Read Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane for Free Online Page A

hesitated and then appeared on his HUD. “You figured it
out?”
    “It was pretty obvious where you were going,” the Admiral
retorted.
    “True, AI aren't well known for innovation,” Sprite said,
sounding a bit snarky. “Proteus usually follows your lead.”
    “Someone has to do the grunt work. And I am well aware that there
is a lot more work involved than in just dreaming something up. Realizing
something is possible is nice, but others have to put the idea into practice,
or cut it down to size.”
    “Amazing to hear someone admit that,” Sprite sighed. She waved a
hand. “You are, however, correct. We have some grav lens applications. And no
we didn't think of the possibilities for such applications ourselves, we went
back through the library for ideas now that the possibility has presented
itself.”
    “Ah?”
    “Ah indeed. How would you like oh, a force beam emitter?”
    “Tractor?”
    “Push or pull. We can already project a repulsion field with your
antigrav. But Proteus modeled a linear emitter. Traveling down that avenue of
thought, we looked up the specs of a typical force emitter weapon and then
applied them.”
    “In theory,” the Admiral replied.
    “Of course,” the AI replied, pursing her virtual lips. “Right
now, that's all we can do.”
    The Admiral nodded. “Understood. Continue.”
    “With the emitter in mind Proteus can use it to enhance your
energy weapons as well.”
    “Energy weapons? So far I've relied exclusively on plasma weapons
Sprite.”
    “And now you have more in your arsenal. A force beam emitter
option,” Sprite projected an icon of a weapon on his HUD and then pushed it
back to the background. “And a graser.”
    “Which begs the question, how the hell can you do that?” The Admiral
demanded. “Energy weapons like grasers and lasers are affected by projector
surface area. I don't have a hell of a lot here,” he said.
    “Grav lens,” Sprite replied smugly. “And it's not me, it's
Proteus,” Sprite replied. “And no, you don't need a lot either. But having them
available...”
    “Interesting,” the Admiral replied. “Continue.”
    “Both use a lot more energy than the plasma weapon, but they
don't draw plasma directly from your power systems Admiral.”
    “Trade off? I'm still seeing a bit of red ink here,” the Admiral
replied.
    “True.”
    “Okay... and where is Proteus during this presentation?” the Admiral
asked and then took a sip of coffee.
    “Proteus is still modeling field interactions. Even though we've
got the rough idea and form, it's going to take weeks to nail down the interactions
and that is all in theory. Since we can't do a real world test to get data to
plug in...”
    “There is only so far you can take it. Gotcha.”
    “The interesting side note to all this is that the blob of
mercury has figured out how to improve your plasma weapon. And how to not only
extend its range, but change the shape of the plasma munition.”
    “We could do that before,” Irons replied. His force emitters drew
and shaped the plasma bolt, sending it down the barrel at mach three to the
target.
    “Yes, but with manipulation of your nodes, or creating micro
nodes at the tip of the barrel, Proteus can change the shape. We're still
applying aerodynamic studies to get the proper shapes. I thought a teardrop
dart would work, but apparently not.”
    “Okay,” Irons replied thoughtfully. He finished his coffee and
put the cup in the dishwasher. He had almost enough for a full load. A good
thing, since he was running low on clean dishes.
    “With the force emitter idea, we believe we can project tractors
to control the plasma bolt, and possibly even redirect it.”
    The Admiral stopped what he was doing briefly. After a moment of
thought he continued. “Okay, that's different,” he said.
    “Different? Is that all you can say about it?”
    “All I can say until we see it in action Commander,” Irons
replied. “Right now this is all theory. Don't get too