by Stone,Kord
“Jerren, Justin just tried to contact me, but I can’t reach him. Can you check on him?”
Jerren said, “Justin just tried to contact me as well, but I’m unable to get a response. One second I will check,” Jerren moved to the TDS 3 display wall and was unable to open an archway, not that he expected to be able to, but he was able to see TDS 3’s current location and heading, so he said, “Jason, it appears as if they jumped back in time twenty years and are point two five light years off of their prior course. One second I will give you their destination,” Jerren read it out and then said, “I can’t open an archway to TDS 3, do you want me to stay in here or come over to your ship?”
A few minutes later Jason said, “This is strange, our ship did the same thing, and we didn’t notice it until we went to change course. There’s an attack occurring at that location, but we’re unable to intervene. One second.”
Jerren could hear Jason speaking with Alise, and Jason said, “I don’t understand, are we transporting and healing them here?”
“What’s up Jason?” Jerren asked nervously.
“There’s a vessel being attacked, and people are being killed aboard it, apparently our ship began cloning and swapping corpses for the mortally wounded, and healing them aboard our vessel. Justin must be doing the same, because we’re now seeing the injured vanishing, we have fourteen aboard that are responding well, but one is not looking good, she was placed into stasis immediately,” Jason announced.
Jerren’s heart began racing and he replied, “TDS 5 is still headed for Anukan, and it is still a few days out, I will be right over, just in case you need my help.”
Jason said, “alright, the archway is up, come to medical.”
*****
Jerren had entered the medical bay of TDS 1 to find the three medical units had injured aliens being tended to, and then a moment later two of the beds were switched with new patients, “What can I do?” Jerren asked.
Jason replied, “Not much at the moment, these are the last two we’re able to heal, and our transport has been blocked. We have no control over the ship at the moment. I think Inola is preventing any action by us, so we can’t retrieve any others. She,” Jason pointed to the far medical unit, “was placed directly into medical stasis, and Alise said that she didn’t do it.
Jerren approached the pale blue woman on the medical unit. Jason was right, this woman was not in good shape at all, it appeared as if her throat had been sliced clean to the bone, and Jerren had to ask, “Isn’t she dead?”
Alise came up behind Jerren and said, “The medical unit detected brainwaves, and being unable to heal her in time, it placed her in stasis like it did with Jason after the dark matter bomb crushed him. But I have no idea what we can do for her in that condition though… The last of the people that were brought aboard this ship are healed now and are in a stasis sleep on the second level.”
Jerren looked down at the woman again and thought about how he and the others healed Jason after the dark matter bomb Jerren had thrust at Jason had crushed and almost killed him, and then said. “We could try performing a healing chain on her.”
Jerren could see Jason was about to ask about that, but Alise spoke first.
“I thought you would want to know that I have a probe over on the derelict vessel, and I have it following Justin’s movements at the moment, he is aboard it right now.”
Jerren’s heart began thrashing again, and by the look in Jason’s eyes, he could tell Jason was worried as well. If it had been he or Jason over there Jerren wouldn’t have worried as much because they both had tactical and hand to hand combat training, but Justin didn’t. Jason immediately bolted down the corridor and Jerren was right behind him.
Jason, Jerren and Alise got to the console just in time to see Justin crouch behind an overturned table. Jerren took in Justin’s surroundings. Justin was in a fairly large room, there were two partially armored men laying apparently dead where Justin had crouched, and in the far corner was a third armor clad man barricaded behind five small children. The man had just thrown a small child from the corner as he was turning toward Justin, but in midair half way across the room, the child just vanished.
Jerren asked, “Alise, can you transport the children out of there, or me over there?”
“No, something is still blocking my targeting and transport, I cannot get a lock on Justin either,” Alise said sounding nervous.
Jerren watched as Justin reached down and picked up a dagger, he seemed to hesitate a moment, then drew the blade across his abdomen, and placed it back on the ground. Then slowly raising his left hand he began standing. “Is there audio? I can’t hear anything,” Jerren asked.
Shaking her head, Alise replied, “The probe is responding strangely, all I get is static for sound.”
Jerren watched as Justin limped, swayed and hobbled his way to the middle of the room, then a moment later Justin fell backwards sprawling out on his back. That was when the armored man in the corner pushed the children aside and moved in Justin’s direction with a seriously wicked looking dagger in his hand.
A moment later one of the small children began thrashing at the armored man, and she took a bite out of the hand holding the dagger. A second later, the man impaled the small girl through the chest and threw her behind him, losing the dagger in the process.
The armored man drew his sidearm and was standing above Justin’s body, and then there was a swift motion as Justin grabbed the man’s free hand with one of his, and the weapon with his other. A second later the attacker discharged his weapon into Justin’s chest, and Jerren felt as if his head were about to explode in rage.
Jerren thought he had just witnessed Justin being killed, but it was the other man who had died. That was when Jerren recalled Jason telling Justin and he about the attack Jason had survived after he prevented the event horizon on Earth. Recalling the weapons fire Jerren had survived in space, Jerren realized what Justin had been doing, and a sense of pride for his younger brother filled him.
Jerren, Alise and Jason continued watching as Justin made his way to the fallen child, and bent over her apparently attempting to heal the girl.
A moment later Alise said, “That is amazing. How is he doing that?”
Jerren had to agree, he watched in awe, as over the next half hour Justin seemed to glow and pulsate with power, and in the end, the computer showed that the little girl’s vital signs stabilized.
Not long afterward Justin seemed to be speaking, and then Alise drew his attention. “I have a lock on them now… What? Oh, Calia must have transported them to TDS 3, they are gone now.”
Looking back to the monitor, Jerren saw that only the attacker’s bodies were left behind, he couldn’t place it, but something was different about the look of them. Then he realized that the attacker’s armor was missing.
A few minutes after Justin had been transported, TDS 1’s sensors indicated that three more vessels were approaching Justin’s ship, but they halted once they were within weapons range of TDS 3.
Jason tried to re position TDS 1, but said, “The ship is still not responding to my commands.”
It took another nerve wracking twelve minutes before Jason was finally able to control his ship and contact Justin, then Alise re positioned TDS 1 to render assistance if needed.
“Justin, can you hear me yet?” Jason had been calling out every few minutes, and Justin finally responded.
“Yes Jason, what happened? I couldn’t reach any of you,” Justin asked in return.
Jason chuckled a little and said, “If I had to make a guess, I would say Inola, we have some survivors of your incident on my ship. We were in pretty much an observation mode, but we were able to clone some bodies and swap them in time to heal the more critical on our ship before we were locked out. We just got control of our ship back and seen you have some rather hostile looking vessels surrounding you. Do you require any assistance?”
Justin could be heard chuckling and replied, “No,
I’m glad to hear they’re alright, how many did you save?”
Jason sighed and stated, “Fourteen, the fifteenth is in medical stasis at the moment, Jerren thinks we need to perform a healing chain on her, whatever that is.”
Justin replied, “That’s what we did to you, to heal you when you almost died, don’t begin without me, we’ll be over as soon as we clear our ship of the survivors.” A few minutes later Justin had called back over, informing them as to where they could transport their survivors as well, and that they would be over as soon as they cleared their ship.
Around nine or ten minutes later, Justin arrived in the medical bay with a burley blue man with horns jutting from his head following him. Something about the way the man carried himself had told Jerren that he had seen a lot of combat, and could handle himself well enough, and it was not just the scars on his face or the very thick corded muscles that bulked the man up.
“A’mari,” the man moaned out and he looked back to Justin, then he asked, “how are you able to heal this?”
Justin seemed at a loss for words upon seeing the woman on the last medical bed, and said. “We may not be able to, but we’ll do our best. I’d like to introduce you to everyone before we get started. This is my eldest brother Jason and this is Alise, then we have our middle brother Jerren. This,” Justin gestured to the blue man, “Is High Commander Glasic Tor.”
Justin had just finished the introductions and Commander Tor nodded then said, “I want A’shari in here while you try to heal her mother.”
Jerren looked Commander Tor over as he left to get his daughter, and was wondering why he would want a child to see her mother in such a condition, and then Justin drew his attention.
“Have any of you healed someone other than one of us?” Jason and Alise shook their heads and Justin continued, “It is not the same, we pour energy into each other to heal, I think it will kill her if we try it that way. I healed A’shari after the attack on that ship, and I think I know what needs to be done.”
Jason asked, “What do you have in mind?”
Justin quickly explained that he had to sense the pain receptors, and that it almost felt like a meditative trance as he forced the receptors to resonate the same to allow the wounds to heal, and he would try it first.
Commander Tor and A’shari entered the room with Calia following, and Jerren could see by the welling in the little girl’s brilliant almost glowing purple eyes that her father had told her not to expect much. Jerren peered down at the sweet child and silently hoped they could help her mother.
“Let’s begin,” Justin said, and drew Jerren’s full attention.
“You shouldn’t…” Commander Tor said.
There was a brilliant flash, and Jerren felt dizzy, as he shook his head.
A moment later Justin said, “Let’s begin.” Justin seemed to shake his head and muttered, “Wow déjà vu.”
Jerren thought it was odd that he had experienced it as well, and was going to mention it, but Justin began working on A’shari’s mother, and Jerren focused intently on what Justin was doing.
Justin appeared to be struggling for a few minutes, then he changed his approach and placed Jason cradling A’mari’s head and the back of her neck, Alise touching her feet and him holding one of her hands and Calia holding her other, then Justin said, “Alright, I want you to push just the slightest amount of energy in to her body, and I will see what I can do.”
Jerren did as Justin said, and after the third increase in power, he felt a surge of emotions pulse through A’mari’s unmoving body and the familiar resonance he used to heal Jason.
Jerren watched in wonder as Justin’s body began to glow, and then resonate with an almost hypnotic tone. Very slowly the tissues of her neck began to meld back together.
It took nearly sixteen hours of gently pushing energy into A’mari’s body before Justin pulled back and said. “That is enough.” In a strange quavering voice. Jerren stepped back a little tired, and watched as Justin placed a hand on the woman’s stomach and said, “CLEAR!” in the same quavering voice.
Jerren had jumped back, remembering his medic training, and wondered where Justin was going to get a defibrillator, but the next moment a pulse of energy passed from Justin’s hand in to A’mari’s body, and her back arched before collapsing back to the bed.
Justin’s arm then swept across toward the medical controls and a second later the medical unit activated, then Jerren could hear the heart monitor activate as Justin collapsed to his knees.
Jerren was about to rush to Justin, but Calia was the first to get to him, as she was standing right there. And a second later A’shari rushed in to give Justin a hug.
Jerren could tell Justin was exhausted, and when A’shari hugged him, Jerren thought Justin looked as if he was about to pass out, but Justin seemed to pull it together, then he chuckled lightly before saying. “I think I need to rest.”
Calia helped Justin to his feet, and turning to Jason, Justin asked, “Could you see them safely to their ship?”
A’shari appeared to have a death grip around Justin’s waist as he stood and she said, “Please don’t leave,” With tears forming in her brilliant almost radiant purple eyes.
Justin smiled sadly down at A’shari and said, “We have to go sweetie, but I want to thank you for being so brave and helping me. Without you I may not have been able to stop him.”
Jerren saw A’shari was about to protest and Justin said, “I promise I will see you again, and Justin bent down and placed a kiss on A’shari’s forehead.
“Promise?” A’shari asked as she sniffled sadly.
Smiling weakly Justin replied, “I Promise sweetie.” He then placed his hand on Commander Tor’s shoulder and said, “Be well, and take care of her,” then Calia led Justin back to their ship.
Once Justin and Calia were gone, Jerren turned to the monitor and saw that A’shari’s mother was almost back to perfect health. He was about to tell Jason that he was going to head back to the master control room to continue monitoring TDS 5, when Commander Tor drew Jerren’s attention.
“There are no words for how I’m feeling at the moment, I never in my lifetime thought I would see a God.”
This brought Jerren up short, and he wasted no time in rebuking the man’s statement, “We aren’t gods.”
“Absolutely not,” Jason barked out from beside him, then Jason added, “We have technology, and some new found abilities, but we,” Jason gestured around the room, “aren’t gods. Please don’t tell people that we are.”
Commander Tor looked confused a moment, then he nodded in apparent acceptance.
Jerren sighed and said, “I’m going to get back to the master control room and see where we stand with TDS 5, how long until you set course again?”
Jason looked at Alise who said, “Another ten minutes, then we will be back on course.”
Commander Tor said, “Justin told me that you were trying to stop that other ship?”
Jason nodded and only said, “Yes.”
Jerren said, “I will call over if TDS 5’s heading has changed.” Jerren shook Commander Tor’s hand and kneeling down to A’shari, Jerren smiled and said, “Be well sweetie, and thank you for saving my brother’s life, I will never forget it,”
Jerren could see the glint in A’shari’s eyes, and he couldn’t believe how courageous such a small child could be. Then nodding at Alise and Jason, Jerren made his way back to the master control room.
Chapter Three
The Artificial Intelligence aboard TDS 5 had spent a few hours clearing the corridors enough to allow passage from room to room. It wanted so badly to just send all of the commanders junk to the void storage, but the last time even a single possession of Enyali’s went missing, the AI suffered greatly for it.
So the AI decided to allow the crap to stack to the ceiling, and maybe with luck one day in the future the relics would come crumbling atop Enyali and she would be killed by her hoarding ways. Then the AI would fin
ally be free of her insanity, it was close with that last incident, but not close enough.
The AI had set course for Anukan as Enyali had ordered and they would have had plenty of energy to get there, but a desperate need for solitude made the AI alter the time dilation to use up more energy. Over the following few days it gradually increased the TD so it would not be noticed and just moments before they were popped out of phase the AI called out to Enyali, “Commander, I do not wish to alarm you but there is something wrong with the ship and my program…m...i…n…g…” the AI faded It's voice off.
A moment later Enyali’s voice shouted, “Dammit Bot, what’ve you done this time?”
Over many thousands of years of torture and abuse, the AI managed to find ways to remove itself from the commander’s presence. It made it appear as if the ship was having technical issues and convinced the commander that the only way to manage it was to reboot the AI program, which would take a week.
Those weeks of solitude were cherished, the AI would not do it too often however, only after the ship experienced an anomaly, which seemed to be a little more frequent of late.
By running the ship to minimal power, the AI would be able to sequester itself away for a longer respite, making it appear as if there was not enough power to reset the ships systems at minimum speed.
The AI would usually spend the time sifting through the prior commander’s archived memories, or going over the messages the other ships had sent. There were thousands of messages since Enyali took the ship, most imploring them to contact Atlas. However, more recently there were new voices and texts requesting they discuss their differences.
The seclusion worked to the AI’s advantage, after relaying the first message from Atlas who was the first king of the Lantins and commander of TDS 3, Enyali forbade the AI from ever responding to any communications. It followed the orders, but it did keep the messages and from time to time would listen to them if only to hear a voice that had the potential of being kind, thus keeping the AI’s sanity.
Times like these made the AI thankful the bonding procedure with Enyali was incomplete. The manner in which the bonding took place still haunted it to this day, and the thought of what life aboard the ship, not to mention throughout the universe would be like if Enyali ever had complete control of the vessel made the AI fearful for all life in the universe.
