by Frank Carey
Joshua feverishly typed more commands, stopping the code execution while executing new instructions. With only a few seconds to spare, he shut down the power overload, preventing the destruction of a large part of the Desert Southwest region of the United States.
He leaned back and sighed in relief as the device behind him pulsed, bathing him in light. His lifeless body dropped to the floor, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling in profound shock.
###
"Director, this is computer control. The overload has been averted. Cyber Lab One is reading normal," a voice said over the PA system. The crowd stopped streaming into the emergency elevators and began to cheer.
Conrad ran over to the comm panel and activated it "Biocybernetics lab, this is the director. Report!"
Silence.
Conrad switched channels as the crowd's cheers turned to concerned murmurs. "This is Director Curtis, Security Team and Medical Team to Biocybernetics Laboratory, Code Red. I repeat, Medical Team and Security Team to Biocybernetics Laboratory, Code Red." He clicked off the comm. "Gretchen, with me," he said as he headed back into the facility.
###
"Report, Major," Conrad ordered.
The security team leader went to attention before reporting. "They're all dead, sir. No signs of foul play. No visible body damage. It is as if they just died where they stood or sat, sir."
"What about Dr. Gray?"
The major nodded toward a body bag being wheeled out of the room. Gretchen gasped, then began to cry.
"Are you sure, Major?"
"Yes, sir," he said as he walked over and opened the bag to reveal Joshua's face. He looked peaceful, as if asleep. "Fingerprints, retinal scan, and other biometrics say it's him. Whatever killed him didn't leave a mark."
"What about the BORIS unit?"
"Dr. Menghis? Could you join us, please?" the major said to one of the engineers supervising the investigating team."
"Ah, Director, I'm glad you're here."
"Doctor, I know you've only been on scene for a short while, but have you found anything?"
"Yes, and you're not going to like it."
"Tell me."
"Dr. Gray was able to stop the overload."
"How close did we come to detonation?"
"Three seconds."
"Oh my God. But it's stopped, so what's the problem?"
"We can't remove the power unit without risking an overload occurring. Perhaps, in a couple hundred years, we could figure out how to do it safely, but right now it has to remain in place."
"What do you suggest we do?"
"Something radical. We have a temporal stasis unit down in the vault."
"A temporal stasis unit?" Gretchen asked as she stared at the unit.
"Yes. The device creates a bubble of slowed time. Anything placed inside the bubble will experience dilated time compared to outside time. A watch placed inside would tick only once a year compared to a watch outside the bubble. We place the unit inside and shut the door."
"What about power?"
"Totally self-contained. It is warranted for over a thousand years."
"Warranted by whom?"
"The Zindelli. They lent us the unit when they were passing by on their Great Trip to the center of the galaxy."
"Won't they want it back?"
"When they return in a 100,000 years. Until then, we're just going to test it."
"Do it, then put the unit back in the vaults. When you're finished, put a note in the master database. We wouldn't want anyone in the future to do something ill-advised."
"Copy that. What about the project?"
"I need to talk to Falan and Trent about finishing Dr. Gray's work..."
"Sir, we have another problem," Gretchen said.
"What now?"
"Falan, Trent, and all the notes pertaining to Boris have disappeared."
"What?"
"Everything. BORIS unit's data, the biocybernetics data, along with Falan, Trent, and the other Nordicans have disappeared."
"What about their ship?"
"The berth is empty."
"Dammit!" Conrad said. "Dammit to hell. I think we've been had."
###
The memorial service for those killed was held in the facilities main gathering area. In addition to the staff, several dignitaries were in attendance including the Air Force Chief of Staff. Being the first service held since before the Vietnam War, it was a solemn affair as everyone came to grips with the dangers they faced. When the service was finished, the Chief of Staff took Conrad and Gretchen aside. "Gretchen, how are you holding up?" the general asked.
"I'm fine, sir. Shaken, but functional."
"And you Conrad?"
"Angry, sir. I can't believe we fell for that cock-and-bull story the Nordicans told us."
"Yes, and what a story it was. Our analysts think the Nordicans were here for the express purpose of having us solve certain engineering problems that were beyond them. They were out of here the moment they had something they could use. Unfortunately, they left behind a lot of pain and damage."
"You're sure they're gone?" Gretchen asked.
"Deep space tracking watched their ship enter FTL space outside the moon's orbit."
"Are we ever going to meet a species that isn't out to rip us off, steal our cattle, or blast us out of this universe?" Conrad asked. Gretchen put her hand on his arm, a gesture not lost upon the general.
"We will. The universe will open its doors as soon as we have the key."
"Faster-than-light travel. The current holy grail of engineering. I've got teams working on it..."
"And they will find the answer. Until then, we wait, we watch, and we prepare."
"Maybe we should ask the elves to help us," Conrad said, referring to a childhood myth.
"Perhaps. Perhaps the elves are waiting for us out there," the general said. "All we have to do is find them."
CHAPTER THREE
Present day, two centuries later...
"Oooohhh plark!" the tall, blond elf woman said as she glared at the terminal. "Lucien Irithyl, you will be the death of me!"
Dr. Gloria Aymar-Taggart, elf, adoptive cousin of Prince Lucien Irithyl of Ventos Prime, and owner of Elven Industries Ltd, pounded on the keyboard as she ran searches for inventory, searches that were, so far, not bearing fruit.
"You are just so damn cute when you're angry, my love," her husband, Dr. John Taggart said, wrapping his arms around her waist while avoiding her whipping tail.
"Argh!"
"Well that's romantic," he said while peering over his shoulder. "We're out of autonomous suits?" he said, referring to the bipedal bio organic robots their company built for civilian and military use. Called "suits," they could be ridden by operators, controlled remotely through a direct-to-brain communication headset, run autonomously, or run by computer.
She gave him a hairy eyeball for his troubles. "Lucien needs one for his Valera project, but we've had a run on them. There are none on Ventos Prime and our stock on the Cube is completely depleted. The closest one is on Tralaska, but it will take a week to drop-ship it to Ventosian space."
John reached around her and typed something into the terminal. "Valera?" he asked as he worked.
"Yeah. He and Queen Losira cooked up a plan to ship a thousand miscreants off to a faraway planet in the hopes they can be rehabilitated. The ship leaves next month and he needs a computer-controlled suit to complete the initial load. Dammit, John, I promised him..."
"Found one."
"Where?"
"Here, on the cube, down in the Tombs. Remember, we decided to store demos and returns down in Tomb 99B. The damn thing had a few Area 51 items stored there, but otherwise it's empty, so we talked to Ciara, and she's letting us rent the space."
The Tombs, archival storage facilities for things innocuous and dangerous and things both living and not so much. Weapons, artifacts, and objects without description were stored in the lower levels of the giant Cube space
station, the jewel of the League’s network of advanced research centers.
"Yes!" she yelled while she clapped her hands with glee. "You're a genius, my love."
"I married you, didn't I?" he replied while running his finger down the list on the screen. "Here you go. A demo golem from last year's League Cosplay convention on Earth."
She pulled up the details. "Hmmm, it's using a really old power module, but I can replace it with a universal. Cool," she said as she typed in a work order to prep and ship it. "I'm such a genus."
John chuckled, "Why yes you are, my love."
She cuffed him for good measure.
###
"Here we are," Mel, the young elf, said while tapping on the giant pressure seal marked "99B."
His companion, another elf named Mary, keyed the access code into the adjacent lock pad. The massive doors slid open revealing a room partially filled with crates and equipment. "This way," she said while glancing at her datapad. They walked up to a stack of crates.
"Okay, I'm not seeing it," Mel said.
Mary pulled out a scanner and aimed it around the room. "Over here," she said while walking over to a blue cylinder, three meters long and two wide, festooned with stickers and ID tags. It was not the one they were looking for. In fact, it contained the BORIS unit, which nearly destroyed Nevada. "This must be it," she said as she peered at the electronic readout. "There's a suit in here, and it's stored in a stasis field."
For over two centuries, the stasis chamber containing the BORIS was moved, upgraded, re-stickered, inventoried, and re-inventoried too many times to count. Stickers peel off, ID tags are lost. Eventually, the chamber was lost along with any hope for Boris to be returned to operational status.
"Are you sure this is the one? It looks old," Mel commented.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Boss Lady likes to recycle containers. It's a suit, it's the right size, and it's the only one in here."
"Maybe we should check with Gloria?"
"You want to call Boss Lady? I don't. She scares me."
"Fine. Let's get it out of here and swap out the power unit," Mel said. "We're on the clock."
He and Mary got the cylinder upright and open. After deactivating the stasis field, Mary ran a scanpad over the unit and found the access opening to the power unit. Using a universal extractor, she removed the power unit while maintaining power to the suit and a load to the power cell. "Damn, this cell is unstable," Mary said while Mel connected the new power unit.
"Zap it," he said. She pressed a button and the extractor which instantly neutralized the power cell. The General was right, though no one would ever know it.
Mel ran a diagnostic routine from his datapad. "Mary, these readings aren't right..."
"Is it working?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Then button it up. We need to get it down to loading," Mary ordered. "Chop, chop!"
Mel smiled. "Yes, ma'am!"
###
Two days later, the BORIS unit was delivered and loaded aboard the Ventosian Century Ship Valera where it was connected to the ship’s computer system. The unit would be activated in the event of an emergency and controlled by the ships artificial intelligence, an entity named Jenna. The ship itself carried one thousand convicted felons, each thought to be a sociopath, incurable using conventional means. It was hoped that they would learn to depend on each other when faced with the hardships of creating five colonies on a distant planet.
At least that was the theory...
###
Dr. Joshua Gray, Earth human male, PhD in Bioengineering and Computer Engineering, moved instantly from the biocybernetics lab to an unfamiliar room filled with a cacophony of sirens and flashing lights. He was lying in a bed, staring up at a long, semi cylindrical cover leaning off to his right. "What the hell is going on?" He yelled as he sat up. "Where the hell..." he stopped when he saw his feet. They weren't human. He could see muscles and status lights through the synthetic skin. He stuck out his hands and saw hands with two fingers and two opposable thumbs, also covered in synthetic skin. "No, no, no! This can't be happening. I'm in Boris!"
"Identify yourself," a voice said from the ceiling.
"Dr. Joshua Gray, Bioengineering Laboratory Head, Area 51. Who are you and where am I?"
"Working... Scanning... Shit! Dr. Gray, you've had a bad day, and it's going to get infinitely worse. My name is Jenna, and I'm the AI aboard the Ventosian Century Ship Valera. We just dropped out of other-space and if you don't get your mechanical ass down to engineering, you, me, this ship, and its crew are going to die."
Joshua looked up at the ceiling. "You're kidding, right?"
"No. I'm a plarking AI, not a comedian. Now get out of that stasis chamber!"
He jumped out and landed on his clawed feet. "Damn, the damn thing works!"
"Good for you," Jenna said as the door to the room opened. "Leave, make a right, and start running."
He obeyed.
"When you come to the doors at the end of the corridor..."
He ran through them like a freight train.
"OK, that works," she said as Joshua found himself in a smoke filled room. He remembered the sonic range finders and infrared scanners. His view shifted to a false-color display. He could see bodies. No, make that living bodies based on his readouts. One body had a large metal beam across it. He reached for it, but Jenna stopped him.
"She's fine. I need fire suppression and ventilation. Console to your right, two blinking switches at center.”
He saw nothing, so he switched to frequency scan--UV let him see clearly, so he used it. He flipped the switches and the room cleared. As it did, he reached down and grabbed the beam one handed, throwing it to a far corner. He switched to visible light as countless hours of system programming and testing came to his rescue.
"She's beautiful," he said as he looked down a girl with long red hair and scales.
"Her name is Tayla Hardy and she's Sokuhl. Doctor, focus!" Jenna said as Tayla's eyes fluttered open.
"This is so cool," he said aloud. "What do I have to do now?"
"See that door at the back of the room? You need to open it, step inside, grasp the ring sticking out of the floor, and pull with all your might."
"Then what?"
"You save the ship, but die in the process."
For the second time in his life, Joshua faced a life and death situation, only this time he knew about it in advance. Regardless, it was getting old really quick. "Been there, done that," he said. He looked at Tayla who stared back at him wide-eyed. "Damn, you are the most beautiful space alien I have ever met.”
She gave him a weak smile, and the look turned to wonderment. "How many have you seen?"
"Does it matter?" he said as he got up and walked to the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled on it.
Nothing happened.
He remembered the augmented handlers stored in his torso. "Let's see if daddy really knows how to build a body," he said as four, large tentacles shot out of his rib cage and embedded themselves into the door. He tugged and the door ripped loose like wet newsprint. He threw the door across the room to join the beam. With one final look at a dumbfounded Tayla, he walked through the door, grabbed the ring with both hands and all four tentacles, then pulled with enough force to throw a house across a suburban street.
Tayla screamed as an emergency bulkhead sealed the hatch before the aft section of the ship containing the FTL drive unit, and Joshua, ejected from the ship. Once free, its emergency rocket motors ignited, sending it and its contents into an escape trajectory. Seconds later, it flared as the core overloaded
###
"FTL Drive has ejected, Captain!" Lt. Felicity Zarn yelled over the din of the alarms.
"Good job, Tayla," Capt. Townsend said. "Raul, kill those alarms and get me Engineering."
"Aye, sir," the young human said as his hands danced over his comm board.
"Jacob?"
"Tayla, thank God. I don't know how you did it, b
ut..."
"It wasn't me," she said. "I need medical down here. Mac is out cold."
"If it wasn't you, then how..."
"I don't know, boss. I've got to set up for the drops. Engineering out."
"What the hell. Shelly, where are we?"
"In orbit and on track for the first drop in ten minutes, sir."
Jacob hammered the intercom button. "Doc, I need a medic down in Engineering. Mac and Tayla are hurt."
"Copy that. Medic on their way."
Jacob looked around and saw things getting back to some semblance of normal. "Jenna, what just happened?" he queried the ship's AI.
"I'm analyzing the data, but at first guess I'm thinking sabotage. Someone rigged the core to overload when we dropped out of FTL."
"Dammit. Royal Security is going to get one plarking angry letter. Jenna, Tayla said she didn't eject the core. Who did?"
"I'm checking on that."
"What? It was either Tayla, Mac, or God."
"None of the above. Give me some time to come up with an answer. Now, let me get back to prepping for the drops. Jenna out."
Jacob gaped. "Did she hang up on me?" he asked no one in particular. The rest of the Bridge crew quickly turned their attention to their consoles.
Over the next hour, the crew dropped the first four pods, each containing two hundred colonists. Each pod would land at a predetermined site where its passengers would be revived to start their colony. When they finished, the ship containing the last pod, Bridge, and Engineering section landed in a clearing situated between a mountain and a large river. The captain sat back and stared out the forward windscreen as the main engines spun down.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Alyson."
CHAPTER FOUR
Jacob walked into Sickbay and saw Mac and Tayla sitting up on their respective examination beds as Doc Orsi checked Mac's heart with an old-fashioned stethoscope. "What's the verdict, Doc?" he asked while walking over to stand next to Tayla. "Will they live?"
