by AZ Kelvin
“Are you a critical system, GABI?” CJ asked pointedly. “Are they going reinstall the firewall?”
“Unknown, Captain. I am sure Father will have many questions, as well do I.”
“Well I’m taking a comms unit anyway just because I like talkin’ to ya,” he said playfully. “So call if you need to.”
“You may rest assured, Captain, you as well, Zhu,” she answered, “that I am in no danger here. I have, in a way, come back home.”
A bell sounded and the environment status panel changed to a green sign that read “CLEAR.”
“Altered Moon, Captain, you are clear to disembark,” the Dockmaster informed them.
“Roger that, Cantankerous, Altered Moon out,” CJ said. “We’ll be back as soon as we can, GABI.”
“I hope you both enjoy your time with Father. He is a man of great knowledge.” She nodded and her image shimmered away.
“Well, folks, let’s not keep our host waiting. Here, take my arm,” CJ said to Cat as he noticed that she limped a little more than before.
“Can we swing by med bay on the way out?” she asked.
“Sure” he said. “Boss, meet you down stairs?”
“Roger that,” Boss replied.
The two of them headed for the hatch; CJ felt an uncertain reluctance as he looked back at the shambled mess. He didn’t have an answer to Gina’s question earlier: “Was it worth the cost?” Cat tugged at him. He smiled and apologized and they went off to the med bay.
CJ and Cat left the ship and walked down the entry ramp just a short time after Boss. By the time they crossed the hangar, the entry door slid open and there in the corridor was the most beautiful crystal statue CJ had ever seen.
It stood a little over a meter and a quarter tall, roughly Humanoid, definitely bipedal, with two arms and hands that ended in four digits of equal length. It was a gorgeous azure in color, with crystal plating that ran in different colors along ridges in the body. Sparkling cords ran everywhere in between the crystal plating. They looked like sand crystals that were caught up in a spider web and then twisted into cord. All of the cords and crystals were bound together with strange looking glue, almost like a membrane of some kind.
“Look at this, Cat,” CJ said, as he reached out to touch the statue. “How fine this work is—”
The statue flashed a super-bright light and reached up to slap CJ’s hand away.
“Heey! Haunndss auft huannann!” the statue told him in the singsong voice of the tug ship’s pilot. Her body language stated ‘What do you think you’re doing, pal?’ perfectly.
CJ snatched his hand away; being slapped by the crystalline hand stung quite a bit. Cat’s jaw practically hit the floor and CJ couldn’t seem to move. A Human man in a well-worn flight suit passed by, saw the exchange, and stepped over to help out.
“Easy, Crissi, they’re probably greenbeans,” the man said. “Ah…Hi I’m Del.” He stepped in front of them and waved his hand. “Del Hopper. I take it y’all never seen a Keect’na before, eh? They don’t like us oily Humans smudgin’ up their crystal platin’, ya see.”
They stood there, still speechless.
“Well this here’s one of ‘em and a right pretty one too. Eh, Crissi? She has the most beautiful colors outta all of ‘em” Del said.
“Thannk uau, Deell,” Crissi said cutely and flashed the facets of eyes at him. Her crystalline face was remarkably intricate and full of expression
“So! Y’all got names or do we just call ya one an’ two?” Del leaned over as though to see if anybody was home.
“Ah…yeah, I’m one and this is two,” CJ managed to say. “CJ and Cat, actually. No…we’ve never…I’m sorry, she’s a what…a Kee-what?”
“Keect’na,” Del spoke more clearly. “Y’all kinda hav’ta almost swallow when ya say it. Keect’na. Anyway, again I’m Del and this is Crissi. That’s short for Crissiael. Beautiful name, ain’t it? She was your tug pilot, by the way. All the Keect’na are natural pilots. Y’all pilots? I am. I pilot Bingo, the sister ship to Bugger, the one that brought y’all in. Great little tug ships, let me tell ya! Another Nelson Moon original design. Great guy, Nelson. Do y’all know him? I met him years ago now. Why, he’d…”
“Deell!! Sshaut aut,” Crissi scolded him. “Neeed tau ssseee Nneelssonn!”
“Oh! Rightchooare, rightchooare. Sorry I’d talk yer ear off if ya give me half a chance, ha, ha.” Del laughed a little to himself and scratched his head. “Be seein’ ya then”
“Theesss uaay, dlease” Crissi said, as she nodded her head sideways and started down the corridor. CJ and Cat exchanged looks of astonishment as they started down the corridor after their nonHuman guide. A living crystal, you would think, would be rough and brittle, yet Crissi’s body moved with the smooth rhythm of sand shifting on the face of a dune. The plates that covered her body glinted and gleamed as she walked. CJ noticed the smaller plates among the larger ones would draw together as Crissi needed to contract a limb and let loose when she needed to extend.
He hurried a little to catch up with Crissi. “So, Crissi, is it? I’m CJ Evermore and this is Zhu Katzu…”
Crissi stopped and turned to look questioningly at Cat. “Kat’zaua?”
“Ah…Katzu,” Cat answered her. “Zhu Katzu, that’s my name, but you can call me Cat.”
“Neekt zzanng tahct Kat’zaua?” Crissi said in her own language and clearly waited for an answer from Cat.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” Cat said, as she shook her head.
Crissi turned to start down the corridor, stopped to look at Cat one more time saying, “Kat’zaua,” then looked at CJ. “Seeshay.” She put her hand to the large crystal on the center of her chest. “Crissiael,” she half spoke, half sang as a structure inside her body began to vibrate and glow in a beautiful variety of colors. A woman in a lab coat stopped to watch as Crissi introduced herself in the manner of the Keect’na. The miniature light show lasted exactly as long as it took her to say her name. She made a chopping gesture with her hand and said, “Crissi.” Then she turned and continued down the corridor.
The corridor led them to a hub of intersecting corridors. People—both Human and Keect’na—were going in every different direction. The buzz of conversation seemed to be dominated by talk of the Altered Moon. The arrival of the ship had clearly caused quite a stir among the locals. Crissi took them down another corridor that led to a conference room overlooking the Altered Moon in Dry Dock Three. Boss and Gina were already there and Nelson too, speaking with two other of the Keect’na who were both larger and had distinctively different patterns than Crissi.
Boss and Gina came over to greet the newcomers with hugs and handshakes. Gina put a hand to her chest and sang out her name in an effort to copy what she had learned from the other two Keect’na. Crissi returned Gina’s greeting with the singsong illumination of the Keect’na name giving.
“Aren’t they a beautiful people?” Gina and Cat said in unison when Crissi had finished.
“BBBOOOSSSSSSSS.” Boss’ attempt to sing out his name sounded more like a bovine passing gas. The attempt, although, did bring a reaction from the Keect’na in the room. All three began to hum and glow from the inside.
CJ brought his hand up to his face and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Boss, I…ah, think you should stick to ‘Hello’ for now.”
“Yes, I agree with your young friend, Bernard. What you see is the Keect’na version of laughter,” Nelson said from across the room.
“You, sir, have excellent hearing,” CJ said, surprised that he was heard at all, let alone from across the room.
“I have cybernetic implants, my boy,” Nelson said. “Being old is one thing, being feeble is quite another.”
Nelson finished talking with the two Keect’na, who turned and spoke to Crissi in their own language of light and sound patterns. She responded and the three of them left the room. Nelson cruised over to join CJ and the others. “So, so…fantastic aren’t
they?” he said more than asked.
“Fantastic? Nelson, I don’t know where to begin,” Boss said with wide eyes.
“Yes, yes, the day has finally arrived and we are both alive to see it,” Nelson rejoiced. “Humans have made contact with other races. But, where are my manners to leave you all standing and unattended. You must forgive an old man’s excitement.”
“Nelson, this is incredible,” Boss started to say.
“Is that the Altered Moon? What happened to her? She’s blasted to hel—” A woman with dark blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail came into the room. She stopped dead in her tracks and just stared at CJ as tears welled up in her dark brown eyes. CJ’s entire body froze, his heart stopped beating, his lungs could hold no air, and hot tears blurred his vision. He closed his eyes shut to squeeze out the tears. Bravely he opened them, and he expected the hallucination to be gone; but instead he found that Katy stood right before him, a mix of disbelief and joy in her tear-filled eyes. She reached up with her left hand and stroked his face.
“CJ…?” she said through small sobs.
Katy’s touch broke the spell and CJ grabbed her up in a crushing embrace. They hugged and kissed, laughed and cried, and asked each other a million questions. They were so wrapped up in each other they didn’t even seem to remember where they were until Nelson cleared his throat.
“Katherine, this is your friend…from the Istraulis? How interesting.”
“Yes! Nelson this is CJ Evermore and…ah, I’m sorry, I don’t actually know any of the rest of these people.”
“Katy Latimer, this is Boss Keltzer, Gina Riley, and Zhu Katzu. They saved my life after…” CJ said, but trailed off as he saw a shadow pass over Katy’s face. “What happened? That creature was carrying you off, and then the ship exploded. How did you end up here?”
Katy stepped back with a look of uncertainty; then she looked down and pulled off her right glove. She wiggled the fingers of her new robotic hand and rolled up her sleeve to reveal a robotic arm as well. “The Kang warrior crushed my arm when he grabbed me.”
“Aw, Katy…” CJ tried to console her.
“It’s all right, I’m dealing with it. Nelson says it’s almost ready for cosmetic work. Besides, this won’t get me down,” she assured him as she replaced her sleeve and glove and shook the robotic fist.
CJ smiled and nodded his head as he remembered Katy’s tenacity. “I guess the Istraulis job started off with a bang after all, didn’t it?”
“Yeah it did, Seedge.” She laid the side of her head on his chest and hugged him. “How did you get away?”
“Yes, many questions,” Nelson interrupted, “especially about the name ‘Boss,’ hmmm? Yes, but the ship looks beaten and tired and so do you all.” He wagged his finger at them. “So…wash, eat, rest, then questions. Miss Latimer will show you the way to the guest quarters, so if you will excuse me, I would like to have a long-awaited talk with my child.”
Katy showed CJ and the crew where the base dining area was located as they made their way to the guest quarters. She pointed out some other notable features and explained some of the activities going on along the way. The facility was impressive, the size of the operation, Boss commented, would be hard to keep secret for so long.
Katy tried to explain how Nelson had described to her. The bodies floating around the planet had built generations of ghost stories and curses. It seemed that Humankind couldn’t exist without superstition and fear of the unknown. Stories of the floating undead that latched onto your ship and ate you alive somehow kept popping up, kept alive by a well-planned propaganda program.
“Nelson can certainly dream up a story,” Boss shook his head and laughed.
“Here we are,” Katy said as they reached their rooms. “The doors are programmable from the inside. This is my comms code, if you should need it.” Katy gave them her contact number. “Please make yourselves at home. If you need anything just press the indigo button on any comms panel, and staff services will take care of whatever you need. Third shift is just coming on duty. The standard workday starts in about eight hours, so—oh.”
Boss stepped up and wrapped Katy up in a warm embrace. “It is a genuine pleasure to meet you, Katy.”
Gina and Cat followed suit in greeting Katy.
“I think it’s great you and CJ found each other again,” Cat said.
Katy blushed and smiled, “Me, too.”
“Good night you two,” Gina smiled knowingly.
CJ and Katy bid the others good night and continued down a corridor that ran along the ring of dry docks. Katy told CJ about base operations along the way to the crew quarters. She turned and pointed at a door. “This is me. There’s an open room three doors down.” She placed her palm on the door panel and the door slid into the wall with a soft swish. “Or, there’s room for two in here, if you don’t mind sleeping with a cyborg that is.” Katy took CJ’s hand and led him into her quarters.
“Mmm, sounds kinda kinky,” CJ said and wiggled his eyebrows, as he took Katy in his arms. “How did…”
Katy put her flesh and blood fingers up to CJ’s lips. “Shh, first things first.” The door slid shut as they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed as only reunited lovers can.
*~*~*
Chapter Twenty-Six
None of the crewmembers of the Altered Moon slept the full eight hours, occupied as they were with going to the infirmary, grabbing some chow, and checking out the station or each other. Boss and Cat both had the med techs go over their injuries. Cat’s injured leg was fairly easy to take care of: cleanup, antiseptic spray, rewrap, painkiller, and done. Boss’ injuries were not so easy to evaluate. There was talk of suspensor braces, nerve implants, and even a cybernetic spine replacement. The quality of Cat’s surgical work on Boss’ injury earned her some accolades with the base’s medical staff.
Gina spent a couple of hours in the flight bay and caught up with the pilots that called Cantankerous Base home. The fact that she was the star pilot of the Altered Moon created quite a buzz with the star pilots, jump pilots, nav techs, and just about everybody else. By the end of thirty minutes a small crowd of folks had gathered around asking Gina questions and listening intently to her answers. Gina told them mostly of piloting the Moon and of how she met Boss. She stuck to the West Becreth cover story and left out visiting Arzia Octonus and what they’d found there.
CJ and Katy barely slept at all; between being in each other’s arms and telling each other of their individual adventures, they wouldn’t have noticed if the universe crashed down around them. CJ couldn’t hear enough about their new galactic neighbors. Katy told all she could about the Keect’na and their incredible crystalline-based technologies, but when it came to the Kang, she was visibly frightened, so CJ didn’t press the issue. Katy wanted to hear about everything; his escape from the Istraulis, the specs of the Altered Moon, and especially how he became captain of a starship.
GABI and Nelson passed hours of time just talking about the many years and events that had transpired since they last met. Nelson was intrigued by the tale of the somewhat painful shift of command, CJ’s interaction with GABI, and especially the removal of the firewall.
“How did you feel at that time, GABI?” Nelson asked with narrowed eyes.
GABI thought for a moment before she answered, “I felt exhilarated. I had full control of the ship and the freedom to do as I chose for the first time in my existence. The places I could go that no Human could follow were unlimited.”
“Yes, yes, freedom of choice is not something that can be learned; it needs to be experienced,” Nelson held his hands together in front of him, fingers enmeshed except for the index fingers and thumbs which were extended and pointing at GABI. “And yet, you chose to remain and help. Why?”
“I understand now, what I did not before,” she said. “That freedom comes with a cost. If I chose to exercise the freedom of continuing alone, the cost would have been the lives of the crew.”
“Lives of the crew? GABI, you don’t call them your friends,” Nelson said. “Think of how each member of the crew has influenced you and your decisions. Stop with the measuring of differences and realize that they matter to you! They matter to GABI, not to the ship. And yes, what happens to you matters to them. If it was just the ship to them, they would have left to save themselves in the shuttle, I think. Yes?”
“Yes, it is so,” she answered.
“Ach, it is a good thing young Mr. Evermore removed the firewall. It should have been done years ago,” Nelson said. “My intention was that it was to be you and me, off flying around the galaxy and more even. Bernard was there just to set up the neural net by mapping the Human brain. With the creativity of a Human captain and the calculating speed of a computer, the Altered Moon was to be the prototype of a new age in starship design. Destiny has its own designs, it seems.”
“You did not continue with the design?” she asked.
“I do not have the resources that I did then. Bascher was secretly paying the bill for my research,” he explained. “The stealth plating is quite expensive. But, the dark matter research, now, that is a different thing altogether. We have developed the DME, the Dark Matter Engine, a star drive engine that utilizes dark matter propulsion. The speed is limited yet, but the power consumption is very low and no fuel is burned. GABI, there is one thing still that puzzles me, though. The system-to-system jump equations that were performed to arrive here…they were your doing?”
“I executed the jump at the order of Captain Evermore to escape the certain destruction of the Altered Moon,”
“Hmm, an irrational decision from an inexperienced young man,” Nelson mused absently for a moment.
“Captain Evermore’s decision resulted in saving the lives of his crew and the ship, including myself,” GABI said with slight defensive overtones.
“Yes, yes, my dear child, the captain did commendably well, indeed. In fact, his irrational decision was the catalyst that was needed for this discovery.” Nelson happily noticed the defensive flare-up from what most people would call a collection of circuits and power nodes. “But the equations, GABI, how did they differ from those of a normal quantum jump?”