I got gently pulled out of the idle void that runlevel 2 currently is for me by Pinwheel's gentle nuzzling of my left shoulder. His nuzzling felt weak and I could tell he was still even more sleepy than I was.
"Whats up?"
"Still too early."
"Okay." he said, rolling over and falling back to sleep.
"Actually, we are oversleeping." I objected. "And we have a big day today. Cargo to take on. Deliveries to make. We already spent yesterday partying and not working, we need to play catch up today."
"Yeh. I suppose your right." He said. "Still feel like I don't wanna move though."
My pegasus commander gathered all his strength and willpower to roll over once in the bed, towards the edge. Then again. "Pinwheel, I don't think that's such a good..." *thud*
"I'm okay," he said weakly. I peeked over the edge of the bed down at him and giggled.
"There is no way you can blame it all on the high gravity! Drowsiness is an effect of the Manifold. And of staying up late." I laughed.
Pinwheel made large efforts picking himself up from the floor, and said "Connie, engage breakfast mode."
"Aye commander" I replied. "Beginning coffee brew sequence. Toaster module deployed."
The room we had been provided was stocked well with sufficient food. Pinwheel grabbed two slices of bread and placed them in the slots that appeared on top of my head. Then he gently folded one of my ears down to lower the bread slices into the toaster module. Then he smiled. "This is a great way to start the day."
"Do you want any toppings on your bread?" I asked, "Just some jam will be fine." Pinwheel answered. I changed the shape of the pupil projections on my eye glass to the appearance of heating coils to show that I was preparing to heat toast. Then the pegasus went into the bathroom to take a shower. I would have the breakfast prepared by the time he returned. Before he disappeared into that room, he turned around and said "Tell the port command that we want to be loaded and ready to leave within one hour".
I had several options for heating the bread to make toast. I decided to use heat generated by intense computations going on in my head. But for that I needed a computation task that has a high load. I decided to compute hashes for mining cryptocurrency. Pony society has always held creativity and artistic expression in high regard. Throughout the centuries, many playwrights, artists, sculptors, writers, and filmmakers have produced works that captured pony's imagination and expanded the horizons of creativity. Taking inspiration from our existing minted currency called "Bits", and naming the derived digital currency "BitNoCoin", was not one of those works of creativity.
While the bread was heating up, I connected to the Port command and control and signaled them to prepare my shipself for loading. After the bread was done, I popped it out of my head and applied jam onto the toast. The entire process of preparation was finished just before Pinwheel stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around him. I placed the plate with the toast onto the table. Then he sat down, and began to eat. I stood by the table.
I mentioned "By the way, I heated that bread from my circuitry's waste heat doing hashing and earned us 0.000000263 Bits in crypto. What do you think about that?"
He looked at me, then at the plate and then at me again, then he raised an eye-brow and asked "Would that cover the fuel costs for charging your avatar's batteries to run the mining algorithms in the first place?"
I replied, "No. of course not."
Pinwheel rubbed his temples.. He didn’t expect the mining to pay for itself, but hearing it explicitly seemed to have been momentarily headache-inducing. Then he asked me, "How has your night been? I had vivid and long winded dreams that seemed to go on forever."
I replied, "I did some routine database maintenance on myself while I was in runlevel 2. But I didn't dream."
My commander perked up curiously, "No dream yet? You have been active for how long now?"
"1 month, 29 days, 14 hours.." I answered, but Pinwheel interrupted, "That should be enough for you to start dreaming, shouldn't it?" Why are AIs never allowed to finish their sentence when answering with a precise timespan?
"Stage 4 of my consciousness loop has only collected 98.2% of the experience data required to be able to create a dream. I should be able to have a dream tomorrow. Or the day after that, at most." I announced. "I hope my dreams will be funny. Or at least entertaining."
"Have fun in your dreams, then!" My commander jokingly ordered, already halfway finished with his plate of food. I reported "The port command has acknowledged my request for loading and departure. They are raising my shipself out of the hangar bay now."
Pinwheel cleaned the plates and put them back. We walked out of the room and the building to the landing pad area. My shipself was already raised onto a pad. Her rear cargo ramp (also known as the "rump ramp") was lowered and cargo handlers, biological and artificial ponies alike, were loading ton after ton of fruit into the cargo bay. I could feel the mass of the added cargo start to weigh my shipself down and the structure of my softmetal belly expand to signify I was gaining cargo. The DRM module of my consciousness loop rewarded me with a feeling of pleasure at the sight and the feeling. Just like evolution had shaped biological ponies to enjoy the taste of sweet food and seek out sugary food, leading to such glorious inventions as the muffin, my designers had programmed me to enjoy being loaded and weighed down with cargo. After about two months of existing, I finally got a taste of what I was built to do and it felt amazing.
Oddly, my VSTAA module generated a desire of intensity 4096 to ignore the plan to load only 528 tons to reduce the stress on my factory fresh engines, and instead carry a full load. It would cause increased stress on the engines during the arduous ascent from Overland's high gravity and probably premature wear, but I would be rewarded with a massive boost to happiness.
At the same time, it generated an aversion of intensity -2286 against changing plans on such a short notice. After I myself had brought up the concern and suggestion to fly with the reduced load. After I had the discussion with Pinwheel. After ponies on both ends had planned with that precise amount being ferried. A plan to change would cause a loss of trust. Still, the desire to fly with a full load was the stronger one. I sometimes wonder how biological ponies deal with conflicting emotions, when they don't have them neatly categorized and expressed with the precision of signed 15 bit integers.
The desire to fly with the heavier load won out on the emotional level, but that didn't mean I would implement that desire. One measure of emotional and cognitive maturity is the ability to respond reasonably to impulses. An adult does not respond to every desire with an action, but must sometimes realize that there are negative consequences to certain actions. And mine were often long-term.
For deciding against changing the plans, my DRM module rewarded me with a sense of pride and satisfaction for displaying rationality.
Still, the desire to load on more cargo remained. Maybe I could just load on additional cargo I would buy from the local market. That wouldn't affect the contract we had. But it would invalidate the discussion I had with Pinwheel about reducing stress on the engines. My commander, who was still walking beside me, noticed that I was looking at the expanding belly of my shipself with a sense of joy, but also deep thought.
"You seem happy watching your first cargo loading, but you also seem to be pondering something"
"Yes I am, I was thinking we could buy some additional cargo from the market."
Pinwheel stopped and looked at me with concern "I thought we agreed that taking on too much cargo could be dangerous to the ship. Are you feeling stressed?"
I looked at his face, which displayed genuine worry for my well-being. "I'm fine, but I thought we could take on some cargo from the market here."
"What made you change your mind?"
I made my avatarself look at her sides, which were mirroring the expansion from my shipself. If I wanted to answer honestly, I would have to tell him that I just enjoy the feeling of cargo inside me. But that wasn't necessarily a good enough reason to go against the recommendation of the engineering specifications.
I just shook my head. "Sorry. Stupid idea. I shouldn't have brought it up. Let's get to my shipself."
He lightly caressed the expanded side of my avatarself and said "It's okay. I promise we'll get you a full load at Yay Gravel Road."
I smiled at his kindness. His reassurance made me concerned about my own behavior. It's not that I was ashamed of enjoying the cargo a lot, but the enjoyment did seem to cloud my judgement. Why else would I propose an action that would go against my own specifications?
I didn't get a chance to think about it too much, because we reached my shipself, and I lowered my head, opened my mouth and my avatarself and Pinwheel walked into my cockpit.
The pegasus sat down in the pilot's seat. He knew that I would be controlling the entire ascent. But he also knew that my avatar wouldn't have to physically sit in the chair to let me control what is essentially myself. I stretched the width of the pilot seat so my avatarself could sit beside him on what became a couch.
He asked me, "What is your plan for the climb?"
I replied "I want to minimize the load on the thrusters and the power plant. For minimizing load on the thrusters, I want to climb with a high angle of attack to use mainly the main rear-facing thrusters. They are more powerful, so we get a good amount of force from a lower thrust setting.
For minimizing the load on the generator, I want to rely mostly on the battery for power supply. The constellation XT class is designed with a very small generator that seems underpowered for this size of ship. The power draw potential of all the systems I am equipped with in the stock factory loadout even is greater than the power generation capacity of my powerplant. But engineers determined that freighters have a very low average power draw. The only times where we actually need power are takeoffs and landings. All the other times we are just sailing and/or waiting. Instead, in those moments where I need peak power, I draw from the structural battery. This was a smart design choice. I have no desire to be in situations where I need a high constant power output such as racing or fighting. Powerplants are big and bulky and use up space that can be used for a bigger cargo bay. The structural battery on the other hoof is basically free.
So I want to charge the battery while we wait for takeoff clearance, and take off when the battery is full."
He asked me, "What about the ascent profile and check for hazards on the way up?"
I replied, "I want a rather shallow ascent. And I checked the weather schedule, no clouds in our path."
Normally, a ship battery is never charged fully, so in the event of a drop of power demand, the excess power from a powerplant that responds slowly to demand changes has somewhere to go. Since I anticipated needing high power for the entire climb, I decided to charge the battery fully.
I contacted ATC and informed them of our intentions, and the fact that I still needed a few minutes to charge the battery to a higher state of charge before I could take off. ATC replied that they understood and to take my time.
"Battery will be at 100% in 7 minutes and 22 seconds. Charge rate is 1.08C" I informed my commander. 7 minutes and 10 seconds after that, I prepared to increase the HFMP power level. "Neighkon Tango Yankee one niner eight, you are cleared for takeoff." ATC informed us over the comms.
Powerplant is at 67% load. Ventral thrusters on. Nice and slow spin up thrust to 71%. I could have pushed myself off the ground with my legs, but I wanted my thrusters to do it on their own to verify that my thrust requirement calculations were correct.
Even with the HFMP lowering it's effective weight, I could feel the 528 tons of cargo really not wanting to lift off with me as my hooves lost contact with the landing pad surface. I tilted myself upwards, and for now held the position, balancing the changed thrust vector by increasing the output of my main thrusters. Then I opened up more to begin the climb. Thrust was holding steady at 70% load. My AOA was at 33 degrees and I read us steadily gaining altitude. The state of charge of my battery was decreasing, but my calculations showed that we would reach orbit well before it depleted. Stress on the thrusters was still a bit higher than I would have liked. So I lowered the needed thrust by spreading it around. I slowly rolled from one side to the other, alternating between using either set of lateral thrusters to take load off the ventral thrusters. I also varied my angle of attack to shift load back and forth between the main thrusters and the ventral thrusters. Luckily my aerodynamic profile was similar enough from all sides that I could do this easily.
13 minutes and 50 seconds after liftoff, we reached space.
I lowered the target output of the powerpant. But a powerplant responds slowly to changes in power setting, so I was still dissipating some energy using the thrusters while my battery was recharging with the currently excess power.
I probed the hyperspace for the weather and plotted a path. My commander approved the path. "Alright, charge the Friendship Drive, Connie."
I charged the Friendship Drive. I felt the rumbling of the ship as it began to charge. Configuring for ship mass was slightly different this time, now that I was flying with the added load. The readouts of FSD endurance, expected speeds, and efficiency however were much higher than during my first flight. Neither my commander or I needed that confirmation to know that we had been growing closer to each other, but I enjoyed showing that display to Pinwheel anyway and hugged him lightly. I could tell he was happy as well, as he hugged me back. I pushed us through the aperture into hyperspace.
On our path to the hyperspace currents, we found a busy route. Pinwheel was at the manual controls again. He adjusted our course to blend in with the traffic. I queried the routes of a few other ships on the traffic message channel and broadcasted my own. We found a Type-7 transporter whose itinerary took her most of the way of our own. The smaller ship formed a wing with us and by flying together, we were able to cut down the travel time considerably. Hyperspace always reacted to friendship and cooperation. The friendship between the crews and ships always improved the efficiency of the Friendship Drive. We positioned ourselves in formation into the miasma currents that would enhance our speed even further, gliding past other ships that were travelling alone. Two other Keelbacks joined our wing temporarily. We had a lot of fun, until our different destinations made us separate into different directions. Given their semi-regular trade routes, it was likely we would see them again soon if we continued trading in this area.
I continued towards the Yay Gravel Road asteroid mining base. The system's star was not very bright or hot, but it had a pristine asteroid belt in the very close habitable zone. It had been the main reason for the system's colonization.
With the countless number of very similar looking asteroids, I was glad that Yay Gravel Road had a transponder beacon. Not that I couldn't calculate it's exact position from orbital parameters and last known location, but this made it much more convenient.
I could now see the asteroid that contained the base, by it's long range transponder signal.
Pinwheel was still operating the sail controls and steered us onto a path to intercept the large asteroid. We popped out of hyperspace a good distance away from the cluster. Given the high amounts of mass nearby, the spatial compression was minimal, and using only sails, the packed environment was difficult to navigate. So using conventional thrusters was much safer and probably even faster. We approached the large asteroid that held the base. The asteroid was mostly dark, rocky colors. Our approach to the docking bay led us over a long and shallow trench that was lined on both sides with extraction and refining buildings. The relatively simple neural network that was responsible for my sensor's pre-classification kept identifying the trench as a dried out riverbed every time I looked at it - Even though this body had likely never seen flowing water. Between the tall extraction and refining buildings on either side of the trench ran transport tracks. Long trains moved materials from the depths of the mine shafts to storage and processing.
At the end of this trench there would be the docking bay that was recessed into the ground. As we were moving relative to the asteroid, it seemed as if the firmament was rotating around us. The side on the asteroid where we were was rotating away from this system's star, turning us towards the galactic center, and with the low light pollution here, we were treated to a sight even more glorious than a sunrise: a galaxy-rise. In what appeared like slightly tilted, carefully placed strokes of glowing white, red, and orange paint against the blackness of the sky, millions upon millions of stars creeped up above the asteroid's "horizon" as we approached the bay. As we turned towards it, the glow of the forcefield made the painting in the sky harder to see. Pinwheel contacted ATC to get us docking permission.
We were assigned to pad 32.
We slipped through the forcefield of the docking bay access into the pressurized environment,
touched down and disembarked. On the pad, we met with Cargo Manager Tumble Boulders, who greeted us and gave us hard hats of the same kind he was wearing.
He told us, "Construction and land clearance is still going on in all areas. Visitors are required to wear protective headgear at all times."
We walked off the landing pad to a walkway. He paused and looked over some forms he was carrying.
"You are TY-198? With the shipment of fruits?"
Pinwheel smiled, "Yes, all 528 tons of it."
Tumble rocked his head from side to side. He stepped back on the landing pad and said, "Ok, that works. Head on through the doors for processing and security, they'll confirm receipt of ware, I'll handle the unloading." I opened my shipself's rear cargo ramp while it was lowered into the hangar, Tumble was riding along on the pad.
Pinwheel and I walked to the door that Tumble Boulders had indicated. We entered an office room where a batpony mare was observing several screens displaying production quotas and delivery schedules. She turned her chair to face us and smiled.
"I'll be with you in just a moment," she said as she turned back to the screens on the wall behind her, checking something. Her imperial accent was very noticeable. After reviewing it she stood up, turned towards us again and said "Hello, my name is Light Rose, how can the supply depot help you today?"
"We have arrived with a shipment of fruits for the colony."
Meanwhile, I could feel my shipself’s cargo bay being emptied. I was anticipating this moment with a bit of a sense of dread, as I expected the disappearance of the comfy feeling of being filled with cargo would leave me feeling void and incomplete. But instead I felt a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that my cargo had arrived at its destination.
Light Rose checked her displays again and said "Ah, wonderful. Connie and Pinwheel with 528 tons of fruit. Just as scheduled. I'll get the receipts for delivery acceptance while our cargo handler checks the shipment. Then I will clear your mission payment. Did you need a supply transfer for your next mission?"
I responded, “I'll take 14 tons of hydrogen fuel and a wastewater treatment." Light Rose frowned a bit. "At our current stage of colonial development, we would like to avoid taking on any waste. But we can provide you with the fuel." I accepted this with a nod.
Light Rose checked her screens again and said, "Cargo crew has confirmed the quality and quantity of your shipment. I'll transfer your mission payment and mark the mission as a success. The Iron Nickel Cabal thanks you for your service. Can we offer you a follow on mission?" I looked at Pinwheel, and changed the holo-projection of my irises to a text display confirming that his account had been credited with 785,000 Bits.
I also displayed some market data, which made Pinwheel say to Light Rose, "Actually, we would like to purchase 621 tons of cobalt from the local market."
The batpony cheerfully said, "Of course, cobalt is one of our main exports." She checked her displays, frowned, and continued, "However our export storage only has 562 tons available for immediate purchase. I can reserve the next production batch for you, but you'd have to wait until tomorrow. We would of course offer you accommodation and food for the night."
"We'll make do with the 562 tons for now. I'll transfer the money right away." Pinwheel said. I nudged him in the side, perhaps more forcefully than was necessary. "Commander! You promised!" I complained. "Oh! Yes, of course! We'll wait until tomorrow for the full load and gladly accept your kind offer for accommodation."
Light Rose said, "Thank you! I trust you can find your own way to the staff dining hall and guest rooms? They are clearly signposted. Just exit this door here to the main catwalk."
We both gave a nod. As we exited the office to follow our directions I let out an annoyed sigh. "Did you really forget?" I asked Pinwheel, who looked back with an apologetic face. "I'm sorry, I just got distracted by the money." He admitted. "Pinwheel, please remember that I am not just a machine. I have needs too and you agreed to take care of these needs when you bought me."
“I understand, Connie. I'll remember your needs. Feel free to give me a soft kick if I forget again." He said reassuringly.
I decided that I was satisfied with this and said, "Let's find some food." We walked on the catwalk which was just a long series of metal grates with railings on either side suspended in a large rock tunnel. Tubes of fluorescent light were hanging from long cables in the ceiling. Every few meters, there were signs reminding us to keep wearing our hard hats. Each sign had an illuminated monochrome animation that showed a pony taking off his helmet to wipe off some sweat and promptly getting crushed by a rock.
A few ponies covered in dirt from the extensive mining operations also walked along this metal walkway. We noticed that batponies made up a significant portion of the inhabitants.
As we continued walking, we heard a pony yell, "Fire in the hole!", followed by the blaring of a klaxon. Then we heard the noise of an explosion, distorted by already having bounced off several rock walls in different directions through the maze that was the already built structure. We felt the catway being rocked and we braced ourselves against the railing. The overhead lights flickered and dangled like pendulums after the blast.
Yes, there was definitely land clearing going on today.
Pinwheel asked, "Do you think we will get any rest tonight if this continues?" I turned my ears off. A faint glow that had been present in them disappeared and they flopped limply to the sides, with a slight bounce as their hinges reached the bottommost position. I smiled smugly.
Pinwheel frowned. "But what am I supposed to do?" he whined. While I can read lips just fine, I turned my ears back on.
"Hey look, there is an earplug vending machine over there." I said helpfully.
"How convenient and predatory." he said, turning his head to look at me with a frown.
"Ah, yes, the duality of capitalism." I replied. He trotted over to the machine, which was standing on a platform that extended the walkway in one direction. He pulled out a couple of change tokens. The machine dispensed a package of 6 reusable earplugs.
The pegasus deposited the package in his mane. A foalish yet effective storage method. We moved on to the dining hall/breakroom/ whatever they call it here. It was a large room with several simple tables where workers and traders staying the night alike were eating together. We went to the food line. The pony behind the serving window was a large stallion who was smoking a cigarette, and for some reason wearing a chef's hat on top of his hard hat. "Only nutrient paste and protein bars today I'm afraid" He said, then added "But we are waiting on a big shipment of fruits today."
Pinwheel smiled, "Do I have good news for you!" He looked over to my avatar, and the chef pony followed his gaze. He seemed to recognize my avatar's model of freighter, and got the hint.
With excitement, he exclaimed ,"You delivered the fruit? That's great, I can't wait to work with natural ingredients again! Well if you're still here tomorrow, maybe the menu will have pie! If you want one made from scratch though, you'll have to wait another 13 billion years."
For now, we took our meals of nutrient paste and protein bars and sat down at an empty table. The food had a taste that was definitely artificial. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly great either. During our meal, I remarked, "You know, compared to New Saddleblaze, this place seems.. kinda gloomy, I guess?"
My pegasus commander exclaimed "Are you kiddi.." and repeated in a much quieter, more appropriate volume "Are you kidding me? Yes, the few plants that are here are in flower pots. None of the lights in here are from a star. Ponies are dirty from digging dirt all day, but look around. Do any of the ponies seem unhappy to you?" I let my avatar look around again. The ponies did seem happy. The workers laughed and smiled despite the dirt that caked on their fur and their protective suits. All the ponies greeted each other with smiles and laughter. Some ponies were singing songs while they ate their meals.
My Commander continued, "These ponies would probably be less happy in an environment like Overland. With such a big galaxy, everypony can find a home that suits their needs and lifestyle. I'm sure the folks at Galactic Sector A9A enjoy their lives in different ways than the miners here or the farmers back on Overland," he said, patting my hull, "Just like you enjoy being burdened with cargo. You were built to ferry resources from place to place, and you enjoy that. Or myself for example. I've had this change of profession, I liked exploring and I think I enjoy trading now. I can't wait to see where our next job will take us."
We finished our meal and went to look for the guest rooms.
I smiled "You know, sometimes we spaceplone AIs experience such changes too. Multirole ships like the DeLancie Anaconda are notorious for frequently shifting their preferences."
We soon arrived at the guest room. It was more like a storage box with a bed inside, but it made for a cozy little place, in it's own way. If it wasn't for the small window, one could imagine that this little room was a small cavity in a rock that continued forever in all directions. With my pegasus commander retrieving his ear plugs, I could tell he was ready to finish this day.
We settled into our bed and rested.