Titan Fleet: The Invictus

by Jason J Black

  Eve tells Pace to choose a ship, as he is the first captain to see them, and so much starts to run through his head, but eventually he turns to talk to Megan. He whispers to her, “I asked you to move in with me, so I would love it if you chose our new home.” He touches her hand briefly and smiles, hoping she will choose the same ship he wants.

  What a romantic gesture, so different to that numb brain Deacon, Megan thinks to herself. Running her hand along the undercarriage of the Invictus, she makes her decision. She gets excited and jumps in the air slightly with a skip. “This one, the Invictus.”

  Great choice, thinks Pace, smiling and happy as this is the ship that he wanted. His mind started to wonder about where he would sleep and then relaxed when he remembered the Captain’s quarters were his.

  “Eve, we will take the Invictus. Can you please arrange for the other robot to be brought here, with the parts on this list please, and at the bottom is a list of a few people I need to see before I choose to take them with me. Oh and anything else that Megan wants for the ship. Thank you, and don’t worry, we won’t let you down.” Eve nods and gives the list to one of her men, and before she leaves looks back at the two ships with hopeful eyes.

  “Come and go as you please, Pace. On Friday the security team will arrive and I will see you before lift-off on Saturday.”

  As soon as Eve is out of sight Megan pounces on top of Pace, knocking him to the ground smothering him with kisses. “I missed you Pace. I should have asked you in last night, I’m sorry.”

  Pace is happily overwhelmed with the kissing. “Hmm, so am I. Still, plenty of time.” They both pause for breath and get back up off the floor, and hand in hand they walk into their new home, the Invictus.

  They take the lift up from the loading bay of the Invictus to the living quarters, and walk from the lift in through the door to the canteen, where they sit admiring the ship. “So what do you think or her, Megan? Was it the right choice or not?” Pace pours out a mug of coffee for them both and pulls out a litepad to write upon.

  “I think so; she is a beauty, better than my apartment and not dusty either. I will want to check out my room of course, as we will have to keep things platonic while we are aboard the ship, don’t you think?” Waiting for his answer, Megan raises her eyebrows and sips her coffee, then lowers her mug back down on the table, caressing it to warm her hands.

  Pace runs his hand over his chin thinking of what to say back to her, millions of answers running through his head like racing stars eager to win. “Well, the Captain’s quarters are big enough for the two of us, but at the same time we have to come across as professionals, don’t we? I think we should have separate rooms, but if needs be perhaps you could take the room next door, and we could use the secret door that I know is there, for emergency use only of course, if you know what I mean. Not that I’m suggesting or assuming anything at this stage, but it would avoid complications later. I think we both feel something special is happening here, and that doesn’t come along that often, and I will not let being a captain of a ship spoil my future with you. Just to let you know that, and that sometimes we may not agree, but we both must be on the same page and discuss everything together in private.” Pace realises he is starting to ramble, and comes to a stop, looking hopefully at Megan.

  Standing up Megan takes her mug and walks towards the sink, putting the mug in some hot water and briskly washing it up and putting it back in the unit. She doesn’t speak. She stands with her hand on her hip and waits for Pace to finish his coffee, and they both exit the canteen through the opposite door at the other end of the room, towards the front of the ship. Walking through this door, to the right of them is a metal spiral staircase, and directly in front of them are the doors onto the bridge. To the left and right of them are two large pillars, through which salvage is able to drop down from the deck above, to the salvage pods on the deck below them. Beyond the pillars on the side of the ship are the bunk rooms, two to the left, with a shower room between them, and the same repeated on the right of the ship, each room big enough for four adults. There is another door to their left, which is the door into the living space. They pop their heads around the door for a quick look, to find a smartly decorated room which runs along-side the kitchen, with a small hatch between the two, to pass tea and coffee. This room also has two doors, one at each end.

  “Love it!” says Megan. The colour is a warm yellow with black leather sofas, and coffee tables that have built in lights to see your drinks in the muted lighting of the room. They both continue on through the room with smiles, back towards the rear of the ship, where the lift sits in the middle of an area that also has two pillars, one on the left side and one on the right, just like the front of the ship. Then there are two glass domed units for their robot friends to live in. They both have no doubt that no expense has been spared in this venture, as they would have expected.

  “So where do I find the Captain’s quarters, Pace, and more importantly, where is my room?”

  Giggling a little, Megan is eager to see her room in the ‘flesh’. They walk back through the canteen and decide to go up the spiral staircase, and reaching the top there is a balcony with a mesh floor, and they can peer over into the living quarters from here. There are two doors on this level so they open the door furthest from the stairs first. The swishing noise of the door is so quiet that they stand in amazement for a second or two before entering.

  “Lights!” states Pace, and the lights come on, and as their eyes get used to the brightness, they are surprised at the size of the room. They are both accustomed to small, dirty, dusty apartments, full of noise and grit and stress. “Oh my!” Pace utters in disbelief. There is a plush double bed befitting a captain, a comfy chair at a control desk, and a sofa to relax on, and in a different style glass dome is the shower, toilet and hand basin. There are a couple of wardrobes built in the wall to store belongings, and shelves and picture frames hung on the walls too. “It’s like something from a dream.” Is this how the others live in their homes on Falvus Rock, just outside the city? Pace thinks to himself, because if so they have been keeping things from the general populous for far too long, and perhaps the resources are low because they have become greedy, hmm, who knows. “Come on, Megan, let’s take a look at your room, and I don’t think anyone would know if you wanted to spend a night or not, we are out of the way up here. I like the idea of having the space.” Pressing the button to the door, Megan walks in, calls the lights on and is pleasantly uplifted at the style of her room, similar to next door, but without the desk. This room has potential, she thinks, and with her mind she begins to move things here and there, pausing quietly and pondering away.

  Pace is concerned, “Don’t you like it, you have not said a word yet?” Pace puts his hand on her shoulder, “We can change the colour or whatever, there is no problem there.”

  Snapping out of her trance, Megan has already decided on things, and with a gentle voice like a calm spring wind she tells Pace what a great ship it is and how much she loves her room. “I am going to stay here for a while, Pace, if that is ok, and get started on a few things, if that is good with you?” Pace nods and quietly leaves Megan to admire her room some more, and descending down onto the living area deck, he decides to go back through the canteen and grab an apple and then gets the lift up a floor, which opens out onto the scrap bay. This place is huge, he thinks. There are four large hoppers, which the scrap will be sorted into when they find some, which will then fall down through the ship into the salvage pods for dispatch back to Foloss. This upper deck is mainly a large area for the scrap to sit in, and looking up Pace sees that it is at least another floor high, so would contain a lot of salvo indeed. He walks over to the left of the room.

  A large door on this side of the room opens into a workshop, with all the tools a man could wish for. It was perfect for engineers. Picking up a few things and playing with them for a while before he thinks he should be looking and not touching. He then walks over to the
right hand side to find another large door, but this time it opens into a brightly lit room full of beds and scanners and medical supplies. He thinks to himself that he should not play with things he doesn’t know about, so swiftly returns to the lift where he takes it down to the loading bay. Here he finds four salvage pods, sparkling new with the large chutes growing out of the top of them like plants hunting the sun. They are quite big, so would hold a fair few tons of salvo in each of them.

  There are three doors on each side of the loading bay and a rear ramp door. Two salvage pods and one runner ship on each side face outwards next to the doors for a quick launch. There is also a fair amount of room for supplies, gear and anything else they might need to store. Pace inspects the runners and is impressed with them also, and as he opens the door to one of them, he notices a flashing beacon light bounce colour off the ship straight into his eyes, as fast as a laser beam finding a target. He turns around and looks out of the ramp entrance to see a tugbot towing a trailer with something sheeted underneath it. He can’t quite make it out, but it was big whatever it was. Walking briskly down the ramp to meet the bot, sweat beading on his brow. The bot pulls up near the ship and informs Pace that this is the robot he had requested.

  “Did you bring the parts too; tell me you got the parts?” The robot hands Pace a litepad to sign.

  “Yes sir, all here as ordered. I shall just off load and I will be out of your way.” A mechanical arm from the back of the trailer lifts up some chains and the package is hoisted up and laid on the deck near the ramp. Around ten minutes later the containers are in neat lines next to it and the bot goes out of sight.

  Buzz, buzz. Pace can hear the sound of electricity powering a small gyron rushing power to circuits all over the robot, and finally hitting its CPU and lifting small servos to open its eyes. The robot, who had given its all, was revived once again, unsuspecting of what was to come. The two grapples were instantly fired in defence, as the robot’s last memory was that of battling a blue alien creature. The two grapples ripped through two supply containers with ease just like a fish swimming in water.

  “Robot, stop! It’s ok,” bellowed Pace in a deep voice, jumping in view of the robot’s frantic eyes. “It’s ok robot, danger over.” Pace reaches up and puts his hands on the robots face, so that its motion sensors could get a fix on him before it could do any more damage.

  “Sir! You are alive! Good to see.” The robot is now sat. It has a large cable coming out of its back, into the place where the large gyron would have been housed before. Crackles of power dance like butterflies on the wind. “What do you need me to do Sir?” The robot is still eager to serve a master to the end of time.

  “Robot, it is I who is in debt to you, so I am giving you a choice. I could use you on my crew. You would surely be an asset to me. You would have to be redesigned a bit and restored, but you would not have to go back to Eve, to be used as a bit of junk. I will give you a great life, albeit a hard one at the same time. Or you can go back to Eve, and be decommissioned and earn your rest. Or I will gladly repair you and set you free; I believe you have earned it. The choice is yours to make, but if you came aboard I will be your Captain and you would only answer to me.”

  More buzzing comes from the back of the robot and as it struggles to stand smoke starts to vent the rear of the robot, but it still tries, none the less, to stand to attention, but there is too much damage, so with a loud metallic crunch it falls back to its previous seating position. The lights in its eyes are growing dim, but it musters a few last words before going into safe mode.

  “Sir, I was built to serve. I would not know what to do with freedom, but do not want to be decommissioned, so if you can make use of me then please do.” The power still buzzes into the robot charging the circuits once again, so Pace pulls out the supply and lets things cool down for a while. He turns to the containers and starts to open them; looking for the parts he needs to rebuild the robot. He stops and looks at the robot thinking, if you are going to be one of my crew, I think you need a name. You will be known as Anc from now on, short for Anchor. I think it’s appropriate after seeing how you anchored that alien to the ground. Pace operates the communicator on his gauntlet and Megan’s face appears.

  “I will be working on Anc, the robot I requested, for a while so if you need me, I will be just by the loading bay ramp. I know you will be busy yourself with your room, but we should grab dinner later.”

  Megan agrees with Pace. “Have my things arrived yet, should be anytime now?” Just as Megan speaks the words, another bot towing a trailer arrives and thrusts a litepad into Paces hand, before unloading more containers and dashing away, obviously late for its next drop.

  “Yeah, just arrived, funny you should ask. Shall I get Padley to bring some things up to you?” Pace picks up a large component with his metal arm with ease. This would have taken two men to lift before, so maybe losing my arm was not all bad after all, he thinks to himself, while waiting for his reply from Megan.

  “That would be great if she could. I will see you later then.”

  Pace beckons Padley over and relays the message, and Padley is more than happy to help with the task. On the plus side, she is very strong too, so this will be no problem for her. Pace continues to wire in the large component, which is a brand new reactor gyron, which should give Anc ample power for centuries. It is proving to be a hard task, with all the fried wires, so Pace strips all the wiring out and renews it. That will be much better now, he thinks. He also exchanges the small reserve power gyron for a new up-to-date one, which would provide enough power should the main reactor fail, at least for a few days anyway. The power problem resolved, ticking a list on his litepad, Pace is in his element, and now the power supply is done, he can move on to weapons and armour.

  He sits down next to the silent Anc to think for a moment or two. The two grapple chains on his right arm were amazing at holding the alien down, so they will stay for sure, and maybe a burst of energy for his left arm like before, some sort of cannon that he could use while his shield was up. Pace thinks more about what he wants from Anc. Defence, offence, repair, security, yes security. He has a little bit of room to play within Anc’s back. If the back panel opens fast, he could store a spare gauntlet for in times of trouble, and only he would know of it.

  After spending a few more hours fixing and tinkering, Pace decides to replace the flimsy metal on Anc’s body for hull plating, so that if Anc’s shields ever did fail, he would be hard to damage with conventional weapons. He also fits a couple of repulsars in the palms of Anc, to stun and knock back people, but not kill them, which may prove handy indeed, he thinks. In the chest of the robot are two large working lights, so he can see in front of him, and there are two small directional lights on his shoulders, and two small lights on the sides of his head. It’s pretty dark in space, thinks Pace, so he decides to also equip a light on his arm gauntlet. Also in Anc’s chest is a powerful incinerator for up and close attacks. A few more tweaks and Pace is proud of his work and looking forward to meeting the new Anc. He also upgrades Anc’s CPU, so he will think and act faster too, but before Pace powers him up he must get himself some food.

  Chapter Nine

  The smell of a meaty stew wafts through the ship like pollen being carried on a spring breeze. The smell is too much for Megan to resist, and as she arrives in the kitchen, Pace is serving up two large bowls with fresh bread and a cool beer to swill it all down with. She is quite proud of the fact that she has just started a relationship with a man who can cook. She pulls up a seat next to Pace and they both tuck into the thick stew. They were both hungry it seems as neither of them talk until the bowl is finished.

  “Would you like some more?” Pace walks back to the simmering stew for seconds.

  “Hmm, yes please”, enthuses Megan, “It’s so warming and wholesome, where did you learn the recipe?”

  Pace serves up two more bowls before returning to the large table and sitting once again. “My Mum, she was
an amazing cook, she could cook anything and I loved her coconut pyramids the most, and her onion gravy over a roast dinner, but now she is gone and it’s hard without her, but I will always remember her and her smile and zest for being happy and helping others. She was truly an amazing woman.” Paces eyes begin to well up, so he quickly looks down and ladles more stew into his bowl to hide the shake in his voice.

  “She sounds wonderful, Pace. They say great mums make great sons.” She rubs her hand up and down Pace’s back. Pace begins to feel at ease. He has never spoken to anyone about his family before, but it feels good to share it with someone, and at least now he has someone who will listen. “What about your father, where is he?”

  Pace looks up to the heavens. “He is with mum and my sister and I will see them all again one day.”

  Megan clenches her teeth, thinking she has said too much, and ponders over her next words. “Pace, I’m so sorry, what happened? If you don't want to say then that’s fine.” Pace sips his beer then takes a larger gulp, preparing to tell a short version of the story, not believing that this is still the first time he has told anyone since the tragedy at Dalgen 9.