by William Wood
top and looked down. It was a long way down. He felt a moment of
dizziness, and he had to steady himself. The robots didn’t stop, but
continued down the stairs, leaving him behind again.
Calvin ran down the stairs as fast as he could, although it felt
more like he was in a controlled fall. Halfway down, he saw several
small objects flying through the air over his head. He knew what they
were, but there was nothing he could do.
A dozen eye-searing flashes caused him to flinch. He turned his
head away from the light and closed his eyes. That was all it took to
throw off his balance and miss a step. Calvin’s feet slid out from under
him, and he fell hard, landing on his side. Pain shot all over his body as
he tumbled down the stairs. Ear-deafening explosions burst above him,
followed by a wave of fire that seemed to suck oxygen out of the air.
Calvin continued to tumble down the stairs, unable to stop himself. He
screamed. Suddenly a heavy hand clamped onto his leg, and he stopped.
The silver robot picked him up and put him back on his feet. “Thanks.” Calvin said, disoriented. It took him a second to
realize which way was up, but the robot didn’t give him the time. It
issued a few sharp words and pulled him down the stairs. Calvin tried to
ignore the pain as he ran alongside the big robot. Bombs continued to
explode all around them. They reached the bottom and ran through the
doorway. Calvin had to cover his eyes as they ran out into the sunlight. Calvin followed the robots on a broad walkway around the
building. They ran the entire way around the building to the shuttle.
When they arrived, they found it lightly guarded by enemy robots.
Calvin got his first good look at them, now that he could see them in
daylight. They were dark gray, almost black. Each of them carried a long
rifle. The big problem was that now there were enemies both in front and
behind them. Calvin was terrified. They were trapped!
Then the most amazing thing happened. The silver robot looked
at Calvin, and in Calvin’s language he said, “Wait.”
Three of the black robots moved like lightning and disappeared
in a blur toward the shuttle. The silver robot stayed next to Calvin to protect him. The enemy robots were caught off guard. They didn’t last
long against the black robots. The battle only lasted a few seconds. With the enemy soldiers bearing down on them from behind, the
silver robot grabbed Calvin by the arm and pulled him toward the shuttle.
After Calvin started running, the robot let go of his arm, and the two of
them ran across the open space at full speed. The black robots had spread
out in a circle to protect Calvin and the other robot as they raced to
safety. When they reached the shuttle, they scrambled inside. The black
robot carrying Jax gently laid him down on a seat in the back. Calvin sat
next to him, gasping for air.
The silver robot wasted no time. The engines roared to life, and
the ship shook violently before the black robots had a chance to get in
and sit down. The back door was still sliding shut when the ship jumped
into the air with a force that pressed Calvin into his chair. Laser shots
flew past the ship on all sides.
Calvin checked Jax for a pulse, but he couldn’t feel one. The trip back to the mother ship was much shorter than the trip
to the planet. The silver robot pushed the engines hard. The gauges on
the computer panels were flashing red. The engines were screaming
loudly, as if crying from the strain. Unlike the flight down, which was
very smooth, the trip back was very rough. There was an extreme amount
of turbulence as the ship left the atmosphere. Once they were back in
space, they headed directly for the mother ship.
The landing was rough. The ship slammed into the floor of the
hangar bay with a hard jolt. It was so hard that Calvin thought they had
crashed. The impact caused Calvin to tense all of his muscles, and the
shockwave hit him hard. The robots were completely unfazed. When
Calvin took his hands off of the armrests, he had to flex his fingers
because they were completely stiff. The door opened up, and by the time
Calvin had taken off his seatbelt and gotten out of the shuttle, the silver
robot and all but one of the black robots were already gone. The black
robot gently picked Jax up and carried him off of the shuttle. Calvin
followed him down the main corridor, and he watched him lay Jax’s
lifeless body on a bed in the ship's hospital. Calvin walked to the bridge,
and he stood behind the silver robot.
Calvin looked outside and saw another spaceship off in the
distance, in orbit over the planet. A small shuttle flying from the surface
of the planet entered an open hangar bay.
“Look,” Calvin said, pointing.
The silver robot issued a command in its own language.
Suddenly the alien ship entered hyperspace, and it was gone. Calvin
stared, trying to process everything that had just happened. “What am I going to do now?” Calvin asked the silver robot.
“My best friend is dead.”
To his shock, the robot looked at him and said, “I’m going to take you
home.”
CHAPTER NINE:
ANCIENT HISTORY
When he arrived back on the mother ship, Calvin was lost. He tried to rest in his quarters, but he was too upset. He wandered around the city for hours, dazed and in no particular direction. Eventually he made his way to the top of the tower. He stood near the railing for over an hour, staring out into space. He tried desperately to sort through his feelings and emotions, but he couldn’t face them. He wanted to know how he got to where he was, and how he was going to get home. Also, how was he going to explain it all to his father, or to Jax’s parents? Later, Calvin wandered back up to the bridge.
Four days passed slowly and painfully. For some strange reason, he found comfort sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge. The blue hyperspace effect was hypnotizing and almost calming. He had a cup of hot coffee sitting in the armrest. At least he thought it was coffee. It was hot, and it gave him energy when he drank it.
But it wasn’t all bad, af ter listening to Calvin and Jax talk for five days, the robot had finally learned their language.
When the robot told Calvin that he was taking him home, Calvin was confused and asked the robot how he knew where his home planet, New Arlandia, was. The robot would only say that he knew where Arlandia was, and they were on their way there. That was enough for Calvin. The trip would take five days. On the first day, Calvin grew bored and asked the robot to teach him how to use the computers. The robot agreed without hesitation. It helped pass the time on the long trip home. The robot taught him the basics of computer control, and how to monitor the status of every system on the ship. Engines, weapons, communication.
The next thing he asked the robot to teach him was how to use the communication system, which was integrated into the main computer, accessible at every computer. Calvin desperately wanted to contact New Arlandia. Calvin had memorized the communications channels for the military command center and also for the planetary control center before he left home. His father had insisted, and Calvin thought it was a good idea. He tried both of them, and a few others that he memorized just in case. Nothing worked. Whenever he tried to contact his home world, all he got was static. It was very strange, but mostly it was frustrating.
He wanted to c
ontact home and tell them what was going on, but there was a new reason to get a hold of them: He needed to tell them that a huge spaceship would be entering the New Arlandia system and not to shoot on sight. He hoped that he would be able to contact them by the time they got there. If he couldn’t, things could become interesting, and not in a good way.
Later that night, after Calvin had eaten his dinner in his room, he was sitting on the bridge while the silver robot was doing his rounds checking on the ship’s systems.
“How are you doing tonight, Sir?” The robot asked.
“I’m doing good, thank you, Robot,” Calvin said. Two days ago, Calvin called him, “Robot,” feeling the need to call him something. The robot hadn’t said anything, but Calvin still wasn’t sure what to call him, or if it bothered the silver robot when he called him that. So Calvin decided to ask, “By the way, what can I call you? Do you have a name?”
“A name?” The robot asked, sounding confused. “I don't have a name.”
“Oh,” Calvin said thoughtfully. “Well, can I give you one?” The robot seemed amused at the idea. “You want to give me a name?”
“Well, I have to call you something. I don't want to just call you, ‘Robot,’” Calvin stated. “Besides, what would I call the other robots?” Calvin looked at the robot. The robot had letters written on his chest. When Calvin had first seen him, he thought part of the letters said, “Ion.” After he had a chance to examine it, he saw that it didn’t say, “Ion,” but was something in a strange alien language that just looked like “Ion.”
“How about ‘Ion?’” Calvin said, and he explained why to the robot. The robot thought about it for a second.
“That is acceptable,” the robot said.
Calvin sat back in the chair and realized how much he was starting to like Ion. He was far from the scary monster that Calvin thought he was nine days ago. They had spent a lot of time together, and Ion was quickly becoming his friend and guardian. He never got mad at Calvin. He was never impatient. He never made him feel foolish when he asked silly questions, or when he asked for things to be repeated. There was one question, however, that Calvin wanted to ask, but he was afraid to. It took him a long time to work up the courage to ask, and when he started, he became afraid and stopped. Ion looked at him with a quizzical look on his face.
“Master Calvin, is there something bothering you?”
“Yes,” Calvin said. “I want to ask you a question, but I’m afraid to.”
“Sir, you know you can ask me anything you like,” Ion said warmly.
“OK,” Calvin said. “I was wondering, when I first got here, you were very hostile. I was terrified of you. You were chasing me all over the ship. Then, after you scanned me you seemed to change. You went from angry to friendly. What happened? What was that big city we were in, and who were the people in the chairs? Why were those other robots trying to kill us? And by the way, why did you capture my ship in the first place?”
Ion answered, “Eighty-four years ago, a very powerful race called the Goremog launched an invasion on their closest neighbors, the Spinarians. The war was over in two short weeks, because the Spinarians were nothing but peaceful farmers. When news of it reached the galactic council, they discussed the issue and could not decide what to do. Many of the delegates refused to believe it had happened. News that the entire Spinarian race had been completely wiped out had reached the council, and they still had not made a decision on what to do.
“But that simple victory wasn’t enough for the Goremog, and they invaded another planet, and another. Soon, their conquests were spreading across the galaxy. The council realized too late that the Goremog were bent on conquering the entire universe. Initially, a small group of planets banded together to fight against the Goremog. Eventually, every planet had picked sides, and the war spread to every corner of the galaxy. During the war, your people, the Arlandians, and the Alerians, the people who built me, were very close friends. They united together. The war was going very badly, and the Goremog were winning. Near the end of the war, our two peoples had almost finished working on a super-weapon that they hoped would save them from destruction. Unfortunately, they never finished it, and both races were nearly destroyed. The Alerians were scattered, and they have been hunted down nearly to complete extinction. The Arlandians disappeared and were never seen again. We assumed they were all destroyed.
“When the war ended fifty years ago, the entire universe was in ruins. Hundreds of trillions had died. There was no clear winner at the end. All of the races in the universe had fought until they were out of resources and could no longer fight. What followed after that was a period of relative quiet as planets rebuilt, and races struggled just to stay alive.”
“My masters first sent me to your home world, Arlandia. When I got there, I found it was abandoned. When I reported back to my people, they sent me on a mission to find out what happened to you, to see if I could find survivors from your race.”
“They sent you in this giant spaceship?” Calvin asked.
“No, I traveled in a much smaller ship,” Ion said. “The king ordered the Alerians to hide all ships, to keep them from being destroyed. This ship, Aleria’s Hope, was hidden in an asteroid field. But we have run out of time. The search for Arlandian survivors was cancelled, and the king ordered that all ships rendezvous. We are leaving this galaxy. All life in this galaxy has been extinguished. Now empires cling to life with only a dozen living beings, while they created armies of robots to continue fighting. But then I accidentally found you. What happened to your people?”
“My father told me stories,” Calvin said. “During the war, Arlandia was bombarded from orbit with radioactive missiles. The air was toxic, and the water was poison. My people had to abandon it. The war had destroyed nearly everything we had. All of our colonies had been destroyed except for one. We were forced to move our entire civilization there. It was located near the outer rim. The war traumatized us, and we isolated ourselves, far away from every other species. We are afraid of contact with aliens and stay hidden. My father thinks that we should try to find our old friends. He believes the only way we can survive is if we help each other. He’s a senator for one of the most influential continents, and he serves in the military command center, but his views are very much in the minority. It’s a huge miracle that he got approval to have a small space fleet. It barely gets any funding, and we aren’t allowed to leave our solar system. But he was determined that we not lose our knowledge of space travel and the ability to build spaceships. Our technology is ancient, and our ships are relics, but we do the best that we can.”
“So when I picked up your ship, I was very close to your new home?” Ion asked.
“Very close. But you wouldn’t have seen it. We take great pains to hide our planet. It’s invisible from computer scans so that anyone passing nearby won’t know we’re there.”
Ion didn't say anything.
“So you were roaming the universe, grabbing every ship you came across.”
“Yes, after collecting ships, the occupants were scanned.” “And what did you do if the DNA didn’t match?” Calvin asked, vividly remembering the sounds of a spaceship being caught and destroyed.
“I was instructed to capture every ship I came into contact with,” Ion explained. It almost sounded as if he were trying to defend himself. “My people are desperate. If the DNA didn’t match, I was instructed to let them go. However, if they resisted, I was to destroy them. But you are the only living human I found. The universe is full of robots.”
Calvin didn’t say anything.
“But finally, after all these years, I found you, and your DNA was a positive match. Now there is hope of salvation."
“Salvation?” Calvin asked. “What do you mean? I thought the war was over.”
“The Goremog have not been idle. They have rebuilt their planet, built massive shipyards, and have been rebuilding their space fleet. They have made large armies, ready for combat. Of course, li
ke all the other planets in the universe, their armies are made up of mostly robots. But make no mistake, war is coming again. We must finish what we started. The Goremog are most certainly going to try to finish what they started. We believe they are building their own super-weapon, and they may be close to completing it. That’s why I said we are out of time.”
“So, wait a second,” Calvin said, suddenly realizing something. “You’re not taking me home; you’re taking me to Arlandia, our original home world.”
“Correct.”
“But if it was destroyed, why are we going there?”
“The weapon was built in ten secret locations. Arlandia was one of them. There is a laboratory with a vault, somewhere on the planet, that contains one of the weapon components. The door to the lab is DNA coded. That is why you are needed,” Ion said. “The Alerians, including the high council, will meet us there. They are going to help us search for the lab. Once we have found all of the pieces, and the weapon is assembled, they will need your help to activate it.”
“How can I possibly help?” Calvin asked. “I'm not a scientist!”
“The weapon is also DNA coded, to prevent someone else from using it, in case it ever fell into enemy hands. DNA from both races must be used to activate it. All they need are the missing components, and you.” Calvin paced around the room.
“Fine,” he said. “So you want me to fly around the universe with you, and collect all the weapon segments?”
“Correct.”
“How long is it going to take to collect all of the pieces?”
“It is impossible to calculate exactly how long the mission will last, but my best estimation, given the travel time between star systems, is a minimum of at least one year.”
“One year,” Calvin shouted. “I need to go home! My parents don’t even know that I’m alive. You need to take me home, to MY home, New Arlandia!”
“I’m sorry. I can't do that. I have instructions to take you to Arlandia. We need you, and the high council wants to meet you.”
A whole year! Calvin paced around the room. He was very upset, and his mind was racing. All he wanted to do at that moment was to talk to his father, but he still couldn’t get through. It killed him that his family probably thought that he was dead. He wondered if the crew of the Sorenia had made it home safely. What did the captain report? Did they list Calvin and Jax as dead or missing? Were they looking for them? He wondered why he couldn’t get a signal through to them. It was making him feel sick. What a nightmare.