“Be aware truck. There are other cars in the garage, but well out of the way.”
“Roger copy other cars.” Ashton sounded stunned as the 7651 Rose of the Dawn slowly drifted into a hanger that would have easily held all of Earth’s spacefleet.
Zed watched the truck drift into the hanger and gently touch down before he reentered, closing the door behind him. “EVA mission accomplished. Returning to ship now.”
“Roger, EVA. Good job.” It was Maggie, and Zed could only hope that she was smiling.
Deep within the ruined vessel an amber light turned green. A slightly bent panel groaned and slid upward, and a basketball sized metal sphere floated out, dangling metallic tentacles. It floated once around the room, and then plugged a tentacle into a small data port located in a wall. It sat there for a moment, as if puzzled, then continued its solitary circuit around the ruined engineering section. The sphere spent several moments studying the crude repairs made to the backup power circuits, before it too began to make repairs. As the truck floated serenely into the hanger a second sphere emerged from a bent storage chamber and began to assist the first. A dozen more amber lights were showing, and four more green.
Since they were basically in dock, the crew of the truck all benefitted from a good night’s sleep before they left in the morning to explore.
“So, how long can we spend sightseeing in this hulk?” Zed’s magnetic boots gripped the floor of the dark metallic passageway.
“A couple of days, I guess.” Maggie muttered. “Then Central will claim salvage rights to this thing and we’ll never see a penny, or the ship again.”
“More than likely they will send us out to the far side of Mars for the next year, just to keep us from blabbing.” Nicole’s voice sounded bitter.
“Didn’t know there were any satellites around Mars for us to collect.” It was Damon’s deep voice.
“There aren’t any.”
“Oh…”
“Where are we heading, Zed?” Maggie’s voice carried more than a little fear. She was a good pilot, Zed though wearily, but had problems dealing with unusual situations. Things didn’t get much more unusual than this.
“The bridge would probably be a good place to start, don’t you think, boss?”
“I suppose, Zed. You’re our expert.”
The flight engineer snorted. “Yeah, right, expert on alien flying saucers.”
Sixty minutes later they found the bridge, set, unsurprisingly, in the very heart of the ship. Their suit lamps shone off of strangely angled screens and instruments, although they found it somewhat comforting that the chairs were fit for a generally human shaped torso.
“I thought that you said this hulk was dead, Zed.” It was the mission commander’s worried voice.
“That’s what I said.” He looked over the pilot’s shoulder. On a small console set near a central seat three lights were burning; one red and two amber. As they watched one of the amber lights blinked and turned green.
“Did you just happen to touch anything yesterday, Zed?” Another amber light lit up.
“Um, well, maybe I just happened to fix one small broken wire. It didn’t seem to do anything and I left.”
Maggie glared through the faceplate of her helmet. “Why don’t you go down to engineering and unfix the wire you fixed yesterday. We don’t want some half assed alien spaceship coming to life around us, do we?” Silence… “Well??”
“No, I suppose not. I’ve got my tools right here. I’ll go down to engineering right away.”
“Nicole, go with him. Make sure he does it, and doesn’t ‘fix’ something else. I don’t like the feel of this. The rest of us will be back at the truck. Meet us there.”
“Sure thing boss.” She turned to Zed, and punched his shoulder. “You always get us in trouble. Remember that old Russian satellite a year ago?”
“How was I to know it had nukes in it?”
Nicole just sighed. “Lead on, expert.” Her voice dripped sarcasm. When they were almost there she stopped abruptly. “Zed, did you forget to turn the lights off when you left yesterday?” Yellow light was spilling out into the empty hallway from the open engineering door.
“I might have forgotten to shut the door, but there was no power. I didn’t even try the lights.”
“Someone obviously did.” Nicole sounded nervous now.
Zed sighed. “My problem. I’ll fix it.” He took a deep breath and stepped into the ruined engineering section, Nicole on his heels, only to find that it wasn’t so ruined anymore. Light blazed in the room, and from his position in the open door Zed could see at least six small repair robots industriously working to restore the shut-down reactor. The rear wall looked as though it had never been damaged, let alone open to space. He stood frozen. Somewhere beneath their feet the huge ship shuddered and a whole bank of lights set against the reactor wall came to life. The ship is coming back to life!
“We have a problem.” He was trying to catch his breath. “This ship was never dead. Damaged severely, but not dead. When I fixed that one wire I activated one repair robot. That bot is now repairing the reactor with another six robots. Six that I can see. There must be other, bigger ones working on the hull.” He grabbed the communication officer’s arm. “Don’t forget. This ship’s power plant was knocked out, not the drive.”
“Oh no!” There was terror in Nicole’s voice now.
“Exactly.” He took a breath. “We should…” Zed stopped abruptly, hardly breathing. Two lit doorways led off of engineering, and out of the left-hand door floated one of the small silver repair robots. The gleaming robot stopped directly in front of him, playing a delicate fan shaped beam over his entire body, from head to foot. The beam stopped once, focusing on his small tool pouch.
“KRRK Zak click garble garble?” Came out of the small speakers built into the inside of Zed’s helmet.
“What did you say?” Zed mumbled, more to himself than to the thing floating in front of him.
“BLUUURT!! GARBLE?”
“I don’t…” Two of the robot’s tentacles wrapped themselves around Zed’s wrists, holding him firmly but not painfully. The third tentacle, however, plunged what felt to Zed like a white hot lance through his suit and into the back of his neck, just at the base of the skull.
Everything went black. Zed never saw the clear gel extruded by the tentacle seal the hole in the tough suit fabric that the lance had just made.
CHAPTER 2
Down the Rabbit Hole:
Zed woke slowly. Under him the surface was cold and hard, the pillow beneath his head soft. The air, just on the warm side of goosebumps smelled fresh, and held the faintest hint of high mountain cedars. The hum of ventilators was faint but noticeable.
“Yes, thank you. I feel much better.” He must be in the truck, he thought groggily, having a very nice dream. The crew had found him, and taken him back to the ship and…
He found it more difficult than he imagined to focus his thoughts into coherent sentences. This was one of the most detailed dreams he’d ever had. He chortled to himself.
Zed thought about spinning a fairy tale to the voice in his head, but decided at the last minute that honesty would probably be the wisest policy, until he figured out what was going on. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a dream.
Zed had tried neural cell phones the last time he was on Earth, and didn’t care much for the technology. THIS was much much more sophisticated. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes slowly, and squinted against the bright white light that seemed to come from the entire ceiling. He should have kept them closed. This certainly wasn’t sick bay aboard the garbage truck. He was lying naked on a low white bed and hundreds of tubes and wires and things he couldn’t begin to describe appeared to be plugged into his body. His head was elevated slightly, and other than his eyes, he couldn’t move a thing. For a fleeting moment he knew what Alice had felt like down the Rabbit Hole, but still the panic he should be feeling was being held at bay… somehow.
The question seemed to hold great importance to Lola.
Fernandez Edwardo Raphael Daniel Yates they had named him at birth. The recording official, slightly hung-over, took one look at the names, and shortened the whole thing to FERD Yates. His mother hadn’t liked it much, but his father was paying the bills. He’d received the nickname ‘Zed’ when his parents watched a sixty year old movie about aliens in New York. It figured. In 2073 he had his legal name changed back to Fernandez Edwardo Raphael Daniel Yates, but the nickname Zed appeared to have stuck. The year was now 2099, his hair was thinning and streaked with gray, and the only aliens they’d ever found were in San Francisco, or maybe Greenwich Village. He’d been born in Greenwich Village, although he eventually moved to Miami. Just under medium height and skinny, Zed had an aptitude for electro-mechanical systems, and after landing a PHD from UCLA in Aeronautical Engineering, naturally gravitated to a job in space.
Zed tried to sit up, but again found that he couldn’t move.
The breath caught in Zed’s throat.
Zed swallowed the sinking feeling in his stomach.
~~~
Nicole ran the entire way back to the hangar, reaching the garbage truck in a mere fifty minutes, totally out of breath, and puffing wildly. Her expression, seen through the clear face of her EVA suit was frozen in fear.
“Open up.” She shouted as soon as she saw the ship. “It’s me.” Something in the metal structure of the ship still blocked suit radios Zed noted, limiting communication to line-of-sight.
“Did you get the job done?” Maggie asked curtly.
“Oh hell no.” Nicole’s voice went up an octave. “Some floating robot caught Zed and jabbed a needle into the back of his head before I could do anything. The last I saw it was dragging him…” She hesitated as the deck trembled under her feet. “Let me in.” There was real panic in her voice now, as she banged a suited fist on the truck’s hull.
“Open the door to the hangar.” Maggie Xian’s voice was as cold as space. “We’re getting out of here.”
“But Zed…” Nicole began.
“Zed got us into this. I have to think of the rest of the crew, and the ship. Open the damn door.”
“Yes sir.” With only a little reluctance, Nicole fired her suit jets and floated across the hangar.
The 7651 Rose of the Dawn drifted gently out of the hangar, and into the blackness of space. “Standby for primary burn.” He heard Maggie murmur into the mic. “In five… four… three…”
“Commander!” First Officer Kane gasped. “The ship!” The grainy image of Maggie looked up and stopped, all thought of the countdown forgotten. Behind them the hangar door had flickered closed, and the battered warship was slowly accelerating away from them. The garbage truck dwindled and vanished, as with growing speed the Rose disappeared into the dark between the stars.
~~~
He opened his eyes, groaned, stood up and froze. Taking a deep breath of the sweet air, he finished standing. He’d never felt so good or so alive in his whole entire life.
Zed laughed.
He looked down at his hand with revulsion.
Brainwashed by my own blood. He sighed.
... and they are us Page 2