Protector

by Luke Norris

  “Tin, I want you to bring that robotoid back to the ship. Be very careful. Make sure he lives! Bring the entire cryogenic chamber if you have to. No matter what Tin, make sure he lives!”

  Two medic drones passed Rieka at high speed and zipped down the hall to the cryo-bed.

  “He’s a hero Tin,” she regarded the small red orb, “he actually prevented these E.T.s from pillaging Laitam five hundred years ago.” Something she herself had never managed to do. She always got to the planet a hair too late. Against all odds, imprisoned in a restrictive shell, this little robotoid had done it...and somehow lived.

  She was glad to be off that ghost ship and back outside. Everything about that place was oppressive and emotionally taxing. What it represented. The slaughter that had taken place inside. Although justified, somehow it felt more shocking than the battles she had seen planetside. Perhaps when you were involved yourself, the shock factor wasn’t as strong as witnessing the aftermath of another battle. Maybe it was also the truth about Verity being a pirate that now weighed on her heart.

  She leaped off the disk drone and onto the bike. Tin had ascertained that the cryo-bed containing the robotoid was completely sealed and it would increase the chances of survival to bring the entire bed. Several drones had been cutting the hole in the ship’s hull larger to accommodate this.

  She could see Tin approaching the ghost ship. Once they had established there was no threat from the vessel. Seeing Tin fly next to the juggernaut made her appreciate how colossal it was. A few moments later, several drones flew past her carrying the cryo-chamber with the precious cargo. She followed behind until it was safely on board.

  Once in the med chamber onboard Tin, she watched as the robotoid was delicately removed from the sealed chamber by precise robotic hands.

  “After being in hibernation for so long, and not properly monitored there is the potential for loss of brain function,” Tin warned.

  “Is it possible to give him bionic-tech to replace this shell that he has?” Rieka asked.

  “If the subject's mind has not been compromised it might be possible,” Tin agreed. “The fact that he has survived such a procedure is testament to his tenacity and ability to survive, and increases the chances of success. But he will need to be woken first and assessed. I cannot perform medical procedures with bionic-tech when the subject is in slow-time. He will need to be at his natural metabolic rate.”

  “We are going to do everything we can for this person, Tin. I mean everything. You are the most advanced med-chamber in the entire galaxy, so you should be able to give him back some mobility with bionic-tech. You can finally have all your dreams come true, Tin,” she added sarcastically, “making a patient go full bionic.”

  It was almost beyond belief that this genius mind had been able to break the shackles of the ship’s computer and stage a rebellion.

  “Wake him!” If there are gods in this universe, then they will help him now.

  Rieka was tense over the next hours. It was impossible to know by looking at the robotoid if any change had taken place. It was simply a shell and offered no physical cues. Tin could only make comments on increased brain activity. She spent the time on the bridge with the viewing window activated, so she could look up at Laitam. The green planet stared back rotating sleepily on its axis, oblivious to the tension as she waited for the verdict from Tin. Rieka was also acutely aware that although Tin had concealed himself, there were at least two other early-trader ships in the vicinity, and probably second-stagers illegally on the planet at this very moment.

  Eventually Tin gave her the news. “Rieka, the subject’s brain activity is displaying all the signs of being fully awake, and functioning at a natural metabolic rate.”

  “Okay,” she strode to the med chamber, “I will try communicating with it.”

  The robotoid was suspended in the center of the room and held in place by several robotic arms.

  She wasn’t exactly sure if it could hear her, or if it even communicated verbally, but she attempted speaking first.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  No reply came from the small red sphere.

  “You have been brought aboard a U.W.F. patroller. I am Rieka, a protector. You are safe and not in any danger here. We found you on an early-trading vessel that had been sabotaged. Early-traders are considered criminals, and you have been victim to their atrocities,” she waited. “Can you hear me? What is your name?”

  Silence ensued. Damn, she’d thought...she’d hoped, that maybe…

  A robotic monotone voice broke the silence, it spoke in a basic form of the Terrasian language.

  “My name is, Lego.”

  22

  SPACE PROGRAM

  The air felt electric, and clouds hung low over the huge compound Shael now called home. The atmosphere was charged, but it wasn’t an electrical storm from the black mountains. It was him. Oliver was to fault for the sense of excitement. She saw how contagious he was around the others.

  Even right now, as she watched Oliver from across the compound, a young engineer was subtly trying to be closer to him, just to have a small exchange. It was a woman, petite with blonde hair tied in a bun. She’d clearly had her overall’s seams taken in at the waist to accentuate her frame. Shael frowned. That hussy.

  In that moment Oliver looked up and stared directly at Shael. Her heart jumped. She felt like he’d caught her red-handed in the middle of her thoughts. He stood some moments, then pulled the goggles of his greasy face leaving two clean rings. It made her furious that he had caught her in this moment. She didn’t let a trace of this show on her face.

  Oliver raised his hand to wave, his white teeth were accentuated against his oil-smeared cheeks as he grinned at her innocently. His dark hair was swept in matted strands across his forehead. Some strange conflict within stopped her from returning the gesture. She stood stoically giving no hint of a smile or warmth, and she hated herself for it. His smile faded, and he dropped his hand.

  Shael felt the sudden pang of deprivation as he turned back to the young woman, and focused his attention on her while she looked up at him, talking animatedly. Why was she standing so close? It was completely unprofessional.

  Shael was surprised to find her jaw was so tight her teeth were grinding and was shocked at the violent thoughts she felt toward the young engineer? She wanted to claw her face and throw her on the dirt. At the same time it was coupled with the excitement she felt when uncovering an artifact, but deeper, it went to the base of her navel. Shael’s body was completely still as she contemplated these thoughts. No hint of her inner turmoil was visible to anybody watching her.

  The young woman laughed at something Oliver said, it was an exaggerated movement. Oliver seemed surprised, then grinned back. Enough! Shael was spurred forward and found herself striding across the yard before she realized what she was doing. She wore her high leather exploration boots that her loose pants were tucked into. On her top, she wore a simple white singlet. Both Oliver and the girl looked up at Shael striding purposefully toward them. Shael realized for the first time as she closed the distance between them that she had nothing in particular to say. She checked her pace slightly.

  “Oliver!” she said sternly. Damn, she was still frowning.

  Both the woman and Oliver turned and waited expectantly. Oliver slid oily gloves of his hands raising his eyebrows earnestly. “Shael,” he said enthusiastically. “I was just explaining to Kela the purpose of increasing the fin size to lower the center of pressure…” he paused, as she stopped in front of them. “So, what’s up?”

  Shael had nothing. She’d stormed over here like a whirlwind, driven by some mystifying compulsion, and now she felt a flush beginning to rise in her cheeks.

  As the seconds of silence ensued, a knowing smile crept up on the face of the young engineer and her eyes narrowed connivingly. “Oliver,” Kela said, taking his arm. She drew his attention back to the fuselage, “you were telling me about the center of
mass being further from the center of pressure?”

  “Um, well,” Oliver looked at Shael slightly confused.

  That hussy, Shael’s indignation was instantly replaced by the fury she had felt earlier. “Oliver!” she repeated. “I need your help in the museum.” She was improvising now. “Targon found a carapace in Arif’s collection that doesn’t match the rest of the tribal suit, and we think you can shed some light on it.”

  “Oh,” he began, “yes, maybe I can shed some light…”

  Shael realized she was folding her arms impatiently.

  “Right now?” Oliver asked.

  Shael didn’t answer.

  “Well give me a minute,” he turned to the young engineer. “Anyway like I said, Zeb here can explain it better. It’s really well beyond my level if I’m being honest.”

  A graying older man nodded happily at Kela.

  Kela didn’t take her eyes from Shael, and her smile turned into a hard tight grimace as Oliver followed Shael back toward the residence. She didn’t even bother acknowledging the older man as he walked over enthusiastically. Kela simply ignored him, turned and walked back toward the warehouse.

  *

  “You can’t seriously be thinking about flying in something like that!” Shael laughed looking at the thin rocket, maybe two times her height. “It doesn’t look like a wasp at all. It looks like...well a giant phallic.”

  An engineer, crouched next to one of the tail fins at the rocket’s base, looked up and gave her a disapproving glare.

  “It’s just a miniature Shael,” Oliver laughed. “A model. The rocket I will fly in will be much bigger. To give you a comparison, the payload on the top,” he pointed to the tip above his head, “is only five kilograms, and even that might be too heavy for this missile. So imagine how big it will have to be to carry, not only me but a small spacecraft that can maneuver once we are up there.”

  “This is still a miniature?” she said. “You’ve been firing small rockets for months now. What you describe will take years, maybe decades to develop at this rate.”

  He looked genuinely bothered by this, as he squinted looking at the sky above the launching pad. Think before you speak, Shael! she scolded herself. He’d been working day and night, along with the engineers. She just didn’t have the vision Oliver had when she looked at the strange device in front of her. He said they had built such things on his world to travel into outer space. She believed him, but just… couldn’t see it yet.

  “I hope that it won’t be decades, Shael,” Oliver admitted. “We need more stakeholders involved, smart minds. There are so many complex elements involved. I have no idea how they built these things on Earth. We are learning here. We spent so long just learning how to build pressurized super-insulated vacuum tanks to store oxygen and nitrogen. The existing methods were not adequate to store these elements in such volatile states. We’ve had to develop a lot from scratch.” He shook his head. “That entire warehouse there is being used purely for research and development on combustion. And that warehouse, for the pressurized vessels that will hold the stuff.

  “We have to learn everything from scratch. The fuel to use, combustion, aerodynamics. We are learning by doing. I was hoping Laitam would be more advanced when we…” he paused, “when I woke. That’s why we founded the universities and seeded knowledge into the population. The hope was that other great minds would further the technology, and bring Laitam into the space age while we slept. But I should’ve known better from Earth's history that things don’t often work that way.”

  “Sorry,” Shael said, taking his arm. “It won’t be that long. I just blurt things out sometimes. It was tactless and brash. This is much bigger than the last one. But what you're saying, Oliver, makes it sound like you will be sitting on a giant bomb. It just sounds dangerous.”

  The engineer walked over to them both. “We’ve scaled up the fuel mix for this tank size. We took the ratios straight from the test flight sixteen,” he told Oliver.

  “We’ve learned that simply scaling up the proportions to match the larger size doesn’t always have… proportionally larger results,” Oliver explained.

  Did he really think she thought he was going to sit on the top of this tiny death trap? His patronizing way wasn’t intentional, so Shael didn’t call him on it, but it was downright annoying. He was trying to be gentle because he’d opened her to up to the truth about a universe that was beyond her wildest imaginings. Oliver didn’t have a friend to sit down and explain things to him, he’d had a new reality shoved onto him in the most psychologically brutal way. She had to remind herself that his patronizing manner didn’t come from a lofty, superior place, rather an overcompensation for what happened to him, and wanting nobody else to suffer how he had.

  “This will be our highest altitude yet, Shael,” Oliver said. “We are hoping for more than ten kilometers.” He gazed upward as a shadow crossed his face. We will launch during second eclipse for visibility. We will see the rockets easier when the sun is not directly behind it. We have measuring devices set up in a square kilometer, to monitor how straight the flight path is.” He looked at her beseechingly. “Stay for this launch, Shael. We’re a lot further than those little skyrockets you saw us shoot up almost a year ago. Right, Doc?” Oliver called to the engineer.

  “Stop calling him that!” Shael told him. “His names is Dothil. You are still making him wear that silly white coat.”

  “What are you talking about, Shael?” Oliver laughed. “Look at that frizzy white hair, he looks permanently surprised. He’s Doc.”

  “What does that have to do with being a doctor?” Shael rolled her eyes. “This is another one of your private Earth jokes. Isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Oliver said. “And, Doc doesn’t mind.”

  “Dothil!” she corrected him again.

  The engineer called over to them. “Launch checks have been made. We are clear for test flight twenty-two.”

  “Great Scott Doc, let’s hope it works.”

  Shael punched him on the shoulder. “I know what you are doing Oliver. You’re having your own private little comedy show in your head.”

  “Where are the others?” Oliver asked, ignoring Shael.

  “The flight team are in the viewing bunker already,” Doc answered. “The ground teams are at their monitoring stations.”

  “We’ve built small facilities at each data collection station,” Oliver explained, “Doc has set up meteorological stations in a two hundred kilometer radius, as the test flights get bigger they will collect more data. Its crucial for the subsequent flights...”

  “Oliver!” Shael stopped him. “I’m a scientist. You don’t have to explain the importance of data collection.”

  “Conditions are perfect,” the Doc piped in, rescuing Oliver from the awkward moment. “Weather teams four and five have reported no heavy activity in the area. We are clear for launch at second eclipse.”

  “You’re about to see the result of nearly a hundred practice sims payoff, Shael. You’re staying for the launch right?”

  Ponsy’s hammer! He looked like an enthusiastic child. All but jumping up and down. Be encouraging, she reminded herself, looking at the unlikely contraption that was meant to shoot someone into space eventually. “Yes, I’ll watch this launch.”

  The mission control room, as Oliver had dubbed it, was really something to behold, that she had to admit. Shael had never seen so many communication bands in a single room. And people.

  “Oliver, there must be fifty people here,” she exclaimed. “What are they all doing? Are they all here for that little rocket out there?”

  Oliver looked proud. “Each is responsible for one part of the operation. Doc is the director, and…”

  “What’s your role in the this?” Shael asked suspiciously

  “I’m simply a humble benefactor,” Oliver said. “The science here is beyond me, Shael. Every one of these kids are smart as a whip, and they’re enthusiastic abou
t this project.”

  “You’re the benefactor?” Shael whispered to him so Doc and others couldn’t hear. “But all that capital was all ill-gotten from the zewka right? Are you just reappropriating the zewka’s blood money for your own project?”

  Shael could see her question disturbed him. He looked genuinely disquieted by the idea. But for her it wasn’t simply about appearances, she had to know. Perhaps it was the indoctrination of Targon or some other moral inclination she had about how science should be conducted. It was almost as if she felt that there had to be integrity around the projects or the science wasn’t valid. This was a misnomer of course. If the data was collected, and tests were conducted using proper scientific method, then the results were solid, regardless if the project was funded through corrupt means.

  Oliver ushered her to another room, out of earshot of the others. “Shael, sit down. This is important, and important to me that you know.” He sat on a stool opposite her. “I’ve nearly completely shut down zewka operations,” Oliver explained. “It’s taken time though, and it’s more complicated than I thought it would be. They have been here generations, Shael, and their tendrils have reached into many parts of society. Places you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Wait, you mean to say they are still operating in the city?” This was not the answer she wanted to hear. And she was not going to sit down and listen to this. She stood over him. “You saw what those thugs do. You even intervened on the train.” Her hands were in the air now.

  “I put a stop to that nonsense straight away,” Oliver assured her. “But there were many more people employed in Arif’s different business dealings, some illegal and some not so much. But the point is. If all those people find themselves out of work tomorrow, Shael, what do think would happen?” he asked, waiting for her response. When none was forthcoming, he continued. “We would have hundreds of small gangs and crime syndicates. The men would do what they know, what they’ve been doing all their lives. I’ve come to realize how clever Arif was. He and his family have been the lynchpin of its success, holding the entire operation together. And now with no central leadership like that rendered by Arif in the past, these gangs would terrorize Naharain. He knew that’s what would happen. There was shrewdness in his tyranny.”