by Michael Kan
He slumped back into his pilot’s chair and wondered what had been chasing them. Clearly, it was extremely lethal; if not for the sentinel’s efforts, he might already be dead. Julian went as far to pull up the recorded images of the attacker, trying to match its design with anything in the ship database. Briefly, the work consumed him, and made him forget that he was not alone.
“Where are we going?” the colorless voice asked.
Fitted in her armor-like suit, the android stood in a corner of the ship. She approached slowly, entering the Lightning’s cockpit.
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
Julian rose from his seat to greet his passenger. He tried to smile, expecting to see a woman’s face. But he felt cold, and uncomfortable with what he saw, the human features replaced by a mask of silver.
“Arendi,” he said, straightening out his uniform. “I’ve been tasked to escort you to the New Terran fleet. Our current ETA is five standard days and four hours.”
“Who is targeting me?”
She stood by, waiting. A faceless figure suited in metal. Julian cleared his throat.
“I ran the images of the attacker through the ship’s computer. But it’s of unknown origin. The database has no record of anything like it in existence.”
“Why are they targeting me?”
“I’m sorry, I wish I knew,” he said. “If I find something, I’ll let you know. But that attack drone was highly advanced, using technology I’ve never seen before. Took down an Alliance sentinel, just like that.”
She responded with silence, holding still and leaving Julian unsure of how to act. “The New Terran fleet, they’ll protect you,” he said, trying to reassure her.
However, the questions did not stop.
“What will become of me once I arrive?” she asked. “What do they intend to do?”
He thought he heard concern in the voice. Maybe even a dose of doubt.
“Nothing’s going to become of you,” Julian replied. “They’ll protect you. We just hope to learn from you. To help us fight the Endervars.”
The faceless figure made no expression, but turned its head ever so slightly. Like it was unconvinced.
“May I have access to your ship’s database?” she asked.
“What for?”
“To learn about this ship.”
Julian was clueless as to what to say. This woman — this android— was direct and curt, her responses verging on rudeness. He eyed a control console nearby.
“You can access it there,” he said. “I can give you security clearance. I don’t know if there’ll be much—”
“Thank you. That is all.”
She sat down at the passenger’s chair next to the console, waiting for the clearance. Issuing the voice command, Julian unlocked the security layering and gave her access to the ship’s basic systems.
“I didn’t properly introduce myself. I’m Julian Nverson.”
“Yes, I know. I read your file.”
“You did?”
He waited for a response, expecting a reply. However, the android did not say another word. She simply looked away from him, and toward the console screen, as she interfaced with the ship’s systems.
Julian slowly stepped back, dismayed. It was clear: this had not been a normal conversation between people. He sat back down in his pilot’s chair, but took another glance of the masked figure. Admittedly, he was puzzled and wondered if this was the same android that he knew.
Julian thought back to the last time he had seen her. The sight of a woman, emotionally shaken by something. The blinking eyes, the twitch in her lips, the cry for help, he had witnessed it. During that moment, Julian felt a humanity stir inside the android.
But as he looked at her now, he saw none of that. Julian closed his eyes, and shook his head.
It was just a machine, wishing to acquire data. A drone, he thought. Perhaps he had just been mistaken.
***
She would never admit it, but she was in pain.
Although Arendi could not explain it, the feeling was there, stronger than ever. Desperately, she wanted to scream.
Her so-called emotions. These sensations she so wished to stifle, or tear away. She thought them harmless. Just self-replicating subroutines, cycling in her computerized mind. When broken down, they were numbers and strings of code. All feeding into pre-rendered data constructs. She thought herself like any other machine, one that was following the instructions set forth in her programming. Things should have been simple. Logic ordering one directive after the next.
But somehow, those subroutines inside her were growing, coming together to form things she thought not possible. Guilt. Fear. Despair. All of them were there, gnawing at her very being, the burden only growing.
And yet there was always more. Even images came with them, the scattershot of memories replaying inside her mind. The destruction of her own ship. The loss of Control. Every day since had brought uncertainty and violence. Even her own self had become a liability, her processes becoming strained and conflicted, every thought riddled with this pain.
Her only refuge came with them — humanity, the driving force for everything, including her own being. So why did she feel this way? Feel this fear? This anger?
It made no sense. No sense at all.
But for now, all she could do was repress the emotions — and perhaps hide behind her machine self.
The man, however, would not leave her be.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
The pilot was standing across from her, and trying to talk to her again. He patiently waited for an answer, even as she remained silent and composed in her seat.
“The sentinel…” the pilot went on. “His death. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Scratching the top of his head, he seemed visibly agitated. Perhaps worried.
Arendi still didn’t move. She didn’t know what to say.
The pilot could see this, and so he changed subjects. The man adjusted his uniform’s collar, and started over.
“I have to say you’re the first android I ever met,” he said, his voice light, almost cheerful. He slowly approached, trying to focus on something else. Something that they could both talk about with ease.
“Virtual A.I.’s are fairly common,” he said, “but a human android is something I’ve never encountered.”
“You were even built with a human face,” he added.
The man pointed at her, his glance meeting not skin, but hard metal.
“Then perhaps I’m an aberration,” she finally replied, her tone cold and remote.
The comment unnerved the pilot, his expression one of surprise. She could sense his heartbeat race, as she analyzed his anxiety through her external sensors.
“I’m sorry for what happened the first time we met,” he continued.
“I don’t understand,” she replied.
“When we first met in the research lab... I hope I didn’t say anything to worry you. But you became very emotional.”
To that, Arendi turned away. She pretended to hear nothing and continued reading over the ship’s files. She had no wish to talk about such things.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
No, it was not. But the android wanted to focus on the priority. She ignored him, trying to record all the information displayed to her.
“I’m sorry,” the pilot said. “But you need to talk to me. Have I offended you in some way?”
He reached down to the console, and shut off the display. Glancing at the pilot, she could see that he was insistent.
“I’m fine. May I please have access again?”
“First, let’s talk,” he demanded. “I need to know that you’re okay.”
“May I ask a question?”
“Of course,” he said. “I was hoping that we could talk more.”
“Upon arriving at the New Terran Fleet, may I choose to leave?”
“Leave?”
“I wish to
go elsewhere, as soon as possible.”
“I don’t know...” he hesitated. “It’s not safe.”
“But I wish to return to Earth.”
The pilot’s heart rate climbed, as he struggled to come up with a response.
“It’s still not safe. The Endervars alone, they’ll stop you. They have dominion over a quarter of the galaxy, including Earth.”
“Then what will become of me?”
“I don’t know. But we’ll figure something out. You can help us fight the Endervars, can’t you?”
He stared at her intensely, waiting for the answer.
No, she told herself. No, she was not ready. Silently, she sat in her chair, timid and anxious. Her priorities were elsewhere. She needed it to be.
The pilot eased back. “Here,” he said, giving up his questioning. Typing into the console, the display powered back on.
“Talk to me if you need anything,” he added, turning away. “You just need to know, I’m here to help you. I mean that.”
He returned to his part of the cockpit and left her in privacy. The console display was on again, ready to take her commands.
Arendi stopped, placing her hands in her lap. She was relieved. Relieved that this man had finally stopped talking.
She then glanced at the pilot — this human.
Leave me be, she thought. I don’t need you.
***
Effectively, it was invisible — a ship that was unlike almost anything else.
Using some of the most advanced technology available, it possessed the ability to hide itself from normal scans. Rather than vent its excess heat, the vessel stored it inside its vast batteries, eliminating any energy signature from its hull for what could be days. Furthermore, engine discharge was negated by the use of a dark energy collector, allowing the vessel to move at high-speeds, without the need for heated fuels.
Traditional ships could have never achieved such features, not when they needed to house organic life-forms inside. However, this ship faced none of those restrictions, its confines entirely absent of any life-support systems. Instead, the ship could make room for its more powerful engines and more effective weapons, even when they emitted deadly amounts of radiation within the vessel itself. These dangers did not matter to its sole crew member.
The agent was immune to such things.
The vessel, a towering craft that now moved at high-speeds, reached ever closer to its target. In its visuals, the ship could see the objective, a SpaceCore vessel traveling through hyperspace. For over a day now, the vessel had trailed the advanced attack fighter, a visual analysis showing it to be code-named “Lightning.”
After witnessing it depart Alliance Command, the vessel had followed, initiating its stealth systems and jumping into hyperspace to track its energy trail. The agent’s orders had been clear: recover the android at any cost.
Proceeding with that mission, the vessel readied offensive systems. The Lightning’s shield pattern had been finally deduced, a weakness found in its energy frequency. Weapons charged, as the ship prepared to drop its stealth systems.
“Excellent,” the agent said to itself. “I expect a fight from you… captain.”
Chapter 29
The Lightning reported no physical damage, but systems were rapidly failing. Hearing the emergency alarms, Julian took command, trying to maintain control over the vessel.
“What’s happening?” the android said, as she held on to the ship’s wall.
The entire hull shook. The Lightning moaned as critical systems began to lock. Something was now preventing the ship from maintaining its course, and instead radically changing its trajectory.
“Errors are just everywhere,” he said. “None of the systems are responding.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, but at this rate, I won’t be able to control the ship.”
The malfunctions continued to spread, as Julian could feel the tremors rising. The hyperspace field surrounding the Lightning started to weaken, plunging the ship into a wayward course. No longer able to move forward, the gravimetric forces now pulled at its sides.
The Lightning’s computer tried to compensate for the system failure, reducing unnecessary systems to keep the ship’s trajectory in place. But a power surge erupted from its fusion core. One by one, the primary and secondary systems began to fail, as shields, weapons, and even the lights suddenly went off-line.
“Hang on,” he yelled. “We need to jump back into normal space.”
At the best they had a few seconds of power left. Julian inputted the commands.
“Alert,” the ship said. “Incoming object.”
The sensors were reading something, the mass analysis coming through. It was then he understood — a vessel forty times the size of the Lightning had appeared behind them. They were under attack.
Controls had gone haywire, the power null. In those last moments, Julian could feel his body begin to rise from the seat. The gravity was lifting, close to dissipating. The surrounding inner integrity had come loose. He then looked out the cockpit window, and saw the fabric of hyperspace shatter before him.
The Lightning had been thrown back into normal space; its link to that altered reality had fully collapsed.
***
As the cold fingers touched his face, Julian opened his eyes.
“You’re injured” the voice said.
He wanted to push away, feeling the bruises on his body and the air choke in his lungs. But he was no longer standing. He was floating, his body only a few inches above the ship’s floor.
Around him, the cockpit room had turned silent, not a system on the ship operational. He could see the icy fog from his exhale, the life support down. Everything had turned dim. Everything except her.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
He touched his forehead, and saw the drips of blood suspend in the air.
“No gravity…” he said, coughing. “The inertial dampers… Must have slammed my body into the ship wall.”
“Yes,” she said. “My scans show you sustained minor injuries.”
She extended out her hand again, moving to touch where he had been cut.
“No,” Julian said, moving away. He took his right hand, and began putting pressure on the wound.
The android backed off.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. But you?”
Julian rubbed his hands and arms, feeling the cold air. “This is not good,” he said, seething. “Where are we?”
The android turned her gaze to the cockpit window. Julian followed, seeing a blue glow emanating from the glass. Pushing himself off the floor, he moved closer, his body drifting toward the pilot’s seat.
Outside was more than just a field of stars, but a stellar nursery. Radiating in indigos, the nebula stretched on and on for what was hundreds of light-years. Clusters of bright stars shined in the distance, as pillars of ionized gas and dust gathered in the shadows, growing to form more new-born sun.
“The Landale expanse,” Julian said. “It means that we’re further off course than I thought. The system failure fractured the Lightning’s hyperspace field, sending us out here.”
Julian went to the ship’s control dials, trying to turn on the Lightning’s systems. There was no response, the keys on the command console dead to his touch. He slammed his fist down at the controls.
“We need to get the ship online,” he said. “Somehow, they disabled us.”
“They?”
“Before the systems went off-line, the computer detected a vessel. A large one. I don’t know how, but our sensors failed to detect them. Not until it was too late.”
“A stealth technology?” she said.
“I’ve never encountered that before, but we can’t rule it out.”
“Will they be able to track us?”
“With power and engines down, we shouldn’t be generating any heat signature or energy trail. That may be ab
le to buy us some time,” he said. “At least until we run out of oxygen.”
Julian moved to the ship’s floor, opening a large panel embedded on the surface. He manually turned the lock with his hand. “Power Systems” a label on the panel said. As he removed the metal slab, a compartment opened, showing a large cylindrical capsule lodged into the ship. Normally, it funneled energy from the primary power core, but now the capsule appeared lifeless, empty of any fusion reactions circulating through its systems. Julian reached down, typing in the commands at a keypad attached to the compartment.
“The converter is totally drained,” he said. “A power surge must have wiped out the entire core.”
“Can it be repaired?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t my specialty,” Julian said. “Maybe I can create a backup power supply using a sentry drone, or a probe we have in store. But that could take hours to do manually, and I’m not even sure it’ll be enough to power the ship.”
Julian rubbed his hands, at a loss for what options he had left. He cursed, knowing that whatever attacked them posed an even greater threat than he had imagined. For minutes, he remained silent, wanting to say something.
“There is an alternative,” the android uttered, floating beside him.
“I’m open to anything.”
She placed her hand on her chest.
“Let me power the ship,” she said.
“You?”
The android opened her right palm, showing it to Julian in the dim light. For a moment, the metal surface across it appeared normal, a cold gloved hand as hard as steel lying before him. In seconds, the metal surrounding it began to change, and then seemingly liquefy. In front of his eyes, the chrome substance started to morph.
Now in the android’s palm sat a replica of the Lightning, its features simplified into an ornament, colored entirely in silver.
“My systems can easily adapt and should be able to connect to the ship’s systems,” she said. “Via my own independent power core, I’m confident I can bring the Lightning back online.”