Bend Around the Wind by Scyllaya

Chapter 11: Alyndor

Chapter Eleven

Alyndor

Andromeda Orbit

The technology on the ship was incredible beyond words. At first the holographic interfaces simply reminded him of his own tech and he was fairly confident that he would be able to control the ship through them. When that turned out to be untrue he was frustrated beyond words. Not just because his bargain with Loki was about him being able to drive the ship, but also because there was technology in front of him he couldn't access or control. Then bamm! DNI.

Sure the energy weapons were interesting, quite interesting and Tony planned to take a closer look at their workings, because they seemed to be so very different from his repulsors and unibeam, but just as effective, so even if he did not make weapons anymore he could use the tech in it for something else, maybe even for his suit. He also still wanted to figure out how the ship compensated for zero gravity, he had some theories, but he needed confirmation. That was also tech he could use in many different ways, oh the NASA would eat out of his palms if he offered such tech to them... not that they weren't already with the satellite software he made for them a few years back. He was also pretty sure that the ship had more advanced solar cells than the ones on Earth, so that was also something to look into. And he didn't even have time to check yet whether there were any air or water filters installed. It would make sense. Who would want to carry around an immense amount of oxygen and water when one could simply clean and circulate everything? He couldn't wait to take a closer look at those as well. These were all awesome, but the DNI... oh the DNI was the beautiful cherry on the top of this technology cake. He was going to reverse engineer the hell out of this ship. Oh yes.

He wanted to spend more time to explore the main computer and the ship's systems, because it was such a new and incredible way of interacting with something. The first time he activated the band his mind was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information simply being tossed at him. Then he managed to focus and it was glorious. The language was not a problem anymore; the DNI did not project words in his mind, but concepts and pure data. It was strange, but he suddenly understood what Loki meant with the All-speak. It had to be similar. He still could call up displays, but he did not need them, they were obviously for other crew members, so that the commander could focus on being in contact with the main computer, while slight changes could be made by others. Similarly to the way Tony changed their course without the DNI. It was truly amazing. It was similar and nothing like being in his suit at the same time. Similar in a way that he got visible info as well and he just knew that he was connected to the ship and could change things easily, but different because he was not this connected with the suit. He did have plans to work on something like this, a more effective control system, but he was still far away from this level of tech.

All in all, he felt better than he did in a long time. He was still far away from home, there were still many dangers lurking around, but this lifted his spirits. He could think about the future again. He was actually thinking about what to work on and how he could use things. Oh the DNI would make his suit so much better he had no words for it. He longed to have JARVIS with him, he could hook him up with the main computer of the ship, which was highly advanced, but did not have an AI. That's why a commander was needed of course. The possibilities in combining this alien tech with his own inventions and innovations were endless and almost mind-blowing.

He would've stayed in the main control room exploring the ship if not for Loki interrupting him. Since he already felt the edge of a headache coming up he decided to continue with this exploration later. He still needed to adjust to the DNI, so overdoing it would do more harm than anything. So he explained to Loki how the DNI worked, how it linked one directly to the computer, how information was transferred between the commander and the ship. The god looked intrigued, even if he frowned whenever Tony used long technical terms, those probably didn't translate that well with All-speak. The god of course wanted to try and see for himself. Tony objected at first, but then Loki told him not to be greedy with his new toy and took the DNI away from him.