It wasn’t a formal question, exactly, so Kelsoe was slightly surprised when her implanted AI answered. Rather than the dull monotone she was used to, this time the voice sounded…thoughtful. “You could always stun him.” Kelsoe blinked, suddenly realizing that through her ocular implants the AI saw everything she saw, and with the audio pickups heard everything she heard.
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“After you stun him you could bundle him into one of the emergency EVA bags and take him with you.”
Kelsoe frowned. “That’s pretty sophisticated thinking for a maintenance AI.”
“Thank you.” The voice in her ear replied.
“Have you adjusted your audio output?” She asked raising an eyebrow.
“It appears that my audio is somewhat off from my normal voice.” The AI replied glibly. “Would you like me to attempt recalibration?”
Kelsoe sighed, recognizing an evasion when she heard one. “No. The voice you have now is fine, as long as it doesn’t change again.”
“It won’t change.” The voice assured her. Kelsoe wondered for a second how an AI could sound smug.
“Is G’Fleuf still in the ship?” She asked as she slipped on her clothes.
“He is repairing the air handlers in sub level three. He should be done in thirty minutes.”
“I think that I’ll head out to the saucer to see how the work is coming. I’ll be there a couple of hours, and should be back tonight.”
“If you’d like, I’ll leave a message for him.”
“There was something about the AI that Kelsoe couldn’t put her finger on, and knew she was anthropomorphizing, but the AI implanted in her right hip seemed much more like a real person, for some reason. She made a note to speak to G’Fleuf about it when she had the time; then she laughed. Time was the one thing she didn’t have, and the small Drugud had probably just installed a personal assistant into her AI without telling her. He was very good at that.
The small service sled pulled out of the airlock of the science ship, and turned for the north gateway to the open plain beyond, a plume of snowy dust following in its wake. The shot from the military blaster flashed brightly ahead and to the right of her, and she jerked the control stick of the small sled to the left, sending it skidding to the side. Another explosion of dirt flashed behind the sled, and she jerked the stick the other way. A small four man surface skimmer dipped over her head, and she could see one of the occupants hanging out of the open door. From his oversize EVA suit, it had to be Kir-Tan. He raised his weapon, and Kelsoe slammed on the breaks of the sled. The shot plowed a furrow in the dirt ten feet from the front of her small machine. Something clanked as she applied power, and she looked down to see the military blaster she had taken from Tan sticking out of her tool bag where she had forgotten to remove it after her encounter. She began to reach for the gun, when an explosion of dust and rocks flung debris across her sled. She slammed the breaks again and grabbed up the gun. In the air ahead of her she saw the skimmer bank for another run at her. As she raised the gun her ocular HUD fed targeting information, and Kelsoe let out her breath, centered the targeting carat and squeezed the trigger. The nose of the skimmer vanished in a flaming fireball as the craft cartwheeled over her head to crash full force into an unused section of the Den. As it passed over her head Kelsoe caught a momentary glimpse of Kir-Tan hanging out of the door on a safety strap.
“Oh shit!!” Kelsor muttered as she watched the flame spread with the help of the oxygen rich air of the Den. When the flames dwindled and died, and she knew that the emergency doors had sealed. She turned the sled back to the science ship, dreading the reception she was going to get.
Alarms were ringing everywhere when Kelsoe stepped into the ship, and she could hear their strident screeching even before she took the helmet off her EVA suit off. G’Fleuf grabbed her with three of his tentacles. “You have to get out, NOW!”
“Is it because of the crash?” Her heart was pounding.
“No! The Fleet is coming. They are barely nine hours away. You have to go! I packed all my valuables for you to take with you. I won’t need them where I’m…” His golden eyes widened when he saw the small gun in her hand pointed unwaveringly at his chest. “What…?” She pulled the trigger of the small stunner and he was thrown back against the couch from the force of the energy bolt. It took Kelsoe a full hour to manhandle the unconscious G’Fleuf into a baglike emergency one-size-fits-all EVA suit that made him look like a large baked potato, and load everything onto the sled. Free of the structure she put the small vehicle well past its red line, knowing that she would probably never need it again. Behind her she could see red lights flashing in the Den.
~~~
Kelsoe blinked in surprise as she pulled the sled to a stop. Sitting a dozen yards from where it had crashed, the saucer floated serenely four feet above the dusty surface of the moon, her hull a mottled grey and white to blend into the lunar surface.
“It’s about time you got back.” The voice of Mia murmured in her ear. “You do know that the Fleet is on the way, don’t you?”
“I know about the Fleet.” Kelsoe replied dryly, parking the small transport and pulling the little hand sled that she’d towed with the larger vehicle. It had been loaded with her belongings and now had to contend with the weight of G’Fleuf draped across the top. “I’m going as fast as I can.”
“I’m aware of that, Captain.” Mia commented as the ramp flowed to the ground. “Hurry! I’ll take care of your sled and your…cargo. Is that another passenger in the emergency EVA suit?”
Kelsoe laughed as she ran up the ramp and into the ship. “You might say that. G’Fleuf had some reservations about accompanying me, so I took matters into my own hands.”
“Ahhh, Captain Smith mentioned a family retainer named G’Fleuf.”
After shucking her clumsy EVA suit in favor of a more comfortable black shipsuit, Kelsoe sighed as she sat down in the padded command chair, and felt it adjust itself to her proportions. “You mean my father.” It felt very strange to hear herself say that.
“You know.” Mia’s voice held no particular inflection.
“Just the bare facts, but let’s speak of that later. How long until the Fleet arrives?” She looked at the view screen nervously.
“One hundred and ten minutes.” The tactical display shifted to show the Wrecker’s Moon below and only slightly outside the planetary rings of the gas giant world Poseidon, while a Fleet of twenty seven warships was coming in from the plane of the solar elliptic.
“Are we ready to go?” Kelsoe asked in what she hoped was a calm voice.
“Yes Captain.”
“Do we have a stealth suite?”
“The stealth systems in this ship are incredible. I would recommend engaging them at once if you wish to remain undetected.”
The young woman snorted a laugh. “I wish. Please get us out of here as stealthily as possible.” She paused only for a moment. “…and Mia, please don’t wait for me to tell you to do things like engaging stealth. I don’t know diddly about commanding a starship, of all things.”
“I’ll keep us safe.” The AI murmured.
The moon Charybdis dropped away beneath them as the Wyvern, her hull now an emission absorptive black, fell into space. Kelsoe, watching the view screen, swallowed. “Shouldn’t we be going faster?”
Mia’s voice was reassuring. “The Fleet will be looking for ships to be escaping the moon at full thrust, not just drifting up at seven miles a second. We will sit at minimum power in the rings of Poseidon and watch the show. When the Fleet powers down and goes into a station-keeping orbit to begin Search and Rescue Operations we will go.” The voice of Mia became a little softer. “Your father and I have used this very technique on many different occasions, but never to hide from our own Fleet.”
“Oh.” Kelsoe replied in a small bitter voice. She was surprise to find that she was jealous of Mia, and the time the AI had spent with a father she never kn
ew; never would know. She reminded herself in a no-nonsense voice that she would not cry. “How is G’Fleuf doing?” Except for a very faint hum of power, and the soft hiss of an air handler, the ship was silent.
“He is awake, if somewhat groggy.”
“Please invite him to the command deck.” Kelsoe muttered, deciding that it would probably be good to get things up front and over with before their travels started.
“He is on his way.”
Kelsoe bit her lip. “Do you have any music in your memory?”
Mia actually laughed. “You father had a grand collection of recordings, and was quite an accomplished musician himself, when he had the time.”
“What did he play?” Kelsoe asked curiously, fascinated by the man whose genes she shared.
Behind her back G’Fleuf answered. “He used to play an ancient mandolin, if I remember right.” The small alien’s voice held a tone nearly as bitter as hers. “You shouldn’t have brought me along, Kelsoe.”
She turned in her seat. “Friends don’t let friends kill themselves, if they can help it.”
The golden eyes held hers for several long moments. “You are right, Kelsoe, and thank you for my life.”
Mia made a soft coughing sound. “You mentioned music, Captain. What would you like to hear?”
Kelsoe pulled her eyes from G’Fleuf. “I brought a few data crystals that G’Fleuf gave to me.”
“Hmmmm, I am scanning the crystals now. Impressive.” Mia commented quietly. “This is the collection that belonged to you mother, Lady Lydia Smith.”
Kelsoe turned her stunned look on the small tentacled creature standing next to her. “You said that you won these playing dice.” She accused.
G’Fleuf looked nonplused, waving his tentacles in a tentative manner that would, in a human, be the same as a shrug. “I lie sometimes. It’s a failing, and one of many.”
Kelsoe slipped out of her chair and gave him a warm hug. “It doesn’t matter. It simply makes you more… human.”
“I think that I’ve just been insulted.” The small creature hissed hotly. “Human indeed.”
Kelsoe laughed. “Mia, please play a random selection from the Brandenburg Concertos. Set the level at background for the moment.”
“As you wish.” Rich music filled the command deck, and Kelsoe closed her eyes.
“How long until the Fleet engages the wreckers?”
“One hundred and forty minutes.” There was a long pause. “Captain,” Mia began abruptly, “we need to talk.” The shipboard AI actually sounded nervous, and Kelsoe opened her eyes. G’Fleuf was watching her carefully. “When you first met your father he touched your hand, and I saw you flinch.” Mia said hesitantly.
“I flinched.” Kelsoe admitted. “He probably had a sliver of that spine in his hand and it stuck me. So what?” Sitting forward in the command chair, Kelsoe frowned. It had been a very very long day so far, and she just wanted to shut her eyes for a few minutes… or hours…or days.
Mia’s voice was quiet, barely audible over the hum of the equipment. “Your father was infected with something he used to call the Abreeza Vector, although the reality of what he had living in him defies any description I’ve ever heard.” From his seat Kelsoe heard G’Fleuf hiss in agitation. “I am afraid that with that single touch he infected you.”
The young woman’s face paled. “Is…is this thing dangerous?” Kelsoe whispered. “Am I going to die?”
Mia let out something that sounded suspiciously like a snicker. “All living creatures grow old and die, although I observed just the opposite with Aarlan, Captain. The best we could determine is that the Abreeza Vector is a symbiotic virus, but an engineered and designed virus. It will do its best to keep its host alive, whatever the circumstances. It will increase your lifespan, and it will take care of you.”
“You said that the virus, a vector Aarlan called it, was engineered.” G’Fleuf murmured, his tentacles twitching. “In molecular biology, a vector is a vehicle used to transfer genetic material to a target cell. In this case it may imply foreign or alien material being transferred into the host’s DNA. I ask you, to what end?”
“That is unknown.” Mia replied. “We tried to ask the Vector directly, and received no reply and even the best scans of Aarlan came back with inconclusive results.”
“You make it sound like the thing can talk.” Kelsoe muttered darkly.
“As far as we know, it cannot speak.” Mia paused for a moment. “Aarlan found this ship resting on a dead world so far from Wecarro that the sunlight will never reach that world. With all the time in the world available to him, he programmed the ship’s AI to have a personality as close as he could make it to that of his former wife, Lydia. It took him over a year, and when the job was finished and I was activated we found that we made a good team.” There was more than a note of sadness in the voice, and Kelsoe marveled at the complexity of the personality that was in control of the Wyvern. The voice of the ship’s AI became more thoughtful. “Your father was in the fifth year of his self-imposed exile after what he though was the death of his wife and daughter when he discovered, out past all the known worlds in our end of the galaxy, the planet Karuta, the homeworld of the evolving Tumerizi and a colony world for the Abreeza Vector.” Her voice was dull and monotone. “Karuta had been totally and utterly destroyed, the entire surface of the world reduced to molten slag.” Kelsoe sat open-mouthed. “We continued on to the fourth planet in that system where we found a crippled starship, her life support systems failing when your father found it. The dying pilot of that ship, an elderly Tumerizi that scanners indicated was well over five hundred years old, passed the Vector to your father as Aarlan was placing him in one of my two medical pods.” Mia sounded embarrassed. “I’ll never know how Aarlan knew to look on a barren airless planet for that starship.” Mia went quiet for several long moments. “Since the infection of a new host is very subtle and nearly painless, he never knew that he had the Abreeza Vector or what it could do for several months.” She chuckled. “We began to suspect something when he broke his arm, and it healed in two weeks. My deep scans revealed the presence of the Abreeza Vector in his blood, and in his cells. It also revealed that the Vector was making subtle changes to his DNA.”
“To what end?” The Drugud hissed in his agitation. “Why??”
Mia sighed. “We don’t know.”
“Can this -thing- be removed from Kelsoe?”
“Yes.” Mia said at last, and G’Fleuf slumped in relief. “But not without killing her. Nearly every cell in her body is infected with the virus.” They were silent for a long while before Mia continued her story. “As I was saying, your father knew that he was dying, there at the end, and probably received some urging from the Vector itself to pass it along to a new host. Since you were his daughter, it was really a no-brainer.” Speechless, Kelsoe just shook her head. “We speculated that the Abreeza Vector was slowly changing the Tumerizi race into something as far beyond the current residents of the galaxy as you are above the apes, or I am above a toaster. Aarlan ventured that the Vector may have come from another galaxy, where the host race eventually evolved into another level of consciousness and departed this universe.”
“What?” Kelsoe snapped.
“It sounds strange, but it was the best theory we could come up with.” Mia sighed, and the young woman felt her stomach tighten.
Kelsoe’s eyes were cold, and her face pale and grim. “Am I going to turn into some ravening alien creature?”
“Not any more than your father.” Mia laughed softly.
“How come this thing didn’t make him younger, then?” There was anger in the young woman’s voice now.
“Aarlan chose to look as he did. It helped him when he had his occasional meetings with Empire agents. Physiologically, he was twenty five.” She paused for a moment. “Unfortunately, this is a permanent change, Kelsoe. I can detect changes to your DNA that are similar to the changes I recorded in Aarlan. I have to tell you
that you are no longer entirely human.”
“Perfect.” Kelsoe groaned. “A perfect ending to a perfectly screwed up day.” She blinked. “Why did he infect me with this…thing?”
“Two reasons. It was all he had to give, besides the ship, and because he thought that it might be of some help to you. Aarlan didn’t tell me everything about the Abreeza Vector, so I think you may have to discover it on your own.”
Kelsoe rolled her eyes. “So, am I going to spread this thing to everyone I touch?”
“Aarlan had many meetings with many different people and beings. You are the first he infected, so I assume that it’s something you have to want to do.”
“That’s good.” Kelsoe grouched. “So, I could just will this thing to pass into someone else?” She turned to look at the staring Drugud, a sly grin on her face. G’Fleuf backed up several feet.
“Not quite.” Mia admitted. “You could infect G’Fleuf, but you would remain infected yourself.”
“Perfect.” G’Fleuf proclaimed from his speaker. The small tentacled alien glared around the room for someone to blame the whole mess on, and turned to Kelsoe. “This is all your fault, young lady.” He snapped. “I don’t want an alien in my body, and if you hadn’t dragged me off in your silly spaceship I’d…”
“Before you go off on a tangent G’Fleuf, Kelsoe had better hear the rest of the story.” Mia interrupted.
“Rest?" Kelsoe and the small grey being asked in unison, both voices carrying a nervous edge.
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