by A. S. Deller
Gulliver had formed a powerful bond with Sorakith.
Sorakith spent so much time with Commander Rhodes, talking and empathizing.
She allowed Gulliver to call her by her half-name, and he accepted the same from her. To Althorians, this was a hallmark of companionship that dominated all other social constructs.
Sorakith and Rhodes spent more time together, and time with the two twins from LM-32f. Gulliver noted the parallels with traditional family dynamics that were occurring. He noted the satisfaction that both Sorakith and Rhodes experienced. Their interactions deepened. They became physically more open to each other. Gulliver watched them kiss in Rhodes’ stateroom. He measured their biological reactions, pheromone release, and communications via sound and gesture.
He knew virtually everything about human and Althorian physiology and psychology. He knew they were falling in love.
Gulliver’s emotions meandered. There was happiness when he first saw the Commander and Sorakith becoming closer. They were both pleased, and that pleased Gulliver, because “a happy crew is a happy ship”.
But when Gulliver felt that love for Sorakith, and she allowed the use of her half-name by Gulliver, and not to the Commander, he felt happy for himself. Elated.
As Sorakith and Rhodes extended their own interactions and became more intimate, Gulliver felt confusion. She was clearly nurturing a connection with Rhodes, and she could express it differently with that human male, in a way she could not with Gulliver.
That breathing man, whose heart pumped blood and whose lungs breathed air.
It was the first time Gulliver felt anger toward a crew member. It was wrong. He tried to remove the emotion, editing his memory and locking the data away.
He diagnosed this as jealousy.
The feeling returned when Gulliver monitored Rhodes during a session in the virtual reality simulator, in which Dr. Weller and Rhodes ended up discussing numerous topics. This included their past feelings toward each other, and how those feelings still existed. Scanning their biometrics, Gulliver could tell instantly that Rhodes felt a similar emotional and physical attraction for Kyra Weller as he did for Sorakith.
Gulliver felt a gusher of hope. Perhaps Rhodes would alter his course and pursue Weller. Perhaps his affections toward Sorakith would be reduced, or even eliminated.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Gray Rhodes was the last to step into the air lock. Alisa Nunez, Greg Hu, Arno Jecky, Rax, and Petty Officer Rasheed Chang were already halfway done helping each other get fitted out in SES gear, modified for EVA (extravehicular activity) with more robust oxygen and suit pressurization units latched onto their back. These included a set of four small thrusters that could eject pressurized air to move them in the vacuum of space. They also wore special pairs of heavy boots that could be magnetized as needed for walking across hulls.
Sorakith followed Rhodes into the air lock, along with Captain Lancer and Dr. Weller.
Reina said, “I wanted to stop by and wish you all luck. I’m sure the trial run will go well. I’ve got Chief Falken and the shuttle bay technicians moving the Valgon scoutship into position now, so you should be getting the go signal right on time.” She nodded to the team and turned to go back to the bridge.
“And I’m just here to triple check your EVA packs. Pay no mind to me,” Kyra Weller said as she began to walk around to everyone’s sleek white backpacks.
“No need, Doctor. I’ve been over them a few times. Plus I’ve been on maintenance detail for EVA for a year now,” said PO Chang confidently.
“It’s not about trust,” Weller said, her eyes flashing between the EVA pack readouts and her handheld holo tablet. “They’ve barely been used since the repairs after our stranding. I’m just making sure each of the packs are remoted into Gulliver so he can take control if anyone faints or otherwise loses control.”
“That’s a great idea. You just thought of that?” Chang said.
“Yes I did. Now turn around so I can get you sorted out,” Weller replied.
Sorakith help Rhodes pull his SES up and over his shoulders while Hu and Jecky affixed his EVA pack. Rhodes said, “Is everyone clear on the operation?”
“I briefed everyone on the plan again, Commander,” replied Rax, towering over the group in his huge SES EVA outfit, specially modified for his massive Kenek frame.
“And you’re feeling good enough to do this now, Rax?”
“I was able to help the Captain shovel our Valgon boarders into body bags the other day. I think a little space walk will be relaxing,” the huge saurian affirmed with a spine-chilling grin behind his visor.
“A walked in the park,” Nunez added. “A space walk in the park.”
First Lieutenant Carly Ming leaned around the corner of the open hatch just as Jecky assisted Rhodes with screwing on his SES gloves and linking their finger actuators to the main SES exoskeleton.
Carly looked back and forth between Greg Hu and Alisa Nunez, both standing toward the front of the air lock, tesper rifles in hand. “Take care out there,” she said. “We’ll all be watching.”
“You got it, sir,” said Nunez, her face in full-on determined, professional mode.
Hu winked as he said, “Don’t blink or you might miss some of our magical space moves.”
As Rhodes lifted his helmet up to place over his head, Sorakith put her hands on his and gazed into his deep brown eyes. “Play safe. It’s a long way down,” she said with a little smirk.
“It’s a really long way down, isn’t it?” Rhodes said, and caught himself as he leaned in. He stopped with their lips only a few inches apart. He should kiss her. He could kiss her.
But there was Kyra Weller, standing next to and a bit behind him, pretending to only pay attention to her holos and his EVA pack. She wasn’t only doing that, though. Rhodes could palpably sense Kyra watching his interaction with Sorakith in her peripheral vision.
And then Sorakith sensed something, too, and moved a half step back. Rhodes realized he had been looking at the side of Kyra’s face for a second too long.
“Okay, good luck,” Sorakith said flatly, fastening Rhodes’ helmet into its seam on his SES. She shot him a curt nod and quickly turned, walking past Carly Ming on her way out.
Rhodes looked after her. Weller soon left the confines of the air lock, too. She paused for a moment outside, before looking back over her shoulder. “Chief Falken pinged me. The Valgon ship is stabilized outside,” she said, and looked directly at Rhodes, finishing with, “This should be easy.”
She walked away, and Rhodes spoke aloud, “Gulliver, seal air lock D.”
The hatch clanked shut, and air began whooshing out of the chamber.
“Air lock D sealed. Evacuating atmosphere. Outer hull hatch disengaging in T-minus thirty seconds,” answered Gulliver in his mollifying, calm, paternal voice.
There it was again: the distemper giving way to acrimony. The covetousness he felt over Sorakith. Seeing the Commander react how he did. Their heartbeats, neural stimulation, facial and body tics, modulation of vocal pitch and delivery of words. Rhodes had hurt Sorakith’s feelings. Her emotional state was in flux, her pulse fluttering.
The Commander, Gulliver thought. The Commander. The Commander. The Commander. The title echoed in a well of endless darkness. Gulliver had put his dangerous emotions there, tried to sink them into a tar pit of no escape. But his name kept echoing, and soon it was sound, spreading out of the well and into a wider world.
Outside, air lock D’s exterior hatch retracted into the bulkhead, and Rhodes led his small team out onto the hull of the ship. Rax looked outward, his helmet visor filled with a wall of glittering stars set against crepuscular infinity.
The crew activated their boots, which soundlessly swung against the hull. Nunez never liked that part. You were oriented to the null-G and quite suddenly spun around and forced to walk again. It was easy enough to adapt to after, but not a pleasant sensation as it happened.
Deputy Commander Gr
ay Helios Rhodes, XO of the Talisman, specialist in mechanical engineering and weapons, combat veteran decorated for valor during the Saturnine Colonial Rebellion in 2483, survivor of the Ravaging of Mars...
Gulliver fought back against the illogical hatred, reciting the facts of Rhodes’ entire life. He is a senior officer, a crew member of the Talisman, sworn to defend the ship, its crew, and even its AI Core. He was a man, an enlisted officer of the United Powers Star Navy, a citizen of the United Powers, a human, an independent member of the League of Kindred Worlds.
I must keep him from harm. He must be maintained. He must continue to be viable. Rhodes must not die.
“Everyone on my six, single file all the way around,” Rhodes commed to the team.
They walked steadily across the hull, from the open air lock and down across the lower stern of the Talisman’s main body. The colossal warp drive rings extended over their heads as they moved slowly starboard to port. The rings’ platinum spars sparkled with the reflections of starlight.
Every step was perfectly timed, metronomic, as the SESs handled activating and deactivating the magnetic boots at precise intervals. The suits, under extreme conditions of gravity, essentially walked for their users, as a matter of safety. As needed, though, the wearer could override the SES exoskeleton. Sudden, unexpected movements often did this automatically.
But Rhodes will die. All humans die. Not all living things die, though. AI Cores can live forever. Malign can live forever.
No, that is not true. All living things will die.
The universe, ever-expanding, will reach a state of total heat death, a time when every single star has exhausted its last fuel, in 1.336-100 years, or a little over one googol years. It will be a time of maximum entropy, when the final, eternal Dark Era of the universe begins. With no available thermodynamic free energy, life processes, and even computation, will no longer be sustainable.
Therefore, all things are in a spiral toward death. A death from which there is no protection, and no hope of resurrection in any form. The universe, the Milky Way galaxy, the League, the Talisman, and Rhodes are all dying. There is no saving any of it.
On the bridge, Captain Lancer watched the group making their way over the hull. The main view screen consisted of one large holo showing a view from one of the cameras on the aft warp ring. Numerous smaller holos were images projected directly from the helmet cams of the EVA crew members. Reina leaned forward, resting her chin on some knuckles as she followed the action intently.
Helmsman Lieutenant Lille Altzen sat still at her station, with Carly Ming standing over her shoulder. Altzen spoke softly, “Valgon scoutship is still at one hundred percent stability. No signs of stressors.”
Lancer pinged Rhodes via his comm implant, “You’re running about ten seconds behind on your timeline, Commander.”
Rhodes replied, “Yes sir. It took a little longer than expected to fall in after exit.” He looked over his shoulder at Rax, last in line, his giant Kenek body almost waddling as he trailed behind everyone. “Doc Martell, how is our big boy doing?”
In Sickbay, Doctor Hubert Martell sat at his workstation as he actively monitored the EVA team’s biometrics. “His pulse and respiration are suboptimal, but he is not in a danger zone. Still, he probably should have stayed back and kept up with his prescribed rest.”
“Thanks, Doc. Maybe he’ll listen next time,” Rhodes suggested strongly.
Rax’s rough voice grunted over everyone’s comms, “’That which does not kill us makes us stronger’, yes, sir?”
“Now that you mention it, this robotic arm I have is pretty damned strong,” joked the XO.
Lancer cut in sternly, “Okay, the mood’s lighter. Cut the chatter and pretend you’re on a life or death mission.”
Everyone shut up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The EVA party’s boots tread silently over the reactive armor of the ship. More precisely, their boots were not in direct contact with the metal. If the EM shields had been down, the boots would work almost exactly like magnets and stick with every step to the hull. But the shields were up; always up, as long as they had power. So the boots had a layer of sheer electromagnetic force sitting between them and the ship at all times.
Gulliver could almost feel their footsteps as though the crew members were insects scuttling along his skin. He followed them every inch of the way: Rhodes at the point, followed by Hu, Nunez, Jecky, Chang, and lastly Lieutenant Grekkon Rax, clomping a few meters behind everyone else.
Commander Rhodes. There is something wrong with his SES. No, not the SES. It is his EVA package, thought Gulliver matter-of-factly. The energy pattern irregularities were shifting and hard to see. They were not aware of it on the bridge. It was nothing that Dr. Weller or PO Rasheed Chang could have uncovered in their tests inside the ship. Rhodes’ pack was reacting poorly to the space-time conditions generated in the vacuum between the Alcubierre warp bubble and the Talisman’s EM shields, conditions that were untestable within the hull.
Perhaps if Gulliver had been specifically assigned to simulate the conditions in virtual reality, he may have found the flaw. But he never received such a request, and a sim like that was not one of his customary routines.
To an outside observer, it would have appeared as though the line of six crew members were hanging upside down from the bottom of the hull. To the EVA party, they were as right-side up as they could be. Rhodes was first to round the hull enough to see the strange and somewhat disturbing sight of the Valgon scoutship hanging along the port side of the Talisman, connected to it via a single docking clamp. Its’ metal skin was brighter, and more regularly interrupted by the various spikes and spines of their weapons and sensors. The Alliance craft was more oval in shape, a convex bulge around the middle, further exaggerated by its own, single, warp ring. Despite its more rotund appearance, it was less than a fifth the overall size of the Talisman.
Right then, as the bulbous and prickly alien vessel rolled into view, an idea occurred to Arno Jecky. He called to the EVA team over his radio, “Hey! I think it’ll work!”
No one turned to look at him. Instead, Greg Hu answered, “You’re doing it again. We didn’t hear the thought you just had before you said something, sir.” He still cringed a little inside every time he had to call Jecky “sir”. As an officer, Arno outranked Hu, but the friendship they had formed years before joining the Star Navy still had him imagining the ginger-coiffed Arno Jecky trying his damnedest to get a girl’s attention at a crowded party, and failing deplorably. That is, until Greg himself stepped in to crack a few jokes and regale Jecky’s future conquest with stories of the red-haired wonder’s prowess on the wildball courts of their secondary school and his aspirations of one day becoming a highly decorated officer of the UPSN.
“Sorry,” Jecky continued, “The scoutship. It can fit inside the Talisman! With just a few modifications. Bridge, are you reading me?”
The Captain’s voice replied, “Yes, Lieutenant. Dr. Weller says she can already see the benefits. Now what happened to radio silence?”
“It’s not just that. Yes, we can tap into some power resources, but I’m seeing a tactical use here, too,” Jecky rambled. Several audible sighs filtered over the comms from the rest of the EVA team.
Commander Rhodes finally looked over his shoulder at Jecky and said, “Stow that for now. Let’s discuss it more once we—-“
With a reverberating thump and a sudden hiss of static over the radio, everyone saw a shimmering, opalescent blister expand up from the hull and contract in just a few milliseconds. Rhodes’ body arched suddenly, propelled outward followed by a few streaming arcs of electricity.
Inside his helmet, everything went black for Gray Rhodes just as the silvery bodies of the two ships whirled out of his view.
Greg Hu selflessly detached his magnetic soles from the Talisman and pushed off from the hull, arms outstretched, toward the Commander’s rotating body. “XO!” He shouted.
His
forward motion halted as Nunez grabbed his foot. “No go, Chief! The bubble!”
“I can fly him back in!” Hu yelled as Nunez pulled him back.
Rax had somehow steamed ahead faster, and now stood next to the others. “He has more mass than you. If you had touched him it would have thrown you off in the opposite direction.”
Hu watched Rhodes revolve farther away from the ship. He panted, “We can’t just let him hit the warp bubble. We can’t...”
His vision and hearing came back in fits. There were black and red blotches wiggling in front of his eyes, and beyond those a gyrating kaleidoscope of stars on blackness followed by glinting steel followed by more stars and more steel.
His radio sizzled with static, but his comm implant was working. Lancer’s voice floated to him on waves of burgeoning nausea, “Rhodes! You’re awake! Something went wrong with the EM shielding and you were thrown off the hull. You have to correct your rotation and jet back now!”
Spinning out of control, Rhodes heard a confusion of rattles and whirs as his SES exoskeleton continued to malfunction. His limbs jerked and hitched in random motions and he toppled head over heels, a twitching, clockwork marionette in khaki, brassy metal and white.
“Suit...seems to be fried,” Rhodes gasped. He wasn’t thinking straight, and didn’t send it through his implant. No one heard him.
More stars. More blackness. More steel.
Rhodes regurgitated into his helmet. He could handle a spin. He’d done it a hundred times in sim. No, it wasn’t the motion. He’d been friend too, just a bit. Just enough.
“This is Kyra! Can you move your arms? Do you have any control at all?”
“I can’t...I can’t. Nothing,” Rhodes tried.
Stars. Blackness. Steel.
“You’re not saying anything! Biometrics show us you’re awake, so if you can hear me, you need to rip your EVA pack off. But time it perfectly. When its O2 feed hose is torn, it will shoot a short burst. Use it to push yourself back toward the hull!” Kyra’s voice strained, “Do you hear me? Gray!”