Eleven Unveiled (Imortum)

by Kord Stone

  Justin nodded. “Yes, I think I do, and it’s not a very comforting thought.”

  “I agree. We could not save the prior commander and TDS 5 did not have a replacement commander chosen. Therefore, the AI was at a loss for whom to fill the position with. Atlas was always diligent about his possible replacements. The person he had chosen to be his replacement ended up being the new commander of TDS 5. He was one of Atlas’s great-great-grandsons. His name is Baelentus.”

  Justin felt the guilt arise and asked, “So if Atlas always had a replacement, then there is someone else who should be the commander of this ship?”

  “Yes and no. You see he did have a replacement in mind, but that person was at the city ship Lantis at the time of the blast. Atlas kept in touch with his grandson and every time they were in the same phase together they would talk for what seemed like days on end. Then one day he saw they were in phase together and he reached out to talk to him, but there was no response. At first Atlas figured he was just too busy, but after the sixth attempt had failed, he figured there must be something wrong and we tried to backtrack him.”

  “How did you know they were in the same phase?” he asked.

  “We received a signal from their ship. When we didn’t get a response, we tried to perform a DNA search, but it was inconclusive because over the years Atlas’s descendants had spread out through the stars, and our search pointed in too many different directions.

  “One by one, we eliminated most of the possibilities. We figured we only had a few remaining when we received the distress call from TDS 1.

  Atlas did his research on his potential successors, and would perform a genetic probe into the future to verify the integrity of said replacements. The last probe he sent out showed Lantis and its people thriving. When the distress call came, he figured he must have prevented the disaster. And not recognizing…” She trailed off.

  “Not recognizing what?”

  Calia took a deep breath. “The original timeline had been altered after we sent the probe to Lantis to track Atlas’s replacement. I can see now it was a trap set for him and probably TDS 1 as well, since they were caught up in the incident also. Luckily for us their ship was not disabled as this one was, or the only ship left would have been TDS 5.”

  “Whoever is commanding TDS 5 has a grudge out for my family line for some reason. And it looks as if he’s trying to be the last man standing. It’s a scary thought,” Justin said with a shiver.

  “Well, our first priority is to get this ship into proper order again. Then I guess it will be time to confer with our alliance,” she said with a grin.

  “We have an alliance?” he asked.

  She let out a chuckle. “Your brothers, Jason, Jerren…and Alise.”

  Justin smiled. “Ah yes them,” he said with relief.

  Chapter Seven

  Justin had just applied the finishing touch to the medical room and was making his way back in to the control room when several things happened in quick succession. First he heard a distress call coming over the com, then the ship changed course and his head felt like it was about to split open. An all too familiar voice rang out in his head, Help them!

  His hands flew up to his head to try to contain the pain that exploded in his brain.

  Calia asked, “What is wrong? Why are we changing course?”

  It took a moment for the pain to subside enough for him to reply, “We need to render assistance to them,” not knowing who exactly they were.

  Calia studied the display and her concern turned to apparent puzzlement. “We… do not respond to little things like this. We have a higher purpose, not to mention we do not have enough energy to do more than observe even if we did try to intervene.”

  Justin was astonished by her lack of compassion and replied, “It looks as though we have another purpose as long as I am the commander on this ship.”

  She looked taken aback by his statement and just stared at him a moment, then she asked, “All right, what are we going to do when we get there? We have about one minute to figure out a plan.”

  Justin shook his throbbing head. “I don’t know what we need to do. I just know we are supposed to help. I guess we will figure it out when we get there.”

  It was obvious Calia did not like the wing-it approach, but without knowing more about the situation, they couldn’t do anything else. The minute flew by fast, and when they came into range he could see two larger ships firing on a smaller one.

  Justin opened the communications channels and said, “Cease your attack immediately and explain your actions!” A few seconds passed, but the two ships continued firing.

  Justin asked Calia, “Those weapons will not harm us, correct?”

  She shook her head. “No, the ship’s hull absorbs energy blasts like those.”

  “Good, put our ship between them then,” he said firmly.

  She didn’t look happy about it but did as he requested. A second later they were in position and one of the attacking ships hailed them.

  “This is none of your concern. This ship is adrift and we claim it under the Consortium’s interstellar salvage laws. Now leave us or we will claim your ship as well!”

  Justin was not overly concerned about their threats. He didn’t think Inola would have set him on this path if he couldn’t deal with it. “You need to cease your attack! That ship has lifeforms on it who are requesting assistance.”

  The voice over the communications laughed. “How do you think we found them? Now move or we will claim your vessel as well.”

  Justin had heard enough. Somehow he knew how to deal with these pirates. All he had to do was get them firing on his ship. “That’s not going to happen. You assholes need to leave here now!”

  That did it, he thought. Both of the ships targeted TDS 3 and began firing. He positioned his seat in front of the weapons console.

  Calia said, “We do not have enough energy to fire the weapons. What are you doing?”

  Justin just gave her a smile and stood between the weapons console and the wall then said, “Sit here and prepare to fire.”

  She did as he asked and he placed his left hand on the weapons console and pressed his right hand firmly to the wall. He felt the energy coursing through the wall and into the weapons console. The jolts were almost unbearable, but he endured. A slight harmonic hum filled his mind and body, and a moment later he felt the intensity of the blasts lessen.

  Like a capacitor, TDS 1’s weapons gained in charge with each weapon strike against the ship. When the charge reached its peak he opened the communications once more. “So be it!” he said. “Target their weapons and fire,” he told Calia. A few short bursts later, the other ships were no longer firing, and for a safety measure, he had her fire on their engines as well.

  Once he was satisfied the attacking ships were temporarily immobilized, he opened communications again and said, “I warned you. When you get your engines back online, you need to be on your way. I do not want to see you attacking stranded vessels again, and that goes for your consortium as well. Pass that message along to them!” He activated the repulse beam and sent the first ship off into deep space then sent the second ship following right behind them.

  He opened communications with the stranded vessel and said, “My name is Justin. I am the commander of this vessel. Is there anything we can do to aid you?”

  A choppy voice replied, “My name is Drosu of the clan Azarda. I am from the planet Asguardan. I thank you for driving off the scavengers. Our ship was attacked many weeks ago by a consortium vessel and left here to drift. Our ion pulse generator overloaded, and we have been stranded here with no means to repair our ship. Any help you can render would be greatly appreciated.”

  Justin thought about it a second. “Is the ion pulse generator still installed? And do you have a design schematic?”

  Drosu replied, “It is not installed and we do have a repair manual with detailed schematics.”

  Justin looked down to the console a
nd a thought came to him. He tapped out a command and said, “Okay, I just sent a beacon over to you. I need you to place it on the manual and ion pulse generator. I will see what I can do.”

  His request was met with total silence, and he could only imagine what Drosu’s dilemma was. He let out a sigh and said, “I know you don’t know me, but I am here to assist you if I can.”

  A moment later, Drosu spoke up. “I hope my trust isn’t misplaced… It is ready.”

  Justin activated the transport and a moment later the items were onboard his ship. “Calia, could you activate the decontamination?” he asked.

  She looked at him as she started the decontamination process, “What can we do to help them? I seriously doubt we have a replacement for him.”

  Justin said, “Jason told me that we can replicate anything if we have the base materials and instructions on how it’s made. He was talking about food and furniture at the time, but I think it will work with this ion pulse generator as well. Drosu said he was unable to repair it and it couldn’t hurt to try.”

  She nodded. “The decontamination process is complete, and you are right. It would not hurt to try.”

  Chapter Eight

  It took Justin a few hours to input the schematics into the system then another few minutes to realize the base materials they had were not going to be enough to create a new ion pulse generator.

  Calia said, “See, I didn’t think we would have had anything that would work.”

  Justin smacked himself on the forehead as a thought came to him and let out a tsk.

  “What?” she asked.

  Justin smiled at her, closed his eyes concentrating on what he needed, and said, “Put ion pulse generator into base mineral storage.”

  He realized he didn’t need to make a new one, just repair the old one. He opened his eyes and the generator was gone. That is when he commanded the ship to make the replacement ion pulse generator. A second later it was back in front of him, minus the scorch marks, and humming slightly.

  With a smile Justin said, “Looks as if it was successful. Let’s hope it works.”

  Justin and Calia made their way back to the control room and he opened the communications again. “Drosu, I think we’ve repaired your ion pulse generator, and I’m sending it back to you. We’ll stay here until you have it installed and are safely on your way.” With a tap on the console the transport was complete.

  Drosu said, “I don’t know how I will ever be able to repay you.”

  “It’s my pleasure. I’m just happy I could be of assistance,” Justin said before closing out the communications.

  Twenty minutes later, Drosu hailed them. “The engine’s reactor is working perfectly and we will be able to make it back home. If you ever make it by Asguardan, you will always be welcome. Just tell the directorate to contact me.”

  “Be well, Drosu.” Justin closed the communications and after Drosu’s ship took off, he reset their course for Daregon.

  “Okay now that’s finished with, would you mind telling me why we would risk our safety for a species who is just barely capable of interstellar travel?” she asked.

  Justin figured it was time to enlighten her about the Imortum and signaled for her to take a seat next to him. “When my brothers and I were children, we had an imaginary friend. Her name was Inola. One day we wandered off playing. As far as we could recall we were with her. When we returned later, we were in a lot of trouble. We had been missing for over three months with no knowledge of where we had been. Our father grounded us for a month, and after that month we never saw Inola again.

  From a very young age we developed a language only my brothers and I could understand. Alise heard us speaking that language and recognized it. She asked Jason how we came to speak it. He thought she was joking with him, but she insisted that he look into her first host Andel’s memories. Jason did and was shocked to hear it was the same language her host spoke. He was about to pull out of the memory when he saw the person speaking and he vaguely recognized her but couldn’t place where he knew her from.

  “He sifted further in the memories until he found another instance where she was telling Andel it was almost time for them to bond with the ships, and she transformed into an energy being. The sight of this shocked him, not due to the transformation but because of who she was. Andel was speaking to an Imortum and she was the one we knew of as our imaginary friend Inola.” He paused to let her take it in.

  She looked at him with a stunned expression. “The Imortum have been gone for almost four hundred thousand years in linear time. Are you absolutely sure it was her?”

  Justin nodded. “Yes, when we first got on this ship we tried to power up the engine and almost had it when we were attacked by the Toralins. In the initial blast, we were thrown around, and the debris went flying. One second we were flying then we hit something and all of the debris in the engine room rained down on us. Jason was lucky, but I was not. All I remember was a severe pain as something crushed my skull. Jason told us he heard her voice.

  Inola told him to ‘use them’ and he knew she meant for him to let the energy from the attackers’ weapons assist him in healing me. It worked and within seconds after I woke up, another volley of weapons fire coursed through both of us. At that point, I was able to hear her voice as well. Inola said, ‘use them’ again. We did as she commanded… Jason and I did what I did in that attack a little while ago and let power course into the engine core and that allowed us to restart the engine.”

  She frowned. “I wondered how you did that exactly. That is extremely dangerous. I am surprised you could survive it.”

  Justin nodded. “It was extremely painful, but it worked.”

  Calia asked, “But why help Drosu?”

  “Well, when that distress call came in and the ship changed course, Inola’s voice exploded in my head. She said to help them so I did. Had I known they needed help beforehand I’d have rendered whatever aid I could, even without her telling me to.”

  She asked, “If this Inola is having us do tasks for her then why has she not shown herself to make the requests in person?”

  “I don’t know. She must have her reasons though. The way she has led us so far has gotten us here and we’re alive. Whereas not too long ago Jerren and I were both dead. So at this point if she tells me to jump, I guess I’ll say how high. Besides I get the feeling Inola doesn’t make requests, only short and sometimes painful commands.”

  Calia laughed, but Justin noticed it was a bit nervous and forced.

  “All right, now that we’re caught up, we can focus on your bedroom,” he said in an attempt to cheer her up.

  She looked confused. “Bedroom?” she asked.

  “Yes well…I figured when I cleared the ship I must have done your room as well. We can fix it now if you’d like.”

  “Actually I have never had need of a bedroom. I usually retreat to the computer banks or spend time in observation,” she said with a shrug.

  “I thought the room you came down to my room from was yours.”

  “No that is the observation level. It is used to absorb the different radiations as you travel in space to help nourish your body or just help you relax.”

  Something about the whole situation annoyed him and he felt a great need to see to her comfort. “Would you like a bedroom? We could set up something on the second level if you’d like.”

  She smiled again. “It is nice of you to offer, but I do not sleep.”

  “Well, if you change your mind I will help in any way I can. So what is this observation level like?” he asked with a bit of eagerness.

  She let out a chuckle. “It is best to show you; words do not do it justice.” With that said, they headed up to the uppermost level.

  Chapter Nine

  Justin and Calia arrived on the observation level to an inky darkness. A few seconds later, the walls slowly transitioned from solid to transparent, and the vista was breath-taking. Out in space, without the blurring effect
of Earth’s atmosphere, the view was crisp and clear. He could make out galaxies in the distance and stars that were too numerous to even begin counting. He let out a slight moan of pleasure at the sight, then looked at Calia and noted she was smiling at the sight of his astonishment.

  “It is astounding the views we get from this vantage point. I think it almost makes up for having to be stuck on the ship for so long,” she said sounding dejected.

  Something about her statement chewed at him. “Jason told me the AI can accompany the commander off the ship via the binding disk. Have you never been off the ship with the other commanders?”

  She shook her head forlornly. “No, I have never been off this ship. It is strange however because the one and only time Atlas ever allowed it was when he and the active version of my program were killed at Lantis.”

  Justin was shocked. He could not imagine being stuck on a ship for that amount of time. Even with the observation room, it would still feel like a prison. With his mind made up, he looked upon her crestfallen face. “As soon as we rectify the issue with TDS 5, I’ll take you on outings with me if you wish.”

  She had a momentary glint in her eyes before she said, “That could take a very long time. Atlas and I were trying to track him down for thousands of years with no luck.”

  Justin took hold of her hand. “One way or another I promise that you will have some time off this ship,” He raised her hand and kissed her knuckles to show her he meant what he said.

  She looked at him with an odd expression and muttered, “Uh…”

  Her words from before came rushing into his mind. I am not going to be your sex slave. He thought he might have crossed the line and didn’t want to lose the progress they had made. Hastily he hurried to assure her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He looked around the room. It was empty aside from them and he figured a pair of plush reclining chairs would be nice in there. He focused a moment and a second later two loungers were positioned in the middle of the room. He motioned toward the chairs. “Shall we relax while we take in the sights?”