Embers: The Galaxy On Fire Series, Book 1

by Craig Robertson

  “I wasn’t. I was downloaded two billion years ago. Times were very different then. Languages too.”

  “Two billion years ago?” he said incredulously. “That’s preposterous. No TC could last that long.” He reflected a moment. “It would account, however, for your antiquated design and parts.”

  “Is Standard the language once called English?” I was grasping at straws to explain my ability to communicate.

  “Never heard of that one. Was it what the homins you spoke of used?”

  “Humans,” I corrected. “Yes, some did.”

  “No, I doubt that very much. Say something in Human and let’s see if I understand it.” He crossed most of his arms waiting for a response.

  “You are a spherical asshole,” I said slowly in my mother tongue.

  “Total gibberish. What a foul sounding language.”

  “A simple no would have sufficed. You’re trying to be negative. I can tell.”

  He replied in a sound pattern I couldn’t translate.

  “What?” I shot back.

  “I was questioning your parentage in my own tongue.”

  “You’re being so darn negative again. Does your species have psychiatrists?” Before he could respond, I focused back on the important. “What is Standard based on?”

  “Huh?”

  “What is it related to? How was it derived?”

  “The Adamant handed it down to us, their slaves.” He harrumphed. “Actually, if they treated us as slaves, it would be an upgrade.”

  I decided to drop the linguistics query. I’d figure it out in time. I needed other information. “Do you know what happened to the people on the worldship? They were humans like me.”

  “You mean turn-cranks?”

  “No, living breathing sentients. What happened to them?”

  “I have no idea and no interest. This speck of rock has been abandoned for as long as anyone remembers. It’s been picked over for, well, forever. I only came scrounging because I’ve been on … an unlucky streak lately. I needed to find something for trade, and I was desperate enough to try this dump.”

  “Booze, babes, or betting?”

  “What in the Six Heavens are you talking about?”

  “You said you’re down on your luck. Has to be one of those three, or combinations therein.”

  “If it were I wouldn’t tell you. You, I hate. I shan’t share my troubles with a talking pile of bolts.”

  Harsh. “So, you’ve never seen a human or even heard any rumors about them?”

  “No.”

  Hang on. He hated my guts. Maybe he knew something but wouldn’t spill the beans because of his enmity. “If you could give me some useful information, I could make it worth your while.”

  Yeah, that perked up his ear-stalks. Then he scowled. “You don’t own anything I might want. I don’t think you’ll offer your arm or fusion cells.”

  “You got that right. But, if I find something valuable, might you recall some details?”

  “That is almost a certainty. What do you have in mind?”

  “Not quite sure yet. If you wait here a while, I’ll come back worth something valuable.”

  He was tempted. I could see it in his beady little eyes.

  “It isn’t healthy to stay in one place long. The Adamant has eyes and ears everywhere. They also use the most fantastic scanning tools. To be found by them is to beg for a lamentable death.”

  So, broadcasting a message on all known frequencies like I did an a little while ago would be what? An insanely bad idea or a tragically bad idea? Probably both.

  “Ah, while I thought you were dead, I kind of sent out a general radio message asking if anyone could hear me. You think that might be a problem?” I smiled to potentially soften the blow of my revelation.

  “You … you sent a signal? Now I know you’re defective.”

  He popped to his feet and scurried over to where his satchel lay. “I’m dead already, thanks to you. Curse your manufacturer and his children.”

  He snatched the bag and ran off into the darkness of a corridor. Shortly after, I heard his engines whine to life, and I knew he was gone. So, my first couple hours of reanimation were going less ideally than I might have hoped. On the bright side, I didn’t have a ride. Those Adamant were likely to find me here and ease my pain of being alive. My ship of state had sunk so deep into the Sea of Shit that even her masthead was no longer visible.

  TWO

  I was stuck, literally and figuratively. I couldn’t leave Exeter, the cored-out asteroid worldship I’d lived on in the remote past. I knew eons of scavenging would have removed anything even vaguely serviceable. Also, I couldn’t leave because I needed to find out what happened to my people. There had to be clues. Some computer banks, written records, or archeologic specimens were bound to be around somewhere. The question was if I would have enough time to discover anything before the Adamant came. That assumed, of course, my anonymous friend wasn’t crazy and just imagined them into existence. He sure looked nutty enough to be delusional. It was wishful thinking on my part, but I was due for a change in my luck.

  I had been stored in the android construction and repair area. It was nicknamed “toy land” for obvious reasons. It wasn’t too far from the main engines and other technical departments. Housing and recreation areas were pretty far away. The worldships were, after all, huge. Four- or five-kilometer central core-outs of ten-kilometer asteroids. They made safe and practical homes for humanity to occupy way back in the mid twenty-second century. Jupiter had been knocked out of its orbit by a rogue planet. I guess it pissed Jupiter off enough that it felt like destroying something. Unfortunately, it chose tiny little Earth to vent against. Billions made it off safely. I knew where the fleet of worldships was going, but in the immense timespan since then, any humans left would be scattered to the wind.

  I needed some closure. Clearly if any humans remained, they wouldn't know who I was. I would have no connection to them either. But, hell, they were my species. I gave up everything to save their butts. I wanted to know if my sacrifices were worth the considerable suffering I’d lived through. To explore the local star systems looking for a new home for humanity, I’d volunteered to be the first person downloaded to an android host. After surviving that, I shoved off for a half-century voyage all by my lonesome.

  I experienced so much loss, so much pain, it eventually began to change me. I became a dark, moody killing machine, defending humanity at any cost. That’s what led up to my choice to be transferred back into a mortal human body and die like everyone else. This android version of me was never supposed to see the light of day again. Toño specifically promised me. Now I was in a worse muddle. I had all the scars of my past and I was marooned in the far future. I never got to see my children grow, bounce my great grandchildren on my knee, or watch my beautiful, precious wife age and pass.

  An icy rage began to grow in my gut. I had given much more than everything of value in my life. My reward was the ultimate curse. Someone was looking at hell to pay for what happened to me. Of course, anyone responsible was long since dust, but someone was going to pay. Maybe, just maybe, it’d be those damn Adamant. They were as good a choice as any. I’d open a galactic can of whoop ass on them and see if that made me feel any better. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a plan.

  I stepped into the main corridor outside my resting chamber. Not surprisingly, it was totally dark, and it was filthy. Crap was everywhere, signs that immense time and greedy hands had wrecked everything several times over. I needed some light to see. My visual amplifiers could boost the tiny light I emitted, so I could see just fine. That was fortunate, because I was extremely low on power. One of my fusion cells was long since defunct, and the other was running on fumes. Luckily, finding hydrogen to refuel wouldn’t be a problem. If I didn’t find a tank, which was doubtful, I was equipped to separate it out from the environment. There were traces of air remaining on Exeter, even all these years later, including a bi
t of hydrogen.

  Having no specific plan, I wandered toward the main labs Toño had used for years. He was as likely as anyone to leave a clue for me on the off chance I woke. Along the way, all I saw was more debris and dirt. Walls were either ripped apart or had simply decayed with the passage of time. Swiss cheese had fewer holes than the once proud Exeter. When I arrived at Toño’s main lab, the doors were missing. The interior was the same familiar mess. A few counters remained roughly in place, but anything unattached was long gone. I pulled up some old holos in my head of the lab in its prime. Maybe I’d notice something all the scavengers hadn’t.

  The main computer station was once to my right. It was totally gone, as were the computers once housed in the wall. The storage lockers had been straight ahead of where I stood. Though they were welded to the walls, they were missing. Somebody was pretty motivated. I turned. Behind me was where a lab bench and odd tools were stored. Those were missing. The walls were punched out with randomly placed openings. Some scrapper must have wanted to make sure there were no hidden compartments. Silly. Why would a scientist have secret compartments in their lab? To hide the jewelry and gold bullion? Yeah.

  Wait. Damn. There was one thing Toño guarded with obsessive vigilance. He had a small amount of antimatter stored in a magnetically locked flask. He was determined no one would tamper with it and potentially blow the asteroid to smithereens. Even the small amount he stashed away could rip the rock into large chunks. He hid the stuff in the floor. He had a safe concealed under a lab freezer. Though the freezer was missing, I knew it was in that corner over there. I jogged over. The floor was smooth and intact. The seams of the hatch were so smooth no one had noticed them in two billion years. Toño was nothing if not a perfectionist, bless his pointy little head.

  I scraped at the floor with my nails. Nothing. I extended my probe fibers to approximately where I thought the hatch was. I sensed a hallow space. The safe! I lifted at the panel covering it. It was all I could do, but it finally tore free. There it was. Toño’s ancient safe, perfectly intact. I needed to be cautious. Either the antimatter leached out so slowly it didn’t cause an explosion, or it was still in the bottle. The energy levels had to be very low, like mine. If I was ham-handed, I could be vaporized.

  The safe had a touchpad to enter a code. The lights were out. It was probably powered by the ship’s main supply. Fortunately, the container had its own autonomous source. I powered up the pad via my probes. The backlights flickered to life reluctantly. A few pixels were down for the count. Now I had to figure out what the code was. Tearing the door off was a possibility, but I didn’t want to disturb the potentially fickle contents. I tried the obvious combinations. Toño’s birthday, his mother’s birthday, my birthday. Hey, we were good friends. It could happen. Nothing clicked. I entered his fleet ID number, binary translations of his name, and the date the Earth was destroyed. Still nothing. An odd notion hit me. I tapped in 10-15-14-18-25-1-14. A green light blinked and the bolts squealed open. Toño used my name as the code. Those were the numeric values of the letters of Jon Ryan in the alphabet. Aw shucks, I was touched. Maybe I wouldn’t split his skull if I saw him again.

  The antimatter flask was gone. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I didn’t want to have to deal with that dangerous relic. Toño, always the responsible scientist, must have removed the vial when he left for good. There was, however, a letter. Not a data chip, not a holo disk, but a very old-fashioned letter in a pristine white envelope. It had my name on the front. It had to, right? I lifted the letter out like it was the antimatter flask I’d expected to find. I smelled the paper. It was fresh. The safe must have once been held in a vacuum. Though that had leaked away, the interior was spared the ravages of time. Most cool.

  I looked at the letter for several minutes before opening it. I might have waited even longer, but the thought of mean, all powerful aliens coming spurred me ahead. I gingerly tore the top open and removed the three-page message.

  Please, my old friend, forgive me. I know that as you read this letter you are tremendously upset with me. You’re alive. I promised you would never be operative again, and I failed you, knowing full well the ever resourceful and unnaturally lucky Jon Ryan could never be silenced forever. I simply could not bring myself to destroy my best friend permanently. That you were also my greatest scientific achievement would not have stopped me. But, in the end, my love for you would not allow me to destroy you. I pray that in time you can come to forgive me. If you do not, I will understand. What I did was indefensible. I’d do it a thousand times over, but it was a sin to betray you. I will take that pain with me to my grave, assuming I find a final rest. These android hosts I created are too damn good.

  Time. Time, my friend, has been a curse to us. As I write you this missive, it is the anno Domini 61,588. Can you conceive of it? Well, of course you can. You’re reading the letter in my future. Who knows, it might even be in the next centamillenium. I think the fusion cells could survive that long. Who knows? With proper maintenance, we possibly can live forever. Such a curse, a double curse. What have I done?

  But you have troubles enough without me burdening you with mine. I can only imagine. There is little I can do to aid you, I’m afraid. In the safe, you will find a few items that might ease your immediate needs. I have left you two new fusion cells and a small cylinder of fuel to charge them. I have also stashed a modest amount of gold. Hopefully it is still a universal currency. Finally, I have left you a data disk of the history that has transpired since we shelved you. It is a broad overview, but I know you, and you will be curious.

  You hopefully noticed your guardian already. Yes, you have had a champion while you slumbered. Al, your ship’s AI. As Exeter was being abandoned, everything useful was removed. That would have included Al, but he refused to go. Artificial intelligence. Even I fail to understand it. How an AI I created and programmed could be capable of such devotion and emotion is well beyond my comprehension. I imagine it only speaks to the unique force of nature that is Jon Ryan, eh? You can draw life from a metal box. Hah! His power supply should last a very long time. I’m certain he was present to cajole you when you woke. Sorry. That was his idea, not mine.

  Aside from these things, I can give you but two final gifts. One is the reassurance that your precious wife Kayla lived a very long and abundantly happy life with the human-download copy of you. You predeceased her by several years. After your passing, she lived to become a plump old woman who was surrounded by her grandchildren as she held her great-grandchildren on her lap. The morning they called me to pronounce the she had died, I swear to you she had a smile on her placid face.

  Finally, I gift you my blessing. I doubt we shall meet again. Who knows when you will chance to rise and how long this android unit will last? I will accompany the last of the colonists departing Exeter for a while. Then I will begin addressing my considerable bucket list. It will take me far and wide. I cannot hope to match your record of travel and adventure, but I shall do my best. So, vaya con Dios, my eternal friend. From your greatest fan, Toño DeJesus.

  Well I could have been knocked over with a small feather. That was touching, unexpected, and so sincere. Okay, if I ever saw Toño again, I’d hug him. Then I’d brain him. Nah. Who was I kidding? I’d hug him then offer to buy him a beer. Then I’d verbally abuse him and then hug him some more.

  I checked in the safe. The fusion units and the fuel cylinder were there, along with the gold bars. All right, Toño. I had a new lease on life. It took only a few minutes to remove my old fusion packs and replace them with the new ones. I was charged and ready for action. I drained the tiny amount of fuel in the one functioning old unit and put them, along with the gold, in a backpack Toño had provided. I was just about to smile and feel all touchy feely when I heard the sound of a spaceship blustering to a landing not far from me. The Adamant had arrived. Oh boy. Time to die for real.

  I couldn’t decide what to do. I could confront whoever had landed and try to make pe
ace with them. Alternately, I could kill them and borrow their ship. But I had a lot more I wanted to explore on Exeter. If I tried to hide, I bet they’d find me really quick. Supreme evil doers were always good at that kind of thing, at least in science fiction stories. As big as the worldship was, I doubted I could outrun them for long. For better or worse, I wasn’t forced to choose an option. Almost immediately, two burly figures crashed into the room, both pointing some bitching looking weapons at me. Man, they found me fast.

  Now, I realized I was always given to tall tales and hyperbole. But, these guys were the strangest pair of creatures I’d ever seen. Picture two huge hippopotami on short stilts, six short stilts because that’s how many legs they walked on. Two front limbs were holding the guns. Hippos have short necks and can only look down and ahead. These creatures had curved necks that allowed them to hold their heads up like a human. As opposed to a hippo’s head, they had small oblong heads with a big mouth and three small eyes set triangularly. Evolution must have been on drugs on whatever planet they came from when these guys came along. Totally bizarre.

  “It’s just a robot,” one said to the other as he gestured at me with his gun. His voice sounded like he was talking while swallowing oatmeal mush.

  “Destroy it and continue your search,” said a disembodied voice from God only knows where. It was like they were followed by a loudspeaker, minus any apparent loudspeaker.

  “Or welcome me, death,” both hippos replied to thin air. They trained their weapons on me with intent.

  “Wait, fellows,” I called out. “Can’t we talk about this? I’m not a threat to you.”

  “No and yes,” one barked back.

  “Say what?” I asked.

  “No, we cannot talk, and yes you are no threat.”

  He aimed intently at my head.

  “So … so, hang on. Is there no way I can talk you out of shooting me? How about a five-minute stay of execution to convince you that you don’t really want to kill me?”