by JD Clarke
Mela and Austin had actually walked out beyond our shield and negotiated with the Unity members directly. They provided additional data on android specifications and discussed the type of android each Unity member wanted. They also arranged to be taken aboard one of the warships and transported to a nearby base where androids were in control.
“According to information provided by the Unity warships, many of the nearby bases have become infatuated with having an android body. Two bases have switched their entire production output to android bodies for their own members and for export to other bases. It would appear that your plan to cause a cultural change within the Unity is succeeding, Commander.” We were sitting in the mess, enjoying coffee and stale toast. Well, Sasha and I were. Sybil still did not eat. Sybil was giving me an update on events outside our little planet.
“Yes, Sybil, faster than I ever dreamed possible.”
“But will this change disrupt the Unity’s plans for conquering the entire galaxy?” asked Sasha.
“It is already interfering with the Unity’s ability to spread across other solar systems. They are experiencing a shortage of ships, engines, and other vital equipment. Many bases that once produced these goods are turning to android production or have had their output decreased because Unity members are too busy experimenting with the new sensations that are possible with an android body. The Unity were designed to evolve, adapt, and change quickly. That is why this new idea is spreading so rapidly.”
“On Earth, we called them memes. Ideas that spread like a virus or like a successful gene in evolution. The Unity is not prepared to deal with this new idea. It will cause chaos for a while, but they will also adapt to it quickly. We have only bought ourselves a temporary respite from their aggression. Hopefully, it is all Earth will need to get prepared,” I said.
“Then we are returning to Earth?”
That sounded strange coming from Sasha, a girl who had never been to Earth. “Yes, I promised to get everyone home again. I intend to keep that promise.”
“I would wish to go also,” Sybil said. “I find it curious.”
“What do you find so curious?” I asked.
“That a primitive planet could produce beings as disruptive as you have been. There have been only seven of you in Unity space, and yet you have virtually stopped the Unity’s expansion in this region. It is only a temporary setback in the achievement of the Unity’s goal, but it is impressive just the same.”
“Thanks for the compliment, I think.”
Reorganizing
I asked Austin to meet me in the factory. It was a spot I found strangely relaxing. A row of cube-shaped machinery with conduits connecting them together, they made a comfortable little bench for me to sit on as I watched the trainloads of raw material enter the factory from the mining operations across the planet. The ore cars were heaped full and entered at a fast clip, maybe 45 mph, if I were to guess. They hovered above the rails, and there was no contact with the ground, yet they negotiated the gentle curve within the factory unerringly. There was no sideways skid at all and no sway either—just machine precision movement as they passed. Sometimes I would just sit and count the ore cars as they passed; sixty-four seemed to be a popular number of cars. All the cars were alike, and of course, there was no graffiti.
“You wanted to meet?” Austin asked as he came up and took a seat. The machinery hummed and gave a soothing vibration beneath us.
“Yes, I was thinking about your request to go off planet. I may have a more intriguing option for you.”
“What would that be? Take over for you?”
“You guessed it, Austin. I suppose word gets around pretty quickly.”
“The neural nets do make it easy for rumors to spread. You’ll be going back to Earth then?”
“Yes, I’m taking the others back to Earth, and I want you to take command of this planet and operations to disrupt the Unity as much as possible.”
“Who’s staying? It’s a big job, and I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
“Sybil, Sasha, Mako, Legion, and I are going. All the Warriors have volunteered to stay and fight with you. Noomi has not given me her answer yet, but with the loss of the sergeant, there’s little incentive for her to go with us. We’ll return to the Defiant and take it home to Earth. Dena will be eager to return, I am sure.”
“That’s the one thing I will miss. Dena is in my thoughts every day, Jason. I can’t even ask you to say hello from me.”
“I know. It’s just as well she did not come on this trip. It would have been a real complication. Three Jasons and only one Dena.”
“What about Jackson? Is he going?”
“Yes, I expect he will, but he hasn’t given me his answer yet either. I think the thought of seeing Dena again and seeing her with me is the only thing holding him back.”
“I’ll never see Earth again. Part of me will miss it, but part of me wants to stay. The adventure that awaits is exciting. I don’t want to miss out on that.” Austin paused for a long moment, trying to think of the right thing to say. “Take good care of Dena. She’s having problems with the mental enhancement. She needs you more than ever.” There was an awkward pause. “Well, I have a lot to do if I’m going to take on the Unity with this handful of losers. I’ll talk to Noomi. I could use her help here.”
“I’ll tell Dena about you. I’m sure she would send her best.”
Austin strode off like a man on a mission, confident and full of energy, but I knew the doubt and regrets that must inhabit his mind. It was, after all, once my mind.
“I’ll need four warships on our return to the Defiant in case we run into trouble along the way. Be sure you have all the design plans for the plasma weapon and time shields that you need downloaded onto holographic processor units aboard our ships. We’ll need three android gunners with their processor units also.” I was going over a list of items with Mako in preparation for leaving. We were in the mess picking over a limited selection of food. None of it was fresh anymore.
“Jackson has asked to be Sasha’s gunner, and Claire has expressed her desire to go with us. Claire can be my gunner. We get along well. I’ll try and find a volunteer to work with Legion. He’s not very popular among the androids, you know.”
“No, I don’t think they trust him any more than he trusts them. How is it working with Jackson?”
“Well, Jason, it’s just like working with you. I have to remind myself sometimes that he is not you.”
“Is he having any problem adjusting?”
“Adjusting to not being you? Yeah, I think he does sometimes, but he never complains.”
Defiant
Noomi surprised me when she decided to come back to the Defiant with us. She surprised me again when she asked to be Legion’s gunner. We made our jump back to the region of space where we had left the Defiant.
“There is no indication of the Defiant’s presence. Sensors are detecting no debris. The Defiant must have left under its own power.” Sybil was her usual efficient self.
“Dena and I made plans to rendezvous at a secret location in case the Defiant was attacked. She must have moved the Defiant to that location. We’ll set a course for the jump gate.” I wasn’t worried, especially since Sybil had found no debris or signs of a battle.
Two jumps later, after another four hours of travel, the Defiant lit up on our sensors. It was in orbit around a red giant.
“No answer to our hails, Commander,” Sybil reported.
“Jason, have you been able to contact Dena? I’ve been trying, but I get no response,” Mako asked from his warship, the Tsunami.
“No, but that only means she is either asleep or on one of the rings.” I tried to let on that I was not worried, but I was. My thoughts to her would have awakened her if she was only asleep. She must be on one of the rings and out of contact with our neural nets.
The problem was the hangar doors were closed and were not responding to our requests to open them from our war
ships. Dena may have put a safeguard on them to prevent them from being opened from the outside, but why?
“Let’s have a look at the cargo hangar. If it is still accepting cargo ships, then we might be able to get in that way.” I brought the Tempest under the Defiant, but the cargo hangar doors were closed also. There were no cargo vessels around the Defiant either. That too was unusual.
“What now, chief?” asked Mako.
“We can blast the hangar doors open,” suggested Legion.
“Sybil, is there any way to manually open the hangar doors?”
“No, Commander, there are no external overrides for the hangar doors. I believe the only access to the interior of the ship is to create an opening.”
“OK, Legion, it was your idea. Blast the doors, but try not to make too much of a mess. It’s going to take a while to repair.”
Legion brought his ship, the Typhoon, to just one hundred meters from the hangar doors. Noomi fired up the warship’s lasers and began creating a new opening in the rear of the Defiant. As the laser beam penetrated the hatch, gases spewed outward in a constant fountain until the hangar was evacuated. I was actually very impressed with her skill in cutting the opening. It was just big enough to allow a warship through and only damaged one hangar door. Legion nudged his warship forward until it made contact with the cutout, which fell into the hangar. Legion then guided his warship inside.
The Defiant was eerily quiet. The vacuum in the hangar prevented any of the normal noise made by everyone disembarking from the warships. More than that was the absence of any telepathic chatter. The androids had all been taken off the ship. Dena had been alone on board, except for those left on the Fifth Ring. The others of our party were unusually quiet as well. We went in through the double doors at the forward end of the hangar bay, and it was not until we had removed our helmets and begun our walk to the tram did anyone speak.
“I believe Dena must be on the first ring. She spent an unusual amount of time there before we left on our mission. Her visits there may have increased since we were gone,” Sybil told me, sensing my concern.
“I’ll go and check there first. Everyone else can go get out of your flight armor and get comfortable. I’ll let you know as soon as I find her.”
“Good idea, Jason. I’m more than ready for some fresh food,” Mako said with a smile.
“I will go to the Fifth Ring and get some food as well. It will feel good to see our village again. Though without my troops, it will feel very empty with only the females there. They will soon wish to leave and be reunited with the Warriors on the weapons planet.”
I split off from the others and made my way to the First Ring. Access to the elevator was locked, and it took me several minutes to override the lock-out program and reach the ring. It was rich and vibrant with the sweet smells of an ideal tropical jungle. I tried to contact Dena again.
“Dena, where are you?” I could feel her presence on the ring. I knew she was here. “Dena, I’m coming up to the campsite.”
“Jason, I’m glad you’re finally here. I’m here at the old campsite on the bluff above the spring. Did anyone follow you?”
“No, Dena, I’m here alone.” I made my way along a path that was mostly overgrown, around a small stream and up the hill to a campsite we had once used when we first came aboard. It seemed a very long time ago.
“I mean, did any Unity ships follow your warships back to the Defiant?”
“No, we’ve seen no Unity ships on our way back.” I sat down beside Dena. She was sitting on the grass at the top of the bluff overlooking the jungle below. She looked exhausted.
“You can’t see them. I think they might have stealth technology. I picked up several strange blips on the Defiant’s sensor screens. They would just be faint readings, and then they would be gone—nothing definite.”
“Is that why you moved the Defiant?”
“Yes, Jason, I think they were about to attack.” There were tears welling up in her eyes now. “Oh, Jason, I’ve been so afraid, so alone since you left.” She turned and hugged my neck so tightly it became uncomfortable, but I just held her.
“It’s OK now. I’m back. The others are getting changed and getting something to eat. Why don’t we join them?”
“You didn’t bring any androids back, did you?”
“Only three—Sybil, Noomi, and Claire.”
“You can’t trust them, Jason. They want to get rid of us. They will kill us at their first chance. We have to get them off the Defiant, get rid of them. People keep making the same mistake. They build intelligent machines, and then the machines take over and kill everyone. Jason, we have to get rid of them. The Ancient Ones are all dead because of them. Jason, we can’t trust them.”
“Dena, calm down. Everything is all right. I’ll keep an eye on Sybil and the others. I’ll keep us safe, I promise you.” She was so upset she was shaking. “Dena, we’re going home. I’m going to take the Defiant back to Earth. We’ve done all we can do here.”
“Home? You’re serious? Oh, Jason, I want to go back to Earth. I don’t like it out here. It’s cold and hostile. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back on Earth.”
“We set course for Earth today. We’ll be home soon. But in the meantime, let’s go get something to eat.”
“OK, I would like to see everyone again. I missed them all so badly.”
“Dena, Sergeant Klanton didn’t make it back. He died on the weapons planet. I brought back his body. We’ll take it home to Earth for burial.”
“I’m so sorry. I liked the sergeant. I know he thought a lot of you, Jason. I will miss him.”
I sent a message to Sybil to make sure only humans were present in the mess hall when Dena and I arrived. It was a strange reunion. Dena kept on about how she knew the Unity was out there, but they did not show up on the sensor screens. We ate and then retired to our quarters, where she quickly fell asleep in my arms.
Dena
“Dena is still sleeping in our quarters,” I told Sybil when I reached the bridge. Sybil had been waiting for me there after I contacted her and asked her to check the sensors.
“I have gone over the sensors and run diagnostic programs to confirm their proper function, Commander. I can find no problems with them. They are fully operational.”
“Review the sensor readings during the time we were away. Dena kept talking about anomalous readings. She believes the Unity may have developed a way to defeat our sensors and go undetected. It might also be someone else, another alien race.”
“I will review all sensor data for the time period we were away.” Sybil paused before continuing. “There is another possibility, Commander. Dena may be mistaken. Mako has remarked on her personality changes since the cognitive upgrades were made to her neural anatomy.”
“You mean she may just be paranoid. I’ve thought of that also. She has had a hard time adjusting to the changes. When you have finished checking the sensor readings, contact Sasha and ask her to assist you in formulating a plan to reverse the changes. Then contact me, and we’ll discuss a plan of action.”
I left the bridge and went to Mako’s lab to talk to him. I found him and Jackson there discussing android modifications. Noomi and Claire were there also.
“How’s Dena?”
“She’s sleeping, Mako. I’m worried about her. I’ve asked Sybil and Sasha to research a way to reverse the changes and perhaps restore her to her old self.”
“I think that’s for the best, Jason,” Jackson agreed. Mako nodded also.
“Noomi, could you and Claire get the repairs to the hangar deck started? I would like for you to do a shipwide search also to ensure nothing got on board while we were gone.”
“Do you wish us to search for mechanical or biological life, Commander?”
“Anything that was not here before we left. Dena seems to think something might have gotten on board. She locked herself onto the First Ring for most of the time we were gone. I don’t expect you to find an
ything, but check anyway.”
“It is a big ship. A search could take many months.”
“You two have the ability to spot anything that has been moved or is out of place. Check the main passageways, engine room, and critical areas of the ship only. Also, check the areas around the elevators to the rings. If you find anything that cannot be accounted for, report to me. OK, Noomi?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“I could also check the records of the maintenance robots for any unusual repairs or behavior patterns.”
