Eleven Unveiled (Imortum)

by Kord Stone

  Justin thought back to what he was told. “Not much, I’m afraid. Jason and Alise did not go into detail about them, just how we got involved in all of this.”

  Justin was not sure how to broach the next topic, so he just spat it out. “What did you mean when you kept telling me to change you back?”

  She looked down at her hands and explained. “This is the first time I have looked like this. As I told you before, I have only had two commanders in all the time I have been active. After our argument, I combed through the first commander’s memories and there was no reference to what could have happened to me. It was not until I looked into his father’s memories that I found the answer.

  “You see, his son Hyais was flirting with a Lantin girl and not paying attention when he was informed about what happens during the bonding process. That is why his memories did not explain my transformation. His father Atlas did remember the explanation, so I found it in his memories. Apparently the AI, that being me, would change in appearance and personality to be what the new commander would be able to trust and confide in. When I was first bonded, I was an androgynous humanoid. Atlas knew me as such and trusted me. So when he bonded with me I remained in the same form.”

  She paused a few seconds then continued, “I was becoming increasingly intrigued by your actions aboard this ship. I did not wish to ask you how you were coming by the information about the operation of this vessel, which even I did not know about. So last night after you went to sleep…I uploaded my consciousness to your binding disk and completed the bonding process to see what I could find out.

  “Only it did not work as I had planned. We are bonded, but I am unable to access any of your memories the way I could with the other commanders. I still have not figured out what is causing the failure. All of the diagnostics I have performed have come back normal.

  “That was not the only thing that happened however. When I went to re-enter a body after the bonding, this is what the ship made for me. I was already irritated that I could not see your thoughts, and I thought my programming had been manipulated. My new emotions got the better of me. That is why I lashed out thinking you had something to do with the change. I am truly sorry.”

  Justin was relieved and could tell she still needed questions answered. “If there’s anything you would like to know I would be more than happy to tell you what I can. I must warn you though, it’s not much,” he finished with a laugh.

  She seemed to ponder the question. “Do you know why I cannot access your memories?”

  He frowned. “Not really, I know my head is swimming right now with a massive stream of data passing through the binding disk. The answer could be as simple as a bottleneck. I can ask Jason and Alise if they have any ideas.”

  Once again, at the mention of Alise’s name, she frowned and changed the subject. “Where does the archway in the engine room lead to?”

  Justin let out a chuckle. “It connects to the master control room. That’s where all of the data is streaming from. It’s also connected to the other remaining ships.”

  She got a concerned look on her face and quietly asked, “Which ships are left?”

  “TDS 1, that is the ship my brother Jason is commander of. TDS 3, which as you know is this ship, and TDS 5 are the only others still active now. But TDS 5 refuses to communicate with us.”

  She turned pale, and Justin asked, “What’s wrong?”

  She bowed her head. “We knew something was amiss with TDS 5, and we were looking into it when we received the distress call from TDS 1. I told you that Atlas was the first king of the Lantins. What I did not tell you was when he heard the distress call about Lantis, he dropped everything and rushed in to save them. According to the probe’s data, the blast was caused by saboteurs in the particle chamber. Atlas was going to deactivate it before it could cause the cascade failure. That was the last thing I remember, but according to the last telemetry from his suit, the blast that killed him happened five minutes before the original blast should have occurred, and caused a temporal rift—”

  Justin was getting very uncomfortable now and he cut in, “That’s almost exactly what happened to Elgon.”

  She got a strange look on her face and asked, “Who is Elgon?”

  Justin considered where to begin. “I told you Alise got a new commander after Lantis’s destruction. His name was Elgon, and he is or was a distant relative of mine. He was trying to prevent an event horizon that formed between two ancient Imortum portals that opened between Earth and a planet called Antilles.”

  “Earth?” she asked.

  “That’s right. You would know it as Terra. They must have changed the name a long time ago. I know Terra and Earth mean the same thing in the Latin dictionary… Come to think of it, the Latin and Lantin dictionaries are very similar.”

  He regained his thoughts and continued his explanation, “Anyway, the same thing happened to him there that you just described happening to Atlas. Only the blast didn’t kill Elgon right away. He made it back to TDS 1 and knowing he was going to die, he set off to retrieve his replacement, that being my eldest brother Jason. This all started for us a couple of weeks ago.”

  She seemed to be taking the information as well as could be expected and asked, “How did you come to be the commander of this ship?”

  “There was an attack on TDS 1. The Toralins used what Jason called a TPE or time-phased explosive. It caused the engine to destabilize and just before the ship’s power failed, he managed to open the archway to the master control room. That’s where he reset the power for TDS 1, and he also noticed the status of the other ships. Originally we had decided our middle brother Jerren was going to be the commander of this ship.” He paused, considering how to continue.

  “And?” she asked.

  “He tried to apply the binding disk, but it kept shocking him. After the third attempt, Jerren had enough, and Jason suggested I give it a try.”

  “So it worked for you?”

  “Not in the way you might think. You see my life experiences really didn’t make me the best choice for this. In reality, Jerren and Jason were better suited for the task. I really didn’t think I was right for it for a few reasons. Well someone or something thought otherwise. When I openly tried to decline the offer, the disk began to vibrate on the console, then flew over and attached just behind my right ear. When I tried to remove it, the disk went active and here I am.” He swept his arms out with a resigned gesture.

  She nodded in apparent understanding.

  Justin took a good look at her and he decided to broach the other topic again. “Have you thought of a name I can call you?”

  She did not look happy about the change in topic and said, “No, as I told you before, I was only ever called Bot, and to be honest with you, I have not thought about it.”

  Justin wanted to strangle the last commanders. He was about to tell her what he thought of the name when a familiar voice rang out in his head. Calia. He let out a low, “Hmm.”

  She looked up at him. “What?”

  He was not sure she would like him picking out a name for her but continued anyway. “I don’t know; a name popped into my head. What do you think of Calia?”

  She seemed stunned by the name, and it took a few seconds before she regained her focus.

  “If you don’t like it, you can pick something else,” he said hoping he had not just insulted her.

  “No…Calia will be fine. The name just caught me off guard.” She smiled.

  Justin stood and took her hand in his. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Calia. My name is Justin Stone.”

  Chapter Six

  Calia was impressed. She had thought the mission prep console was the only one made for the control room, but Justin had installed two additional consoles, one on either side of the mission prep console. He told her the one on the left side was tied into the center console, and he informed her it was a science station, and its main use was to scan for temporal anomalies and spatial rift
s. She had asked him why they needed it, and he shrugged and told her the design was in his head, and he thought it might be useful.

  She took a close look at the console to the right and gasped in shock to see the ship had weapons all along. The console was labeled Weapons Deployment and Defensive Systems. The sight of that console brought her up short, “I never knew there were weapons built for these ships.”

  Justin smirked at her and said, “Jason told me Alise had an astounded look on her face when she saw the console for the first time as well. I would imagine it was a bit like yours is now.”

  Calia felt irritation build and was about to examine the weapons console in detail when Justin asked her another question. “Do you not like Alise?”

  Startled at the question Calia replied, “What… No, I have never actually met her. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve noticed that whenever I mention her name you look irritated. And when I called you by that name before, well you kind of went off on me.”

  “I can honestly tell you I have no idea why the name sets me off. I know I am an A.L.I.S.E. but it rubs me raw being referred to as such. It is nothing personal or anything against the other AI though. Until now I never knew any of the AIs took that name.”

  Justin chuckled. “That’s good to know. I was hoping it wasn’t going to cause issues working with her.”

  Her irritation rose again. “Why would we have to work with them? We have always done our own thing and it has worked fine for hundreds of thousands of years.”

  Justin sighed. “I have accessed some of the memories from your first host, Hyais. While he was training to be the commander, it appears as if the Imortum did intend to make these ships independent. But I can’t fight the feeling that was a serious mistake. Jason and I are new at this. We’re very close and after seeing what happened with the past commanders…I would just feel better knowing we are working together. I know he would die to protect us and I’ll die to protect him and Alise.”

  Calia nodded and said, “I am sorry. I know this is all new to you, and you do make a very valid point. It will be a major change to my way of thinking, but I will do what you feel is best.”

  Calia looked to the single chair and raised an eyebrow at him. “So…am I supposed to stand all the time?” she asked with a grin.

  Justin looked at the chair and cleared his throat. “Well…at the time I installed the chair, I didn’t think I was going to be getting any help. One moment.” He closed his eyes in apparent concentration, and a second later there was a flash and he opened his eyes with a smile. “There. The new configuration is set up as an oculus. With the two chairs, we can glide from station to station. If one of us is on the center console, the other can glide from console one to three or vice versa unobstructed.”

  She was impressed. In the past, the console had been just wide enough to support two static chairs, and the room had always seemed excessively large for the tasks. Now with the additional consoles and the mobile chairs, it seemed to flow better.

  Calia approached the science console and took a seat. She gave it a slight nudge to the right and the chair flew around the back of the other chair to the weapons and defense console. “I remember Atlas on many occasions saying weapons should have been installed, but we could never find any hint of them on the ship. Whenever we were attacked, we would just phase and run… Do you know what the weapons system is capable of?”

  Justin sat beside her and said, “A little. From what Jason explained to Jerren and me, the weapons are partially tied to the engine in that they draw power from it, and one of the abilities is to freeze a target out of time. He said it works well but seems to be limited to freezing a single ship at a time.

  “There are also particle weapons that are useful, but overuse of those weapons can deplete the energy reserves rather fast. Jason said he was able to reach out with his mind and crush a drone ship’s hull, but it caused a significant drain on the ship’s power as well. Luckily they were on the pyramids generator at the time, and only had to remain connected a little longer to make up for the lost energy.”

  He appeared to hesitate a second before continuing. “He told us there’s another feature the ship is capable of, but from what I was able to ascertain through my connection to the master control room, it was not originally intended as a weapon. The ship can form an event horizon.

  “A file I located showed that originally it was created to form the nucleus of a galaxy. If you open an event horizon in a strategic location and leave it open, the black hole or gravity well will draw the materials from the surrounding space and, given the right environment along with enough time, it would form stars, planets and solar systems.

  “Well, something happened that was only referred to as ‘the event’ and the Imortum realized it could be used as a weapon as well. Jason told Jerren and me that he gets an ominous feeling when he looks at it, and I get the same every time I look at that feature as well.”

  Calia looked up at the display on the wall. “Where are we heading?”

  “We’re just over three days out from Daregon to recharge. At the time I didn’t know I could set course with my mind, and there was too much of a mess to make it to the mission prep console, so I headed back to TDS 1 to ask Alise how to do it. But I found out I could control the ship from the master control room and so I used the console in there to set the course.

  “Alise said it’s a good policy to come in from a time before anyone was looking for you, but the ship’s energy is too low so we’re taking a chance going it alone and in phase. Alise should have informed Jason of our plan by now, and if we need any assistance they can get to us and help. The last time we were at Daregon, the Toralin’s attacked TDS 1.

  “When Jason’s feeling better, they’re going to resolve that event horizon issue between Earth and Antilles, then they’ll meet us at Daregon. We’ll charge the ship and they’ll be on overwatch for us,” he finished with a smile.

  “They will not be of much help if we are attacked. These ships cannot be close enough to make a difference,” she stated firmly.

  Justin cracked a smile. “Actually, I think they can. Just as long as they’re not too close to each other. This ship came into the same phase as TDS 1 after the attack just before we restarted it, but the two ships were just out of weapons range when this ship powered up. Alise told me what happened from her point of view and we came up with a plan.

  “Alise is going to have Jason position his ship directly over ours just out of range and out of phase. We’ll position this ship right on the edge of the atmosphere and recharge. If anyone attempts to attack us, Jason should have a clear shot to discourage them.”

  Calia was thinking over what he just said then she asked, “Why go all the way to Daregon to recharge? It would have been much closer and faster to recharge at the Terran…I mean Earth pyramids generator.”

  Justin shook his head. “Alise told Jason those generators were destroyed by The Eleven. That’s what we’re calling the conspirators from thousands of years ago. I don’t know what the generators were supposed to look like before, but now they’re in ruins. The smooth limestone we thought once covered them is all but gone now and only the rough stone base is exposed.”

  Calia sighed. “Well, that would explain why we will not be able to charge there. The pyramids are supposed to be covered in the technology of the Imortum, which uses the pyramids as a base and collects energy directly from the planet’s core and then focuses a triple beam of concentrated ion particles to these ships. It is very sad. Those generators have been around for many hundreds of thousands of years if not longer. Certainly much longer than the Lantins have had control over these ships.”

  She let out another sigh. “With the Earth pyramids out, Daregon sounds like the best plan then. By the way, what is wrong with your brother?”

  Justin leaned back in his chair and said, “While we were reactivating this ship, the Toralins attacked us again… Jason did something I don’t quite unde
rstand and got rid of them. After he did, he passed out and only just woke up yesterday. But he seems to be recovering well despite the physical damage he took.”

  Calia’s concern was mounting and she asked, “How did the Toralins know what you were up to? Or even where you were?”

  Justin said, “Jerren and I discussed it and we believe TDS 5 is the way they knew where we would be. It’s a long story…” He seemed to think on it then chuckled. “Well, it’s not as if we don’t have the time. In linear time, Jerren and I died over a year ago, at least from Jason’s perspective.”

  That statement drew her complete attention. It took the better part of an hour to fill her in on what Justin and his brothers knew and what they suspected.

  By the end of his explanation, she felt anxious yet determined and said, “We are going to have to deal with TDS 5 as soon as possible.”

  Justin furrowed his brows as he remembered something Calia had said earlier. “What did you mean before when you said something was amiss, and Atlas was looking into TDS 5?”

  “About fifty thousand linear years ago we received a distress call from the AI of TDS 5. The commander had been killed in a very strange way. There was a power surge while he was aboard the ship. He vanished right in front of the AI, and we could not locate him.”

  Justin was puzzled. “If this ship can go back in time why couldn’t you just go to a point before it happened and warn him?”

  Calia frowned and said, “Time works in a multitude of ways. The best way to explain it in this situation would be that time runs in both linear and phased nonlinear time concurrently. These ships are not really in the standard space-time. We travel into standard time to fix problems that arise, and while we can travel through standard time, all of the ships seem to be in the same phased linear time together, and something about their construction prevents us from traveling in time within our own phased linear time, which made it impossible to alter events on the other ship; do you understand that?”