Sometimes, after listening to my subordinates' reports, I want to both laugh and cry at the same time.
And this is despite the fact that it feels like nails are being hammered into my temples with the instantaneous blows of huge hammers.
And also, I finally understood why the Earth expedition to another galaxy needed a full-time psychologist. And I'm starting to regret that we don't have a full-time psychiatrist. Even a student.
"Now, let's go over it again," I said, after draining a glass of water and placing the dish directly on the high-tech console of the horseshoe-shaped table in the Council Hall. "Do we have a program to improve the 'Hippaphoralkus' shields?"
"Correct," Trebal said. "Optimization of energy dissipation and projection. It will allow us to output the same shield power but reduce energy consumption by twenty percent."
"The program was originally developed for 'Aurora'-type ships, and there it increased shield power by fifty percent," Ikhary, sitting next to the battleship commander, added.
I nodded silently. I understood, I'm not an idiot. If I were an idiot, I clearly wouldn't have understood.
"Do we also have a program to optimize energy consumption for the ship's life support system?" I repeated.
"Again, it was developed for the 'Aurora,' but with necessary adjustments, it will be useful for the 'Hippaphoralkus' too," the senior engineer said. "With deep reworking of the program, we can apply it to Atlantis as well."
"Do we know how to improve the maneuvering thrusters...?"
"Yes, for the 'Aurora,' but with modifications..." Ikhary began. Receiving a sharp jab from Trebal, he shut up. "It will work for the battleship and the city too."
"Can we improve sublight engines?"
"Yes."
"And the system for responding to decompression, i.e., hull breaches. Including those we still have from the water?"
"Yes, we have that."
"Do we have an optimized power supply system for the 'Hippaphoralkus' hyperdrive?"
"Yes."
"And does it fit Atlantis?"
"We need a lot of modifications and mathematical models to calculate the correct constant for opening the hyper-tunnel and... Ouch!" It seemed Trebal's nails were digging into his hand. "Yes, we can do it!"
"And can we improve the power supply for the jumpers?"
"Yes."
"And their cloaking screen?"
"Yes."
"Do we know how to use the generator energy output equation to improve their performance?"
"Yes."
"Do we know how to reconfigure the power supply system of the city and battleship from the ZPM to reduce the load by ten percent?"
"Yes."
"Do we have ready protocols for liquid waste recirculation systems, thanks to which we will use less energy but get better purified water?"
"Yes."
"Do we know how to make the 'Hippaphoralkus' chair more economical when launching projectiles?"
"And these same protocols will work for Atlantis."
"And also, we have a good hundred items suitable for adaptation for the battleship and the city-ship, starting from improving the lighting system, allowing us to turn off some unnecessary parts, to an adaptive power supply system for auxiliary systems that will switch to standby mode with current tasks executed if no one with the Ancient gene is nearby, right?" I asked with emphasis.
"All correct," Chaya confirmed. "The 'Aurora's' crew spent a lot of time on such models."
"And we can also improve the 'Hippaphoralkus' hyperdrive," Trebal said. "We'll make it, firstly, as efficient as on the latest generation ships, like the 'Tria.' Not to mention that it will go from interstellar to intergalactic."
"With specific work on similar systems, we will certainly be able to improve Atlantis's hyperdrive too," Chaya suggested. "Unfortunately, we cannot study and reproduce these systems ourselves. At least not quickly. Lantian technology," she reminded him. "But, thanks to Tribune Titus's work on several projects, we will still be able to improve something."
"And the best part of all this is that we won't have to rework the wiring and mechanisms of Atlantis too much," Ikhary added. "The upgrades are designed so that the new main power channels will take over some of the secondary ones. We'll just need to improve them in some places, equip them with new crystals with updated software... In short, if we take Atlantis's total energy consumption at the moment as one hundred percent, we will reduce it by seventy percent. This will allow us to stretch future ZPMs for a much longer period..."
"Future ZPMs," I reminded him, forcing a smile. "Because to make even half of these wonderful changes on Atlantis, we'll need to drain all the energy from our ZPM, right?"
"This is precisely the part that goes against your plan," Chaya explained. "We won't be able to work with most systems, for example, the city's shields, engines, if we remain at the bottom of the ocean. We need to raise the city to the surface for such intervention."
"And in principle, we intend to interfere with the city's main and critical systems," Ikhary supported. "If something goes wrong, it's better to be on the surface so as not to sink in case of an error or failure of any systems. Like the shields..."
"So, we know how to raise the city to the surface?" I clarified, looking at Chaya.
"In general terms," she admitted. "The city has filled part of the lower levels, non-critical for functioning, as well as all ballast tanks and those used for storing desalinated water, with water to achieve negative buoyancy. Thanks to this, we are not pushed to the surface, despite having a large amount of air under the shield dome and in the city's premises. This, as you understand, gives Atlantis positive buoyancy..."
"Don't forget the gravity anchor," Ikhary interjected.
"Gravity anchor?" I inquired of Chaya.
"As far as I understand, the city was initially planned to be based on the ocean surface," the girl said. "Despite its size and mass, it is still subject to oceanic current drift. Minimal, extremely imperceptible, but over a long period on the surface... Yes, it could carry us across the ocean. Very slowly, of course..."
"To prevent this, the Lantians created a gravity anchor," Ikhary took over. "There are several of them in the city, so even if we drop one, everything is fine..."
"Did any of you understand that you haven't explained anything about this anchor to me?" I inquired.
"The gravity anchor is dropped automatically when landing from the lower compartments of Atlantis," Chaya explained. "It burrows into the ground beneath the ocean floor and, due to the difference in electromagnetic potentials of its coils and the city, holds Atlantis in one position."
"Like an anchor on archaic ships," Ikhary smiled. "Only the anchor chain is not real, but based on magnetism. Honestly, I didn't even think that such technology existed. And I wouldn't have known about its existence if I hadn't been repairing 'jumpers' in the underwater hangar... So, don't worry, those who were worried – a tsunami won't wash us away on the surface."
The senior engineer seemed very pleased with his joke.
"I don't understand why we're delaying?" after a minute of silence, Ikhary couldn't stand it, looking around. "We have a real opportunity to improve Lantian technology!"
"Better be quiet," Trebal advised. "Before you run around with this idea and bother Chaya, you should have consulted at least with me."
"What's the problem?" the engineer asked, surprised.
"The problem is that to save energy in the future, we need to raise the ship to the ocean's surface right now," I explained. "And lose energy by reconfiguring the city's power system according to plans that haven't even passed stress tests in reality. And now, here's the situation. If the wraiths come here, we'll have a city without power on the ocean's surface, without the ability to defend itself."
"But there's the satellite!"
"It will destroy one, two, maybe five ships, but then it will be destroyed," Chaya said. "The wraiths, knowing we're here, won't leave us alone. After one group comes another. And each time there will be more of them."
"That's exactly how they broke through Atlantis's defenses last time," Trebal confirmed. "But then the city was filled with Lantians who knew its capabilities and their own strengths."
"And they also had three ZPMs," I noted. "And for some reason, they didn't think of such upgrades. They could have discharged one ZPM and saved a lot of energy."
"For the sake of objectivity, they did optimize the energy system," Chaya said. "Six times during the war."
"Ah, so we're also on the Ancients' energy-saving mode," I grabbed my head. "Can we make some of these changes?"
"We can," Ihaar said.
"No, we can't," Chaya objected. "The changes and energy redistribution will happen throughout the city. We'll affect the entire energy system. Change one thing, and you'll have to deal with another, then a third, and so on. In any case, we'll come to the point where we'll have to raise the city to the surface and finish working on the shields and hyperdrives there. It's just a matter of time. Either we do it all quickly, or we stretch it out for several days, maybe months. But by interfering with the control and power systems, we'll lose energy because the entire system wasn't changed at once."
"And if we change it all at once?" I asked.
"For that, we need a Lantian..."
"We have one," I reminded her.
"With knowledge of the city's systems," Trebal prompted.
"Difficult, but possible."
"And he'll need to spend a few days in the control chair to do it as quickly as possible," Chaya said. "I've done the calculations, Mikhail... If you do it, and I develop an algorithm to transfer the necessary modernization data to you, we'll come to what we talked about initially – there will be a time gap between operations, as you won't be able to perform them all simultaneously. And we'll lose ZPM energy."
"I could do it," Trebal offered. "My genetics are worse, but I have more knowledge."
"The chair won't give you the same level of access as Mikhail," Chaya countered. "So we come to the conclusion: either we do it slowly and lose the ZPMs, or else..."
"No."
"What do you mean 'no'?" Chaya clarified.
"Exactly what it means," I replied, leaning back in my chair. "We're not doing this on Atlantis. A city on the surface is a defenseless target. Even if we shoot down the wraith ships, they have a lot of 'arrows' – I looked at Ihaar. – And even if we destroy them, others will come soon. And that's not counting that we need to test all these developments – what if they don't work at all?"
"My people and the entire crew of the 'Aurora' worked on them for ten thousand years!" Ihaar said, offended.
"Then test them on the 'Hippaphoralkus'," I retorted. "And if it really works, then we'll find the time and resources to grant you access to Atlantis's systems."
"In that case, we'll still need to raise Atlantis from the bottom," Trebal said.
"Why?" I didn't understand.
"Because for changes on the ship, if we want to do them quickly and without errors, we'll need to use the ship's chair in full connection mode with the systems," Chaya explained. "And they'll also need you..."
"Forget it," I cut her off. "I'm not sticking my head into that devilish machine. I don't even want to get into the Atlantis chair, and it has safety systems! I'm not going into that hellish contraption again! If you want to modernize something on the battleship, do it manually."
"But it could take many months!" Ihaar exclaimed. "With the chair, we would simply redistribute the energy flows through the existing network, with minimal repairs..."
"Then I won't keep anyone any longer," I said, getting up from the table. "You have a lot of work ahead of you, ladies and gentlemen!"
"That was rude," Chaya caught up with me at the teleportation booth. For a second, thinking about her words, I realized I had forgotten where I wanted to teleport.
Damn forgetfulness.
"Yes, most likely," I agreed, entering the tiny room with a depiction of Atlantis on the wall screen. Red dots, the locations of other teleportation chambers, glowed invitingly within the diagram. "I'll ask Tayla to buy flowers on one of the planets and send them all as an apology. 'Sorry for lying in tin cans for ten thousand years, inventing various improvements that I won't let you implement.' Yes, I think that's a suitable phrase for an apology."
"Actually," Chaya stood in the booth opposite me and touched one of the red dots. The booth doors closed, and for a moment, everything around us was enveloped in a blinding white flash. "I meant it was rude to leave the meeting without giving any instructions in return for the cloned initiatives. I'm sure Trebal will explain to Ihaar, and he to the others, that they should wait until we get a new ZPM."
"New?" I clarified. "Remind me, don't we need one ZPM for Atlantis and one for the 'Hippaphoralkus' to rework them?"
"We do," she confirmed.
"And we also need at least one so that the city doesn't remain without power to all systems afterward," I said.
"And even better, two, so the battleship can operate at its maximum potential," the Proculucian suggested, stepping out after me.
"So, four in total," these simple mathematical calculations literally annoyed me. "And we only have one. And I think if you had any idea where to find more with certainty, you would have already told me."
"Yes, I would have told you," Chaya agreed. "It's one of the goals of my search. So far, without success. The only acceptable option is to start charging the empty ZPMs we have."
"Project 'Arcturus'," I realized. "Have you found any options for its safe use?"
"No," the Ancient admitted. "The more I work on it, the more I realize that the problems only multiply. Too many unknowns. On the other hand, we could launch it, regardless of the consequences. I think we could get a few percent of energy before any new problems arise..."
"Damn it," I cursed, finally understanding where we were. The lower levels of the central pier. And I had planned... Where was I even planning to go? And why? "Not the right place."
"The right place," Chaya corrected me. "You're still in the city."
Strangely enough, the Ancient's simple joke calmed me down a little.
According to internal information, and due to its construction, Atlantis was divided into seven districts.
The Inner City is a complex of buildings in the central part, surrounding the central spire.
There were three large and three small piers, making the city, when viewed from above, resemble a snowflake. And, besides size, the main difference in functionality and importance of these districts was that in the middle of the "legs" of each large pier, there was space and docking bays for receiving Lantian-type starships, such as the 'Aurora' or the 'Hippaphoralkus'. They could also be serviced and repaired there, by the way. Thanks to the few workshops that Atlantis had.
Yes, for their dry docks, the Ancients didn't come up with separate workshops for producing everything necessary. Bastards.
On the small piers, in their part furthest from the Central Spire, were the drone launch platforms.
The large piers included the West, East, and South. The small ones were the North, Southwest, and Southeast. The latter, incidentally, housed most of the city's residential areas. If I understood correctly, the residential complex we occupied in the Inner City was intended for the city's elite, top officials, best specialists, scientists, and so on. That's why there were only five hundred of them in one of the small skyscrapers near the Spire. But the "rabble" clearly had to live on the outskirts, in the Southeast pier.
Chaya once said that there were other, smaller residential sectors in the city, clearly converted from numerous empty premises. But it seemed this was done at the end of the war, when refugees from other planets were accepted.
[Map of Atlantis.]
By the way, the South and Southwest piers are connected by an "interconnector." In my past life, I wondered several times what it was, and why this element, for example, wasn't on the copy of Atlantis that the Asurans used.
It turned out to be quite simple: it's a system for desalinating ocean water. It allows you to get any type of water, except heavy water, directly from the ocean. Mineral, drinking, technical, carbonated, distilled, rich in magnesium, calcium, vitamins, minerals, and so on.
Logically, the Asurans didn't have it – creatures that don't eat, don't drink, don't rest, don't need water.
And yes, I gave these piers their names. The Ancients simply called them districts one through seven. No imagination, damn it. It's strange they didn't make Atlantis in the shape of a sphere or a cube. No, why not?
Currently, the Inner City was the most inhabited part of the city. The rest... Honestly, I never spent time to simply walk through the corridors and see what Atlantis was actually like.
Until now, it seemed that everything I saw in the series was enough for me and nothing new could surprise me.
It turns out, there is such a possibility.
"Familiar places," I said wearily.
"South pier," Chaya confirmed, looking at the empty corridor plunged in semi-darkness. In some places on the walls, traces of flooding were visible, and in some places, furniture was still lying around... It seemed that the repair crews were in no hurry to get here.
This was felt by a certain coldness – it seemed that the life support system here was not working at full capacity. If you think about it, if we fixed all the damage in the city's wiring, how much energy would Atlantis drain from the ZPM? Power, as you know, doesn't go through burnt wires. Especially if they tend to fall apart during a short circuit or overload.
"I told you, familiar," I sighed. "A couple of levels down and there will be the laboratory where I was created."
I'm not even surprised that we've been walking here all this time. Here are the familiar doors...
"Not only you," Chaya said quietly. "The nanite laboratory where I worked was located on the East pier. But... It was in this laboratory on the South pier that the first replicator was created. Later, as I understood, the project was moved to Asuras."
"It's strange that they left the equipment," I admitted.
"I suspect it was taken from Asuras before the Lantians destroyed it," the Ancient said just as quietly. "I came here a couple of times to look at the logs..."
"You wanted to create new replicators?" I joked.
"There was such a thought," Chaya admitted. "Workers who don't sleep, don't eat, don't need rest. They do everything you want them to do... Too tempting to ignore such an opportunity, isn't it?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Tell me, is there a replicator named FREN sitting at the table behind these laboratory doors, who will help us fight the Asurans?"
I really don't want us to repeat the experience of the Earth expedition to destroy an entire civilization. Intelligent nanomachines lived on their planet, bothering no one for ten thousand years. Humans appeared, started demanding ZPMs from them, insulting them, fighting. And then they blew up a city, a copy of Atlantis, when they learned that the intelligent machines wanted revenge on the Lantians' legacy for attempting to destroy them.
There was a lot to it.
Earthlings later stole ZPMs from the Asurans for their own needs. It would seem, why would robots be offended by that? Who would be offended by some monkeys flying into your world, stealing valuable technology...
But, we shouldn't forget that the Earthlings attacked Asuran facilities on the planet with nuclear weapons because they thought they would fly to Earth and blow it up to hell.
Logically, the Asurans, in response, flew to give Atlantis hell again. By then, people had found the 'Tria', whose crew had sent the Earthlings away from the city. And they were very surprised that the arriving Asuran replicators did not react to the program embedded in them not to harm the Ancients.
The Asurans killed all the Ancients on the 'Tria'. Then the Earthlings killed them, regaining control of the city.
Also, when interacting with the replicators, the Earthlings activated an attack command on the wraiths, which the latter had disabled ten thousand years ago. The replicators took it as a command and... began to destroy human planets to starve the wraiths.
The Earthlings didn't like this, and they started shooting down their fleet with the latest weapons. And when this tactic became obsolete, the Earth expedition decided to take care of the Asurans on a known scale.
As a result, they created a replicator named FREN, who attracted all the replicators on Asuras to herself, causing them to turn into a replicator-Godzilla, break through the Earth's crust of their own planet, reach the core... And Asuras exploded. Along with hundreds of ZPMs, continents built with buildings and technologies of the Ancients, all the knowledge, and almost all the replicators of the Pegasus galaxy.
Why "almost"?
Because some survived and gave the Earthlings quite a bit of trouble.
And I'm not even mentioning that in the attack on Asuras, the Earthlings resorted to the help of the wraiths. And they, not being idiots, stole an unknown number of ZPMs from the Asurans. And they launched a factory for producing clones – thanks to cloning, by the way, they overwhelmed the Ancients with mass.
And also, using the stolen ZPMs, the wraiths created a super-hive, like the one we escaped from during the mission on the 'Aurora'. And on that super-hive, the wraiths flew to Earth to feed in the Milky Way. To stop them, the Earthlings had to resort to the help of another wraith, who gave them two new ZPMs. Yes, and these were also stolen from the dying world of the Pegasus galaxy's replicators.
In the end, Atlantis returned to Earth and remained there because the sequel to the series was never filmed. It seems books were released, and comics, but I never encountered them in Russian, and I couldn't read them in the original language due to not knowing the language well enough...
And so I don't know what happened in the end. But I can bet that the wraiths with numerous ZPMs, which they stole from Asuras, showed up ten more times.
Yes, this is a very generalized description of the events that happened over several years with the expedition, but the essence of it is simple – don't stick your hands into what you can't resist!
In short, I think this story of mine after returning from Dorandan should have sobered Chaya up and explained why I don't want to deal with the Asurans without having anything in my arsenal.
Everything here is exactly like that!
I have a plan – to gain strength by collecting the remnants of the Ancients' technologies on other planets. But not to deal with the most malicious and powerful in terms of technology opponents of the Earthlings from the series. Because I have no desire to get my ass kicked and act under time pressure, making one mistake after another.
"Maybe you'll open it yourself and take a look?" Chaya suggested with an innocent look.
I drew my pulse pistol from its holster and brought it to a ready state.
"I think it's pointless to ask if you're a replicator luring me into a trap?" I simply clarified just in case.
"According to the basic code, replicators were forbidden to take the form of any living or deceased Ancients," Chaya said. "So... Are you going to open it, or just stand around?"
Damn it... And I didn't even take my shield with me – it's recharging.
Sighing, I ran my hand over the control panel.
Three blue-glowing crystals emitted a melodious sound, and the doors slid apart, revealing the familiar laboratory bathed in light.
And also the machine on which the Ancients created replicators... And which General Hippaphoralkus used to create my body.
If memory serves me right, a group of replicators from Asuras used it to create humans with nanites in their bodies capable of "repairing" human body damage. Cuts, wounds, and so on...
And I also saw a figure in light clothing with dark hair sitting on top of the replicator production machine. Bowing her head, she was pressing something on an Ancient scanner she held in her hand.
Damn it, Chaya... You ruined such a song!
[Machine for creating replicators.]
Hearing the doors open, the girl sitting on the replicator machine looked up at us and raised her hand.
"Hello! I'm..."
I also raised my hand. And before she could finish, I fired my pulse pistol.