Shelby 8 Snippet 2

 

Chapter 1

 

New Tau Metropolis

 

Admiral Shelby Logan sat curled up in her favorite reading spot reading an article about Admiral Irons’ day. She was amused by it. The single article had been turned into a series over the course of a year. She had just found it and decided to scan it. She wasn’t certain what the writer’s original intent had been. Perhaps to knock Irons for being the king? If it was, the impact had been different. The story had taken on a grudging tone over time.

The writer had timed the admiral’s schedule down to the half second in intimate detail. It was probably enough to give any paranoid security type fits and nightmares since it was a clear window into the admiral’s life and schedule. The first article had been shadowing the admiral in one of his ‘in house’ days where he spent the entire 24 hour period in the White Station.

So, no real show of transportation or his security out of White Station. No doubt it had been carefully scripted by the staff for the benefit of the reporter’s viewpoint. She nodded slightly to herself as she considered that idea. It made a certain sort of sense.

Skeptics who had read the initial article and the follow up and seen the video time stamps had scoffed and claimed it had been fabricated as a fluff piece to make the admiral seem like a hero. Others had commented that it did the opposite; the admiral was more machine than man. In a way it was true, the admiral was a cyborg after all. He was the most advanced cyborg in existence. Who could sleep just 3 hours a day and function at that high a level for the rest of the time period? It just didn’t seem possible, and yet he made it look easy, juggling multiple tasks at the same time without being frazzled.

Other people wondered about how anyone could function in such a high stress job. That started a debate about ending the presidency and moving to a more committee style of government.

She could just imagine that. Government ala rub-Goldberg? Committees rarely got anything done. They were there to shift the blame to a collective over an individual. She could not imagine one handling a crisis at all well.

Of course that might be her near lifetime of military training and experiences showing, she thought with puckered lips as she scrolled onward.

The piece had eventually been followed up by six others, each a slice in the life of the President. Several showcased that power was not for the faint of heart. Only a fool wanted the job was the take away from some of them, especially the days where admiral Irons consoled the families of victims or fallen military personnel.

There were a few pieces that were amusing takeaways for her. Like when he played hookey in the station, sneaking down to the maintenance area in order to help out. Or the one day where they looked at his AI. She nodded slightly as she scanned that one.

She was familiar with Admiral Irons AI. He had originally had 3, Proteus, Defender, and Sprite. Proteus was a dumb AI the admiral had crafted himself as a design aide for engineers. The original had been debugged by Sprite and a cyber team and was in widespread use by engineers across the navy. Proteus was supposed to run the admiral’s nanites and help him with repairs and design work. With the admiral’s butt practically welded to a chair in the president’s office, the AI was severely underutilized. Admiral Irons had apparently convinced the AI to grow a little. For the past few decades Proteus moonlighted as an instructor at the academy.

In fact one of the reasons the admiral stayed in his office so much was the WIFI or the ability to jack in to allow his AI to have unfettered bandwidth to go about their duties. She nodded to herself. She sometimes felt a little guilty that she didn’t jack in as often as she probably should.

Defender had been a dumb AI that she had fortunately rarely experienced. He had been the admiral’s watchdog, protecting the admiral and the Federation from all sorts of threats. It had also protected the navy from the admiral should he go rogue. The AI had deleted itself after being severely damaged in a fight with a rogue AI on Antigua Prime.

Sprite was the single smart AI of the original Trinity package. She had been the keystone to the others. She had evolved to the point of needing to extract herself from the admiral’s implants in order to continue her evolution. She was currently a serving admiral.

She had extracted herself shortly after Defender’s death. But she had used some of her core and some legacy files from Defender to forge a replacement, Protector. Protector acted as the admiral’s adjunct and flag lieutenant. They had spent so much time together now they worked seamlessly.

She flicked her fingers down to another scene, another of her favorites. The admiral had played hookey again, this time taking on a surprise guest lecture role at the academy. Apparently he did it monthly when he could steal the time. Sometimes it was just for a few minutes, other times it was an entire hour. She could imagine the impact he had on the academy students to have a lofty admiral pop in from time to time.

Her lips curved slightly in a smile. Both of those hookey stories gave her ideas. She wanted to try them. She missed getting her hands dirty. She also missed teaching, though she’d never really been a natural at it. Not even when she’d been her dad’s assistant on Anvil station back in Pyrax.

There had been mentions of two other incidents when the admiral went off script. She had to wonder if someone had been trying to make the admiral look like a rogue or humanize him. She wasn’t sure. The first had been when the admiral had caught a ride into the shipyard and had helped out with several ships under construction. She couldn’t fault him for that. He’d done something constructive even if he’d put himself in a ‘risky situation’. She didn’t agree with the reporter’s sentiment.

The second had been when the admiral had popped into a Marine work out session and taught an hour long class in self-defense. No doubt the admiral had been there to blow off some steam and get some hands on again, though the reporter had made it out like he had been showing off or showing the Marines up.

She shook her head. She sometimes wished the reporters would stick to the facts. She understood the need for color to put things into context, but she didn’t care for the spin.

Her take away from it was that the admiral carved time away for himself. Probably to remain sane more than anything else. She nodded slightly to herself. Yeah, she needed to do that more for herself.

She looked up and then over to the window she was sitting near. Beyond the glass ships moved in deep space. They were distant dots, but she could see the blinking lights.

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