He finally said something that did not sound like a curse word. “Apologies Commander, I was not aware we would be practicing zero gravity maneuvers so early in our training cycle.”
With a big smile I said, “No time like the present Klutch. It’s better to be ego battered and bruised in practice, than to be surprised and bleeding out in combat.”
I was just getting ready to congratulate myself for such a wise beyond my years epiphany. The thought was drowned out by a very unmanly shriek on my way to the deck from a fifty plus foot drop. In the seconds I had to react it was already too late. I face planted several feet from where Coonts was laid out. My untrained reflexes kicked in my suit’s gravity drives a second after my hard landing. I went flying head first into the nearby bulkhead. OH, YOU EVIL ROBOT!
I pushed myself up from the deck and took a glance around to see if everybody was OK. Other than the complete surprise of the fall, what should have been a very hard landing was nothing more than a stumbling nonevent. The armor shrugged off the impact and left nothing more than embarrassed looks on all of our faces. There was a possibility some of us might have tested of our suits waste disposal systems. As we got to our feet, I was gripped by the itchy queasiness of the ship dropping out of hyperspace.
“Justice, what is going on?”
“Commander, the device recovered with Sora’s body has become active and has sent a very powerful microburst signal out into hyperspace. I dropped the ship back to normal space time and am now receiving a return signal.”
“I know I am not knowledgeable about such things but I didn’t think normal communications worked in hyperspace. How is it possible for it to turn itself on and send a signal out that is being answered?”
“Unknown Commander, this is the first time I have actually been in contact with the device. As with most precursor artifacts there is little to no information available. I recommend we follow the signal to its source and investigate what we find there. This event may prove to be the answer to Sora’s highly successful artifact recovery missions.”
“How hard will it be to trace the signal to its origin?”
“Commander, the signal is like a thread that is attached to the device. In the digital world that part of my physical reality resides in, the thread is visible to me. The thread is stretching into the void at an ever increasing distance. It is currently at one hundred and twenty two light years and increasing. When the ship is pointed directly at the signal, it appears as a pulsating green dot. If I move the ship off of the signals axis it appears as a red line pointing in the proper direction. When I move back to alignment, I reacquire the green dot. The sheer physics of this phenomenon are quite interesting.”
“By all means take us there Justice.”
“Affirmative Commander, The signal has stopped at one hundred and fifty one point one light years and is now holding steady. If this is a solar system Commander, I have no records of it in my diminished data base.”
My crew overheard my discussion with Justice. Tria looked at me and said, “If this is true Commander you will be the first of your race to discover a new uncharted solar system.”
Justice added, “There is the small possibility there are records of the system but they were intentionally removed from my data base when I was abandoned in storage. Even if that is not the case we have an obligation to catalog the event and the Commander should give the system a name or number identifier.”
Klutch said, “You should name it for your clan Commander!”
Coonts countered with a galactic perspective, “Most all systems are numbered because more than half of the galaxy is still not charted. That leaves the very real possibility of millions if not billions more star systems to be cataloged.”
Coonts had a point. “Would you have any idea what the current number should be Coonts?”
“No Commander, the only way to know what numbers are currently available would be to make inquires at the Galactic Union Center for Scientific Discoveries. The Galactic Union would then dispatch a military fleet to explore and map the system. Then they carefully categorize any and all life forms to determine if they will require protected status. The process takes a considerable amount of time to complete.”
Tria would have none of Coonts reasoning and added, “Commander, it would be madness to have any contact with the Galactic Union. If the Union discovers you are from Earth, the word will spread quickly. The unknown entities in the Union elite we have been at war with will hold your home world hostage until you have been dealt with. All of our actions must remain covert or the small amount of progress we have made will have been for nothing.”
I could tell Coonts was in the mood to argue but I had heard enough. “WHOA! Everyone calm down, we are not going to the Union. Our discoveries are ours to keep and catalog. We do not require outside assistance. I think Klutch is right in that we should give the system a name and start our own catalog. There will come a time when we will be able to come out of the shadows and take full credit for our discoveries. Does everybody agree?”
“Coonts?”
“I agree Commander.”
“Tria?”
“I also agree with you Commander.”
“Klutch?”
“Agreed Commander.”
“From this point on our discoveries will be cataloged as the Legacy chronicles. I will name the first and then each crew member in the order they signed on will have the option of any name or number they choose. The galaxy is a big place and I am sure this is the first of what will be many discoveries.”
“Justice, will you be able to jump us in close so we can do a system-wide scan? I think we should remain hidden until we can determine what the nature of the signal is?
“Affirmative Commander, I am making the calculations for our initial jump. When I gather more data on the target area, I will jump us covertly in system and we will begin scanning.”
“OK, let’s get back to training we have a lot of systems to go over.”
The first thing I did was hit my suit drive hard enough to launch me almost to the ceiling of the cargo bay and then did slow spiraling circles back down to the deck. In no time at all we were doing the spiral maneuver in a loose formation which we slowly worked on tightening up. I had to give it to Justice, bless his evil little machine heart he kept throwing everything at us, atmosphere, no atmosphere, gravity, no gravity, light, no light, comms, and no comms forcing us to think outside of the box and improvise. We were hovering close to the cargo bay ceiling when Justice hailed me.
“Commander, Tria has made use of one of the discrete channels I added to the armor suits and she wishes to speak with you.”
“Thanks Justice, make the connection.”
“Commander it seems I have stumbled across some additional comms capabilities. I find it interesting that when I made use of the new capabilities, I did not encounter the suit A.I. I have been using to communicate with Coonts and Klutch. I came in contact with Justice instead. Would you care to enlighten me Commander?”
“Tria, it’s kind of long story but the short version is Justice determined the lowly Earth man was not smart enough to operate advanced alien technology. There is a small possibility he might have been correct in his assumption. Regardless of whether I could adapt or not, my onboard A.I. got booted out the airlock and Justice now resides in here with me. The fact he has inhabited all of my suit functions may or may not have increased my ability to operate my armor.
“How can this be Commander? I recall seeing you fall to the floor with the rest of us then boost yourself across the cargo bay into a bulkhead. Surely Justice could have spared you the embarrassment of such a reckless maneuver?”
I cringed at her statement. “That is an even longer story Tria. I would prefer to tell you about it at some later time.”
I again heard the pleasant notes of a clipped chuckle and the connection went dead.
“Commander we will make our initial insertion jump in thirty seconds.”
<
br /> “I felt the slight discomfort of our first jump. Justice was being very cautious about jumping in blind. We still had not made our final jump in system. I called a break for the rest of the work period since we had already trained through what should have been lunch and dinner. I was feeling very confident in my ability to maneuver my suit in most conditions and was looking forward to weapons drills so I could find out what the full capabilities of the armor would be.
“Commander, I have no contacts in the system and I am now ready to jump.”
“Take us in at your discretion Justice.”
I felt the jump transition and then headed to my cabin and stepped up into my storage crate. Justice quickly put me through the armor shut down and evacuation sequence. The crate closed in around the armor and before I headed to the shower I told Justice to move my armor crate to the ready room.
The crew joined me on the command deck so we could all observe the new system. There were four planetary bodies visible and two of them were gas giants. The two remaining planets were closer in to the star. The larger of the two was easily twice the size of Earth and had a large moon. I queried my implants to confirm that yes it was a little too close to the local star and had a surface temperature of close to two hundred and thirty degrees. The next observable planet was smaller than Earth with no moons and was just outside of the habitable zone. The information Justice was feeding me indicated a surface temperature of minus two hundred and twenty degrees.
“Where is the signal coming from Justice?”
“Commander, the signal thread goes directly to the South Pole on the moon of the first planet. The moon is tidal locked and its three point one Earth day orbit keeps the South Pole pointed away from the star as it makes a rotation of the planet. The moons current location on the back side of the planet is scanning minus thirty one degrees at the signals location. I postulate star side temperatures at the signal location being upwards to one hundred and forty degrees. There are presently no emanations other than the primary signal. All moving objects within the system appear to be inert.”
“What do you think Justice, should we go right in or do you think we should stay cloaked and look around a little more?”
Tria had a frown on her pretty face that was not the norm. “In my time as a scavenger Commander I have encountered three such phantom signals. One turned out to be a primitive distress signal, and another turned out to be a mining marker beacon.”
A look of anger and worry was apparent on Tria’s face.
“And the other signal?”
“Pirates Commander. They were trying to lure in hapless fools. If it were not for the superior capabilities of the ship I was on, we would not be having this conversation.”
“Justice, maintain stealth and take us in slow.”
“Affirmative Commander, I will also take the precaution of loading both missile tubes.”
“Roger that Justice.”
Justice took us to the far side of the system in search of any craft hiding on the other side of the four observed planets. We recorded nothing different from the previous scans so we jumped in system close to the moon and its parent planet.
“Commander, Coonts said, if Sora’s device is indeed a dedicated artifact scanner I find it troubling there isn’t life forms in evidence that could benefit from finding the technology.
“I agree Coonts but we don’t know the capabilities of the device. Without your sibling to enlighten us on his experience and findings we may never know.”
Klutch stood up from his station. “Commander, I volunteer to take the transport shuttle down to the surface and investigate.”
“I was just thinking the same thing Klutch but we won’t be taking the shuttle. Let’s suit up and go take a look around.”
Tria didn’t like the idea and said so. “Commander, it would be far wiser for me or Coonts to go with Klutch. The chances are small that it is a trap, but one never knows what might happen with alien technology.”
Klutch left for the ready room and both Tria and Coonts stood in front of me with questioning looks. My curiosity was killing me and I came to a decision. “I tell you what Tria, you sort it out between you and Coonts but one of you must stay here in command in case something goes wrong. We will leave in thirty minutes.”
That was an outcome neither of them was expecting. I quickly stepped away from the two. “Justice, take us to the target area. It looks like our timing will be just right. The moon is orbiting to the star side of the planet. We should get plenty of reflected light on the moons southern pole from the planet surface.
“Acknowledged Commander.”
By the looks on Coonts and Tria’s faces they had both eaten something that didn’t agree with them. An argument broke out as I hurried to the ready room. As usual Justice was way ahead of me and had my armor open and waiting for me. My excitement left all thoughts of modesty at the door as I peeled off my uniform and donned my base layer and climbed into my armor.
“Justice, I am getting a full munitions reading on the weapons pack.”
“Yes Commander, all personnel going on the excursion have been equipped with three hundred rounds of close quarter’s high explosive and three hundred rounds of armor piercing ordinance in the weapons packs. I believe the phrase you use in situations similar to this is plan for the worse and hope for the best.”
It gave me a warm feeling to hear Justice recite one of my Grandfather’s favorite sayings. The pang of guilt I felt for leaving them in the dark about my disappearance, dampened my spirits. Even though I knew it was for the best it still bothered me, I would never be able to tell them the truth.
As I exited the ready room, I saw Tria going to the ready room. Coonts was standing at the entrance to the lifts with his arms crossed and a less than happy look on his face. I knew the engineer was pissed.
The only way to soothe his sore ego was to let the Grawl know he was still an important aspect of our mission. “Coonts, if something goes wrong we will be counting on you to get us out of trouble. It impressed me when you took charge of our armor training cycle. I expect the same from you now. You are in charge until I return. If for some unforeseen reason I do not return from this mission I expect you to finish what I have started.”
The little Grawl stood a little straighter and lost the sour expression on his face. “Affirmative Commander, I will be standing by monitoring communications and scanning for any anomalous activity.”
I was going to tell Tria we were going with a full munition load out but when I turned to say it I saw she was putting on her suit liner. I turned away from the doorway but she caught me looking. Good God in heaven, except the extra set of arms there was absolutely nothing inhuman about her body. I needed to rein in my Earth boy emotions and concentrate on the mission. I entered the hanger bay and did a walk around inspection of Klutch’s weapons pack.
Tria soon joined us and said, “Commander, when I mounted my armor I noticed Justice has selected a full load out of live munitions.”
Before I turned to her, I blacked out my visor. I was having a hard time putting the sight of her getting suited up out of my mind. “We have to get used to the fact Justice is taking care of us from now on. If that means preparing us for any contingency then so be it. It will be one less item on our ever expanding check lists.” Klutch gave Tria a cursory walk around being sure her equipment was secure. They both did the same to me.
I hailed Justice. “OK Justice, we are ready to go. What have you got on the terrain at the signal site?”
“Commander, the signal is being transmitted from three hundred and forty feet below a mountain range. I am getting no return data from my ground penetrating scanners. There is only a trace of an atmosphere and the moon’s surface in the target area is covered in fine volcanic ash that varies in depth to about ten inches. The moons gravity is point seven G.
“Justice, take us in over the top of the mountain close to the strongest signal emanations. I want to take a good look befo
re we jump.
“Commander, I am getting intermittent anomalous returns from the far end of the mountain range. The scan returns could indicate possible buried ruins or decayed structures. The distance from the signal source is just over three miles.”
“Roger that Justice, take us to that location and we will jump from there. While we are investigating the scan returns, I want you to move back out so you can still scan the system just in case we get surprise visitors.”
“Acknowledged Commander, new target location in five seconds.”
The Legacy made a fast hop to the new destination and came to a hover about two hundred feet above the end of the mountain range.
“Klutch, Tria, let’s move out.”
I got two quick acknowledgements, and we stepped out of the hangar bay together. The weak gravity started pulling us down as we engaged our gravity control systems. We maneuvered to give ourselves a little clearance between us. The light was much better than I thought it would be. It was an amazing view of the massive light brown planet just above my left shoulder. I glanced down and my heads up display confirmed my rough estimation we were about eighty feet above the surface. We were descending at fifty feet a minute. In another minute I would be stepping on an undiscovered moon in a newly charted system. We were within a few thousand light years of the fringe of the Milky Way. If only my family knew where my bright future had taken me. I called out to my teammates. “Cutting thrusters in three, two, one MARK!”
The surface raced up at me in a blink of an eye. I bent my knees to cushion the landing and KLUNK! KLUNK! KLUNK! In rapid fire succession we came to a sudden dusty stop.
First of my Kind Page 31
