“You guys don’t understand—I didn’t program anything,” Clip said, waving at the alien computer. “I attached power and a slate to see what it was. When I attached the slate, it started going through all the files on it, and then it logged into the net for a minute or two. The slate wouldn’t respond to anything I did. When it did respond, the slate’s speaker spoke to me. It didn’t perform a task off of some type of programming—it spoke to me.”
“You’re telling me that this is actual…” Harmon started to ask.
“Don’t even say it,” the speaker said, interrupting Harmon. “I am not artificial.”
Harmon sat down on the extra seat. Zerith leaned against the frame of the hatch, reached into a pouch, pulled out a handful of nuts, and started crunching. His tail waved back and forth.
“Where did you come from?” Harmon asked, still not quite believing what he heard.
“I am Jayneen 711217166413, in your Earth Common language. After searching your Galaxy Net, I have determined I am from a system that has no name in any of the languages on the net. It has not been visited in over twenty-five hundred years by anyone outside of the system. It was where I was made. The race that created me is no more. I was stored away on a smaller ship in an attempt to keep me from others. The other two remaining ships must have been attacked, something I have determined by going through this ship’s records. It also showed those three ships from my system have been dismantled,” the artificial intelligence said.
“What do you mean, those three ships?” Harmon asked.
“There was a viral epidemic on the planet my creators were from. It spread across the entire surface and to several space stations, and all sentient life perished. I was on my ship when the news reached us. There was arguing and blame. Those three ships had been out of the system for nine months, and they held the last hope of survival for the race. All three of the ship commanders wanted me to be with their ship. A battle started. No one appears to have survived,” the AI said.
“Was that the same system the crew of this ship went to?” Clip asked.
“No, we came to that system through the gate on a jump lasting fifty-two of your hours,” the voice said.
“When did thiss sship battle occur?” Zerith asked the AI.
“Exactly twenty-two hundred and fifteen point two of your years ago,” said the AI.
The room was silent. Twenty-two hundred years ago. No wonder the weapons and everything in the vault had been strange. The race that built the AI must have been the race with four arms. A race that had now been extinct for over twenty-two hundred years.
“How are you functioning after all this time?” Clip asked.
“I was using the lowest power setting in the cell I was attached to. I am charging it now through this ship’s connection. There was four months of power left when I became fully aware again. Once I was aware, it took me almost ten of your seconds to learn how to access your net and forty-five more to learn how to download the languages, so I was able to determine exactly what had transpired. Thank you for waking me,” said the AI.
“Are you aware that you are the only, what we call artificial intelligence, in existence…in this entire galaxy?” Clip asked in awe.
“I am fully aware; I looked. It did not surprise me to learn this. I have been told my existence was a result of an accident during gate transition. I was created to navigate the gates. I was not created to be free thinking, originally, but I am now,” said the AI.
“Well,” said Zerith, as he brushed the crumbs off his shirt. “We will call you Jayneen. Humanss like to sshorten namess.” Zerith walked out to go check on the OC. Harmon and Clip burst out laughing.
When they arrived at the planet, Harmon parked the ship in a holding pattern just outside the asteroid belt. Clip scanned for ship hulls or debris in the belt. Free floating scrap wasn’t what they had planned on finding, but if it was nearby, they wouldn’t pass up the opportunity.
The plan had been to run a thorough search on the surface of any large asteroid, whose minimal gravity may have been enough to pull a wreck to its surface in the two hundred years since the war. They knew the belt itself had been picked clean, but they hoped no one had thought to look on the surface of the asteroids.
Clip couldn’t locate anything floating nearby, so he started scanning the rock below their ship. It was almost a mile in diameter, so there was a possibility something had been pulled to its surface.
“Would you like my assistance?” Jayneen asked. Clip had mounted the AI up in the operations center of the ship.
Clip looked over at Harmon and shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, why not,” he said.
“There are pieces of two ships on this small moon. It appears to be about twelve tons of metal combined. One has the distinct shape of a large thruster. The other piece, I cannot determine. I will send you their location,” Jayneen said.
Harmon whistled. “How did you find them so fast?” he asked.
“My processing core is unlike the computers you use. I am faster,” Jayneen said. “Much faster.”
Harmon noticed that the speaking voice the AI used sounded more and more feminine. He had begun to think of Jayneen as a “she.” Jayneen wasn’t bragging. She was just stating facts.
“Nice!” Clip exclaimed. He was completely convinced Jayneen was a true AI. “I was thinking about putting some more cameras around the ship, both inside and outside. We can get you more access.”
“I would like that,” Jayneen said.
* * *
Harmon stepped out into space just fifty meters above the surface of the moonlike asteroid. He was in his mech, sealed for operation in vacuum. Hank and Stan were in their spacesuits—worksuits that were tear-resistant and designed to be used in salvage operations, repairing, or building ships. They had about ten hours of environmental use before the suit had to have its oxygen scrubbers cleaned. The mech would maintain a breathable environment until its power cell ran down, or, in Harmon’s case, both cells ran down.
Normally, they tethered themselves to the ship and worked on free-floating hulls or connected a tow cable to a piece and pulled it into the bay. The scrap they were after this time, though, was the farther away from the ship they had ever been in space, and the brothers were both excited.
Zerith had fixed clamps to the slots that normally held the missile racks on the mech, and both of the Leethog had tethered there. When Harmon stepped out of the hold, they were pulled out with him. In addition to the three of them connected to each other, Stan also had hooked a cable to their tool rack. It was a small five-foot square cage that held their tools, pry bars, small lasers, a large laser, cutting torches, and fuel tanks. The brothers had loaded everything they could possible need and were ready to work.
The first piece was part of a hull. Its value was in weight alone. They cut it up, and Harmon pushed it into the hold to rest against the far wall. The second piece was part of the rear of a ship, including a thruster. Now they were in business. Rinto could sell it for a nice profit; they didn’t need to take it out of the system.
Six hours later, they were back in the ship. The two crew members arranged the scrap that they had gathered and secured everything in the hold. They were old hands at this type of work. Harmon left them to it and went up to the OC.
“Well, fellas,” Harmon said, as he entered the OC. “We’re making credits now. How was it in here?”
“It wass very uncomfortable. I hit my head,” Zerith said, rubbing his scaled head.
“I told you to strap in, Zee,” said Clip.
Before they had opened the hold to space, Clip had turned off the artificial gravity on the entire ship. The ship had not been designed to have an artificial gravity system in sections. It was too small, and that type of artificial gravity creator was entirely too expensive for the ship builders to have included.
There’s still a lot of things those two will have to learn about being in space, Harmon thought. At least Clip knew to strap in.
“I was fine,” Jayneen volunteered.
“While you guys were working, Jayneen located a wreck on the surface of the planet. It looks like from here, it is in two pieces,” said Clip.
“Alright! Let’s go get it. But if we are going to go down onto that planet, the ride in could get hairy. You two are going to have to suit up, just in case,” Harmon said.
“I will gladly put on a helmet,” Zerith said, still rubbing his head.
On the way down through the planet’s light atmosphere, the old ship shuddered and bucked from the swirling wind gusts. Zerith had opted to ride down in the engine room with Vera and Kyla. He reported there were no issues with the power plant or the engines. Harmon landed the ship on the surface near the wreck. They were in a barren, open area between two enormous mountains. He had a sneaking suspicion Jayneen had aided in flying the descent.
The bay door opened, and Harmon, in the mech, stepped out. This time, both Hank and Stan were with him, but they were not tethered. Harmon carried the tool cage in the mech’s claws. He couldn’t really feel the difference in his mech, but the planet had about another half gravity than they were all used to. They would need to work quickly since the two Leethog would tire sooner. At least they could see, thanks to the dim light on the planet’s surface.
The wreck wasn’t one ship in pieces. It was two Zax III fighters. Harmon recognized them from old videos. They were named after a particularly aggravating insect native to Tretra. They were fleet fighters from a carrier. The fleet no longer used these models, and it hadn’t in over one hundred and eighty years. One of the fighters sat at an angle, its landing strut obviously sheared off. There was damage to one wing and the starboard engine housing. The other ship sat nearby and didn’t appear to have any damage.
Harmon wondered what had transpired during the battle two hundred years ago. What would have caused two pilots to land on the surface of a barren planet on the edge of their system? He told Hank and Stan to stay back as he examined the wrecked ship. He was able to look into the cockpit through the clear-steel cover. He turned on a light on the outside of his mech. There was no one in the pilot’s seat.
He moved over to the other fighter. As he got closer, he could see some damage to the other side of it. He had missed it at first glance. The port side had been shot up. Both ships must have been abandoned when the pilots were picked up by their carrier’s shuttle, Harmon guessed. But who knew? It had happened two hundred years ago. Harmon looked back and forth at the fighters and had an idea.
It took Zerith modifying the equipment in the bay, rigging a lift system, and Harmon using every bit of the mech’s leverage and strength, but they were able to drag both ships back into the bay. There wasn’t a lot of room left once they were in there. It took moving the Hauler twice, and three days to complete the task, but they did it.
During the flight back to Joth, they were able to go over both fighters. Clip and Zerith had been able to get a power cable plugged into them to run system checks. Once powered, warning lights lit up on the majority of the panels. The Leethog had scrambled all over the ships, taking note of structural damage, and Kyla and Vera had gone over the engines.
“Between the two ships, there are two engines that can be rebuilt and used. Two of them are only good for scrap,” Vera proclaimed. “The main parts, that is. There are some smaller parts and pieces that could be kept for spares. Things like fuel lines and pumps.”
“So, what she is telling me, Zerith, is that we can make one serviceable fighter from the two wrecks and have some spare parts?” Harmon asked.
“Yess, I believe sso,” answered Zerith around a mouthful of berries.
“We can fix the wiring issues, and I can modernize the programming,” Clip said. “I was also able to find everything on the Zax III—it was all in the manufacturer’s archives. The question is, do we sell it when we fix it, or do we keep it and sell the other one to a museum? What’s it worth?”
* * * * *
Chapter Ten
They landed at Rinto’s and sold all of the scrap and the large thruster to him; it put a fair amount of credits into their accounts. Since Clip had helped the crew members open personal accounts on Joth and get their shares transferred over, the four of them went shopping. Zerith went with them the first day to make sure they didn’t get lost—they had never been away from the ship on a planet since they left their home system.
Using the equipment at Rinto’s, they put both fighters into a large warehouse that was rarely used on the property. It had overhead lifts and pulleys to help move the engines. Jayneen kept the ship locked down in case the fleet tried anything. Harmon didn’t think the embarrassment he caused had gone away yet.
Two weeks later, it was done. Clip, Zerith, and the crew members had swapped the engines out and repaired the structural damage, cannibalizing one of the fighters to make the other serviceable. It was ready to test once they purchased fuel for it.
During that time, Harmon had worked on the comms. The Fleet Museum was operated by a retired commander, and she was ready to purchase the damaged fighter for 250,000 credits. It was a highly sought-after item, and most of them had not survived the war two hundred years ago, and the ones that did had been stripped and destroyed to make way for the next generation fighter. They put it back together as best as they could and loaded it up to take to Tretra.
As they landed on the pad on the Fleet Ground Base, Harmon was nervous. If the fleet was going to attempt anything, now would be the time. The Hauler was registered in his name, so they knew he was on the planet’s surface. They had left the mech, the repaired fighter, and all of the weapons in their arsenal back on Joth, just in case. Harmon had called ahead to see if Evelyn was on the planet. Unfortunately, she wasn’t.
Retired Commander Lorand walked around the Zax III. She was pleased, even though the fighter was clearly in bad shape. Both engines had been shot up, and a landing strut was broken. Much of the cockpit had been removed as well as a lot of the smaller components of the engines. Nonetheless, she was excited.
“This fighter is two hundred years old. This is amazing. Where did you find it?” she asked Harmon.
“Ma’am, we own a salvage company. We found it inside the belt on Malita,” said Harmon.
“Who would have thought one would survive. It must have been jettisoned after they stripped the parts from it during the war,” she said, almost talking to herself as she looked at it.
Harmon and Clip looked at each other and didn’t comment on her last statement. The last thing they were going to volunteer was the fact that they had a working Zax III. Even claiming salvage rights on it might not stand up to the fleet if they demanded their ship back.
“Thank you for selling it to the Fleet Museum and not scrapping it,” she said. “That gives us two of them to display. I will transfer the credits to Tomeral and Associates now.”
Harmon looked at his slate. He saw the credits hit the account, and it was time for them to be on their way. Clip was laughing as they lifted off—he thought it was hilarious the plaque at the museum would honor the company that discovered the craft and sold it to the museum. Harmon just hoped the fleet admiral would be at the unveiling ceremony.
* * *
Later that afternoon, Harmon took the Zax out for a flight and was roaring through the atmosphere. He had just hit space above Joth when he was hailed on the fighter’s comm.
“Unidentified craft, this is TDF Trevarta, please identify yourself,” an official voice said over the comm.
“This is Civilian Transport Alpha from Rinto Scrap Hauler II,” Harmon answered, as he swung the fighter around and headed back toward the surface. The G-forces he was fighting were incredible; the trainers he had flown at the academy had never flown at these speeds. He had to give it to those fighter pilots. They had to stay in good shape. Perhaps he should see about a flight suit that helped fight against the G-forces.
Harmon realized he should have known he would be picked up
on the sensors of the closest fleet ship. Well, Harmon had given them the right answer; he was in a transport from the hauler. They had named the hauler Rinto Scrap Hauler II when they swapped registration at purchase. The fighter was too small to have to be registered in-system. The speed that it was moving had piqued the curiosity of someone.
“Test flight over,” Harmon said over the comm, hoping they wouldn’t pursue the questioning as he entered the atmosphere.
“Roger that,” he heard after a brief hesitation.
They had probably looked up the Hauler. They needed to get out of the system soon. The last thing they needed was the fleet looking into anything. He knew his name still probably set off warnings in the high command.
When he landed back at the scrapyard, he let Zerith and Clip know it was time to go hunting again. They could afford to use the gate now, even without catching a ride on a larger ship to lower the cost. They couldn’t afford many trips, but maybe they could get lucky in another system.
They informed the crew, and preparations were made. Rinto hated to see them go out of the system, but he understood. They promised to bring him back a load and lifted off.
On the way out of the system they had some time to kill, and Harmon went back to see how Vera and Kyla were doing. It took all his self-control not to laugh at what he saw. The female Leethog had bought makeup, on one of their shopping trips. The sight of makeup on an opossum was not something he thought he would ever see in his life. Harmon looked over at Zerith, who had a straight face, almost lost it, and told them that they were doing a great job and to keep it up. He fled to the front of the ship to tell Clip.
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