by Kord Stone
Alise’s voice sounded over Jason’s watch. “It makes sense, although it will still be dangerous. The air is close to Earth normal and the temperature change would indicate the ship is transitioning from the shadow on the back side of the moon to directly in view of the sun. Even with the ship’s advanced hull, the temperature will continue to increase until the engines have restarted and life support is reinstated.
“By my calculations, you will only have a sixty to seventy-minute window to initiate a restart before it will become too hot to remain onboard. The clothing and boots will afford you some protection but not much. You should have more than enough air to last that duration though.”
Jason said, “You heard Alise. We will have to work fast.”
Then Jason looked at their brother Jerren. “I think Justin and I should go over to the ship first. Could you monitor our progress from the console here? If it shows enough power, make sure the restart sequence is engaged and inform us of any changes.”
Jerren nodded and said, “Sounds like a plan. Let’s get this done before it turns into an oven over there and cooks you two turkeys.”
Justin just chuckled and thought, Leave it to Jerren to lighten the mood, as he turned to face the wall.
Jason said, “Archway TDS 3.”
Justin took a half step forward and stopped when the archway failed to appear.
Jason said, “That’s strange, it opened for me before.” Jason gestured for Justin to give it a try.
“Archway TDS 3,” he said. The words had barely left his mouth when the archway appeared. “It would appear that only the commander is allowed to open the passage,” Justin said with a smirk at Jason.
With a shrug Jason said, “It must have only let me on the last time because there was no commander in charge.”
Justin followed Jason through the archway and experienced the time dilation effect. Once they were inside the derelict ship, the feeling of weightlessness came over him. Justin activated his gravity boots and felt his feet get pulled to the floor.
Justin looked around and inwardly groaned as he surveyed the environment. The room was total a mess. Everywhere he looked he saw debris floating in all directions. They pushed their way through the debris toward the engine, which was a duplicate of the one on Jason’s ship. The only lights in the room were being emitted from their suits, but they glowed brightly enough to illuminate it entirely. They approached the engine, which was dead quiet.
Jason looked at him. “Well, let’s see what happens.”
Justin watched as Jason removed his gloves, tucked them into his waistband, and then placed his hands on the engine and began to focus. With a look of disappointment, Jason turned to him.
“It may require both of us to provide enough energy.”
Justin nodded and removed his gloves as well. He didn’t know what to do but followed Jason’s instructions and they both placed their hands on the cold engine. Still there was nothing.
Justin let out a sigh. Jason then grabbed his left hand with his right and placed his left hand on the engine.
“Justin put your right hand on the engine and focus as hard as you can,” Jason instructed.
They did and this time a few lights came on briefly but then they faded away.
Jason’s watch chirped and Jerren’s voice came over it a bit distorted, “Whatever you just did, it almost worked.”
The look of disappointment faded from Jason’s face and was replaced with one of determination. Jason activated his watch once again and called out, “We’re going to try it again. Let us know if anything changes.”
Jason looked at Justin. “You know that feeling you get when you wave your hands really fast back and forth, and you get that gravity feeling?”
Justin nodded.
“The energy we need feels kind of like that. You need to tense up and push. I will do the same and with any luck, it will work this time. Are you ready?” Jason asked, sounding a little anxious.
Justin nodded and they proceeded once again. The moment he felt the energy Jason was speaking of, he began experiencing another peculiar feeling, a fogginess and tingling that began in his head and almost felt like it was pushing him out of control of his body. He tried to concentrate on keeping control but he still felt as if he were being suppressed. He could almost feel the engine take when there was a massive explosion and the ship was thrown. He went flying and collided with the far wall. The debris that had been floating so unassumingly was now hurling in their direction. He was about to yell for his brother to take cover when something large crashed into his head, and with a shocking jolt of pain, his last conscious thought was, Crap, I’m dead!
Chapter Two
Justin felt as if a live wire had been connected to his every nerve ending. One jolt after the other, he felt his body convulse. The pain in his head had been extreme a moment before, but with each jolt, the pain seemed to lessen. A moment later he managed to open his eyes a crack and let out a gurgled, “What happened?” He coughed up a little blood that had gone down his trachea.
Jason sighed then stated, “We’re under attack!”
Another few jolts of energy caused Justin to convulse more.
Justin heard the voice he recognized as Inola’s say, “Use them!”
Jason stood and helped Justin to his feet. Jason said, “Justin, I need you to place one hand on the engine.”
Justin did as he requested, and Jason did the same as he explained, “When I get to one, reach over and press your other hand to the wall.”
Justin nodded and Jason began counting down. “Three…two…one.”
The moment Justin’s free hand came into contact with the wall, he could feel the intense jolts of energy course from the weapons being fired at the ship. They coursed through his body and into the engine. The energy made every muscle in his body constrict. It felt like an entire body charley-horse as the additional energy pulses surged into the engine and the lights lit up the room, then began to fade out.
Between blasts Justin dropped to his knees and felt despondent. He was thinking his efforts had failed and they would have to retreat to the master control room when Jerren’s distorted voice came out of Jason’s watch.
“Whatever you did just worked. The ship is powering up and should be functional in a few minutes your time and fully restarted in an hour or two.”
Justin felt an energy wave pass through him, and he looked at Jason. To his shock, Jason’s body began to radiate and pulsate with energy.
“They were warned!” Jason growled in a quavering voice and he began to convulse and hyperventilate. With each breath, his body coursed with more and more energy.
Justin was getting concerned. With every rapid breath, Jason’s face was turning a deeper and deeper shade of red. His face was almost the color of blood and his body pulsed with crackling energy.
“Jason, you need to calm down. You are going to have a stroke!” he yelled to no avail.
Jason spoke with a guttural reverberating growl. “I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS.”
Justin wasn’t sure what his brother meant or why he said it, but the words had a very menacing and dangerous feel to them.
“YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WARNED AND YOUR LIVES ARE NOW FORFEIT!”
Justin didn’t only hear those words; he felt every one of them and they seemed to grab his soul. At that moment, he felt as if something very powerful and deadly had been unleashed, and a death sentence had just been imposed.
He watched as Jason repeatedly reached out and closed his fist in the air. After a few minutes, he reached out with both hands and grasped as if he had caught butterflies in his palms, then he slowly closed his right hand into a fist and whispered into his semi-closed left hand. Afterward, he flicked his left wrist and he swept his arms in a hugging motion, then thrust his hands out from his body as if he were passing a basketball. A moment later he slumped into unconsciousness.
Justin rushed to his side. “Jason!” he shouted as he felt Jason’s neck. His p
ulse was weak and irregular, and not knowing what to do for him, Justin pulled his brother’s body in to a fireman’s carry and, pushing the floating debris aside, he entered the master control room, shouting, “Alise, open the archway! Jason has been injured!”
Alise’s voice sounded, “It is open. Bring him in!”
Jerren rushed to his side and assisted him with Jason, looked at him and winced. “What the hell happened to you two? You look a mess.”
Justin shook his head. “I’m fine for now. I don’t know what’s wrong with Jason. I’ll explain what happened after we get him on his ship.”
They entered TDS 1 with Jason draped between them and an instant later Jason vanished. “What!? Where is he?” Justin barked.
Alise opened the passage between the engine room and the inner corridor and said, “I transported Jason directly to medical. How did he get injured? All the attacking ships had been destroyed.” Eyeing him concernedly she signaled for them to follow her as they spoke.
Justin explained everything he could remember of what happened, which wasn’t much, and he was finished by the time they made it to Jason’s side.
Justin asked Alise, “What’s wrong with him?”
Alise was consulting a monitor and shook her head. “I do not know. All of his body chemistry is out of the normal range. His electrolytes are almost depleted, and he has severe subconjunctival hemorrhaging.”
Justin felt like he was about to pass out. “Is he going to be all right?”
Alise put her hand on his shoulder. “His body chemistry is almost back to normal now. He should be fine. We need to see to your injuries.”
Justin was about to protest, but before he could open his mouth, he found himself lying flat on a medical bed beside Jason’s bed. “I feel fine,” he protested.
Jerren stood over him. “Well you don’t look fine,” he said with a wince and asked Alise, “Will the medical unit fix his face?”
Justin began to get worried and was about to ask what was wrong with his face, but a second later he was out cold.
* * * * *
When Justin awoke, he could hear Alise speaking to Jerren about something. He took in a deep breath and sat up, asking, “How long was I unconscious?”
Alise approached him and looking him over she said, “Not long, only a few minutes. I needed to sedate you because some of your skull and facial bones had been fractured, and mending them would have been painful if you were awake for it.”
Jerren approached him and taking his chin in his hand, he turned his face from side to side. “Not bad, but I still think I’m the more ruggedly handsome one.” He let out a laugh.
“Aren’t you the funny man,” Justin quipped, then he looked at Jason, hopped off his bed and walked over. Jason was still unconscious, and he placed his hand on Jason’s forehead a moment then turned to Alise and Jerren. “What do I need to do now?”
“Set course for Daregon. TDS 3 will need to be recharged and that is the closest pyramids generator. We will meet you there,” she said, sounding a bit concerned.
Justin frowned. “I thought you told Jason these ships can’t be in close proximity to each other.”
“Until this event we were never able to get this close. It is strange. During the attack I saw your life signs had failed. I tried to contact Jason and Jerren, but the communications were down, we were already headed to Earth, so I rushed to get TDS 1 to your location… When I approached the moon, I saw all of the Toralin and consortium ships attacking TDS 3 but once I got in transport range, I noticed your life signs had stabilized. I backed TDS 1 off to fight off the attackers, but before I could do anything about them, the attackers’ ships had been destroyed, then Jason’s life signs went haywire. I tried to get close enough to transport him aboard, but the transporter had issues.” She ended with a hint of irritation.
Jerren spoke up. “Is this ship able to get within weapons range of TDS 3?”
“Not quite. I think something about the engines decreases the range of both the transporter and the weapons when the ships approach each other. Why?”
“I was just thinking. How close to the atmosphere can these ships hold their position while charging?” Jerren asked.
Alise said, “We can maintain a low orbit over Daregon, why?”
“Are you thinking overwatch, Jerren?” Justin asked.
Jerren nodded and Justin explained it to her. “If I put TDS 3 into the lowest possible orbit for charging, you can put this ship as close to its apogee as possible, then this ship can protect TDS 3 while it charges. That is what we refer to as an overwatch position.”
Alise smiled and nodded. “That sounds like a plan. After Jason wakes up, we have to repair an issue with an event horizon involving the ancient Imortum portal between Earth and the planet Antilles, and then we will meet you at Daregon.
“It will take you a considerable amount of time to get TDS 3 there with the depleted power. I would estimate it will take a little over seven days. As soon as we fix the issue on Earth, we will rendezvous with you there. Normally we would travel phased out, and try to time jump and come in from a time before anyone was looking for you, but without the required power, you will be out in the open. If you run into any troubles, let me know. It will not take long for us to get to you, and if worse comes to worst, you can always return here through the master control room.”
Justin was astounded at how fast the ship would be able to travel without a charge, but nodded. “I’ll head back to my ship and get it moving then.”
* * * * *
Justin entered his ship and took a look around; the lights were on now and he sighed. The engine room was a total mess. Debris was still floating in every direction, so after arranging it so that he wouldn’t be crushed, he gradually reactivated the gravity. He began working his way to the passageway and finally made it to the wall where the passageway was. He opened it and let out a moan. This is not pretty, he thought to himself. The corridor was suffused with debris as well. He turned, thinking he would speak to Alise about how to clean it up, and headed back to her ship.
He entered the master control room and was about to take a step toward TDS 1 when the display on his console caught his attention. He wondered if he could control the ship from there. A second later, the display changed to read,
TDS 3
He thought, Set course for Daregon.
The display changed to read,
TDS 3
Course laid in, estimated time to Daregon 182.5 hours.
Smiling at the fact he figured that out all on his own, he turned and reentered his ship.
Justin made it a few steps in and his grin faded. Looking at the insurmountable mess, he let out another groan. Thinking it had worked in setting the course for Daregon, he called out, “Clean the ship.” Nothing happened, and after several more attempts using variations in wording having failed, he resigned himself to the overwhelming task ahead of him. In his frustration, he forgot that he was going to ask Alise how to clean the ship, and he began picking up whatever he could and stacking it against the far wall to allow access. It took him a few minutes before he realized he could ask his AI for help.
Grinning once again, he called out, “Hello, I am speaking to the AI.” There was silence so he continued, “I am the new commander of this vessel. Could you come in here?” He tried several more times over the next few hours to no avail. He figured something must be wrong with the AI’s program because by his third attempt he felt the AI had been activated, but it was not responding to him, and he decided he would have to ask Jason about it when he woke up. Realizing the ship would not clean itself, he continued the arduous task of cleaning the ship.
The Artificial Intelligence was not amused one bit. It had never in its entire existence been forced to bond with an untrained commander. It was a source of pride that it had only had two commanders the entire time it was active. It knew for a fact the other ships had at least ten commanders over nearly four hundred thousand years, which is
what made Atlas the elite commander in its opinion, all of the other commanders were inexperienced beginners to its way of thinking. Not wishing to converse at the moment it retreated to the observation level to figure out what had happened.
The AI had monitored the self-proclaimed commander of the ship while he gathered the true commander’s possessions and moved them to the second level. The AI knew the logistics of traveling fifteen thousand years back to rescue the prior commander would be nearly impossible and the possibility of creating a major paradox did not sit well with it. Not to mention it felt this new commander would be resistant to the idea altogether. It still chafed the AI that it did not even get a say in whether he was qualified to run this ship, which he obviously was not if his moving the items manually was any indication. The AI grunted in disgust as it went back through the database.
The last message TDS 3 had received was a distress call from TDS 1, informing them that Lantis had been destroyed. The commander, who was the first king of the Lantins, felt the catastrophe hard, and rushed to rectify the tragedy. They abandoned their current investigation and immediately went to Terra, only to get caught up in the blast as well, according to the sensor data.
The AI found that the most recent version of the AI’s consciousness had been uploaded to the ship, as was standard procedure. For some unknown reason however, the active version of the AI’s program accompanied the commander to the surface. When the blast killed the commander and the active version of the AI, the shockwave rebounded through his time displacement suit and caused a system-wide shutdown. Over the years the ship’s core went cold, and it remained offline until the ship was powered up.
It astounded the AI that this untrained human had been able to restart the engine. From the information that was recorded, it seriously doubted either of the former commanders could have accomplished it. And although it would not admit it, the AI thought it would like to complete the bonding process if only to find out how he had managed to accomplish this feat.
* * * * *
