscopic machines that can perform any number of tasca,from healing to building and even killing if you programmed them the right way.

Terran Council was experimenting with them but they were years away from a working prototype.

-Yes,They are responsible for repairing this place and for building and repairing ships.

Athena responded.

-How did you figure it out?

Theresa asked.

-Simple,I just had a little chat with the A.I that is in charge of this shipyard.

It is awake but its priority is to repair the damage so that it can be fully functional again.

I managed to convince It that you are not a threat and that you are the ones that provided it with power.

On the topic of power,it said that in about an hour it will have enough power stored to try and activate one of its own generators.

The consecutive shocks made everyone speechless and rooter in place.

-Athena what made you think that it's a good idea to talk to an unknown A.I?

Simon was the first to gather his thoughts together.

-I didn't contact it,it was the other way around and if it was really hostile then it would have wiped me out already as it is way more powerful than me.

Instead it decided to talk to me to gather some information and send a warning that it would soon be able to activate its own power source.

Until then it is using the power we are providing to do some repairs and to prepare a jumpstart of its own reactor.

It also asked me to relay a message that it will talk with you when its primary reactor is online since right now it has to follow its directive to repair the shipyard with what little power it has.

Athena explained the situation.

Simon was white as a paper when he heard that.

If it could destroy Athena then it could also take over the Thanatos whenever it wanted.

In other words they were all at the mercy of this A.I and he didn't like it one bit,but if he wanted to get some answers then he had to take the risk.