Last Stand

by Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Harlu Az had watched the nanites as they moved across Jarrod’s body. When they ceased moving, Harlu Az spoke to Jarrod. “These nanites have been programmed with the specifications of your Terran Fleet uniforms. Their command processor is housed within a cluster of nanites located at the center of your sternum. If you tap that point with a finger, it will activate voice control and you may establish your command of this nanite colony.”

  Jarrod reached up with his right hand and tapped the center of his chest. “Nanite Colony Two-Zeta-Alpha-Alpha-Two-Seven online. Designation please?” asked a voice that Jarrod heard in his mind. Jarrod made a note to himself to speak with Harlu Az about human privacy issues very soon.

  “Commander Jarrod H. Caulder, Terran Federation Defense Force,” Jarrod said out loud.

  “Nanite Colony Two-Zeta-Alpha-Alpha-Two-Seven is now encoded to Commander Jarrod H. Caulder. Do you wish to provide a designation for this colony?” Jarrod looked over at Harlu Az questioningly.

  “Those who wore the nanite colonies would give the colony’s command processor a unique identifier to aid them in communicating with their colony,” said Harlu Az in answer to Jarrod’s unspoken question. Or did Harlu Az read my mind using Z’Laan technology, Jarrod wondered.

  “Ah…okay. How about…” Jarrod said out loud before he’d really began to think about a possible name. He paused for a few seconds then continued, “…Alpha Two Seven?”

  “Designation is acceptable. This colony is now collectively encoded as Alpha Two Seven. How may we serve you?”

  Jarrod paused for a few more seconds then responded, “Terran Federation Defense Force shipboard uniform. Commander’s insignia and name tag, please.”

  “Processing…” responded Alpha Two Seven. The nanite colony shimmered and shifted across his body until it resembled a standard TFDF shipboard uniform along with the appropriate rank insignia and name tag. If Jarrod hadn’t watched the entire transformation in a mirror, he would have doubted his own sanity.

  “That…was something else!” was all that Jarrod could think to say.

  “There is more, Jarrod,” Harlu Az said. “The nanite colony will act as body armor should you come under attack, particularly from projectile or bladed weapons. The colony will also provide head and face protection by encapsulating your head should it sense danger. As I stated, it can even act as a short-term environmental suit for use in space or hazardous atmospheres.”

  “But, if it covers my face, how will I be able to see?” Jarrod asked.

  “Watch, Jarrod,” replied Harlu Az as he reached out to touch the nanite colony’s primary processor on the center of the young officer’s chest. Suddenly, nanites swarmed up his neck and around and across his head. For a split second, Jarrod found himself in darkness then suddenly he could see again. “The image you see is captured up by the nanite sensors on the front of your ‘helmet’ and transmitted to those just before your eyes. Those nanites form a visual monitor allowing you to see. Eventually, as the nanites adapt to you, they will detect when you are trying to view something at great distance or something very small and will enlarge the image to aid your vision.” Jarrod found the ‘button’ that Harlu Az had pushed on the forearm control pad and pressed it himself. His helmet morphed again and was reabsorbed by the colony around his neck and shoulders.

  “Wow! That’s great!” said Jarrod. “Does this thing come with an owner’s manual?”

  “Indeed, it does” said Harlu Az. “You may watch it on your ‘helmet’ screen or the one on your left forearm. I highly recommend that you review the information. The primary processor can also be linked to your communications unit to accommodate your communications and data exchange requirements. And visual or alphanumeric data can be displayed on your helmet monitor or on your left forearm.”

  “How do I open a channel to someone?”

  “Your nanite colony is programmed with your communications protocols.”

  Jarrod paused for a moment then said, “Caulder to Bradley.”

  A second later he heard Bradley voice as if the man was standing before him. “Bradley here, Jarrod. I take it you’re testing your nanite colony’s communications capability?”

  “Yes, I am!” Jarrod replied. “And I think it’s great!”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool as James would say,” Bradley answer.

  Jarrod was suddenly reminded of Admiral James Rivers and his orders to Bradley and company. Find the Proge/Z’Laan homeworld, determine if any ancient tech existed that might prove helpful to the war effort, and return with those materials as quickly as possible. “We need to get back on mission, Mac!”

  Bradley answered him, “As soon as you’re ready, buddy; we’ll hit the skies. Phoenix is ready to return to Camadin Station with our reports to date and a load of tech. We’ll lift ship the day after they do!”

  Jarrod looked at Ellie then Harlu Az. “I’m good! Let’s go!” With that, Jarrod signed off from his comm with Bradley and he, Ellie, and Harlu Ax left Jarrod’s temporary quarters. Upon reaching the Central Core, Harlu Az stepped over to one of the consoles and placed both hands palm down on the console. He remained there for a moment, then stood upright and turned to his human friends.

  “I have bid farewell to my ‘twin’. All is well upon this world and my ‘twin’ shall prepare it as a possible safe haven for your people should they need it. My ‘twin’ has prepared a transport to carry us to the Bennu,” said Harlu Az.

  “The ‘Bennu’?” Jarrod asked.

  “Yes. Your crew mates wished to name the vessel we shall be taking to the homeworld. Some of the names were…as Captain Bradley said, “Out there!”…but they settled upon Bennu.”

  Jarrod asked, “Okay. So what does Bennu mean?”

  Ellie giggled then answered, “The Bennu is an ancient Egyptian bird deity that is linked to the Sun and Creation…and rebirth.”

  Jarrod had to chuckle himself. “So…you’re telling me that they named this new ship after an Egyptian version of the legendary Phoenix?”

  Ellie giggled again. “Yep! C’mon, Jarrod, let’s go see our new ship!” With that, Ellie took Jarrod by the hand and led him from the room. Harlu Az followed them closely, keeping them under a watchful eye. What better way to learn about my race’s progeny than by watching a male and a female of the species interact? he thought.

  Ellie stopped at a circular opening in the pyramid’s floor. The opening measured about 15 feet across. Jarrod glanced into the darkness below but could not make out anything. “Now what?” he asked.

  Without a word, Ellie released her grip on his hand, smiled at him, then stepped into the opening before Jarrod could grab her. Instead of plummeting downward, Ellie floated gently down the shaft. She waved up at Jarrod, blew him a kiss, then waved her arm again to invite him to join her. Jarrod turned to look at Harlu Az but the little Z’Laan Grey had already stepped into the void himself. All Jarrod could do was shrug his shoulders, take a leap of faith, and follow his friends.

  Ellie’s voice came to him a moment later. “Relax and enjoy the ride, Jarrod! It’s the Z’Laan equivalent of an elevator and it’s perfectly safe. Harlu Az has shown us how to use them. The shaft we’re in right now will end in a moment and you’ll find yourself hundreds of feet in mid-air in a giant hangar. Don’t panic! Harlu Az told us the hangar takes up the bottom third of the pyramid. Look, here comes the end of the shaft!”

  Jarrod could suddenly see the lower end of the vertical shaft as it approached. A moment later he passed out of the shaft and, indeed, found himself high above the floor of an immense hangar. Two massive objects on opposite sides of the hangar caught his eye. The first was the familiar shape of the Phoenix, hundreds of small machines were moving about her hull.

  The other object was a much larger spacecraft! It easily measured 800 feet across, roughly 400 feet long, and about 100 feet in height. Its shape seemed familiar to Jarrod and it took him a moment to realize it looked much like a manta ray from the oceans back on Earth. In
its center, it had a long flat body with two wings flaring to either side. At what he assumed was the front of the craft were two long projections. It lacked the long, slender tail of the Terran aquatic creature and was a glossy silver in color reflecting the many lights in the hangar.

  “Harlu, is that the shuttle you mentioned?” Jarrod asked his Z’Laan friend.

  “Yes, it is,” Harlu Az answered. “I initially hesitated to report to Captain Bradley that it was one of our smaller, slower, and most poorly armed vessels.”

  Jarrod noticed the floor was growing closer. First Ellie then Harlu Az reached the floor and stepped from the suspension beam zone. Finally, Jarrod felt his own feet touch the floor of the hangar.

  “How are you feeling, Jarrod? Did you enjoy the ride down here?” a familiar voice asked. Captain Mac Bradley walked up to shake Jarrod’s hand.

  Jarrod chuckled at Bradley’s little joke. “I’m feeling great, Mac! And…yes! I enjoyed the ride…although that first step is a doozy!”

  “That it is!” answered Bradley. “You saw the work being done on the Phoenix?”

  “Yes,” said Jarrod, “What are they doing to her?”

  Bradley shook his head in awe of what they were seeing taking place on the Phoenix’s exterior. “Harlu Az here has his repair bots beefing up the hull and adding Z’Laan shield generators. He’s also had them revamping the engines to double her speed and weapon capabilities. His nanites have improved the interior framework at the sub-atomic level and installed a new communications suite that will increase our ability to communicate with Camadin Station as soon as the Phoenix reaches the station. Lastly, they’ve installed a secondary computer core. Harlu Az has loaded that new computer core with extensive historical and technological databases from the Z’Laan Central Core of this world. Oh, yeah! One whole storage bay is filled with nanite colonies and proto-nanite materials. We’re sending her back with a skeleton crew while we proceed to the Z’Laan homeworld. Hopefully, what we’re sending back will prove useful in slowing the spread of the Azairi while we press onward!”

  “Wow!” Jarrod exclaimed. “And what about this new vessel we’re getting?”

  Bradley nodded and grinned. “You like her?”

  “Yeah! She’s beautiful!”

  “She’s also very fast and deadly!” Bradley added.

  Jarrod looked at his alien friend and asked, “So how fast can she go, Harlu? And what weaponry does she have?”

  “This vessel can only travel ten times faster than your Phoenix with its upgraded engines and is equipped with hyper-particle cannons and dense-matter guided kinetic kill missiles. Your ship’s weapons would have difficulty breaching this vessel’s shields without the assistance of at least two other ships of its design,” said Harlu Az apologetically. “I am afraid this shutte is merely one of our lesser vessels.”

  The look on Jarrod’s face was a mixture of shock and awe. Bradley saw that look and responded, “That’s how I had felt when Harlu Az apologized to me about giving us such a poor vessel to continue our journey. One species’ ‘little shuttle’ is another species’ destroyer, I figure.”

  “The Z’Laan faced a great enemy before our decline. It became our practice for all of our vessels, no matter the size or importance, to be fast, well shielded, and powerfully armed,” said Harlu Az.

  “You mentioned this enemy before, Harlu Az. Who were they?” Ellie asked.

  “They are the same species who now threaten your species and others, my child…the Azairi. They were a bloodthirsty species millennia ago when the Z’Laan first encountered them as they first thrust out into space,” said Harlu Az. “Many great battles were fought and, ultimately, we drove them back to their home star system. We sought to enforce a quarantine around that system in the hopes that they would remain there until such time as they would give up violence and conquest. Apparently, with the decline and extinction of the Z’Laan, our quarantine has failed and the Azairi have learned that they are free once more to wage war across the stars!”

  Jarrod wanted to ask Harlu Az more questions about the Z’Laan/Azairi wars but decided to forego that for now. Instead, he turned to Mac Bradley and asked, “Why does this ship’s design look so familiar? I mean, it resembles a manta ray but there’s something else?”

  Bradley had to chuckle. “I thought the same thing when Harlu Az first showed her to me. Then it hit me…the Flying Sub from one of James’ favorite old science fiction television series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea!”

  “That’s it!” exclaimed Jarrod. “She has the same basic shape just much larger, of course. And has that reflective silvery coloration…instead of the bright yellow on the Flying Sub. Wow! Uh, it just hit me, Mac, how are our people going to fly this thing? That should take a lot more training than they’ve had time for, shouldn’t it?”

  Bradley nodded before answering. “Another question I asked Harlu Az. The answer is complicated. First, we’ve been rotating our personnel through an extensive, time compressed, virtual reality training program. When one group finishes, another begins. You’re scheduled for your first session in about an hour. In that virtual reality environment, you receive information and experience as fast as your mind can process it. Second, Harlu Az has had his nanites working overtime to modify all of the controls, instruments, and seats to fit our slightly larger frames. All controls and displays are now programmed to display English symbols and numerals. And last but not least, Harlu Az has created some nanite colony avatars to operate as clones of himself to perform routine shipboard duties.”

  “Wow!” Jarrod said again.

  “Yeah, wow!” replied Bradley.

  A half hour later, Jarrod, Bradley, Ellie, and Harlu Az spoke with the acting captain and senior officers of the Phoenix. After a round of well wishes and handshakes, those returning to Camadin Station boarded the heavily modified Phoenix while those continuing the voyage to the Z’Laan homeworld returned to the Bennu. Moments later, the massive doors to the hangar sank into the floor. The Phoenix rose gently off her landing struts, retracted them, then floated slowly out of the hangar. Once outside, she rotated slightly to starboard, nosed upward, and shot into the sky.

  Jarrod and a number of other personnel reported to Harlu Az who was standing near a number of egg-shaped pods near the Bennu. Harlu Az operated the controls on a console near the pods…and the pods opened. Several Terrans stepped from the pods, stretching out the stiffness and kinks in their arms, legs, necks, and backs. They smiled at Jarrod and the others and waved them towards the pods. “You’ll like it!” said one of the freshly trained officers. “It’s a breeze!” said another.

  One by one, Jarrod and the remaining trainees climbed into pods and got comfortable. When everyone was in place, Harlu Az activated the pods, checked the readings on his console, then walked back to the Bennu to continue his work there.

  **********

  Jarrod’s first session in the training pod lasted four hours objectively. But to him, he’d been within the simulation for the better part of three days. He came out of the pod with a slight headache, but with a vastly better understanding of the operations of the Bennu and other Z’Laan technologies. Mac Bradley was waiting for him with a bottle of water and a food pack. The two officers walked over to a nearby work table and pulled up two empty cable spools to use as chairs.

  “That sure was something, wasn’t it?” Bradley asked.

  “Yeah, something,” answered Jarrod around a mouthful of food. He swallowed then took a drink of water. “It felt like I was really taking a working tour through the ship…for days. When I wasn’t working on one thing, I was being taught about another! And Harlu Az says I have more sessions to look forward to!”

  Bradley nodded. “Yep! We all do. But not here…out there! We lift ship tomorrow. After we’re locked on course, Harlu Az will rotate all of us through additional training simulations aboard the Bennu. Then we’ll get a day off, then it’s back to work for you, boyo.” Bradley gave Jarrod a serious loo
k, as if trying to gauge Caulder’s physical and mental state.

  “I’m okay, Mac. Really!” Jarrod told his friend and commanding officer. “In fact, I haven’t felt this good in a long time. I’m just eager for us to get back into space, try to find my father, and try to find something we can use against the Azairi. We can’t do that here. This ship, as powerful as she is, is no match by herself against the Azairi fleets waiting out there!”

  “Good! Harlu Az thinks he’ll be able to help us with that problem. In fact, he already has,” Bradley began. “Some of the technology and data we’re sending back with the Phoenix can be implemented there in a matter of days. We’re also sending back a dozen of those training pods and the specs for reproducing them. That’s a priority for some of the nanite colonies when they reach Camadin Station. If Harlu Az is right, we’re going to need crews to take command of some mighty powerful ships real soon.”

  Jarrod smiled and put down his food pack. “Well, that’s great news! Let’s get going then.”

  Bradley held up a hand to signal Jarrod to wait. “First, finish your meal. Then you need some sleep. Harlu Az says it’ll help you integrate the knowledge and skills you’ve just picked up. Your new quarters on the Bennu are waiting for you. And here comes Ellie to take you to them! Hey there, Ellie! He’s ready for you!” Bradley made a show of passing control of Jarrod over to Ellie then bid them adieu.

  “Follow me, Commander Caulder, sir!” Ellie said cheerfully, taking his hand in hers and leading him towards their new vessel. Soon, they stood beneath the Bennu; a cargo hatch located about 30 feet above their head was open and cargo was being loaded by robot controlled anti-gravity sleds. An empty sled glided down from the cargo bay and landed near them. Ellie led Jarrod onto the sled, which then carried them up and into the ship.