Commander's Rounds

Entry 128: The Faithful Servant

Dr. Anzeel was now part of the rotation that delivered science reports to the commander, and it was a job she took seriously. Besides, she wanted to have the occasional look at the commander to begin with, mainly out of curiosity- She had been out of the loop for so long that she did want to gain some idea of why he was selected in the first place, even though Admiral Hunt had repeatedly assured her that Alexander Cochrane was the man for the job. "As for our other, non-Kansen related research, we've been making progress in turning the mobility rig into a powered suit that you can wear. We've been able to use surviving parts from Marduk's suit for a lot of things, but there is still a significant hurdle."

The commander nodded. "We can't expect everything to go smoothly, but what, specifically, is the problem?"

"Cooling." She said. "The problem with sealed suits of combat armor is that you can't stay in them for very long without starting to cook. There are cooling solutions used in Bomb disposal suits, but those top out at maybe two hours, which is good enough for that kind of mission, but not good enough for battlefield use." She looked up from her clipboard. "I know that some like it hot, but I think you'd object to being mummified."

The commander nodded. "All right. Do you have any ideas?"

She flipped the page. "We've been studying Marduk's suit for answers, and that did have an ingenious system of heat exchangers and coolant circulation. Parts of it were significantly damaged, though, so in some places it's like we're trying to reassemble a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle without the help of the box. Thanks to the Union, though, we have some strong predictive systems that should help out there."

The commander nodded. "Well, there's no rush, really. If it starts taking away too much time and energy from other projects, you can feel free to drop it."

"Don't worry, commander, we've already organized it as a secondary project, and half the time it's something that Chkalov works on during those nights when she feels that sleeping is something for other people to worry about." She flipped the page. "I do have to add, though, that this is really for incidental protection and emergency mobility purposes only. Even with this suit, you won't be able to carry any weapons that are useful against the Sirens."

"That's fine." He said. "As fun as it is to occasionally entertain the thought of suiting up and going into battle alongside the Kansen, I don't think I would do it even if it could be done. Plunging into the fray would come with a great reduction of my total battlefield and tactical awareness and severely impair my ability to respond to changes in the overall situation and issue appropriate orders. I think I'll just stick with commanding from the Orpheus."

"Fair enough." She said. "Anyway, that's the way that things are going with that." She flipped over the page. "Oh, and as for the sleeping princess, she's progressing well. Dr. Fuller did a good job making her with the limited resources they had, so all that's left is the transmission and internalization of data before she gets up and about."

The commander sat back. "Any idea what she's going to be like?"

"Well, I can send you the specs of what kind of ship she's going to be, so you can make your own judgement." She said. "As for everything else? Noooo idea."

"So, like usual, then."

"Like usual, only moreso." Anzeel said, and let the pages lie flat on her clipboard. "After all, it's the problem of dealing with Kansen that have an untethered psyche."

The commander paused. "...I don't know what that is, but it sounds dangerous."

"It's more an aspect of the Kansen existence." She said. "You see, with regular Kansen, they are based on things that existed in the real world, so they're more grounded in real-world norms. So, as extreme as their personalities can seem at time, there are still some kind of boundaries." She tucked her clipboard under one of her arms. "As for the so-called "blueprint ships", those boundaries don't exist, which is why they can have much stranger personalities than even regular Kansen, even if they don't necessarily do."