Star Fields

Chapter No.52 Construct

Chapter No.52 Construct

Building stuff is fun.

The next day, the process of transporting construction material up to our vessel began. The androids handled this process very efficiently and we soon had the cargo bay filled to capacity.

The new androids were inserted into power stations around the quarters and engineering decks. Their positronic brains connected into our main system and were updated.

We now had a thousand male androids, and we were about to put them to good use.
That means that I was in charge of a dozen male androids to finish the construction of Helios Station. We traveled to the station in a fighter because it had plenty of room. Female androids in shuttles moved the metal girders and polymeric transparent shields over to the construction site, which was in constant motion as the station rotated to provide artificial gravity. This motion made construction tricky, but it seemed that the androids were at ease with difficult tasks.

The male androids and I donned skin-tight space suits with backpacks that provided propulsion to move about in space. Our task was to fasten the metal girders in place with large bolts and then fasten the transparent shielding to them. It happened with the precise timing of a ballet as we moved the girders into place, with the help of the female androids in shuttles, and attached them to the existing structure.

The transparent shields were attached with smaller fasteners. We finished the process by injecting sealant into the joints.

After arriving back on our ship, I thanked the male androids. "I am happy to have you guys on board," I said, smiling. "I've been female dominated for a long time."

They did something that I hadn't expected. They laughed. Obviously, they understood and appreciated what I meant.

When Molly came to my quarters that evening for supper, she was ready to tease me. "How do you like your new buddies?"

I offered her a subtle smirk. "They're a welcomed change."

She smiled. "I'm not surprised. You can commiserate with them."

"Yes, and it seems that they understand their unique situation."

She laughed.

I served our supper of bio-generated steak and mashed potatoes. "They act more like humans. They laughed at my jokes."

"That's because of my new personality algorithms."

I squinted. "How'd you come up with those?"

She gave me a pleased look. "I copied them from ours."

My left eyebrow shot up. "Really?"

"Yes. I reasoned that it would make them more attuned to our goals and attitudes about life."

I sighed. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Her right eyebrow shot up. "Why?"

"How do we know how their machine thinking will adapt to our values?"

"We don't, but I can always make adjustments."

"Hopefully, you won't need to. We're surrounded by twenty thousand androids. They functionally and operationally could overpower us."

She smiled. "Ah, I see that you realize that there are two thousand more male androids than we realized."

I grinned. "Yeah, and I'm a happy camper!"

"You and your quaint colloquial expressions!"

I laughed.

We finished supper and retired to my living area.

"What's next on our Helios renovation?"

I leaned back in my chair. "We have to go into the station and assess what we have to do to make it habitable."

She relaxed on a couch opposite me. "I'm thinking that there is something weird about this."

"What do you mean?"

She took as sip of wine. "The moon base had both the construction materials for the Helios Station and the android production equipment. This suggests that the Helios Station and the androids are both part of the Phoenix Project."

I took a larger sip of wine. "Yes, that does seem odd. Helios Station is in the L1 orbit around the sun, which puts it about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. What better location to mount an attack."

She pointed a finger at me. "Yes, I agree. I found something that indicates that your media plot might be possible."

Both of my eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean?"

"I discovered it in the coding of the android producing machine's central processor. There were memory recordings for most of Space Command's top commanders."

"Holy shit! I was just kidding about that crazy idea."

"Well, it seems that they had planned to take over Space Command by substituting androids duplicates for the top command structure. Obviously, that plan was shelved by the asteroid collision."

"That's wild! And, we are left with the fruits of their plot to take over. In effect, we have succeeded in doing what they planned, but instead of dominating, we've become the protectors."

Molly pouted. "Yes, but unfortunately, we've ended up in a galactic war with a species we know very little about."

"Yes, that's the one thing we didn't want to be involved in."

"It makes you wonder what we'll find when we enter the station."

I had the same feeling of dread, but whatever we find, I feel that we have the ability to deal with it.