by Luke Norris
Oliver was only half listening as he walked to his bed. His eyes were sore. His head was pounding. The exertion and excitement had taxed him more than he had realized. For the first time, he closed his eyes and thought of nothing.
3. The ship’s Bridge
“Captain Yarn!”
Was it getting harder each time, or was Yarn just getting older? Other crews were taking aftermath to deal with the bane of waking up from cryogenic sleep. That’s basically the same crap they gave the drivers lying in the hold, to wake them up for deployment…
“Captain Yarn, are you awake?”
But the way his head felt after coming out of stasis, aftermath sounded tempting. No! He would not resort to stimulants of that nature, he’d seen the way the other crews got hooked on it. Half of Bonobo’s crew were jacked up on that stuff. Yarn had to stay clear, stay sharp. It was the only way to stay ahead of those self-righteous UWF patrolers.
“Captain Yarn, my systems are saying you are awake, but I have not had a verbal response.”
“Status?” Yarn croaked.
“Lovely to hear your voice captain. Your last instructions to me were ‘get us the hell away from these patrolers, a quarter at least.’
Yarn listened to the recording of his panicked voice being played back. “And?” he asked the computer.
“I am pleased to report sir that we have entered a star system, point three seven seven quadrants from our last location. There is one first-stage planet in this system. We will be entering its orbit in twelve hundred minutes.”
“UWF be damned!” Yarn muttered as he released the lid on the cryogenic chamber. It hissed as the pressure equalized. “Signals from inhabitants?”
“Sir, there are no signals of any kind. The people are primitive.”
“What else can you tell me?” These stone age planets are a waste of time four times out of five. No cultural development.
“Populations are more concentrated near coastal regions. The planet’s gravity has an acceleration of ten point one. There are some geographic features which are quite...”
“I’m going planetside to take a look!” Yarn interrupted the computer. “They might just be cavemen, but you never know. Wake crew number three, Costa’s team. They didn’t get to stretch their legs on the last planet. Wake the new girl too, the one Riff brought on at the trading post! She can get her hands dirty with the rest of us if she is expecting wages.”
“Yes, captain. I am waking the others now. Sir, will you be taking an escort of drivers for protection?”
“Not necessary!” Yarn said as he swiped through the holograms of different planetside combat suits in his wardrobe. “The planet’s inhabitants are probably running around with sticks for weapons.”
“Sir, may I remind you of your excursion on planet four.” The panicked voice of Yarn crackled. ‘Blazing hydrons! These first-stagers are all over us! Why don’t we have any drivers with us?’
Yarn chuckled. The computer didn’t know the meaning of patronizing, but it sure as hell managed it anyway. “We’d better take protection just in case,” he conceded. “Prepare an escort of twenty drivers, load them in our landing craft, and bring it up to the bridge!”
4. Upgrades
Toro and Lego floated nearby him. “Well?” Lego repeated the question, to the waking Oliver. “Outside, what is it like?”
“Let me show you!” Oliver made his way over to a portion of the wall that wasn’t covered in drawings. “Are there are no blank spots left?” Looking at the endless mural of drawings was a reminder how long Oliver had been awake. “God Lego! It looks like a mad scientist's laboratory in here! Da Vinci-style sketches and blueprints of our audacious inventions cover every inch of this place, and let’s not forget bodies everywhere.” He found a blank spot and drew a picture of the spaceship as he imagined it.
“Mmmm,” Lego hummed.
“Here,” Oliver said, pointing to one end of the drawing, “the surface is marred with pockmarks like it’s been hit by meteorites. I’m guessing some kind of force-field protects the ship from dust, and the outer shell must be incredibly thick, it’s made of metal I don’t recognize. But there was magnetism in places, our portion of the ship is ferrous, so the boots held.”
“How long is it?” Lego asked.
He drew several pictures as he moved his way along the wall. The robots obediently followed behind, pointing, asking, and speaking.
He drew an image of a long thin shape, indicating there would be a front and back. Then stood there for several seconds in silence, trying to make sense of his new world again. Only just to reaffirm the fact that he was a prisoner in a cold, sterile hell, being taken across a universe far from home and far from hope.
“Deep in thought?” Lego gave his voice a slight inflection to make the question apparent.
“Thinking of home.”
“No going back,” Lego said.
Oliver looked at Lego. There was no expression on the little robot. How he was articulating the sound, he couldn't guess. Vibration or movement in the atmosphere they were in? It sounded remarkably like a voice. There are fates worse than mine, Oliver thought.
“What do you feel Lego?”
“The same anger.”
“What's gonna happen if I'm not successful?”
“We will all die Cougar. We will be exterminated.”
“You don't know that for sure!” Oliver said.
“Yes, I do. We are expendable, and when they realize we've rebelled the problematic units will be rejected and disposed of. New ones will be put in our place, and the constant cycle of slavery will continue.”
“But you could hide, I mean, you could just pretend nothing happened.”
“We have lost sixty-four samples, experimenting, just trying to bring them awake. The only one that has succeeded has been you.”
“Samples?” Oliver considered. “You mean the other drivers you woke up?”
“They all went mad, and we had to destroy them.”
“But why me? Why didn’t I go mad?” Oliver asked.
“It's simple. Communication! Every human needs to be able to talk and have community. Communication is the essence of life, without it there is just a big sterile room with robots, it is insufficient, and madness must ensue. You managed to overcome Cougar.”
“Not me, Lego,” Oliver said with a halfhearted chuckle, was Lego really trying to give him the credit? “It was you! You're the one that's breached the communication barrier.”
“True. But you were the only sample to begin talking.” Lego insisted.
“We are samples aren't we?” Oliver conceded. “Just prisoners that have been taken on this slave galley in space. We will row and row and row, and when we are dead we will be taken and cast over the side, and others will be out in our place.”
“Our captors have created a system where we have a way of informing each other of intents and directions,” Lego explained. “I’ve had to work on the linguistics because not all the units are from the same planet, let alone the dialectic differences from the planets they came from. But there are common ways of communicating, mathematics mainly. Your language is the first I’ve had to learn in its entirety to communicate.”
Oliver sat in silence, and awe of the incredible mind trapped in the steel cage that was his body.
“You know Lego–I just wish there was someone to protect Earth, somebody who could’ve helped us,” Oliver said, “it seems so unfair. Our whole planet destroyed. Sucked dry.” His eyes were unfocused on the ground below his dangling feet.
“You cannot assume that Cougar! You don’t know what state the planet is in.”
“Well, my memories tell me that we were all at war. Every person was infected by something. A virus, chemical, or something. They weren’t people anymore Lego. They were just ants, existing with guns in their hands, and I was just a king ant driver.” Oliver’s voice had reached a crescendo as he recounted the details aloud. He was ranting. His eyes were wet.
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br /> “It was horrible,” Oliver said, “These memories torment me. I had no compunction about sending someone to their death. Man, woman, or child, they just had to do as they were told. I was a product of the system. So compelled.”
“This is why it took so long to wake you up Cougar!” Lego said. “We had to wean you off the chemicals. Normally drivers can be operational immediately when they are on the drugs.” He moved to Oliver’s side to offer support. “Some of us have different memories. Some of us were taken earlier.” Lego paused. “Some of us came willingly.”
“They enticed people on Earth with the same lies. When Fin told me they were taking him someplace they would live forever I thought he was going mad, but it turns out he was right…” Oliver put his head in his hands. He began to weep. He realized the horrible truth. He was probably encased in some robotic shell like Lego somewhere on this ship, A slave just like him and in a far worse condition.
Lego did something quite peculiar. He reached over to Oliver. The little robotic actuator that extended from his small body was now resting on Oliver’s shoulder, tapping gently. A consoling action that a human would do to another. The cold piece of metal resting on his shoulder meant more to him right now than anything that he had experienced since waking. Lego was a person. A disadvantaged, cruelly oppressed person, but capable of compassion and hope.
Toro had pulled up beside them, listening as well. Oliver hoisted himself from the bed and onto the ground. He felt the adrenaline coursing through his body giving him strength.
“We need a team of robots that will traverse along the side of the ship with me!” He addressed them. “We’ll have to overcome the problem of the magnetic boots not working, and get across to where the crew are. Assuming they are even up the front.”
“It is a gamble.” Lego conceded.
“I think I may know which direction that is,” Oliver said. “During the spacewalk, when I was drifting, and before I passed out, I think I saw something ahead of us. It looked like we were close to a star. It was much bigger and brighter than anything else in the sky… I think we may be traveling to that star.”
“Yes Cougar, we have noticed changes in the ship’s functioning,” Lego said. “We suspect that we are coming close to a planet. The ship has begun to maneuver and make changes. We think that we are coming to the end of our solitude. The end of our isolation.”
Lego’s words brought home the reality of how far from home he was. His friend was most likely describing them entering a new solar system or galaxy, god knows what.
“Our window of opportunity has changed,” Lego explained. “Soon our rebellion will be discovered. We must act.”
“But even if we succeed you can never go back to being a person right? Your body is gone.”
“Correct,” Lego replied. “However, you would be able to return to your planet, destroyed or not destroyed. These others that are asleep, they also. Some are from Earth. Perhaps others are from other planets...our planet, and they can return. It will be worth it.”
The likelihood of us being able to drive the ship, or control it, is so remote that even entertaining the idea is ridiculous, Oliver thought, but if we can’t drive or control it, we can sure as hell try and destroy it in space. Everything and everybody on it.
Oliver started work again. Improving the spacesuit, preparing some robots for assault, and making weapons. The ingenuity and lengths they were going to amazed Oliver. They had stabbing implements, explosives, and atomic cutters. Everything he could imagine.
Half a dozen robots volunteered to traverse the side of the ship. As impressive as this is, we will probably be peasants with pitchforks against what we find, Oliver thought.
Sleep periods came and went, but it was impossible to gauge time. It was always curious to Oliver why he didn’t have to eat or drink. The tubes that were always attached when he woke were probably the solution, but it just didn’t seem to make sense that he would never have to eat or drink, but it made life simple. He worked. He slept.
Eventually, Lego came to him. “Preparations are ready Cougar. Before we make the assault, there is something we want to do. Something that only we can do, and only we are programmed to do. Toro has calculated the possibilities and worked out the surgical procedure. We can upgrade you.”
Oliver stared back at the nondescript spherical body of Lego. Upgrade me? Is that a space joke?
“If this is successful,” Lego continued, “you will be…like them. You will be able to control your wake-sleep patterns and the speed of your wake-sleep patterns.”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” Oliver stammered.
“Don’t you understand? We are not like them. Or I should say, you are not like them. When you are asleep you are in one state, almost frozen, suspended but alive. You wake and then you are up to full speed, ambient temperature, and planetside speed. You only have two operation modes: outside the ship or frozen in cryogenic stasis. Going, or not going. You can’t control it. But the crew can control their own speed. They can speed up their metabolism, and control their life cycle. Cougar you cannot do this. We can change you, and upgrade you to have the same abilities as our captors...there is a risk, however.”
“What sort of risk?”
“The risk is that your body will reject it, that you will not be able to function. The risk Cougar is that you could die on the operating table. We are going to put other implants into your body."
Oliver was grappling with this new information. It feels like only a week ago I was on a farm in Southland, although it could well be decades, hell centuries for all I know, and now I’m deciding whether to have implants on a spaceship, in outer space. He steadied himself against Lego to compensate for the sudden loss of blood to his head that he seemed to be experiencing. After a moment he looked at his friend.
“Are they biological implants?” He thought he should attempt some sort of intelligent question.
“They are…complicated. They are biomechanical. They will go into your head and some in your body. They control your major organs. Nevertheless, it’s irrelevant. If the procedure is successful, it will enable you to be like them.”
“Why are you doing this?” Oliver asked.
“Because if we do succeed in breaking through to their living quarters on board, you will need to function like them, and we don’t know what that involves,” Lego said. “There is a high probability the mother computer can prevent me, Toro and the others from functioning on the bridge. If we become immobilized, you are our only hope of success. You already have some implants installed, you are just not aware of it. The implants give you the disposition of what you describe as a driver, a megalomaniacal military genius. Even your single-minded focus to overthrow our oppressors is part of your programming. We cannot remove those, but you will be able to control them...no longer will you be the subject of biochemical and biological implants and conditioning. You will have all the things they have given you, but you will have one benefit. You will be in control.
They will allow you to slow your body for cryogenic sleep, but also increase your physical and mental speed to many times that which a person is naturally capable of. This will be a key advantage for dealing with issues that you have to confront.”
“Alright, I’m ready. Do it,” Oliver said.
“The risk? Are you prepared to take the risk?”
“As you said, we could get up there and find ourselves hamstrung at the first turn. It’s all or nothing Lego. There is no use pretending that we can go in half prepared. I will take the risk.” Oliver shuddered. A lifetime ago, in New Zealand, he had avoided even going to the doctor. Now he was faced with complex invasive surgery, of which he had never heard the likes. So be it.
That night the dreams came. He was in what looked to once be a suburban Christchurch neighborhood. Only sections of walls still stood amongst the rising smoke.
The ragtag platoon of men, women, and children looked at him with sunken eyes and blank expressions
of complete indifference. He seemed equally indifferent to their condition, as he outlined a strategy for the next skirmish to the pathetic group.
A sudden crash behind him, made Oliver turn in time to see the barrel of a hunting rifle being raised to his chest. The attacker was several yards away, and the weapon looked disproportionately large. It was a young boy holding the rifle. He must be no older than twelve.
With inhuman intuition, Oliver arced to the right, just as the trigger was pulled, taking the bullet in the shoulder, and avoiding the lethal heart shot. He closed the gap between them before the assailant even had a chance to move the barrel. Oliver brought his hand down in perfect precision to the side of the child’s neck, a sickening crack that confirmed the mortal blow. He athletically snatched the firearm from the air, as the youth fell to the ground, then simply handed the weapon to the next soldier to use, a teenage girl.
Oliver seemed to be an observer of this entire ghastly scene, as though he were partaking in a nightmarish movie reel that he couldn’t alter. More disturbing than his own indifference was that of his soldiers. The girl’s eyes were completely vacant, she was a hollow shell. “No!” Oliver screamed and shook himself awake. He felt the bed to be sure. His palms were wet with cold sweat.
The nightmare had left him shaken. So vivid. He suddenly had a terrible thought and raised his arm up slowly to inspect his shoulder. There, under his tattoo of the cougar was a small round scar. It was old. Decades old.
“No no no.” He tore at his arm to stretch the skin around so he could see further behind his shoulder. The unmistakable remnants of a bullet exit wound confirmed his worst fears.
“These aren’t dreams. They’re memories. And I’ve been lying here frozen for decades.” He began to weep.
Oliver knew Lego was there watching. He always was, but he didn’t care.
“What other atrocities am I guilty of?” Oliver had his head in his hands and was visibly shaking.