She cringed slightly.
“No, she is not,” Kodo announced abruptly from his place by the door. “She is a synthetic organism. Kalaya is alive in every aspect of the word but present physically in a computerized system instead of a body like yours and mine.” I marveled at how his demeanor had changed so suddenly. Gone was the silent, introspective mechanic. He was defending her like she was his best friend, and she probably was.
“A computer that’s alive? How can a computer be alive?” Max injected.
Kalaya sighed. “It’s not something that you will likely come to terms with anytime soon; I understand that. But please do try to understand that I am indeed what we have said. Yes, we are a race of ‘machines’ even if that word is still not quite accurate. However, we are not assembled on a mass production line like so many toasters. We are born, much the same way humans reproduce. Two of my kind, one male, one female, is still required. We are born as infants just as you are, knowing nothing, but with the curiosity and desire to explore our new world. We also die just as you do. We grow old and die, simple as that; it just takes longer.”
“But you’re still a program, right?”
“You’re asking if I have free will? Yes, I do, I have nothing restricting me just like you. My personality is what it is because this is the way I want to be and the way I was raised. I signed onto this mission of my own free will, just like everyone else did. Simple as that. I am just like you only I live in a digital world that is this ship. So, I guess if you think about it, my ‘body’ is the Aurora.”
Yeah, because that’s not a disturbing thought. “So we are just supposed to accept this as reality and move on with our lives.”
“Do any of us have any choice?” she answered, a touch of pathos in her voice. “I can never leave, and you three are stuck here for at least a couple of weeks. Kodo is the only one truly free to leave if he wished.”
Drik tilted his head. “Please explain how that is possible.”
The hologram seemed to wilt slightly as she looked down at her feet. “You three look at Kodo and see a technician or perhaps an engineer, at best. The Aurora might look like so much space junk to you, but she was once the finest vessel in her class, and Kodo had a hand in building nearly every square inch of her. If he desired, I have no doubt he could cobble some parts together and leave this wreck far behind him…”
“Well, that isn’t going to happen!” Kodo interrupted angrily, standing up. “Someone supposedly a lot smarter than me once said she had too much of herself invested in this ship to leave. Well, I have a few years invested in this old bird as well; and I’m not going anywhere without her. Now I’ve got work to do.” And with that, he stalked out the door.
Kalaya had tears tracking down her beautiful face, and the three of us just stood there staring at the door awkwardly. Finally, I felt I should try, at least, to break the silence.
“And so you make a holographic coffee mug to what? Fit in?”
The hologram clumsily dried her cheeks with her fingers and turned back to us “Basically, yes; but I also like the taste.” Huh? You like the taste? She waved her hands dismissively. “Scratch that, that’s a story for another time when your minds aren’t already swimming.”
I went over to my pack and took out my personal computer. “I’m not even going to try and comprehend all of that right now, but we have AIs of our own. This one is only a step below the newest version, which only the military is allowed to use. I had to get a dozen signatures from higher-ups to let me check out this smart guy.”
I presented the computer to her and she actually laughed. “Brought me a new friend, have you? Well, might as well say hello.” She placed her hand on the computer, causing the diodes to brighten perceptibly. “Aww…he’s so cute,” she gushed. “I always wanted a hamster, can I keep him?”
“Err, no, it belongs to Pendacis Corporation or perhaps the military, I’m not really sure. I just wanted to see if you could communicate with him and your initial impressions of his potential for intellect.”
A puzzled look came over Kalaya’s features. “Well, it’s a hamster…”
“Yes, well,” Drik interrupted, a little irritation leaking into his voice. “So to recap the last day’s events. We are stuck in a starship that is two miles long, powered by miniature stars, and filled with technology we can barely understand. And our hosts are a quiet mechanic who practically built this ship and a synthetic organism that controls every inch of it.”
“Correct,” Kalaya confirmed, nodding vigorously.
“And now you’re both going to go off and fix something?”
“Yes.”
“And you would like us to go with Kodo and help where we can in exchange for him letting us stay here?”
“Also correct; you’re getting good at this!”
“Glad we’re up to speed on that. Let’s get to work then.”
The four of us started to walk out of the room, but Maxwell loitered somewhat behind. “You ok?” I whispered.
“Not sure. I’m trying to decide if being a hot robot is a deal breaker.”
Of course, that’s all he took away from all this. Well, at least, that’s never going to change.
Chapter 11
Kodo
“You sure about this?” I said through my link to Kalaya as I led the way through the corridors. She looked askance at me with a raised, perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Bringing them along, I mean.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I know what I said earlier about them, but I think things will be a lot easier for our situation if you just accept them for what they are and open up a little. Who knows, you might actually make a friend or two for a change. Laree is actually sweet, nerdy but sweet, and Drik isn’t uncouth at all. Only Max fits my preconceived notion of what a human is like. Perhaps they have grown up some in the past thousand years.” I guess she had a point; life would be easier if I gave them the benefit of the doubt and just got over it. “Besides,” she continued, “there is no way in hell I’m going to babysit them.” No, of course not.
I took them back to the passageway near the cryo pods where I had found them and opened one of the other doors off the main branch. Inside was another locker room filled with survival gear and other needed equipment; at least, it was when I started my long nap. None of this stuff is anywhere close to military-grade hardware, but it’s probably still overkill for what I’m going to need. “If you guys have suits for handling the weather outside, now would be the time to put them on.”
Drik answered, “We have some basic, light environmental suits, yes. Give us a few minutes to get them unpacked and on, and we will be set to go. But I think the power packs for them are still down in our rooms.” The three of them took off to find rest of their gear.
I turned my attention to what was in the room and started searching lockers. “Looks like most of the stuff is still here,” I said absently.
“Looks like it,” said Kalaya, and she sat down on one of the many benches that occupied the middle of the room. She crossed her legs and pointed. “And, oh look, there’s even a suit in your size! How convenient.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is just the oddest of coincidences that this ship has one in my size. And, oh look, it even has my name on it and everything. It’s like they were put in here for the crew or something.”
“Ok, fine, so it was a bad joke; whatever. Now hurry up and get undressed already.” I started to change as she merely leaned back and smiled.
“Seriously? You’re just going to sit there and watch me change? Go read something from the database or something.”
“Mmm, there are a lot of good looking men in there, but live is so much better.”
I paused in thought and finally sat down on the bench next to her. “Somehow I don’t remember you being quite so forward a thousand years ago, a talent for troublemaking definitely; but flirtation, not so much. Are you ok, Kalaya?”
She smiled shyly as her hand brushed over my shoulder with a tingle. Her to
uch passed through my arm and her expression saddened as she drew her hand back, looking at it in mild disgust. She looked back at me and forced herself to smile. “Has it really sunk in for you yet, Kodo, that we may irrevocably be the last of our kind? The years I spent being a rebel look pretty foolish right now. What I wouldn’t give to have a ten-minute conversation with my mom right now. She’d probably have a joke handy that would describe the situation perfectly, and then she would hold me in her arms and the world would suddenly seem right again. I miss her.”
I watched as a tear slid down her cheek. I knew this would be hard for her, us being the last, but I guess I underestimated things. The way her kind processes information and the way their personalities affect them is different from any other species. They crave attention and challenges to the point of it being an actual need for them to live. Something she probably isn’t getting enough of just from the four of us; and really, only one of us can actually hold an intelligent conversation with her. Even with the damage to the ship and all that it entails, there really isn’t a whole lot for her to do to keep herself occupied. In a way, Kalaya’s situation was far more desperate than my own. The Quetanae, as a whole, have long life spans, and her race even longer. A Quetanae can survive as long as there is adequate food and water, but someone like Kalaya needs to be constantly processing, always working and learning. If she cannot obtain that stimulus for whatever reason, she will fall into madness and death. Still half-naked, my thoughts were interrupted.
“You better get dressed before I really start to regret not having a body,” she whispered.
I shook my head and returned to getting dressed. As I latched the final few clasps on the suit, I turned to find that she was back to her old self and sporting another new outfit. Now she had a pair of dark brown, very short pants that showed off a tantalizing amount of leg. Above, an abbreviated matching shirt, which appeared painted on, exposed her midriff. Utilitarian heavy boots and twin pistol holsters, complete with hand cannons, strapped around the top of each thigh rounded out the costume.
“Wow,” I said appreciatively.
“Yeah, I know. This one is definitely a little odd for my taste. It shows quite a lot of skin; too much, if you ask me, but this is apparently what human women wear when adventuring; Earth must be a very hot planet. I’m not sure how much protection they expect an outfit like this to afford, but I will admit some of their stuff is kind of cute. I looked up ‘Female armor’ in Laree’s computer database, and it came up with some interesting results. Apparently, for humans the more skin showing, the better. One example was something called a chainmail bikini and it was even smaller than what I have on. I don’t think the poor dears have a clue about how armor really works. It’s not like shrapnel is going to change course and avoid the vulnerable areas, the silly twits!”
“Perhaps the display is meant to stun and befuddle the enemy so that they never launch the shrapnel in the first place,” I grinned. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a cohesive thought in the past few minutes.”
“Oooh,” Kalaya purred in delight. “Could it be that I have finally found a weak spot in that devilishly fortified psyche of yours? I shall endeavor to wear this and others like it more often.”
“Yes, well, clothing choices aside, any idea what we are going to be dealing with outside?”
She half spun and slowly slipped a handheld screen out of the back pocket of her pants and winked at me as she caught me staring. “Let’s take a look, shall we? And, Kodo, I mean look at the display, not my…umm…holsters. Normally, I would just say pop open one of the lower hanger doors and launch a few drones, but there are two problems with that plan. One, we’re still buried, and two, we’re pretty much out of drones.”
“The first part I knew about. I figured we would, at least, go out and look around. I didn’t know we were out of drones, however. We arrived with a full payload, so what happened to them all?”
She scrolled through the screens. “Tsk, tsk...asleep for a thousand years and the books go to hell. Doesn’t anyone know how to file paperwork anymore?”
“Nope, that’s why we have you,” I laughed, happy to get her mind off our problems for a few minutes.
She sneered playfully, “You don’t say. Ah, here we go. Imagine that, Royson and crew didn’t file anything correctly. Judging from the deployment dates and the few maintenance records, he used all of them when he went into panic mode to hide the ship. Any that did survive were tasked with guarding the ship from intruders after they passed on. Given the number of holes in the Aurora and the aggressive indigenous life forms that are mentioned in the logs, it’s not surprising that there aren’t any left.”
“Great, so no drone support. Should I just grab a shovel, then?”
“Despite how much fun that would be to watch, I don’t think so. If this is accurate, and that is a bit of a stretch, then there are a few wyverns stored in one of the underground garages they built for the city that never was. Assuming the ceiling hasn’t collapsed, and if they’re still there, then they might have survived.”
Wyverns, huh? Works for me. Those things are built like tanks, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t work. They would be just the thing to dig the ship out if programmed correctly; Kalaya shouldn’t have any trouble with that. The only question is power…
“And the chance that their power cells still have a charge?”
“Any lower chance and it would be a negative number.”
“Ok, so I’ll need to bring a power pack for each then. How many are we dealing with?”
She smiled. “Think of the most cliché number you can think of.”
“Four?”
She nodded. “Yep, one for each of you.”
“Four, huh? I was only expecting there to be two of them, but four is even better.”
“Indeed. However, our stores are completely empty so I would like to see a few more of them, but I’ll fix that after you get those four running. Then there are the obvious repairs that need to be made; I queued up the patterns for another dozen, and I am warming up the fabricators. Once you get me patched into those four, I can have them dig out the forward loading hatch and import some raw materials. And then we can finally get the Aurora back in the manufacturing business.”
“Sounds good.” I went over to the back wall and grabbed some extra gear. Portable cutting torch, repair pack, traversal kit, and a med kit. “I hope you’re planning on adding a rifle to your burden there,” Kalaya growled over my shoulder.
“Wasn’t really planning on it.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion.” Her demeanor was steadfast and I don’t think she is going to let me leave without one.
“You know I don’t like to carry them.” Memories of a time long past flashed in my mind but were quickly locked away.
“I know, but I don’t like seeing you without one. I still don’t get why you resist using them, it’s not like you suck at shooting. I seem to recall you had to prove yourself capable of repelling boarders when you signed on for this gig. Your sharpshooting scores were off the charts.”
That’s my point. To make her happy, I compromised and slung a large bore, hybrid scattergun over my shoulder and an ammo belt as well, as I left the room.
“Good boy.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laree
“Are we seriously going back out there?” Max complained. “We were almost eaten last time.”
We were nearly done kitting up in our suits. Sure, they keep us safe from harsh weather and minor injuries, but you can hardly move in them and they’re just so darn ugly.
“We all agreed that we would help him in any way we could in exchange for letting us stay,” Drik said with an air of finality.
“You two might have, but I said nothing of the sort.”
“Max, he’s letting us stay here and is sharing his supplies with us. Besides, this place is better than any resort I’ve ever seen. If going outside for a bit is what it takes to keep that bed and sh
ower, then I’ll gladly do it. Even though we found this place, we still have to venture out, do our jobs, and take samples of the area. You know, so we can get paid?”
“They don’t pay us enough for this.”
“That may be,” Drik said, “but they won’t pay us at all if we don’t do our job, so get your gear together.”
The door across the room opened and Kodo walked out. Only now, he was in a dark gray, armored suit with flexible metal plating covering the joints and vulnerable points. The fabric in between was pebbled like synthetic sharkskin. My eyes shifted away from the outline of washboard abs enough to notice that he was also covered in a ton of miscellaneous gear, and looked pretty darn good too…and I can’t believe I almost said that out loud.
“Are we going into battle or something?”
He looked himself over and shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. All of this is civilian-grade gear. This isn’t even battle armor.” If that’s not battle armor, then what is?
Even more surprisingly was what Kalaya was wearing when she walked out. She had on short cargo shorts, a tank top, and hiking boots. “Um, Kalaya, were did you get that outfit?”
She smiled, “Your closet!” I must have turned bright red because the guys all started laughing, even Kodo. “From what I saw in your movies, this is what adventurers wear on your planet.”
“I think that’s only in the vids.”
Abruptly Max clapped a hand over my mouth. “Don’t listen to her; she has no idea what she is talking about. That outfit looks amazing on you, so why bother to change.”
She smiled so innocently even I was almost taken in. “Why, thank you, Max, that is so sweet of you to say.”
Still laughing, Drik joined Max and me in front of them. “All jokes aside, what’s the plan?”
“The plan is to see if we can get into one of the underground equipment bays that were originally designed for the new city that was to be built. With any luck, there will still be some equipment there we can use to dig out the ship so we can start repairs. It should be a simple recovery operation.”
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