Eleven Unveiled (Imortum)

by Kord Stone

Justin was working like a dog, and he could not believe one person could collect this much crap. He thought that to call the prior commander a hoarder would have been an insult to hoarders, and he wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if he moved an item and found a lost civilization of rodents living beneath the rubble.

  He had been hard at it for well over a day and there was still debris in piles as well as strewn throughout the ship as far as he knew. Originally he figured cleaning the lower level would be a priority since the clutter there had almost gotten him killed, so he had started there.

  However, after hours and hours of hard labor, he didn’t appear to be making any headway. He had only managed to make it a few feet into the control room, and there was still a pile of debris amassed several inches higher than his head.

  Now he was beginning to wish he had started with the bedroom. He was getting exhausted and his head was bustling with information that at the moment was useless. He couldn’t make heads or tails out of the schematics or diagrams popping into his mind, and he figured it would be a good time to take a break and check on his brother Jason.

  Justin made his way back in to the engine room and thinking to make one last attempt to talk to the AI he called out, “Alise…I will be out of the ship for a while. I should be back in a few hours—”

  A harsh voice interrupted him. “ALISE is a designation…not my name!”

  Happy to hear the AI finally speak, he was about to reply. Then he took note of the tone and what it said. Justin sighed saying, “Well, seeing as how you have never formally introduced yourself and have ignored all of my previous attempts at peaceful discussions, I had no idea. I only knew the name I was given. So what is your name then if not Alise?”

  The AI seemed to pause a second then with an abrupt tone said, “I was always called Bot.”

  Justin wanted to pull his hair out. Shaking his head in frustration he stated, “There is no way I am calling you Bot. It seems too derogatory and impersonal. Is there any other name I can call you?”

  “No!” the AI replied in an angry tone.

  Justin’s head was throbbing and he snapped, “Very well, for the time being, if I am speaking out loud, you are to assume I am speaking to you. However, as I have said before, I will be gone for a few hours. And you need to choose a new name by the time I get back, because I will not be calling you Bot… ever!”

  “Very well,” the AI said with a smug tone, “but we are nowhere near a habitable world. Where do you propose to go? Out into deep space and take a nice lungful of a freezing vacuum?”

  Justin knew the AI was being a smart ass and decided to just leave and calm down. He thought, Archway, the passage opened, and shaking his head he stepped through.

  * * * * *

  The AI was left dumbfounded. In all the time it was active on this vessel it had never known there was a passage on and off the ship in the engine room. How did this primitive untrained human know about it? Or even how to access it? It wondered how many other things he knew about the ship. There was one way to find out, but stubbornness and pride prevented it from acting.

  Chapter Three

  Justin had vented his displeasure about the condition of his ship to Jerren, and being the supportive older brother, Jerren just sat there and listened until he got it out of his system.

  Finished ranting about the condition of the ship, Justin let out a sigh, saying, “I don’t know what to do about the AI either; it’s being a pain in the ass. It refused to interact with me at all, and when I just called it Alise it went banshee on me, informing me, ‘A L I S E is a designation,’ not its name.”

  Shaking his head, he continued, “I absolutely refuse to call it what it was being called by the last commander.” He paused to catch his breath then asked, “How is Jason doing by the way?”

  Jerren shrugged. “About the same as when we got him back here. You heard what Alise said. He is not in any danger, so we just need to wait for him to wake up on his own.” He paused a moment then said, “You know; you could ask Alise for help with your AI issues.”

  Justin knew he was being stubborn, but he really wanted Jason’s input. Not an AI to tell him how to manage another. He couldn’t understand how one program could be so different from the other. The two were like night and day. Alise had a sense of humor, and was polite and nice. Whereas his AI seemed annoyed at his very existence and would not communicate unless it was to chastise him.

  Twenty-four hours ago Justin actually thought this might be nice to live a long time and be happy like Jason was, but now his situation almost felt like a curse. “No…I’ll just wait until Jason wakes and see what he thinks. I’m going to head back and continue cleaning up that mess of a ship. I know I was always a bit of a neat freak growing up, but that ship is making it worse. Especially when I see how clean and tidy this ship is.”

  Jerren laughed. “We were all neat freaks. It drove us nuts when Father would leave stuff lying all around and even more so when he got remarried, and Mother would leave her stuff strewn throughout the house as well. We were constantly picking up after them. Would you like me to come over and help you clean it up?”

  Justin did feel a little better. “No, I would rather nobody saw the mess it’s in. Once it’s cleaned up, you’re welcome to come over anytime.” He gave his brother a hug and a firm pat on the shoulder. “As always, thanks for letting me vent. I’m sorry if your ears are ringing.”

  He stopped just before exiting the room, “I’ll see you later. Have Alise contact me if Jason wakes up. Otherwise, I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. I think I’ll go work on the bedroom next so I can get some sleep. It’s been over forty-eight hours since I slept last and the last twenty-four has been hard labor. At least the bedroom is smaller.”

  Justin entered the master control room and moved to the TDS 3 console. He peered around the master control room and marveled at how clean and tidy it was, then shaking his head he thought, no sense whining about it. Looking over the console, he saw the data stream had increased to twenty-five percent. He thought, No wonder my head is getting fuzzy with information. He wondered if he could reduce the data flow a little and the console brought up a query,

  TDS 3

  Auto data stream engaged

  Reduce data stream to minimal? (Yes) or (No).

  He figured it would be best to leave it as it was, considering it was an all or nothing type of thing, and he selected (No).

  The data stream might be fogging his mind at the moment, but he could miss important information if he reduced it. He turned to go back into his ship and thought, The ship may be a mess, and the AI doesn’t like me, but it is mine. With that in mind, he set out to make it a ship he could be proud of, and entered for round two in the battle to clean it up.

  Justin made his way up to the bedroom and looked around. It was a mess as well but not nearly as bad as the lower levels had been. Most of the stuff on this level had landed on the far side of the room in a tangled mess. He figured it must have been compacted from the impact of the blast, when the gravity was reactivated or both, and even though there wasn’t as much debris, it was still wedged together rather tightly. He found a nice chunk of metal he could use as a lever and proceeded to pry free the debris piece by piece from the pile.

  He took the freed items to the second level and stuffed the unwanted junk wherever he could find a place. Hours later he finally made it to the bottom of the pile, where he found the mattress for the bed. He shook his head and groaned audibly. He wasn’t going to get any sleep on that. It looked shredded and punctured.

  He tore a piece off it, figuring it would make a halfway decent pillow, and tossed it onto the solid metal bed frame that was still in one piece at least. He finished moving the rest of the remnants of the pile to the very full second level. He had thought about going to Jason’s ship and getting a proper mattress, pillow and blankets, but he was too exhausted, so he tucked the mattress fragment under his head, lay down and was sleeping in seconds.

&nbs
p; * * * * *

  The AI watched as the new commander dismantled the pile of debris and moved it piece by piece to the second level. By the end, the room had looked almost as clean as it had been when the Lantins first took over the running of the ship. It almost went in to help clean up a few times, but something made it stop.

  It really did not care for the clutter. The prior two commanders never got rid of anything. It could not blame the last commander. His son had been chosen to be the first commander of this ship, and he had done a good job for the thousand years he was onboard. That was until he fell in love with a young lady from Lantis. There were strict rules about bonded commanders not being in relationships, but they both thought they knew better so he got married and brought his new bride along with him.

  Everything was fine for almost twenty years, and then the resentment began to set in. She was angry that her husband had a connection with the AI and the ship, a bond that she would never have, and in a fit of pique one night, she killed him while he slept.

  Out of guilt and a sense of honor, the AI took the commander’s body back to his father for pyre ascension and the wife to be tried before the Lantin Ennead. The father, having just lost his wife to a freak accident, abdicated his rule of the Lantins to his eldest son. He had gone through most of the training by the Imortum alongside his youngest son, so he convinced it to let him take his son’s place as the new commander of the ship.

  All of the son’s belongings stayed where they were and seemed to get devoured by the relics his father collected over time.

  The AI cleared its thoughts and noticed the commander was shivering. Without a second thought, it created a blanket to place it over him. Then it turned to go back up to the observation room to try and figure out how it was going to proceed with this new commander.

  * * * * *

  Justin woke up a lot more refreshed than he had expected to. The bed was by no means comfortable, but he awoke refreshed nonetheless. He had worked himself to sheer exhaustion, so much so that he didn’t even remember finding the blanket he was now cocooned in. He wrestled with the desire to just lay there and do nothing for the rest of the day, but he soon reminded himself that the bottom floor was still a cluttered mess, and he needed to clear it before anyone else got hurt. Not that he could think of anywhere to put the vestiges of the last commander. He really hoped Jason would wake soon and possibly allow him to move some of the crap to TDS 1.

  That thought got him to chuckle as he remembered what Jerren had said about all of them being neat freaks. He knew he would not impose his mess on his brother. He almost wished he could just open a porthole and let it all float off into the vacuum of space, but that would be littering, and even in the vastness of space, it didn’t sit well with him. So he decided there was nothing for it; he would just have to ask for help. Hoping the AI was listening in, and in a better mood today, he raised his voice, “How am I supposed to get rid of all this garbage?”

  The AI snapped back in a hostile tone, “You should not have come aboard a ship if you did not know anything about it! You are the new commander… You figure it out!”

  The outburst from the AI got Justin’s blood pumping and ears ringing. The AI was infuriatingly unhelpful and curt to boot. He decided to do just as it said and he figured it would be a cold day in hell before he asked for help again. “Very well!” he said in a huff as he headed to the first level.

  Justin arrived on the first level and peered around. At least the inner corridor was cleared. It had taken him a full day to gather all the items and move them to the second level. Now he was going to have to clutter it up once again. He needed to stage and re-stage items to make the best use of space. He had managed to clear the first three feet into the control room with the mission prep console the day before, and looking at the remaining mess, he had to wonder how the occupants had even gotten around with that much stuff in each room. He cringed at the thought that the other corridors could possibly be as bad as the inner ones had been, and resolutely he continued moving the relics.

  It took him the rest of the second day and a little into the morning of the third to make his way into and clear the next room, and it was as he had feared. When he opened the passageways to both medical and the prep rooms, he found they were also piled with more crap. Finally fed up with it all and needing a break he yelled, “I cannot believe anyone could live like this! I’ll be back later.” Justin stomped his way to the engine room, called for the archway, and then left the ship in disgust.

  Chapter Four

  Justin’s head was throbbing when he entered TDS 1. It dawned on him that it was odd he could call for an archway to enter Jason’s ship when his brother could not open the one onto his. Shrugging the anomaly off for now, he ascended to the second level to find Jerren.

  As soon as he arrived on the level, Alise’s voice sounded over his watch. “We are on level three. Come on up.”

  Justin ascended to the third level, saw Jerren and Alise having a conversation in the far corner and joined them. He looked over to the bed where his brother Jason still lay sleeping. Looking back to the others, he whispered, “Has he come around yet?”

  Alise shook her head. “No, it appears as if he is just exhausted though. The medical scans, as I told you, were okay aside from his eyes, and the chemistry levels have returned to normal, but the medical unit had issues repairing his eyes all the way. I would really like to know more about what happened.”

  Justin shrugged. “I told you all I can remember. You know as much as I do at the moment.”

  “Reduce lighting seventy-five percent,” Jason’s voice croaked out.

  Justin had been startled by his brother’s command and the near darkness that instantly fell over them. They rushed to his side with a litany of questions.

  His brother held his hand up to signal for silence and slowly opened his eyes. “O…ne…” He cleared his throat. “One second…what happened? I remember going on the other ship, the blast and Inola’s voice telling me to ‘use them’, then energy pulsing through me into your wounds. After that, her voice said to ‘use them’ again and I knew it meant to power the ship up but after Jerren said it worked, all I remember is waking up here.”

  Justin nodded and said, “After Jerren informed us it had worked, you kind of went…ape shit.”

  Jason looked at him questioningly.

  “Well, it is the best way to describe it.” Justin explained in detail what he saw and heard Jason do and finished with bringing him aboard TDS 1.

  Alise picked up the telling. “I performed a medical scan on you. Aside from a serious electrolyte imbalance and severe subconjunctival hemorrhaging, you were fine. Although your clothes were a mess again. Your shirt must have been vaporized because I could not find any trace of it.”

  Jason let out a slight chuckle that made him turn a shade of green for a second. He looked as though he was about to get sick, then a few seconds later he spoke. “Ah…that would be because I wasn’t wearing it.”

  Justin looked to see her response to that statement, and he was not surprised to see Alise was scowling at Jason.

  “I removed it to get more skin contact with the ship when I healed Justin. The energy from the weapons passed through my back and into him through my hands,” Jason finished to her unamused gaze.

  Alise said, “Although I am happy that you saved your brother’s life, I think it was unwise to use yourself as a lightning rod of sorts. It could have killed you; it could have killed both of you.”

  Jason sighed, slowly got up and took her in his arms, “I know you’re probably getting tired of hearing this, but I’m sorry I cause you to worry. I don’t do it out of recklessness or disregard for your feelings, but because I love my brothers, and I would do it again if it meant saving their lives.” He took her cheeks in his hands and forced her to look up at him. “And I would do the same for you. You mean the world to me, as much as…no, more than them even.”

  Jason said to Justin and Jerren, �
��I’m sorry, but she’s everything to me. So you should know what that means, given my love for the both of you.”

  Justin nodded, even with the diminished lighting, Jason’s blood-red eyes and greenish hue made his own body hurt as well. He figured Jason still needed time to mend, so he decided he would talk with him about how to clean TDS 3 later. Jason’s declaration for Alise rubbed him a bit raw, not out of anger but a bit of admiration for something he did not think he would have. He cupped Jason on the shoulder. “Well I hate to break up this love fest, but I need to get back to my ship. The last commander was a hoarding slob and it’s taking forever to clean all the crap up. The entire second level is packed and I’m running out of room to put stuff.”

  Jason and Alise began laughing and this got him a bit agitated. “What? What are you not telling me?’ Justin asked.

  Jason said, “Just instruct the ship to move the offending items to void storage. The same way you call for the archway. It’s as easy as that. And if you have the required base materials and instructions, you can make any items or food you need.”

  “Your ALISE should have told you that,” Alise said with a smirk.

  Justin thought his head was about to explode, and he wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find steam billowing from his ears. With a grumble, he turned and marched to the lift muttering, “Smart-ass, uncaring, slave-driving AI.”

  Justin entered the TDS 1 engine room and called for the archway. He was about to take a step, but the archway did not appear for him. A bit irritated he spoke into his watch, “Jason, could you open the archway to the master control room? Now that you are awake, I can’t open it,” and a second later the archway appeared. “Thank you,” he muttered as he stepped through the passage.

  Justin entered his ship, stepped out of the engine room and looked at the inner corridor that had once been cleaned, only to be packed with new crap from the control room once again. The irritation he was already feeling had just increased to the bursting point and he closed his eyes and in a fit of pique he thought, Move everything to void storage. A second later, he hesitantly opened his eyes to find the room clear of all debris.