Errant Contact

by T. Michael Ford

  “This is no cave,” he muttered absently. “We’re inside an alien structure of some kind.”

  As if to punctuate Drik’s remark, or perhaps the horns just loosened up of their own accord after long disuse, the noise level of the sirens increased remarkably, and now pulsating red lights were emanating from the moss-covered ceiling. I watched as the illumination level increased dramatically as Maxwell came up behind us.

  “Hey, if you two are going to spend all your time over on this side of the cave, I thought I better bring over the other two flares before they peter out completely. What are you looking at anyway? And what’s with all the racket?” I glanced over my shoulder to see him walking casually toward us, a dying flare in each hand, smoke billowing off each and rising precipitously to coat the ceiling. Suddenly, with a harsh clang, a moss-heavy metal panel dropped to the floor and a turret device popped out of the ceiling, targeting Max with its fat barrel.

  “No!” I screamed, and dove for my startled sibling, but it was far too late. An enormous gout of baby-shit green foamy slime shot forth from the wide throat of the gun and drenched my brother. The two torches in his hands were extinguished immediately, and the level of darkness in this place began to creep higher and higher. Cursing and dropping the useless flares, Max reached up and frantically attempted to wipe the slime from his face and eyes. The turret device wisely retreated into the ceiling again as Maxwell angrily squeegeed the material off his face with his hands. He paused only to flick thick, sticky gobs of the stuff onto the floor in obvious distaste.

  “Gods! This stuff tastes like crap! What the hell was that?”

  “Offhand, I would say a ruthlessly efficient fire suppression system,” Drik ventured dryly. “But we have more pressing issues to attend to, the last flare is just about out and we have no others. We need to make a decision – open this door and venture inside or stay out here and take our chances?”

  Tearing my attention away from my brother, I answered, “I vote we go through the door. I’m not looking forward to spending the night in this cave. Our light sources are limited, and we have no defense against the wolf creatures if they get brave enough or hungry enough to come after us.”

  “Agreed,” Drik nodded sagely and reached for the door controls.

  “Hey, don’t I get a vote?” Max interrupted, still angrily removing stringy green material from his hair.

  Drik and I looked at each other, turned back to the door, and simultaneously replied, “No."

  It took Drik three taps and an irritated solid hit on what we assumed was the actuator button before the door shuddered and inched its way open in creaky fits and starts. Finally, it spanned enough space to allow Drik and me to squeeze through. Max, being a lot larger and heavier, became stuck in the opening despite the best efforts of the slippery slime that still coated his field uniform. It took me pulling on one arm, and Drik reaching over to drag on his shirt collar to finally break him loose. Out of breath, he just collapsed on the floor and panted while Drik and I looked around.

  We appeared to be in a corridor. Bands of illuminating soft lighting crisscrossed the ceiling in geometric shapes; and thankfully, it was clean, dry, and warmer than outside. I hit the door control on this side and the panel began closing in the same jerky, spastic manner in which it had opened. At least the wolves wouldn’t be getting through that anytime soon. I pulled my brother back to his feet and joined Drik, who had crept farther down the hall to explore.

  Chapter 2

  What the hell happened? I was still reeling with the enormity of a situation that strained even my ability to process. I have been conscious for less than two days and answers were still impossible to find. I was tired, weak, and barely functioning; but even in my current condition, I could scarcely believe what the ship’s chronometers were reporting. Somehow, almost a thousand years have passed since I found my new home.

  And my new home, the Aurora? The few serviceable exterior cameras that were available to me showed me little more than a wreck buried in a remote countryside, not the proud, massive starship that had I worked so hard to help create.

  I have been working at a feverish pace to figure out what to do, checking out my new reality with the few drones that still function and have a trickle of power. Now I know what triggered my wake-up call. Someone had crudely programmed an alert to react when the ship’s exterior sensors registered another ship dropping into orbit around this planet. This was certainly not an original feature, the bridge crew’s separate control and navigation computers would have automatically kept track of any other nearby ship.

  From what I could tell, a small shuttle had landed on the planet. A few adjustments and I passively tapped into their communications. I snickered silently; whoever these people were, they had little concept of computer security. There wasn’t even a sense that my intrusion had aroused the suspicion of their master control’s AI. Hell, there wasn’t one! Their ship still ran manually with only basic – very basic – computer assistance. Following the breadcrumbs of chatter back and forth allowed me to quickly tap into their mains and I took a peek, absorbing anything that looked interesting.

  Let’s see, the Geoffrey Laird, number 147 of the Justine Santiago class of small exploration vessels. Keel laid on…well that date meant nothing to me…built, owned, and operated by the Pendacis Corporation. Crew compliment of 126, bridge crew of fifteen and the rest, various ranks of science geeks. No real armaments except for a few small defensive beam weapons to protect them from stray space debris when in orbit. I pulled up the crew files, which included pictures…humans!…all of them! Ok, this was unexpected. Hurriedly, I download the ship’s orders and two-way communications for the past year, and what’s this? Over nineteen thousand history and entertainment vids? Screw it; I took those, too. It was a good thing I did, as a few hours later, the Geoffrey Laird departed in a hurry.

  It occurred to me that I had heard nothing from my own crewmates. I knew I was still fighting to wake up and was energy-starved to boot, but there were whole decks still completely dark and I was essentially powerless to call out to them. A few autonomous systems were still operating on their own power and following hard-coded programming, but I couldn’t see them or communicate with them. I only knew they were still in operation by the faint electrical signatures that I picked up from time to time.

  I dozed briefly to conserve power and let my lower functions crunch the numbers of everything I have learned so far, and it didn’t bode well. With a depressed sigh, I drifted off into fitful dreams.

  Fire!

  What? Where? Suddenly, interconnected klaxons blared all over the Aurora, and while I was never fully read-in on the ship’s emergency control functions, any idiot knows what those mean. Instantly, direct-wired, hardened systems with their own emergency power backups snapped on all around me. I directed a camera to eavesdrop on the emergency panels on the main bridge console. The large displays were reading a fire event amidships on the port side in the decks well above my work areas. Storage compartments generally, but just a few doors down from the main crew cryogenic chambers. What really caught my eye was the carnelian-hued flashing light that warned that evacuation protocols had been initiated.

  I swiveled the lens to the third panel over from the fire control. Here, a display showed rows of graphic boxes roughly approximating a stylized crewmember’s form. Starting from the latest installed, I scanned them eagerly. Three-quarters of the way through the display, I was nearly in tears. Each so far had read either empty or inoperable; where were my friends? The pain continued and I had almost resigned myself to a short, bitter life of abject isolation when I noticed that the very first pod constructed, the prototype as it were, had a far different reading.

  I watched silently as the text I had been longing to see rolled across the graphic of pod 0001. “Active” – such a simple word. Active – doing things that required physical movement and energy, involved in the activities of a group or organization, participating in an actio
n or activity. However, to me, it doesn’t mean any of those descriptions right now. Right now, it means I am no longer alone.

  The readout indicated that the pod was following an emergency warm-out protocol – it was attempting to quickly revive the occupant. Not the best way to jolt someone out of cryogenic stasis and it was probably going to hurt like hell. Nearly panicked, I did something that I wouldn’t normally even think of doing. I connected to and robbed the power from every starboard emergency module I could find, and the klaxons on that side of the immense vessel fell eerily silent.

  A welcome surge of energy swept across my being as cameras that had fallen blind centuries earlier reactivated. About thirty percent still worked; a testament to the builders, with whom I counted myself lucky to be included.

  I took a quick check of the bay where the fire had taken place. The view was poor as the lens was partially covered in debris and the light was muted. Switching to alternative scanning yielded better results. This area of the ship was badly holed and open to the outside; at least the fire was out. Thick layers of organics covered everything, including a number of damaged and inert security drones that had fought and died amongst piles of debris over the centuries. Strangely, there were two machines that I couldn’t immediately identify lying on their sides at the outer edge of the ruined bulkhead, each with a recently active heat signature.

  The only door out of this area had been cleaned off and opened recently. I concluded we had boarders on my ship. Weak as I might be, I could still make sure they regretted their temerity. But first, I had to think about the occupant of 0001.

  Checking the corridor beyond the door, I saw a trail of muddy footprints meandering down the hall and through several more doors, heading toward the cryogenic chambers. Switching to cameras in the chamber itself, it appeared I was too late.

  This particular bay held ten of the large stasis pods lined up in neat rows along one wall. Behind them, more monitoring screens mimicked the board I had been watching in the main bridge console. The first nine screens are unmoving, relaying the same static information they had conveyed centuries before. Only the one at the far end of the chamber was active, pulsating with all manner of light arrays and warning sounds. The readouts were coming far too fast for corporeal beings to process and seemed to be increasing in urgency.

  Three figures stood arrayed around the pod and seemed to be watching in amazement. Humans! Making two plus two equal four, I reviewed the crew records from the Geoffrey Laird and decided I was looking at Maxwell Kinser, support technician third-class, a male; and Drik Cardoso, senior mission specialist and scientist first-class, also a male. The lone female of the group was Laree Kinser, scientist first-class. None of them had a criminal record in their file; however, Maxwell did have a number of reprimands for petty disciplinary issues relating to fighting with other ranks. Great, and he was the only one who appeared to be carrying a weapon.

  The lights dimmed perceptibly as the pod completed its work. I could tell reserve power was stretched to the breaking point, and I had a sudden fear that the survivor might die a horrible death if the cryogenic equipment lost power at a critical juncture. Rerouting some circuitry, I diverted much of the reserve power output from my own living area to the pod. Better to die rescuing a crewmate than to perish alone.

  Suddenly, with a groan of hydraulics, thick metal walls popped forward from around the pod and swiftly retracted into the floor. This revealed a large liquid-filled transparent tube with a body hanging languidly inside, with tubes and wires attached at seemingly random places on his body. Distortion from the thick material made it impossible to positively identify the occupant.

  The single working camera I had available to me silently registered the three humans’ surprise as they jumped back slightly when a large puff of vapor cleared the seams in the water-filled chamber. It suddenly burst apart like a clamshell, flooding the floor and dumping the naked body of the pod’s occupant inelegantly out on the floor. They looked at each other stupidly as if they never expected such a thing. Haven’t they ever seen a cryo-chamber before?

  Finally, the human female shook off her stunned reticence and sunk to her knees to place her fingers on the side of his throat. She seemed to be barking orders and sent the one called Drik across the room to fetch a medical gurney. A minor argument appeared to ensue but, eventually, the combative one called Maxwell put his weapon over his shoulder and helped Laree lift the body up onto the rolling table. Thankfully, I could see the chest of the naked man rising and falling. A shameless focusing session on that form showed me a man with a strong, lean body and rippling abs. As they adjusted the table to keep from running over some of the monitoring wires still attached to his torso, I got a confirming glimpse of his face. With that form, it could only be one man…Kodo!

  Chapter 3

  Kodo

  To call what I felt pain would have been a massive trivialization. Moving my head slightly, I could see flickers of light for a few moments, but something felt wrong. I should be in a recovery module, but all I felt was cold steel on my back. Where was I?

  “Kodo…” I heard a familiar sultry voice calling my name. “Kodo…” It sounded close, yet weak and distant.

  “You need to wake up…NOW, KODO!” My eyes snapped open and were immediately blinded by the harsh lighting that filled the room. Shielding my eyes, I hissed at the sharp needles of sensation that accompanied full wakefulness. As my eyes adjusted to the brightness and I started to make out vague shapes and colors, I looked around and tried to remember where I was. “What the hell? Why am I in a freezer? Why am I naked…and why am I in a freezer?”

  “Glad to see you finally woke up, sleepyhead! I thought I would have to find myself a new technician,” purred an eerily velvet-toned voice in my head.

  I sighed, shaking my hurting head. “Glad to hear you, too, Kalaya.”

  “Ha, I see what you did there. You haven’t actually laid eyes on me before so you used ‘hear me’! I’m happy to see that your native sarcasm is still intact. Who knows when we will need that wit,” she said in her normal, annoyingly cheerful voice. What she said was true, however; I have been working for/with her for several decades now and still haven’t seen her face. Just a small icon representation on my communicators. The Lythios shipyard was well-known for its technical deficiencies since it was the oldest shipbuilding facility my people still operated. Some of the equipment rightfully belonged in museums so everyone had to adapt. Kalaya could easily have stayed planet-side and ordered us around. I didn’t actually work for her; she is more of a management and distribution girl. She tells us what needs to be repaired or installed and we tell her what we need to make it happen. Works pretty darn well if you ask me. Honestly, I have no idea how she is even able to keep track of everything like she does.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, still blinking regularly to try to clear up my vision.

  “First, I should probably do a check of your implants; communication is working, obviously.” She just had to remind me, didn’t she? I’m still not sure how I feel about these extra micro-communicators they shoved in my head for this mission. Supposedly top of the line and all that, but did we really need to move away from a headset appliance to implantation directly into our brains? As if I didn’t already have enough foreign hardware in my body. “Everything looks normal, but your implant power reserves are down to five percent. Ordinarily, minor amounts of power would just be siphoned off from your body movements. But you haven’t moved in awhile, so you should fix that.”

  “Yeah, like this freezer has a recharge station…and why am I in a freezer?”

  She coughed and sighed wearily, “It’s not a freezer; you’re still in the cryogen pod bay. You don’t recognize it because you were probably already unconscious when the med techs wheeled you in here for your long nap.”

  “Kalaya, you sound about as bad as I feel. Why are you even talking to me here? This isn’t a production area, where is everybody?”

&nb
sp; I could hear her pause on the other end of my implants. “This is the part that I didn’t want to mention right now. I’ve been trying to delay you with small talk so I had some time to think, but that didn’t help.”

  “You’re not usually known for being a shy girl, Kalaya, just say it already. Did something go wrong with the landing?”

  “The landing didn’t go well. You’re right; I usually prefer the direct approach, but in this case…”

  “Kalaya!”

  “Everyone else is dead, Kodo. You and I are the only survivors…I’m so sorry.”

  The only ones left? How can that be? This mission had a team of thirty-five, plus the flight crew. We can’t possibly be the only two left, can we?

  “What happened?” My voice was low, almost non-existent, but she still heard me as always.

  “I sorry, Kodo, but I am not sure. I only woke up a few days ago myself. You’ll remember I was only physically transferred from the home world to the Aurora days before we took off. You were already in cryo-stasis when I arrived and I was left asleep just as you were in preparation for our mission. However, from what I have learned, something unforeseen happened and the ship was critically damaged. Whether the damage occurred before or during landing, I have no currently plausible theory. However, the damage was not contained to a single portion of the ship; damage is extensive in many areas. There is a gaping hole in the side of the Aurora just a few bulkheads down from where you lay. Apparently, that damage event started a chain reaction that shorted out all the technician pods in this area except yours.”

  “Mine was the prototype, it was built pretty robustly. Unfortunately, some egghead fleet engineer higher up decided that my design was way overkill and ordered the rest of the pods to be standard issue,” I said absently as my mind tried to work through Kalaya’s revelations. “What about the flight crew’s stasis pods? They’re way forward and shouldn’t have been affected.”