Stowaway (Redleg in Space Book 1)

by Z D Dean

  “I can help,” Mur said to the crew as he released his foot clamps and summersaulted out the ramp.

  Samix was attempting to keep the remaining locals suppressed, but two managed to close with Zade and were trying to drag him back to the mob. They had disarmed him and were too close to him for Samix to engage them without risking hitting Zade in the process. She saw Mur’s red frame launch out of this ship and land near Zade, causing an eruption of sand and dust. While in freefall he had identified the two threats, and as soon as he landed, he took off towards Zade. The AI covered the gap in three steps and before the locals could react, he had their heads firmly grasped in his hands. After a violent shake to free Zade from their clutches, he started to squeeze. The locals struggled at first, but Mur’s hands closed completely causing a loud crunch.

  “Don’t worry, Zade. I was rebooted and am here to get you back to the ship,” Mur said, grabbing him and moving to the ship.

  Zade’s nanites had done their jobs, the bleeding was stopped and both his entrance and exit wounds were almost completely closed. Almost the instant he was hit, notifications for the nanites requirements appeared in his field of view. The process was slower than usual because of his poor diet while on the planet. Within seconds, the two were back on the ship and Mur was taking Zade to the medical bay. After depositing Zade on the bed previously occupied by Samix, Mur headed down to the subdeck once again adhering to the protocols Axis had put in place.

  After closing the ramp, Samix grabbed Jorloss and took him to the medical bay with Axis following closely behind. As the ship broke for orbit, the two able bodied crewmen began providing medical aid for the two injured, Axis for Zade and Samix for Jorloss. With both patients stable both Samix and Axis headed to the galley for some much-needed sloop.

  Axis was first to speak.

  “That went bad fast.”

  “I know, but I’m happy everyone is back on board,” Samix said, eyeing her beverage sadly.

  “How about Mur jumping into the action? We couldn’t have done it without him.”

  “I think we can lift the restrictions on him,” Samix replied. “After a reboot he is a completely different entity. He views his previous versions as different person, and we should remember that.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea? He did try to kill all of us.”

  “I do. He is a completely different AI than before the reboot,” Samix answered as she ordered Mur up to the galley.

  Axis begrudgingly lifted the restrictions and both he and Samix sat quietly waiting for Mur to arrive.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Samix said, quietly. “I’m calling the mission; we are going home. Mur won’t have any more chances to strand anyone.”

  With the revelation that he would be seeing his family soon, Axis first checked on Zade in the medical bay then went to his room for some sleep. Samix waited for Mur in the galley. Mur was on the subdeck performing maintenance and cleaning himself up, which was the reason for the unusually long delay between when he was summoned and when he appeared. The AI walked into the galley and sat at one of the benches.

  After analyzing the previous data about his actions prior to reboot, Mur decided to take on as many organic idiosyncrasies as possible to calm the crew. He would stay in his frame when interacting with the crew, and he would try to match their behavior as much as possible when interacting with them. Samix informed the AI about what was going on then asked him if there would be any issues with his programming for the duration of the trip.

  “First, thank you for lifting the restrictions. It may not seem possible that an AI could develop attachments, but being segregated from the crew was becoming difficult for me. Second, while I was segregated, I searched through the data, identified the personality malfunction, and completely rewrote that part of my code. There shouldn’t be any more issues.”

  Satisfied with his answer, Samix instructed him to have maintenance SSILF clean the cargo bay, disassemble and store the door gun, and for him to set course back to Unity space. The jump would take 30 days. She hoped that Zade and Jorloss would be recovered by then. The ship would either land at the Pez space station where the crew would take landing shuttles down to Xi’Ga, or land directly in the capital spaceport. For the original crew this would be pretty standard, but for Zade it would be a first-time experience that she wanted him awake, recovered, and able to enjoy.

  Mur left the galley to plot the ship’s warp back to Unity space. Most of the trip would be spent in interstellar space, time when there was no need for navigation stops. He would have to focus on the navigation when the ship was passing orbital bodies. With the AI gone and her mug empty, Samix headed to the medical bay to check on the injured crewmen. She entered to find Zade sitting on the edge of his bed, working to remove the various monitoring instruments from his skin.

  “Up already? It’s only been a couple of hours,” Samix asked.

  “Yea, I’m so damn hungry I couldn’t sleep,” he responded. “Figured I’d grab a shower and a clean uniform before I sat down to literally empty the gut truck. How are you holding up?”

  “Better now that you’re up and about. I’m still worried about Jorloss though,” Samix replied, walking toward Zade and embracing him.

  “I think he’s just exhausted,” Zade responded, wrapping his arms around her. “He was injured in the SSILF attack, but was fully functional after a couple days of rest.”

  “That’s reassuring, I think.”

  “Want to grab a bite after I get cleaned up?”

  “That would be nice,” Samix replied. “We can eat and talk in my quarters. They’re more comfortable, and I think I still have a bottle of a drink similar to wine from your world.”

  Chapter 14

  After Samix helped him remove the monitoring machine and regain his feet, Zade headed off to his quarters. Samix followed him as far as the galley where she stood examining the gut truck, trying to decide what their private dinner was going to be. Zade entered his room and stripped off his undergarments, the only thing he was left wearing after his uniform had been removed to treat his injuries. Although the wounds he had sustained had healed, a pervasive stiffness plagued his whole body. He needed a long hot shower to work the tension out of his muscles.

  As he dried off and got ready for dinner, the realization of how close he had come to the end finally hit him. Not only was the whole planet side encounter a near futile practice, the grievous wounds he sustained should have killed any other man and would have killed him if they had happened a few weeks earlier. As much as he wanted to put the whole incident behind him and focus on the beautiful woman, his captain, who had invited him to a private dinner, he couldn’t stop thinking about the planet the team was currently warping away from. In the big picture, he thought, the species that had pursued him was little different than his own. Sure, they appeared to still be in their dark ages, but they had weapons technology similar to that of his own kind. After seeing what Samix had done from the ramp of the spaceship, there was no doubt in his mind what an advanced species could do to a relatively primitive one such as mankind. He began to try and dismiss the longing to return home and inform his own people of what was out beyond the stars. A knock at the door pulled him from is silent contemplation.

  “You in there Zade? Just wanted to see how you were doing,” said his smallest rescuer.

  Zade popped the door to his quarters open with his interface. “I’m doing better now that I’ve had a shower. Thanks for the help back there.”

  “Not a problem. You would have done the same for any one of us. Glad to have you back aboard,” said Axis as he headed back towards his lab.

  He wanted to check on Zade but was afraid that if he stuck around too long, the emotional response of seeing a person who he considered his closest friend on the crew back safe and sound, would cause him to break down.

  Realizing that Axis was back off to his lab, Zade let the conversation drop. He knew that if Axis had taken time out of
his research to check in on him, he must truly think highly of Zade. Zade simply stood and marveled at how, in such a short period of time, he had come to think of his crewmates as family. Before swinging by the captain’s quarters to see if Samix was ready to eat, he headed into the med bay to check on Jorloss.

  After entering he could see the amphibian-like alien still sleeping on one of the gurneys. As a pacifist scientist, Zade figured he would need quite a bit of time to recover from the ordeal. He left the med bay, walked across the hall, and knocked on the door to Samix’s quarters. The door slid open and he walked in to see Samix hunched over her terminal quickly reading through the text that scrolled by.

  “Ready to eat?” He asked.

  Samix just held up a finger as she finished reading the document. “In a minute, first I have to ask you some questions regarding the interactions with the indigenous peoples for my report.”

  “Shoot” Zade said as he took a seat on the couch in her living quarters.

  “Do you think that the interaction with the locals could have been avoided if anyone on the crew had acted differently?”

  Zade knew that the whole incident could have been avoided had Jorloss just done what he was told, but he was hesitant to say as much fearing that the alien would be reprimanded for his actions. As it was Jorloss had just been trying to help and Zade wasn’t convinced that the scientist should have even been put in a position to cross paths with locals, no matter how small the chances. Trying to avoid giving a straight answer, Zade resorted to sarcasm.

  “Absolutely, if we wouldn’t have landed or the AI had been better vetted, we would not have had contact.”

  Samix turned to look at him and could see he was trying to avoid the question, so she phrased it differently. “I mean, in regards to the actions of the landing party, could interaction been avoided?”

  He paused pretending to think about the events that had unfolded. After quickly deciding that he would not be the one to snitch on and possibly ruin the career of his crewmember, he looked directly at Samix and said, “No, there was no way to avoid contact.”

  His pause was too long and Samix knew he wasn’t being completely truthful, but she felt the same way. Protecting her crew was top priority and she respected that Zade wanted to do the same.

  “Very well. Last question, did you or any of the crew leave behind any advanced technology that may alter the development of the local population?”

  This time Zade paused to think through the events that had transpired, instead of just playing for time.

  “Yes, I had used one my smoke grenades to stall our pursuers. It was most likely destroyed when it detonated and after seeing their weaponry, I don’t think it was much more advanced than what they had already developed.”

  “That’s everything”, Samix said as she finished typing and sending off the report.

  “Why does the Unity even need to know about this? This is the only ship that can travel this far outside of Unity space.” He asked

  “This is the only ship that can travel into contested space from the core, now. The Unity wants to catalog incidents so they can determine if they need to alter some of their practices,” Samix said as she sat down on the couch adjacent to Zade.

  Shit. That means Earth is on the Unity’s radar he thought. “So, you sent one of those reports when I came aboard?”

  “I did, but without the exact coordinates for your home world, I could only give a general location, an area covering about 10,000 different planets.”

  Seeing that her statement did nothing to alleviate the concern written across Zade’s face. Samix continued, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, as it is highly classified information, but the Unity is only one of the major players in the galaxy. There is another group called the Galactic Domain which is a highly aggressive conqueror. Either a species is deemed fit to join the Domain, or they are eradicated and their planet harvested for resources. Your home world is in contested space. The Unity had to see how far the Domain’s reach had extended.”

  Samix knew that her words did nothing to comfort Zade, but she also knew that she had to be completely honest with him after everything he had endured, everything he had done for her and her crew. She continued explaining why the Domain was such a threat and how it operated. The Domain first eradicated huge portions of a sentient species, only keeping those that had promise as a fighting force. Those that remained were infected with a parasitic nanite that would bolster their ability to fight. Confident in their size and strength, the Domain gave the prospect species access to the abilities of all member species. The nanites, driven by survival, would then allow the species to augment themselves in whichever manner bolstered their fighting style. After a set trial period, the Domain would assess the abilities of the new species and either accept them as a member species or destroy them and harvest their planet’s resources.

  “The contested zone has shrunk markedly, and it appears that the Domain is pushing towards your planet’s solar system. The Unity and the Domain have an agreement not to interfere with the other’s expansion, an agreement that has lasted centuries. It appears that the Domain has its sights set on your solar system. We had to turn back because of the accords, I’m so sorry. We don’t know how fast the Domain works, it could be weeks before they find Earth, it could be decades. Probabilities suggest the latter, but there’s no way to tell for certain.”

  The revelation that the Unity knowingly left Earth to the Domain was a hard left hook to Zade’s gut. Instinctively, he knew that one ship couldn’t thwart the push of an empire but it still hurt. Samix’s decision to flee without even giving mankind a warning about their potential demise felt like a betrayal. Samix’s attempt to come clean had done nothing but put all of her subsequent actions into question for Zade. Could she have made it back to Earth? Could she have actually done something to help his people? Had he trusted the wrong person?

  As she gave her explanation, Samix watched Zade for any reaction. She saw an ugly rage come over him. Whether at being lied to, not fully briefed, or at the prospect that his whole species could be facing extinction, she didn’t know. Rage she could understand, but the crushing sadness that followed the rage almost broke her and caused her to reach out to comfort Zade. Before she could touch him, Zade recoiled and stood.

  “Sorry Samix, I seemed to have lost my appetite. I think I’m just going to head to my quarters and get some sleep, let the nanites finish patching me up.”

  Without another word, Zade snagged the bottle of wine and headed out of Samix’s quarters. The walk to his own taking far longer than it should have with his head spinning as it was. After locking himself in his own quarters, Zade sat on the edge of his bunk and took a long pull off the bottle of alcohol, a lone tear running down his face. It had been decades since he had cried, for the first time since he lost his best friend in a firefight in Afghanistan, a crushing sadness settled on his shoulders. Zade upended the booze and fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

  ∆∆∆

  Samix simply stared at the door that closed behind Zade as he had left. Her relief at coming clean with Zade was quickly replaced by the fear that she had irreparably damaged their relationship. The comfort in knowing that her actions were according to protocol was a hollow one. She knew that the situation from Zade’s point of view looked more like a team of technologically advanced individuals abandoning his whole species to their demise.

  How do I make things right between us? Can I make things right between us? She asked herself as she looked down at the meal for two, she had brought to her quarters in hopes of sharing some alone time with Zade. Not one for inaction, she quickly ate and headed out of her cabin to make things right. Her first stop was at Zade’s quarters but after a few minutes of knocking, without response, she headed to the command deck.

  Samix sat in her captain’s chair, staring out at the starscape that warped by the ship, a view that the crew could enjoy for nearly a month as the ship warped back to th
e core system of Unity space. As she gazed out, she tried to work through the predicament that she found herself in. The two options that would fix things between her and Zade were impossibilities.

  First, she could stop the warp and return to find Earth. She would have to go directly against the Unity’s wishes, hoping that they didn’t have another advanced ship that could intercept her and force her back to the core. Making matters worse, she only had a rough idea as to where Earth was. The search for Zade’s planet could take decades with all of the possibilities, and her crew could run out of supplies long before they made planetfall.

  Second, she could continue on her mission and return to the core, where she could petition the Chancellor to intervene on behalf of Earth. She had pull with the Chancellor but couldn’t see him going against the will of the Assembly, who had signed the accords with the Domain. Her petition would put centuries of peace in jeopardy. The more she tried to work through the problem, the more she concluded that there was nothing that she could do. The more she realized how little she could do, the more frustrated she got. Just as she was about to dive into the problem again a voice from behind her broke her train of thought.

  “Captain, your vitals seem to be increasing. Is everything ok?” Mur asked from behind her, where he entered the command deck.

  Realizing that she was getting nowhere in solving her problem, Samix laid out the issue and all controlling parameters to Mur. As an AI he would be able to process the problem much faster than her and include factors which she had not even considered eventually coming to a conclusion which she, herself, couldn’t find.

  After a second to process the problem Mur spoke up. “As you are well aware captain, the universe is both an unfriendly and unforgiving place to the individual. Have you considered that there are no options available to you with a significant chance of success?”