Errant Contact

by T. Michael Ford

  “There you all are. I figured you went this way.”

  “Good morning,” the girls greeted him. I settled on a nod and Drik nodded respectfully back.

  “Are you feeling better, Laree?”

  She blushed again and rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes, I’m fine, thanks to these two.”

  The older scientist tilted his head sagely. “I have to admit I had some reservations when Kalaya asked that you be put in her care. But as severe as your wounds were, and knowing there was little we could do for you, it seemed like the wisest choice. Thank you once again, Kalaya and Kodo. I have developed a deep appreciation of both of you these past few days.”

  We walked and chatted for a couple minutes, then the three of them turned down a passageway that would eventually lead them back to the guest wing while I took a shortcut to the damaged section of the ship. My first reaction was surprise. Glancing around as I unpacked my gear, I saw that Kalaya’s new drones had done an fantastic job of cleaning and that the damage wasn’t as widespread as I had feared.

  Whoever had done this, whoever had bombed my life’s work, had never worked on the Aurora in any capacity since the amount of explosives used were not nearly enough. Sure, there was a big gaping hole in the hull and numerous systems had been disrupted, but overall, it was relatively minor when you consider the redundancies that I built into her. Nearly everything on this vessel had multiple backup systems and at least three independently routed power gridlines to carry the load if one went down. The old girl might be hollow, but I take pride in my structural engineering and she’s tougher than she looks. I designed special plates in the hull that would fold inward, shedding force in the event of a collision or an emergency landing. This focused the damage to a smaller area, which is desirable in a craft working in the vacuum of space. In an ordinary surface ship, the damage would have cascaded outward and taken out an entire deck rather than a small hangar.

  Retrieving my newly charged work helmet from one of the crates, I put it on and spent a couple minutes recalibrating it. Finally satisfied, I flipped it into renovations mode and began painting the areas of obvious damage with my eyes, and the overlaid heads-up displays in my helmet’s ocular projector started popping up immediately.

  Marking the specific supports and sections of metal that needed to be cut away took some time. My visual displays then served as a deconstruction template for me, which were communicated directly to some of the robots that moved in and started to cut. By now, I was sweating in the humid air so I took a small break. I walked to the edge of the hull and looked out. Instead of the hole being at ground level as it had been when Laree and her friends first saw it, it now stood a good fifty feet above the surrounding ground. Wyverns, including a couple of the new models as well as smaller close-quarter units, were toiling away relentlessly removing the Aurora from her earthen grave. At the rate Kalaya was cranking out machines, the process would be completed in days, not weeks; and not a moment too soon for my liking either.

  I went back to work marking and personally cutting away sheathing that bordered delicate cabling or controllers. Like a flock of giant steel crows, worker drones swooped in from outside and latched onto the debris I was creating and carried it away for recycling. More welding drones attached themselves to the hull and crawled up from outside to shore up weak spots until new beams and struts could be manufactured and delivered. I knew that Kalaya was already downloading information directly from my helmet displays, and her factory units were rushing to create the parts needed.

  I experienced an odd mix of emotions as I toiled. On one hand, it was exhilarating to be working like this again. All the heavy lifting had been completed on the Aurora at least ten years before she left dry dock, and for the most part, what had been left was installing equipment. Not as satisfying as seeing something go from nothing to a tangible project that you could reach out and touch. The screech and spatter of the cutters and welders was music to my ears.

  But on the other hand, the realization that someone deliberately tried to bring the Aurora down and undoubtedly kill everyone on board was sickening. And he or she, for the most part, succeeded in their mission to kill my friends and work family. To what end? Explosions of this size and the others that damaged the Aurora would probably have destroyed one of the colony ships. Was this just some plan to knock us down a peg, or was the goal complete and total genocide. I shivered with the realization that, with the years that had passed, I might never know.

  I must have lost track of time, because the next thing I knew, Laree was tapping me on the shoulder and holding up a bag of food and some water bottles.

  “I brought you some lunch,” she said shyly. She had changed out of the jumpsuit I saw her in earlier and replaced it with knee-length, form-fitting pants and a thin exercise shirt. She had even done something to give her hair a more manicured and polished look.

  “Already?”

  She smiled and nodded her head happily. “You’ve been at this for over five hours now.” Huh…who knew? “Kalaya asked me to bring this to you; apparently, she has to worry about your health in addition to everything else she keeps track of.” That’s true. Most days, I didn’t stop working if I could help it until a drone came by with a sack lunch and a shock wand. That woman can get really bossy sometimes, but then again, she sort of is my boss…or was at least.

  “Uh-huh, and where is your new best friend hiding anyway?”

  “Apparently, there aren’t enough functioning hologram emitters left in this construction zone to allow her to be viewed in the magnificence in which she is accustomed. Her words, not mine. She claims that washed-out look would do horrible things to her flawless skin tone so she won’t be joining us.”

  I walked over to the back wall and found a curved piece of decking that wasn’t overly sharp to sit on. I rested my head against an undamaged bulkhead and allowed myself to relax a bit. Let’s see what she packed for me. I started rummaging through the packaging as Laree ambled up.

  “Would you mind if I sat with you and kept you company?”

  I shook my head and she dropped down lightly onto the metal next to me, the curvature of the hull plating sliding us together hip to hip. I looked up from my perusal of the food to catch her taking a deep breath with her eyes closed.

  “I’m sorry; I should have warned you that I probably need a serious shower.”

  “Oh no, it’s fine really…more than fine…great, actually,” she stammered nervously.

  Once again, I had to wonder what mischief was afoot with all this. With a sad shake of my head, I finished the inspection of Kalaya’s packed lunch; all health food! Crap, that woman really was my mom!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Laree

  I didn’t have to be a scientist to know that Kalaya had set me up on this one. She somehow expected me to use my beauty and charm to seduce him away from the ship that he spent thirty years of his life building? That some miracle would occur and he would simply walk away from the Aurora and Kalaya and follow me to live happily ever after in the stars? Oh, my God, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded! If Kalaya was hiding in a corner somewhere laughing at my expense and this was one of her twisted psyche games, I was so going to kill her!

  What to do? Get him talking, I guess. I’ve always heard men love to talk about their work.

  I gazed out over all that Kodo had already done. What was once a twenty-foot opening was now easily a forty-foot hole in the hull. It appeared he and his drones were cutting out all the damaged areas to gain access to the undamaged structures underneath, but everything looked far more systematic than I would have thought it would be. Damage from an explosion like that would have ripped through the area in a broad rippling effect. However, here and there, robots were exposing undamaged pillars and beams and starting to weld new sections in as if there was a master plan of sorts. It didn’t appear to be something that could be accomplished without a lot of computing power and certainly not just
in someone’s head.

  “Impressive work. How are you able to do it so quickly?” I asked, turning back to him. He was staring at a ripe red apple like it was some kind of alien artifact; then again, I guess it was to him. Where the hell does she keep getting these things?

  Frustrated with the fruit, he put it back in the bag and held up the large helmet and visor combination he had been wearing when I arrived. “Try this on.”

  It was heavy for headgear, but that probably meant nothing to him. Inside, it was comfortably padded and even seemed to be artificially cooled. Once firmly on my head, the visor snapped on and I could see again. For the most part, things were normal as in I could still see everything in the room. When I looked over at the construction area, however, things became much different. The visor projected transparent green outlines of support beams and electrical systems as well as external plating and other structural drawings. There were also overlays of damaged parts highlighted in red with visible lines in yellow running through them. Those I assumed indicated the locations where he needed to cut. Even more impressive was the data from the drones displayed in orange showing their flight path and what progress they were making installing or removing pieces at any given moment.

  “Impressive, huh?” Kalaya purred through the padded speakers over my ears.

  “Yes, you’re doing a excellent job with the repairs.” I really had no idea, but it looked like a great job…I think.

  “Ha, you think I know how to do this? I barely know which is the business end of a screwdriver. Kodo is the one doing all this; in fact, he’s the only one ever able to do this. If you want more information, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

  Knowing she wasn’t going to stop pestering me until I asked, I took off the helmet and set it aside. “So how does this thing work?”

  “It’s relatively simple, the helmet itself doesn’t really do all that much. It has a series of sensors that look for damaged areas and electronics by comparing what it sees to what is recorded in the spec sheets, down to the millimeter or smaller if needed. The rest of the information on the communication grids come directly from the feedback loop of the drones. With that, I am able to ‘paint’ areas that are damaged and give a series of commands to the drones to deal with the problem autonomously if they can or bring me the parts I need to do it myself. The parts, however, are supplied by Kalaya, just as she did in the good old days. Does that help?”

  “Some, but how do you issue commands? It didn’t look like you were giving them verbally, and I didn’t see a controller or any other mechanical device.”

  “Remember when I said I had a computer in my spine? I’m using that.”

  “And how does that work?” I asked dubiously. “Do you have some sort of direct wiring into your cerebral cortex or something? I mean, how is it even possible for a biological creature to function like that?”

  “It’s a long story; suffice to say it just does.” He was obviously trying to dodge the question, but that’s not going to fly this time. Kalaya implied that the key to understanding Kodo was to get him to open up about his past. Part of me wondered if she wasn’t just using me to find out more for her own understanding. But in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.

  “Kodo, tell me about your family.” I watched as the blood seemed to drain from of his features as he looked back at me in shock.

  “Why would you possibly want to know that?”

  “Because a girl likes to know what she’s getting into,” I whispered huskily, as I leaned over and kissed him softly, urgency building within me. For a few seconds, he seemed to reciprocate, or at least not mind, my advances. Then, he pulled sharply away.

  “Laree…I…can’t.”

  “Why, is it because I am just a lowly human?”

  He winced. “No, you are a lovely, intelligent woman. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. You said it yourself, a girl should know what she’s getting into. Well, fine, perhaps it is time to get it all out into the open, for you and your co-conspirator who I know is listening somewhere.”

  “We just want you to know we care about you, and I’m sure there is nothing so horrible that you could tell me that would change my opinion of you, Kodo. After all, you did save my life yesterday.”

  He laughed bitterly. “We’ll see when the story is finished. You asked about my family...hmm...where to start? How about this? My mother and father were both psychopathic criminals, and their sole offspring, yours truly, is a murderer.”

  I must have gasped because he nodded as if expecting it. Rising to his feet, he started pacing nervously as he began.

  “My parents or, at least, the people who contributed to my DNA, were scientists. Hardcore, single-minded, brilliant geniuses in their chosen fields, both of them. Unfortunately, their fields overlapped and this brought them into constant conflict with each other. They always seemed to be working on parallel projects and coming up with similar results. Ultimately, a fierce rivalry formed between them, which often led to accusations of theft and waves of civil suits. This stupid charade went on for years and their hatred for each other grew. Then one fateful day and one clueless moron later, the unthinkable happened.”

  “They realized they loved each other after all?” I ventured.

  “Hardly. The judge presiding over the court where the bulk of their venomous accusations were played out for all to see made a joke. He quipped that since the two of them spent so much time in court, they should just get married and get it over with. What was meant as a snarky comment actually sparked an idea in their minds. They still despised each other passionately, but if they did get married, in the eyes of the court, they would become a single entity…partners. Instantly, all the lawsuits and penalties would disappear and the valuable patents would belong to both of them equally. So a marriage of convenience was born. Begrudgingly, since they were partners, they began to work together on projects and both their careers flourished. But their feeling about each other did not change.”

  “Well, it couldn’t have been too contentious. I mean they had you, after all; that implies some intimacy.”

  “In an ordinary couple, perhaps; but I was conceived in a test tube and grown in an artificial womb. My mother couldn’t be bothered with the inconvenience of an actual pregnancy. I was born in a secret research lab, technically ‘off the books’ so there is no civil record of my birth. I was a non-entity from my very first breath.”

  She wouldn’t even carry her own child because she couldn’t be bothered? Come on, woman, this is your child, your son, for crying out loud! Shaking my head in wonder, I took the apple back out of his bag and cut it open with a small multi-tool that I carried religiously. Paring it into eighths, I removed the core and passed the cut slices back to Kodo while I listened.

  “Whatever these are, they are very good,” he noted after consuming the first two slices, I split the remaining six equally between us. I hadn’t had a fresh apple in years, and just like the coffee, Kalaya outdid herself on recreating this. I didn’t remember them ever tasting this good. Thankfully, Kodo wasn’t derailed by the treat and continued without additional encouragement.

  “Prior to my conception, my parents began working for the military. As I explained earlier, our military was closer to a police force than a traditional navy. However, we still had small groups with shadowy funding that specialized in war games, special tactics, and research. My parents, of course, worked for one of the most notorious of these groups, with little to no accountability or transparency. It was a very bad combination, and I was the perfect test subject.

  “As I explained earlier, minor genetic alterations are a common practice among my people and are widely accepted. In my case, they wanted to test the extreme limits of what could be accomplished with these techniques. The heads of the military think tank where I was born were of the opinion that our police force style of military was sorely unprepared for a real attack by an alien race.” He stopped and chuckled ruefully, sca
nning the damaged areas before him. “Apparently, they were right in a twisted way. Our police force dealt primarily with pirates and the like. The linchpin of my parents’ program was to create a new breed of super soldier, smarter, faster, and stronger than regular Quetanae. And which could take on multiple tasks of infiltrator, assassin, or data thief.”

  “Ok, that was tried by some nut cases on Terra. Even we humans found out the whole super soldier thing never works,” I groused, cleaning up the remains of the lunch.

  “Yes, well, as I also explained, we Quetanae evolved to work efficiently as a group. It’s an integral part of who we are. The concept of a single entity being sent out to wreck mayhem on an enemy is completely foreign to us. They needed to start with a test subject who had no socialization influences whatsoever. Guess who was selected in the womb?”

  He paused and looked around, watching the drones work. “Growing up was an interesting experience. From the time I was born, I had no contact with any living beings. All my care was performed by robotic nannies, carefully programmed not to show me any emotions or affection. I did see the couple, who I later learned were my parents, frequently. But always from a distance. They watched from behind thick, soundproof glass.”

  “Your own mother never held you as a baby?” I whispered in abject disbelief.

  “Never once. In fact, thinking back, neither one of them ever touched me physically, even in later years. By the time I was six, I was already bigger and stronger than other Quetanae children would have been at that stage of development, largely thanks to the extreme amount of nanite therapy I was being given. Precisely on my sixth birthday, all according to a rigid schedule, I began combat training.

  “Physical training, stealth, firearms, and hand-to-hand combat were part of my daily routine. When I wasn’t actively training, I was in class with a robotic tutor learning tactics and history, space warfare, and the like. There was also a good measure of psychological indoctrination; I studied the history and the societal factors that shaped the Quetanae, all without ever talking to one face-to-face. I was taught that our people’s spirit of collectivism was a weakness and a real warrior would never humble himself to the decisions made by others.