Greater Expectations

Posted on Sat 25th Oct, 2025 @ 11:11am by Captain Gordon Francis & Commander Heriah Rex & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide & Lieutenant Sufai Kell & Captain Izwyx 'Lo & Alidade (Computer)

3,477 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: From The Ashes
Location: ThunderChild Bridge

-Start-

Sufai looked forward to working on the Thunderchild, it had frankly taken over her life. She had even taken a step down from departmental chair to focus on these systems specifically. Her curiosity over Alidade, and her secret ambition to craft the myserious sprite a perfect starship body had come to fruition. Standing on the Thunderchild Bridge she saw much to do still. The furniture had barely been bolted down and wired, no paint, no carpet, open conduits and in-progress detritus from the frenzied pace of labor. However, they had completed the most important part of a new ship's construction; she had passed her "Water Test." The ship had all five axes on the Engineering console covered: Keel, Engine, Seals, Power, People. It wasn't completed, but it was ready for "sea trials."

=/\=Sufai to OPS, certifying ready to submit departure plans pending Captain Francis' approval. And please signal the Captain I am present and ready when he is."

Then she looked to the ceiling, imagining that was where Alidade was, "Are you there, Cadet?"

She smiled at 'Cadet', the official nature of it weighing on her gladly, making her smile.

"I am here," returned Alidade. From all around the Bridge did her voice come. "Ready to get underway at your command, Ma'am."


{SB109-OPS}

Geri was watching the boards on the main dais with great intent. Thunderchild had become Alidade's body, so for this test, a hidden goal had been announced. Starfleet wanted to know if they had control of the ship as was their purpose for the upgrades.

"Captain Francis, I'm all set for trials," she said as Francis walked into Ops.

"Superb!" Francis said, approaching the table console. "I've been looking forward to this. The order is given. Let's get this shebang underway."

{Ticonderoga}

From the Ticonderoga, Izwyx watched in awe as Thunderchild lit up. The heavy escort had undergone extensive refit and had so much new potential in its state-of-the-art frame.

The Captain called over her shoulder, "Word was given, Sepp. Release the holds and jettison them away."

She hit her badge, =/\=Izwyx to Sufai, giving a gentle push and you're on your own power! Just a quick lap is all; don't scrape the paint!

Sufai laughed and the comms closed. The Thunderchild was underway moments later.

Izwyx watched her displays, the five axis diagram showing 99% or better across the board. Alidade was operating at a baseline which exceeded planetary computers. The twin cores of the Thunderchild could process information as fast as the Daystrom institute. For that alone, the upgrade was worth it. Even without Alidade, the computational capacity was towering, but in the purpose-built equipment, she was a dolphin doing flips.

She administered the first test, communications at departure. The signal lock was flawless, as it should be so near to one another. The transition to warp, however, always caused problems, forcing comms officers to reestablish links in some systems. Reducing the "Anammaboro Window" was a matter of obsession in engineering circles, so that was the first test. It combined neatly with the warp systems tests, deflectors and navigation, as well.

"Okay, looking good, all greens. First trials, running gates. Follow course, and stipulations at each gate will add to the burden for a stress test. You will be using simulated weapons, we only have the power hookups and no emitters installed. When you are ready, I am."

A series of beacons outlined the different gates to move towards.

In Ops, Francis brought up information on the table console and turned to address the crew. "Computer says best time is five minutes, forty-eight seconds. I got twenty credits says Ticon doesn't get to six. Any takers?" he said in a lowered voice, so as not to distract the Ticonderoga crew.

"I'm betting twenty-five she makes it in five minutes-thirty," Paul said from the Second Officer's console. "Everyone is so focused, over there, as if they were born ready for this."

Izwyx 'lo sent a text command [26 in under 5:29` regards to Paul;) ]

Paul saw the message and chuckled. He sent a message back to Ixwyx. [Looking forward to seeing who buys the beer!]

{Thunderchild- Bridge}

Sufai placed her hands onto the haptic memory feedback controls, and felt augmented reality take over her senses. Contact lenses gave her a display to whatever she was looking at, enabling her to control the whole ship with a thought and a twitchy pinky. In this augmented view, she also got to see Alidade, in her world.

Without a template on how it should look, Alidade built her own intergalactic interface to sift through and organize the vast information of the Computer Core. She floated about in an intergalactic spray. Galaxies, stars, planets, moons, asteroids, nebulae, black holes, quasars, space dust, a matter imaginable gave illustration to the widely varied types of data contained in the core. People, places, files, movies, music, personal and public logs, ship placement, any and all information could be seen and accessed. Of course, locked information remained locked as there were places in this intergalactic interface that were forbidden, even for Alidade. She could break through any block but knew it was illegal.

To Alidade, Sufai appeared as a 2D display before her. Alidade's body shown like the sun, though with ease to gaze upon. Every cell of her being was a datum, packed with life experiences, knowledge, everything that made up Alidade. The cells moved about, oftentimes flickered, and showed the everchanging existence of Alidade. As Sufai could look upon a screen at Alidade's code, seeing it constantly change and evolve, she could look upon her in her virtual world as a near physical representation of that code. And it was there that Sufai, among any and all, could see why Alidade oftentimes found it difficult to put things into words; because there were things in the universe where words simply could not do justice.

As was Alidade, shining and sparkling in her world, the size of galaxies and also the size of dust, zooming about the cosmos and calling forth galaxies of information. Alidade pulled forth a planet who opened up and displayed wildly incoherent information, but Sufai knew it was just another day for Alidade. The planet of information she sifted through was the Thunderchild, her crew, her mission, her abilities, trajectory.

With but a thought, the wild information reformed itself into a representation of the Thunderchild. Avatars showed the crew. Alidade had access to the entire manifest, the stock of torpedoes, phaser banks, shielding, replicator power, life support. All the information that could be displayed and relayed aboard the Bridge was at Alidade's virtual fingertips, all for Sufai to see with ease.

Alidade turned to look at Sufai. "All systems ready, Ma'am. Crew is in place at 99% effectiveness...Nope. Now we are at 100%." Alidade shrugged and her body dimmed ever so slightly, possibly out of embarrassment. "One was 15 seconds late reporting to his post."

Sufai needed a cigarette and a coffee. It was dazzling, beyond comprehension, and then, so, contained. Was this what love felt like?

Izwyx answered for the starstruck Sufai, "Log it in Errors. Flight traffic is clear, timer commences at firing of engines. Stations Green, commence at your discretion!"

Sufai was beaming, pointing at the spectral entity of Alidade, "Do it!"

That command was also meant for the Thunderchild crew on the Bridge and others aboard. All sprang into action. Before Sufai's eyes, Alidade split into dozens of identical versions of herself. Sufai's view zoomed out somewhat as all the Alidades ventured to various parts of the virtual representation of the ship. Alidade's voice could be heard in Sufai's ears and her ears only as many voices, all Alidade's spoke over and on top of each other, each in response to commands by the crew. Each of the dozens of Alidades performed their respective work, relaying commands either verbal or inputted via individual crew's computer terminals. All the Alidades moved about in concert with each other. It appeared as though a dance of immeasurable display. Again, words could not provide any form of justice to the sights Sufai, and Sufai alone, could see.

All in all, it took less than a second for inertial dampeners to activate the deflector array to operate at capacity, the nacelles to fire up, a course setting to be dedicated to, and for the ship to jump to warp. One of the Alidades stopped what she was doing and looked at Sufai with a smile.

Izwyx made a slight, "tsk tsk tsk."

=/\= "Sufai, I need you to drive the ship not ride in it. Start making marks on performance or take the AR lenses out."

The Cardassian smiled at the mild rebuke, and took it in stride. It was accurate.

They flew at maximum warp, but the energy coefficients to get there was terrible, The startup was so fast it was almost out of sequence. Timing would be more critical than completion, so she made a note for that and began to see more. Reports came in of officers on locked stations unhappy to be stationed somewhere on autopilot. They wanted agency, so she made another note. A chime on her padd told her 30 seconds to gate 2, and a new rule was added.

"Transit Gate 2 at precisely 24x319y-41z; Do not cross -45z.; Enter at Warp 1.4, then achieve Gate 3 in twenty one seconds precisely within energy consumption parameters."

That meant a sudden deceleration, nose dive, return arc, max warp, and without stomping on the gas. Efficiency, thrusters, inertia. Gate 1 was fifteen seconds away, the urge to blast away and cut the time to five seconds was there, but knowing the sudden deceleration was coming allowed her to plan ahead.

"Alidade, you ever heard of the powerslide?"

"Powerslide?" the Alidade before Sufai repeated the word. The others were zipping back and forth, relaying the information inputted by the crew. "Is that a shifting of power from one circuit to another? I am sure I can do that."

Sufai grinned, "That is involved. Check out files on recreational activity called automobile racing. Reference turning, braking, powerslide and drift."

She input the trajectory, and set the timings to space out appropriately, aware that Alidade could activate them at once, the spacing of when events fired was necessary. The gate was approaching fast, so she explained as she worked, "A drift is a maneuver to intentionally oversteer before the apex of a corner, A powerslide, on the other hand, is due to applying throttle after the apex, so the drift is an entry maneuver, while a powerslide is an exit maneuver when used together in a continuous drift. Take my work and perfect it. A biological crew could not pull this off without training on it extensively, but I think you can do it in one. I'll have stations on standby to provide corrections as needed. Accept their commands, focus on primary tasks, trust your crew."

Alidade did as Sufai asked and tapped into the knowledge bank for the words she said. Understanding better what was being asked, Alidade...all the Alidades speeding about stopped and...looked at her. The others went about relaying instructions. The Alidade before Sufai nodded and smiled. "I will."

She stepped back. Seeing only seconds remained before the maneuver needed to be performed, Alidade used the processing power of the Thunderchild to think and compute. She had the equivalent of years to figure it all out.

Travel at warp meant to travel in straight lines, though course corrections could be made. What they were quickly encroaching upon was a sharp turn, so an exit from warp was needed, but they had very little time to get turned around, proceed forth through the next gate, and jump back to warp. This 'powerslide' could be done, but it would mean some recalibration, power exchange, maneuvering jet usage, antigravity, possibly even the deflector dish and all in unison. This was something the crew itself could not accomplish without many attempts, starting in the simulator.

To get something the size of the Thunderchild to turn like that, to get that much weight to change direction so suddenly, while keeping everyone and everything aboard safe, was going to take some serious work. Alidade recalled going to warp with an empty ship...where she ripped all the seats from the floor and anything not bolted down became powdery residue along the back walls. She was sure to not let that happen again. She had a crew relying on her.

The moment came and Alidade had already worked out what she would do, ten times already.

Watching space zip by in warp, Alidade only gave it a thought and the ship appeared from out of space warp. Flinching her right ear, the Thunderchild's right nacelle flashed once as though attempting another jump to warp. Of course, the ship did not jump back into warp, but it did start into counter-clockwise listing.

The next gate resided between two asteroids and Alidade activated the tractor beam onto the nearest asteroid. She had taken into account the weight of the ship and adjusted the power output of the tractor beam accordingly. What she did not take into account was all the added weight of the crew, their belongings, and cargo. She had only thought about the gross weight of the ship itself.

The power output of the tractor beam was not going to be enough.

Alidade had to think quickly. She did not want to take power away from Life Support and quickly decided upon the inertial dampeners instead. She deactivated that and redistributed power to the tractor beam still aimed and activated onto the asteroid, using that as a means to pull the ship around and direct it toward the next gate. The circular momentum however would still throw everyone against the back wall of wherever they were. In addition to the tractor beam, Alidade sent artificial gravity onto the bow of the ship at 500% capacity, thus counteracted the centripetal force attempting to throw the crew to their deaths against the wall. For only about 3 seconds did the crew feel as though looking downward, as though the bow of the ship was the bottom of a pit. Little did they move themselves, but a few did find their lunches lurching back up their throats and out their mouths.

A large chunk of the asteroid broke off, thus sending the Thunderchild into free floating, but the ship was pointed at the next gate. Alidade deactivated the tractor beam, as well as the artificial gravity on the bow, reactivated inertial dampeners, used maneuvering jets to slow their sideways movement, went to max impulse power far faster than the regulations allowed, causing many of the crew who were not prepared to lose their footing thus finding the floor rushing up t. o meet them.

Alidade righted the ship and impulsed her way through the gate between the two asteroids, missing the far asteroid by less than a kilometer. She reactivated the warp nacelles and the Thunderchild jumped back into warp.

With all that was going on, Alidade did not think to tap into the clock to see how close ahead or behind they were. She was fully focused on pulling off that maneuver with little to no fault. To her chagrin, there was a little bit of fault, but all was well, more or less.

Alidade returned to Sufai's vision. "How was that?"

Sufai was grinning ear to ear, "Glad I didn't eat breakfast, whoa..."

She glanced at her console to see they were underway to gate 4, less than a minute to go, and a comm sounded. She pushed it eagerly.

"Safely power down all systems except life support and comms, and come to a full stop. Immediately."

It was Izwyx'Lo, the Captain of the Thunderchild and absent from this test for a good reason. She had just witnessed the living computer toss the crew around like rag-dolls. A pilot in that chair would have been censured heavily for bypassing safeties, but what to do when your pilot was also your operating system? They had installed parallel cores for this reason. Alidade could be kept in one, like a fish tank, leaving the other for operations. It was time to test the autonomy of the Thunderchild crew.

Alidade went back to the usual processes of having her many selves relay information and inputs from the crew. They were powering down the impulse engines, and she was making it so.

In Ops, Paul caught his breath. "That was rough," he said, "but they made it."

As Thunderchild slowly came to a crawl. Captain Izwyx summoned Captain Francis via comms, "Captain Francis, we have a protocol breach and need to reset parameters after adjusting. This test is a fail unless you'd like to press on, and test our ability to isolate Alidade from ship function?"

Heriah was there too, silently watching all the readouts and reports. She felt a true AI would not have adjusted the artificial gravity as such and as quickly as it did for the safety of the crew. Yeah, some of the crew got tossed around, several vomited, but there were no injuries that needed the attention of Sick Bay. If this Alidade entity was malevolent, then the crew would not only be dead, but smears along the walls, floor plating, ceiling, etc. Heriah wanted, so badly, for this to be a true AI, so that she could hate it. She gripped her hands into rock-hard fists and gritted her teeth at the realization that this thing was showing itself to be a true life form more and more.

Paul gave Heriah a speculative look but swiftly flicked his glance to the readouts on his monitors. "Hull integrity appears grossly intact," he said.

"This test is over," Francis said over comms. "Complete fail."

Back in 109 Ops, Francis sighed and looked up from the table console, slamming a fist down on the edge in frustration. He turned to Heriah. "I really wanted this to work," he remarked.

'Well, we wanted it to fail,' came Rex's thought.

'Just not like this,' Heriah thought in reply. 'Now this AI seems more sentient than ever.'

But, "Aye, captain," was all Heriah said.

Francis continued. "We need to start thinking of Alidade as what she is: a new recruit. Her vast intelligence doesn't change the fact that she is, ultimately, a child." He shook his head. "We gave that child the helm of a ship and she went on a joyride." He should have noticed Alidade's naivete when he interviewed her in his ready room. She said all the right things a cadet should say, but never spoke like an actual officer. This one was on him.

"Then perhaps 109's version of Starfleet Academy is what this AI needs to attend," Heriah said.

Francis pressed the comm. "Captain Izzy, Lieutenant Kell, I want you in my ready room for a report, on the double." He looked at Heriah. "Rex, you come too... and someone find a way to get Alidade to join us. I want her report as well."

Heriah opened a channel. "Rex to Thunderchild. LT Kell, EndEx EndEx EndEx. Return the Thunderchild to 109. Once in range, beam over with the mobile emitter to Central Ops. Rex out."

On the Thunderchild, Sufai sat in stunned silence before finally replying to Alidade as much as anyone else. "Understood." Was all she managed to say, and then added her true thoughts once the line was closed.

"Alidade you did nothing wrong, they put a challenge before you and you conquered it as only you can and know how to do. Do not let them make you apologize for overcoming the hurdles they set before you without criteria or training on them. This was supposed to be a test of basic functions.... you were amazing."

"Thank you," was all Alidade said at first. She too was, a bit, taken aback by the sudden failure. She thought and thought. Within the span of only a second, she had thought a lifetime of thoughts. Alidade activated the Thunderchild's emitters and appeared before Sufai. Her voice was no longer emanating from the Bridge's speakers but came from the projection of her.

"I am uncertain what went wrong though. They wanted to know how I would operate in receiving and relaying commands as the Computer normally would. And I excelled at that. They wanted us to complete a near-impossible maneuver. You gave me authorization to perform it myself and..." Alidade's eyes flashed with realization.

Sufai wasn’t sure of what to say, and found herself in panicked thought trying to predict what was coming. Alidade was asking questions, and said the dreaded words,

"You don't think they are going to blame you for this, do you?"

-To Be Continued-

 

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