by JK Stone
Saleria asked, “What’s so funny?”
Terrah smiled and said, “It only just dawned on me how much our family has grown today alone.”
Her sisters and Pops joined in her merriment and Terrah escorted them to the second level and showed them the rooms they would be staying in.
*****
The week had flown by with all of the training Alise, Jason, Justin, and Calia had put Terrah through, not to mention visiting with Pops and her sisters when time permitted.
They hadn’t all been together this long in over twenty-five years, and Terrah spent what little free time she had catching up with them.
They still had a few hours until they would arrive at Daregon, and Terrah had just finished going over a few procedures with Jason and decided to relax with Pops and her sisters for a while.
Terrah met up with them on the second level of TDS 3, and Pops had let out a chuckle, then said, “It would appear as if space travel agrees with the three of you.”
Terrah peered from Saleria then to Vellia and she thought her eyes were deceiving her. Her sisters looked at least ten years younger, maybe more. Terrah had been told that Ambrose would make them immortal, but somehow it never dawned on her that it would reverse the aging process. She was about to comment on Saleria and Vellia’s appearance but Jason’s voice called out to her before she had a chance.
“Terrah, Jerren has to head back to Earth. Your ship is going to drop out of phase when he… never mind. Your ship has dropped out of phase. TDS 4 is still on the same heading and we should arrive at Daregon in a few hours. Jerren said he scanned the area with his probe and everything was clear.”
“Alright, thanks for letting me know,” Terrah replied.
Pops, Vellia, and Saleria peered at her questioningly and Terrah realized that they didn’t hear the other side of the exchange so she told them what Jason just said.
They had been interested in what had sent Jerren back to Earth so soon, but Terrah didn’t have any answers for them.
Terrah had the first day of school jitters when Jason called over, but after informing her of the time until they reached Daregon, her nerves piqued and she was eager to begin. She excused herself and told her sisters and Pops that she would be back as soon as she could, then she made her way to the master control room.
Terrah knew that if she remained in the master control room, her ship would only take another twenty-two and a half minutes to arrive, so she decided to wait it out in there. However, even with the time differential between the master control room and regular time, she still felt as if time was crawling, and a few minutes before TDS 4 would arrive at Daregon, Jason called out to her.
“Terrah, you should probably head to the master control room—
Terrah called back with a laugh, “I’m already here, Alise and Eneria both explained how to attach the ship to the generator, and I think I may have it. I’ll call over if anything is amiss.”
Terrah could hear the amusement in Jason’s voice as he replied, “That sounds good. I’ll be available if you need anything.”
Terrah chuckled inwardly and waited out the remaining few minutes. Once Terrah saw TDS 4 was in orbit of Daregon she concentrated on connecting to the pyramids generator beam.
Terrah surprised herself when she realized the ship had connected on the first attempt, and then Terrah called out to Jason, “I’ve connected TDS 4 to the beam, and I’m going to head into my ship and begin sorting it out.”
“That sounds good, would you like any assistance?” Jason asked.
Thinking it over, Terrah decided to go it alone for the moment, and after informing him of such, Terrah stood and called for the archway. Terrah activated her armor just in case some of the debris had shifted and entered her new home.
*****
Terrah stepped into the engine room and looked at the environmental readout, the life support was still offline and she decided to work on that first. She reset the life support, and a few minutes later the oxygen level went back into the green and she lowered her armor. Looking around she peered at the mess and thought, reset ship for the new commander, but nothing happened.
Shaking her head in disgust, she thought, Reset the Artificial Intelligence.
Terrah waited a moment then called out, “Hello? Is the AI active?” she concentrated again trying to sense the AI but there was still nothing. A bit frustrated Terrah called out to her brother. “Jason, can you hear me?”
“Yes. How’s it going?”
Terrah explained about the ship still not responding despite being on the beam and he said Alise would be right over. A few minutes later she met Alise, and to her surprise, Calia as well in the engine room. She explained what she’d done and the three of them decided to perform a series of diagnostics, but all of the results came back with the ship functioning within normal parameters.
The three of them spent the next hour ramming their heads against the wall before Terrah called a halt to it. “the computer shows just less than eleven more hours to charge. This mess is really distracting me, is there anything we can do about it?” she asked with her irritation mounting.
Alise sighed and said, “Since the ship will not clear the items, the only thing I can think to do is to clear a path to the Void storage archway on the second level and manually dump everything in there, what do you think?” Alise had asked of Calia.
Calia looked as if she was about to say something, but a moment later she nodded her head apparently not having a better suggestion.
Alise looked around a moment then asked her, “How bad is the second level?”
Terrah was afraid Alise was going to ask that and she hesitantly replied, “It looked as if that was the main dumping grounds, it’s packed to the ceiling, and there was barely room to ascend on the gravity lift. After seeing that I came back down here.”
Alise shook her head and with a sigh, she said, “I think our best bet is to take the items through the master control room and send them to the void storage from our ships then. At least until we can clear a passage to the void storage archway on your second level, I guess.”
Alise looked in Calia’s direction and asked, “What do you think?”
Calia groaned and said, “That sounds like our best option at the moment, but it still baffles me as to why we cannot get the ship to respond. It is like the commander and the AI left the ship after the crash, but even if they did, the ship should allow you to reset the AI’s program.
“I am puzzled as to why it will not let you clean, but I have to admit, I did not even know the void storage existed before Justin came aboard TDS 3. The same must have been true of the prior commander and AI of this ship, judging by the mess in here,” Calia stated with a shrug as she peered around.
*****
Eleven hours later Terrah’s ship had a full charge and Terrah moved it out of the way to allow the other ships to top off their charge as well. At times her ship was overflowing with people picking up relics of the past and moving them to the other ships so they could deposit them in the void storage. Terrah was not keeping track of time, so she was a bit startled when she heard Jerren’s voice sound.
“We’ll be in range of our probe in a few minutes. How did it go with Terrah’s ship?”
Terrah watched as Jason wiped his brow and replied, “Not too well. The ship is recharged, but it’s not responding normally. We’re still unable to activate the AI and for some reason, the ship won’t allow us to activate an older version. And the ship won’t allow us to reset for the new commander either. So, we’re moving the mess to the void storage manually.
“We have the control room and most of the second level cleared now, but it’s been an arduous task. We made a path to the void storage archway here on TDS 4, so now we don’t have to trudge the items through the master control room to our ships in order to send them to the void storage.
“Now I’m sorry I laughed at Justin for moving the crap around his ship manually, karma’s a bitch. On a
lighter note however, it would seem we share our disdain for clutter with our sisters,” Jason said as he let out a laugh.
Terrah laughed inwardly at hearing that, and she turned back to the mess ahead of her, and then let out a silent groan.
“You should’ve called over, we would’ve helped,” Jerren said.
Jason had let out a sigh and replied, “No, Inola has you on a task. We’ll be fine, just let us know if you need anything.”
“Alright, be safe. You remember what happened to Justin with the clutter on his ship,” Jerren stated before closing the communications.
Terrah let out a chuckle and went back to work.
*****
Terrah had lost all track of time once again, and they had most of the second level cleaned out when Jerren called over once again to say that they would be arriving at Earth in five and a half hours if anyone wanted to observe the mission.
Jason called out, “That sounds good, we’ll try to be there.”
Terrah had halted what she was doing and asked Saleria and Vellia if they wanted to go over.
That’s when Alise said, “One thing we forgot to mention to you is that the Ambrose makes it so your minds can perceive things it could not before. We will need to train you how to block it out, because it can be debilitating hearing all the voices and being bombarded by the emotions.”
Terrah really wanted to get the ship cleaned and asked, “Is it crucial to learn that now?”
“No, we can go over the procedure with you as we clean, but you will still need to be exposed to the effects in order to block them out effectively,” Alise stated with obvious concern.
*****
Over the next five hours of cleaning, Terrah, and her sisters had been instructed on the multiphasic neural association training, though it wouldn’t be of use until they could put it into actual practice.
The time had come, Terrah considered going over to TDS 5, but she really didn’t think now would be a good time to attempt to overcome the effects. She sighed regretfully and said, “I think I’ll stay here and continue cleaning,” She looked from Saleria to Vellia and said, “You two can go if you want. I’ll be fine here with Pops.”
Vellia and Saleria decided they would wait also, then Jason, Justin, Alise, and Calia headed over to TDS 5 leaving Terrah and her sisters alone with Pops standing in a freshly cleaned second level.
Terrah looked around and closed her eyes then attempted to create a plush couch. She opened her eyes and was surprised to find it had actually appeared.
“Is the ship finally working right?” Saleria asked.
Terrah tried to reset the ship for a new commander and opened her eyes to find the couch still there. “It would appear as if I can create items but not get rid of them,” she said with irritation.
Vellia appeared to grimace a little then she said, “Huh. That could explain why the ship was in such a mess.”
Terrah gestured for everyone to have a seat, and she asked Vellia, “Are you still having the ringing and oversensitivity to noise and light?”
Vellia nodded and said, “It comes and goes every once in a while. I’ll be fine. Jason got me the meds I asked for before we left Earth, but something, probably the fact that my DNA has been altered has made the meds minimally effective, even in large quantities. And Saleria doesn’t feel comfortable with me overdosing to manage the migraines.”
Terrah looked hard at Vellia and said, “Maybe this mind training will help you.”
Vellia shrugged and said, “Could be, I’ve been doing it over the past few hours, and it does seem to help a little.”
Terrah, Saleria, and Vellia had been sitting there relaxing a few minutes before Pops said, “Your parents would’ve been so proud of how you three turned out. Your mother always said you three were destined for something important.”
Terrah and her sisters reminisced about their parents a while. Growing up, Pops had made sure they never forgot them, by reliving the memories in their stories. Terrah would close her eyes when either of her sisters would bring up events, and she was able to see them as if they were playing out right then.
A half hour later Terrah felt the pang of loss hitting her hard, so she stood and looking upward she said, “Time to work on the bedroom, you three can stay here, I’ll be right back.”
Terrah made it to the bedroom and looked around. The room wasn’t near as bad as the other levels had been. It was still a mess, but manageable.
Terrah had made several trips to the void storage. Each time Terrah would pass her family, they would offer to help her, but Terrah felt they had done more than enough to help as it was, and she wanted them to relax.
She’d just scooped up a cluster of items and descended to the second level and saw that Calia and Alise were back and holding items Terrah could only assume were brought up from the not yet cleaned sections from below, and they were explaining something to Saleria and Vellia.
“How did it go? Can you tell us what the mission was?” Terrah asked.
Alise smiled at Terrah and said, “You will get a kick out of this… His mission was on Earth date January thirty-first through February second two thousand five,” Alise ended with a smirk.
Terrah had to sit down after hearing that because she could vividly remember the events of that last day.
“What’s the significance of those dates?” Saleria asked.
Terrah held up a finger indicating she would answer Saleria’s question in a moment, then she asked Alise, “The Alien or the piece of the wreckage?”
Alise chuckled and said, “We were not one hundred percent sure which, we know the engine core was matter reactive, and if any of the dark matter was down there at the time, it could have been catastrophic. But the Aliens happen to be from this planet we are in orbit of also. So, it could have been them, or both,” Alise said with a laugh.
“The aliens were actually children on what Jason called a joy ride when they crashed, but they are all healed, and Jerren brought them through the master control room to get them home faster. Jason said he already transported Jerren, Justin and the children to Daregon, so Jerren should be finished with his mission any time now. We will be right back.” Alise stated as she and Calia stepped through the archway into the void storage, and not a second later they were back.
Realizing her sister was still waiting for her answer, Terrah turned to Saleria and said, “I was the OIC on the base the day Jerren’s team and a navy SEAL team brought one of those aliens along with some wreckage to the base. The doors to the elevator closed and a moment later the alien and the wreckage just vanished.”
Terrah explained to them that she had heard a voice that she now knew was Inola’s telling her to help Jerren, and when she finished Pops added to the conversation.
“That was the strangest day. We were supposed to arrive on base with the relief staff, but none of the jets we would board would start. I heard General Stall had been called away and was unable to return to the post in time, and General Knight was AWOL and that left you as the ranking officer on base, which was a very odd turn of events. Normally anyone SCI 3 or below would get sequestered for top secret arrivals, not to mention you had only been stationed on the base for three days.
“That foul-up got General Stall demoted back to Brig and reassigned to the Aleutian chain, and I’ve no idea whatever became of General Knight after that, he just seemed to vanish.”
Terrah looked at Pops and said, “I never had a chance to thank you for what you did for me that day.”
Pops shook his head and said, “I’d do it again.”
“What did you do? If you don’t mind me asking?” Saleria asked.
Pops shied away from the question, but Terrah answered, “Because I released Jerren’s team before Bias… no… Anubisis could interrogate them, Anubisis tried to have me court-martialed. Pops took the blame, saying he ordered me to release them and he lost his position as medical director because of it.”
“Well worth it,” Pop
s said firmly.
Terrah kissed Pops on the cheek, then stood with her cache of crap and said, “I’m going to continue cleaning, I’ll be right back.”
Moving around Alise and Calia, Terrah stepped through the archway. Terrah searched out and found a bare spot to throw the debris, and after peering around the massive void storage she returned to her ship.
Terrah just stepped back on the ship when she heard Inola’s raised yet weak sounding voice say, “NO!”
Terrah looked at Alise and Calia in question, and they both shrugged at her apparently not knowing any more than she did.
A moment later Terrah heard Jason say, “What was Inola saying ‘no’ to? We weren’t doing anything.”
“I think she was saying no to me, all of you need to come over here,” Jerren said a bit croakily over the communications.
Jason’s voice sounded once again, “We just tracked that signal you wanted and I’m phasing. Justin and I’ll be right over.”
Alise turned to Calia. “I am heading over there. Can you get the girls and continue running them through the Multi-Phasic Neural Association training? And meet Jason and Justin in the master control room.”
Calia nodded and Alise took off. Calia gathered Terrah, Saleria, and Vellia together and after telling Pops that they would be back in a bit, Calia escorted them to the master control room as she went back over the procedure they had been taught.
Terrah had just entered the master control room and Jason took hold of her hand, Justin took Saleria’s, and Calia took hold of Vellia’s then after asking if they were ready, they all stepped through the archway to TDS 5 together.
*****
Upon setting foot on TDS 5 Terrah felt a wave of pain and misery wash over her and she hit the floor. She could barely make out what was being said, and then a moment later it became clearer.
“Put their hands together as well,” Jason said.
