Every Drone Inside
The Citadel region — Caldari Border Zone constellation
Hatakani system — Planet VI — Moon 4
Hyasyoda Corporation Refinery station
13 July YC 127
After my last milk run mission, Immuri Asaka stopped bothering me with stupid assignments. I called on him every few days and was heartened to learn that he was fully focused on the datacore investigation. Today, I went to see him for the latest progress update and found him in a lab. The agent was slumped in a chair and stared into the distance.
“Hey, how are things?” I said, by way of greeting.
Immuri looked at me with bleary eyes and sighed, “Shitty, but thanks for asking.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I am stumped. I had a few quiet days, thanks to you by the way, and initially my team made a good progress decoding the data on your datacore. Delphine was right — it is a microcontroller code and some of it is even compatible with our MCUs. On the other hand, there are parts which don’t look like anything we’ve seen before. At first, we thought they were specifications for analogue-to-digital converters, but they are seamlessly integrated with the rest of the code. There is an explanation but it’s too fantastic to be true.”
“And that explanation is…” I prompted.
“…that the processors in those microcontrollers can work with both digital and analogue inputs.”
“You mean, without dedicated ADCs?”
“Yep.”
“Wow!”
I was impressed. If what Immuri said was true, then it was a real breakthrough in computer technology. I was not an expert in computer architecture, but I knew the basics. Every CPU processed discrete inputs and produced discrete outputs in discrete time. Any continuous inputs from the real world had to be quantised by an ADC before they reached the CPU. If an ADC was not required, then it reduced the latency and increased the precision of the inputs.
“So, what does it tell us about the origin of the datacore?” I asked.
“Nothing,” replied Immuri. “I don’t know that such technology exists. I don’t believe it exists. But if it does, I would really like to see it in action.”
“Delphine said that the code in the datacore matched the code found in the corrupted drones. Chances are that your runaways were corrupted by the same sources. Get a few drones from the hive and check their microcontrollers.”
“But how do I get them? It’s not like they are willing to return to the fold.”
“Well, you have to shoot them first, of course. Not you personally, but there is a whole fleet on a stand-by in that pocket, if you get my meaning.”
Immuri brightened, “Vlad, you are a genius. Let me talk to my supervisor.”
14 July YC 127
Next day Immuri asked me to meet him in his office.
“Have you got the drones?” I asked, entering the room.
“Nope,” the agent shook his head, “and the Navy is not going to help me with that. This is why I need you.”
“Wait a moment,” I objected. “Are you saying that the Navy fleet, whose purpose is to shoot those drones, refuses to shoot them?”
“Their first priority is to contain them. They won’t risk sending their frigates if there is no immediate danger of drone breakout. The only thing they offered is shooting the drones using long-distance battleship guns.”
“And?”
Immuri made a grimace, “Can you imagine what will be left of a drone after it is hit by a large-caliber hybrid charge?”
“Oh, not much,” I said, abashed.
“Exactly. On the bright side, my supervisor expressed keen interest in this matter and obtained an expedited approval for a mission to get drone samples. Are you in?”
“Target practice? Can’t say ‘no’ to that.”
“Not just shooting — you’ll need to get to the wrecks and extract anything that can help us with the investigation. Understood?”
“Aye-aye, sir!” I gave Immuri a mock salute and went to the docks.
The Citadel region — Caldari Border Zone constellation
Hatakani system — Mission location
The scene didn’t change much since my last visit – the hive was bustling and the Navy fleet was patrolling the perimeter. A familiar voice greeted me in the local channel.
“Good morning, Kaukokärki. We were not informed of your arrival. State your mission and destination”
I rolled my eyes — obviously, Hyasyoda security and Caldari Navy were not on speaking terms.
“Hyasyoda has sent me to deal with the drones. Just stand back, officer, so that a ricochet from my railguns doesn’t scratch your pretty hull.”
“We have not authorised this mission.”
I snorted, “Why, in the Void, would I need your authorisation? It’s not like you bought this piece of space.”
“This is a dedicated exclusion zone established by Caldari Navy. Any activity which can interfere with our duty must be first vetted by us.”
“And what is exactly your duty here?” I asked sweetly.
“We are here on a drone containment and destruction mission.”
“In such case, I am not interfering, but helping you with the second part of your assignment. Now, officer, if there is nothing else I can help you with, I’d rather begin my mission. Don’t want to lose the time bonus, you know.”
“Sir, stay where you are. You still need an authorisation to proceed.”
I gently willed Kaukokärki to accelerate toward the hive.
“Sir, stop immediately!” commanded the officer, as his frigate targeted me.
I sighed, “And what do you want to achieve by that, soldier? Or shooting friendly ships is part of your assignment too?”
“Sir…” the officer started saying but was overridden by another voice.
“Kaukokärki, this is Fleet Commander Haatakan. You are authorised to proceed with your mission.”
“Thank you, Commander,” I replied sarcastically, knowing that I backed the Navy into a corner, and that giving me authorisation was for them the only way out without losing face.
Pushing self-congratulatory thoughts aside, I focused on my targets. Altogether, there were four frigate-sized drones and about a dozen ‘baby drones’, as Aura called them. I ungrouped my railguns and spread fire across the nearest seven drones. They targeted me when I started shooting, but were not fast enough to close the distance before I destroyed them. Soon, all red crosses and triangles on my overview became grey V-shaped icons.
“Damn!” I exclaimed, frustrated.
“What’s wrong, Cap?” Aura asked immediately.
“Correct me if I am wrong, but those grey icons mean that there is no loot in the wrecks, right?”
“That’s right,” Aura confirmed.
“Shit!” I swore. “The idea was to bring something back to Immuri so that he could test his theory. Wait! Can you enable that fine-grain level of detail on the overview? Maybe we can salvage some smaller parts?”
“Lemme try,” said Aura.
A few seconds later, the overview window blinked a few times and threw ‘Memory overload’ error message.
“Aura, what’s going on?”
Aura spread her hands helplessly, “Sorry, Cap, can’t do this so close to the hive. The overview tries to analyse everything in the vicinity, and when it gets to the hive, it finds too many components.”
I sighed resignedly and started aligning the ship to Hyasyoda station.
“Regarding the drones, Cap,” Aura continued in the meantime, “maybe you should have used smaller-caliber guns — one-twenty-fives or even 75-mm Gatlings.”
It was too late for such an advice but I gave it a thought anyway.
“To be honest, I don’t recall us ever getting loot out of drone wrecks, even when I flew with one-twenty-fives. Can you check the combat logs?”
“Erm…” Aura said apologetically, “sorry, Cap, those logs are gone.”
“Gone? Why?”
“Remember you told me to turn on the debug mode before Mercenary Distractions mission? The logger has already overwritten all the missions you flew with one-twenty-fives.”
“Damn, damn, and damn!” I cursed. “Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.”
“At least we killed the drones,” Aura noted with infuriating reasonableness.
“Damn the drones! And damn the logger! Make sure you turn the bloody thing off when it has overwritten the mercs mission.”
“Er… I can’t disable the logger, Cap. Do you mean the debug mode?” Aura asked sheepishly.
I waved my hand, “Whatever,” as my frustration started to fizzle out.
There was nothing left to do in that pocket, so I activated the warp drive and flew back to the station.