by Kord Stone
Alise stood up, stared back at him with a hint of misery in her expression and said, “I really enjoy your presence as well.”
Just as she began to walk away, the room began to flash as if strobe lights were going off. He looked around and saw half a dozen ships firing weapons at them.
He yelled, “Raise the shields!”
Alise said, “You watch too much television.”
Then she said, “Those weapons will not harm us. The skin of this ship absorbs energy blasts like those. Conventional explosive weapons can rock us, but they will not damage us either. I have increased our speed, but I do not think we will be able to outrun them. This is going to be interesting. We would usually just phase shift, but we do not have the energy. If they have suicide ships it could pose a problem. As long as they only fire those weap—”
With a loud bang the ship rocked hard. Alise hit the floor and Jason felt as if he was thrown to the far wall, and he braced himself against the wall in a bid to regain his footing as another energy weapon blasted the hull of the ship. It felt as if each of the blasts surged right through him. The electrocution he had felt during the bonding process felt like a tickle compared to this. He had heard about people using stun guns on themselves to test the power. The convulsions made them hold the button until the power ran out. This felt a thousand times worse than that ever sounded.
He heard Alise yelling for him to get down, and there was another BAM. He was thrown from the wall back into the center of the room. For a brief moment everything went silent and time seemed to crawl. A light was approaching the room; he could tell by the fact it kept getting brighter and brighter. He stood to get a better look and realized with shock that the light was actually emanating from him. Pressure built in his head until he felt as if it were about to split open. Then it surpassed that point and his whole body began convulsing. With an explosive burst, an energy wave pulsed out of his body, and he fell to the floor. All he could see were Alise’s eyes staring unmoving back at him as he lost his bid for consciousness.
Chapter Thirteen
Jason lay there for what felt like hours, unable to move and drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time he regained a degree of clarity, something seemed to push it down. He was aware that Alise was hurt, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Hell…he could barely open his eyes at times. He kept calling out to Alise in his mind wanting with all his being for her to respond, but there was no response. That energy blast did one hell of a number on him.
He estimated he was several hours into his convalescence when the feeling started to return and he could finally move a body part or two. A few more minutes and he had the strength to roll himself over and crawl to Alise’s side. He took her hand and looked deep into her eyes. She looked back at him with a vacant almost dead stare. He tried to talk but was still too hoarse. He kept trying to speak in mind but there was still no response.
They had remained there for what seemed like another hour when a vaguely familiar voice entered his head. Get up. This is your awakening. He didn’t know what the hell that meant, and then he heard a louder GET UP! YOU ARE ALL IN DANGER! That got his heart pounding. He tried, and was a little surprised to find he had the strength to finally move. He looked up and saw a massive ship barreling toward them as if to ram them. That is when Alise’s words sank in. “Suicide ships”.
Looking at the ship he thought, Suicide my ass. We will be like a bug on the windshield to that thing!
Jason didn’t know where it came from but he felt as if a live wire were charging him. As he felt the energy building another feeling came over him, the sense of being pushed aside in his own mind, and all he could do was watch as events played out. Just as the ship was about to collide with them, his hand rose seemingly instinctively as if to ward it off. The pressure in his head reached the breaking point, and a moment later there was nothing.
* * * * *
A second later—or it could have been hours—Jason couldn’t tell, his throbbing head cleared, and he took in his surroundings. That is when he heard a faint call for help that dug deep into his heart. Alise. Where was she? He kept calling out to her but there was no response. He looked down at her corpse and felt as if his heart were about to explode. He reached down to pick her up and as soon as his hand made contact with hers, it felt as if a floodgate had opened.
Pain…loss…fear and love. The flood of emotions was so intense it overwhelmed him and he lost consciousness again and collapsed to the floor beside Alise.
Chapter Fourteen
Jason awoke to find himself in his bed. A bit stiffly he looked around the room. He had no idea how he had gotten there. That seemed to be a norm for him these days. The memory of what happened flooded back and he shouted Alise’s name.
A second later, he heard her in his mind saying, There is no need to shout. I will be up in about ten minutes. I am connecting the ship to the pyramid’s generator beam.
He got out of bed and noticed he was naked. He asked Alise, Why am I naked?
Alise let out a light chuckle and said, I will explain it when I get up there. Now stop pestering me.
Her comment didn’t bother him because he could feel that she was just bantering. So he let out a chuckle of his own and decided to get cleaned up. Wait, I can feel you now!
She replied with a laugh, Yes, I will explain it to you in a bit.
Knowing he would just have to wait for answers, he decided to clean up and get dressed. He approached the wall, and was about to press his hand to it when the wardrobe panel appeared for him. He thought that was strange. He looked for his black bodysuit, but was unable to locate it, so he retrieved a different body suit, this time a black one with a red stripe down each side. He was about to open the bathroom when that archway appeared, suddenly opened and was ready for him as well. Shaking off the fact that the ship seemed to know what he wanted before he did, he entered the bathroom, figuring it must be due to the bonding.
Jason finished his shower, put on his new suit, then reentered the bedroom. He thought about going to see how his family were taking things but opted to wait. If there was anything wrong, Alise would have told him, and he would really like to know what had happened to him first, knowing he would have to answer the family’s questions as well. The images were still a bit fuzzy at the moment and his headache didn’t help.
About eight minutes later, Alise entered his room and all he could do was stare and say, “What the hell happened to you?” She looked like a kind of tin woman that just vaguely resembled her old appearance.
She replied to his question with a question of her own. “What exactly do you remember?”
He concentrated, “I remember going to the observation level.” He skipped past the kiss—he didn’t want her to get uncomfortable—and continued. “We were looking at the stars and galaxies. There were flashing lights and then the feeling of being shocked to death, and very little after that. Did you save us?”
Alise looked at him sadly and explained, “No, I did not save us. You saved us… when that attack happened the other day—”
“The other day? How long have I been out exactly?”
She replied, “About forty hours now. As I was saying, during the attack my consciousness was blasted out of your mind and the ship, and I was stuck in my body unable to do anything but watch events unfold. After the first ship collided with us you went flying toward the wall and it looked like you braced yourself as an energy blast hit the hull. Instead of dispersing through the rest of the ship like normal, the energy went directly into your body. One shot after the other, you kept absorbing the blasts.”
She paused a moment then continued. “A second ship collided with us and knocked you back into the middle of the room. You began to go into convulsions as energy exploded from your body, blasting the ships away. As I said, it knocked me out of your mind and you fell unconscious about six feet away from me. About an hour later, you began to regain a little movement and eventually crawled to my si
de, then grabbed my hand, then seemed to fade in and out of consciousness.
“About an hour after that, you got a strange look in your eyes and stood up, and electrical charges began arcing between you and the ship. There was a massive ship headed for us and it was about to collide with us when you raised your hand and it just stopped. You did a kind of punching motion and the ship went hurling off into space. Then there were at least three, maybe four other ships flying directly at us. You took several deep breaths and then a massive energy wave erupted from your body that smashed the ships into little pieces.
“I tried to call for you, but our connection had been severed. You just stood there for an hour not moving a muscle. Then you bent down to pick me up and when your hand came into contact with my hand, it seemed to reconnect me to you and the ship. You fell unconscious again, and you have been sleeping until now. We had been knocked off course, so I reset our heading for the pyramid generator. We only just arrived when you awoke.”
Jason just looked at her and said, “You’re pulling my leg. That didn’t really happen.”
Alise looked him straight in the eyes. “Everything I told you is completely truthful. It was astounding actually. I have never seen anything like that in my entire existence.”
He was very doubtful that he could do all of that, but he trusted her. He put that behind him for now. His main concern at this point was her appearance. “Okay, but what happened to you.”
Alise got a sad tone to her voice. “When we were reconnected, the ship changed my body to this. Apparently I resemble a robot you saw in an old movie. It was picked to represent a protector, I think.” She looked down at her feet in apparent shame. “This is not the first time I have been a non-humanoid.”
“I am so sorry.” Jason said miserably.
A moment later her metal face cracked into a wicked smile and with a flash, she transformed back to her beautiful self in front of him. Laughing uproariously she said, “Look, I am a butterfly.” Alise burst into raucous laughter. “I was just yanking your chain. I saw that old robot in your memories and decided to take on that appearance while dealing with your family. It was very helpful in deflecting unwanted questioning.”
His relief at seeing her back to normal set in, and the hilarity of it all hit him and he began laughing. It took a good two minutes before he was able to speak again. “How does it help with deflecting unwanted questions?”
She grinned. “Whenever your family would ask a question I could not or did not wish to answer I would just say ‘DOES…NOT…COMPUTE’ and stare blankly at them. After a few minutes, they would usually walk away. So now they just think I am the dumb robot who feeds them.”
This time he had to sit on his bed he was laughing so hard, and between breaths he said, “So…what did you tell them…about me?”
She shook her head. “Not much, I told them you sustained an injury and should be okay in a couple of days. They wanted to come see you, but I did not want to let them. So DOES…NOT…COMPUTE.” She did a stiff-armed attempt at marching.
At this point he was glad to be sitting because he was close to passing out from laughter. When he finally caught his breath and wiped tears from his eyes he asked, “What happened after you got back into my head?”
Alise looked hesitantly at him then said, “Well you were out cold, and I did not know what condition you were in so I transported you down to medical and performed a scan on you. I must say for sustaining the electrical shock you did, you are in remarkable health. For some reason your cells were able to absorb the energy, and did not convert it to heat which usually happens. You did have elevated adenosine triphosphate levels, but that is to be expected. I have had prior commanders who died from far less exposure to electrical current. The medical unit did not have to do anything to you. I did not believe it, and I performed several diagnostics thinking the attack may have damaged one or more of the ship’s systems. Everything was fine, however, so I brought you back here and put you to bed.”
“And my family didn’t see you transporting me on the lift? They seem to always have someone watching it.”
“They probably would have, but I waited until they were all asleep.”
“And why was I naked?”
She got an impish grin on her face and said, “Well, I did have to check you for injuries.”
He smirked and said, “I thought the medical unit said I was in good health.”
She looked up at the ceiling. “Oh look at the time… Got to run.” They both laughed. “Actually the jumpsuit you were wearing was destroyed by the electrical arcing and energy waves. The only clothing that survived were the boots over there.” She pointed to the floor next to his bed. “If that was not an anomaly, we may have to see if there are more durable outfits for you to wear. We do not want to be cooking all your clothes off if we can help it now, do we?”
“No, not if we can help it. So…the ship is charging?”
Alise nodded. “Yes, it will take nearly twelve more hours to complete, and then we can be off to find your family a new home. Oh and just to warn you, your family may in the tiniest way think you are a little bit touched in the head.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, your cousin told the rest of your family you thought I was the most beautiful being in the universe,” she said with a grimace.
He stared intently at her and said, “I do think that. I don’t know why they would think I was crazy though.”
“That would probably be due to the fact they have only ever seen me like this.” She morphed back into the robot form and marched over to the lift, laughing like a loon.
Chapter Fifteen
Jason followed Alise to the lift laughing inwardly at the thought of the family thinking he was in love with a robot. He knew she was about to go back to level one, but he had another plan in mind. He was hoping he was right about what was happening to him. He grasped her hand and just as she was about to say descend level one. He thought, Descend level two, and they were off.
Alise said, “I think I will have to do another system diagnostic. That should not have happened.”
He shrugged to make her think he had no idea what was happening, and a moment later they landed on level two with the typical hop, then he led her toward his family saying, “Come with me.”
Jason took Alise by her tin arm and approached his family and they all gathered around. One after the other they bombarded him with questions. He answered what he could or wanted to, then said, “We have to get back to work, but I wanted to check on all of you and make sure you were okay. I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to her before, but this is Alise, the most beautiful being in the universe and the love of my life.” With stunned gazes upon them, he kissed her softly on her tin lips. Then they turned and went back to the lift at their dumbfounded expressions. They just made it to the lift when he thought Descend level one, and the floor disappeared.
Once the ceiling closed above them Alise said, “You are evilly funny you know.” She hesitated a moment and continued. “I really do think I need to perform a diagnostic on my neural link as well. I could not see what you were going to do, and that gravity lift is really concerning me as well.”
Jason looked at her with a smile and said, “The lift is fine. After I woke up I went to bring up the wardrobe panel and open the bathroom and they both opened for me without commands or even touching the wall. I just thought it and they appeared. So I tried it with the lift and it worked.”
Alise looked at him with an astounded gaze. “That is remarkable. Andel told me the Imortum could control the ship with their minds, but none of my prior commanders was able to do it.”
Jason furrowed his brow. “I think something must have happened to me when the energy passed through the ship and into me. It may have improved the link between me and the ship somehow.”
Alise seemed to think over what he just said, then replied. “As I said before, I had never seen anything like what happened to you during
that attack, so I guess anything is possible.” With a shrug she entered the control room.
He looked at her and asked, “Why do you still look like the robot? We’re alone now.”
“We still need to take care of a little problem.”
“What would that be?”
She frowned and said, “The preacher who was speaking at your services awoke from stasis when we were being attacked, so I moved him to decon for the time being. I figured that would be the safest place for him until he can be talked down. He has been locked in there for over forty hours now. He refuses to eat and keeps demanding to see his lawyer and yelling that kidnapping is a federal offense.”
When they opened the decon door, the preacher made a break for it. Jason shouted to him, “We need to talk,” then let him run down the corridor.
He looked at Alise and shook his head. “I guess when he gets tired of going round and round and not finding a door he’ll be willing to talk. I know I was.”
“I really should be monitoring the charging process,” said Alise.
“Is there a problem I need to be aware of?”
“Usually we do not have any issues, but it is best to monitor the energy flow and make sure there are no adjustments needed. It is dangerous to disconnect before we are finished charging, and we are sitting ducks as you would say.”
Jason nodded. “You should go monitor the ship then. I’ll be able to handle this guy.”
Alise laughed. “If you can handle it, I will be on my way then. Call on me if you need my assistance.”
As Alise walked off, he heard a whispered voice from her. Good luck.
The preacher made two more circuits before he finally decided to stop and lay into Jason. At first he was yelling about being kidnapped and was threatening to have Jason arrested. Then he got a good look at him, turned white as a sheet and shrieked, “But you died!”
