by Aaron Dennis
Her heart skipped a beat. She wanted no part of that, but looking at his expectant gaze, she took a second to ponder the premise.
“How would I even hook into it? It doesn’t have headgear….”
“That’s okay! I can check the helm on our ship and figure something out. I can do this...you work on a name,” he smiled and bolted from his chair.
He left her in mid breath. She had wanted to tell him not to bother, that it sounded too dangerous, but in the back of her mind, she knew if there was any possibility of helping O’Hara, helping her crew, all the races of the galaxy, she had to give it a shot, even though she secretly hoped there was no way of doing what Swain intended.
****
The big man stopped at the new cafeteria and picked up a Philly cheese sub. He then took a cart into the city outskirts. Normally, there was paperwork and copies of ID’s, but he didn’t have time for all that. He just drove off before anyone noticed, kicking dust in his wake while he devoured his lunch.
The outdoors was invigorating. He hadn’t left the lab for anything short of food and sleep, and several times, he ate and napped at his desk. Crisp, clean air filled his lungs. Stopping short in front of the space cat, he marveled once again at its exquisiteness.
“Should call it One Bad Kitty Beast, or O.B.K.B,” he snickered.
Placing his hand on the door, he watched it sink down to reveal steps leading to the interior airlock, and beyond it, were three doors, leading to various decks. There was an ominous, dead air about the craft when powered down, sterile, like a morgue; none of the lights were on.
He made his way through the semi darkness and to the bridge, where he simply plunked down in the helm. He fumbled for the switch next to the rail, and the headgear came down from the ceiling.
He placed it over his head, but it didn’t activate. Sitting there, breathing slowly with his eyes closed, he relaxed, delving into the mechanics. Seconds later, he sifted through components, which brought to mind a foreign language, but one piece at a time, he started making connections, analogies.
“I see it…this helmet can only be used by a pilot, whose brain is operating on a specific frequency, something similar to entering theta levels when going to sleep,” he muttered.
There was no way for him to achieve the phenomenon, but he gleaned enough information to construct new headgear. After removing the helmet and sliding out of the seat, he marched back to the airlock, and finally exited the craft.
A full belly and a slow ride back to the hangar were enough to reignite the fire under his ass. Orange light washed over his face. Fresh air whipped by his ears. Stopping outside the lab, he sauntered from the cart to the door, swiped, entered, made for the comms. and called out.
“Attention! All scientists, report.”
Chapter Twenty Five
Swain gave the men a breakdown regarding how the traveler’s helm functioned. They went to work on a new design. By the end of the day, they created a 3-D rendition on computers.
“Mister Swain,” Frep called.
“What’s the problem?”
“There’s a lack of Swainium alloy. What would you like to do?”
“Oh…man, oh, man.”
He puzzled over the predicament, but a Thewl proposed scrapping nonessentials from the Explorer, which brought them to the next phase, creating a program to pilot the helm. Such a feat resulted in another round of irritation; no one had a clue how to proceed. Munching on his lower lip, the big man snapped his fingers.
“Nandy!”
He called his friend through his personal comm. “Copy,” the voice resounded.
“Busy? I need you in the lab.”
“No, Sir; just watching Fitzpatrick and DeReaux teach some youngsters how to shoot. What did you need?”
“Just get over here on the double!”
“Roger that.”
Swain paced back and forth, occasionally bumping into others trying to navigate around him. He was practically dancing on his toes, waiting for Nandesrikahl. When he shambled into the hangar, Swain ran right over to him.
“Can you understand computer lingo?”
“Uh, I don’t know. What exactly do you have in mind?”
“I want to sit Day down at the helm and have her access the core programs, which route information between her and the ship. I’m hoping that if you get a look at the code, you can figure out what it means.”
Nandy was taken aback; he did a double take with his mouth slightly open. “That’s some wild idea, you’ve got there. ’Ow–”
“Never mind how,” Swain interrupted. “I’ll tell Day to meet us back at the ship. C’mon.”
As Swain dragged his friend by the sleeve to the cart, he called Day, letting her in on the plan. Once they convened on the traveler’s ship’s bridge, she hopped into the chair and stuck the helmet on her head. Following Swain’s instructions, she accessed the basic code from various programs, brought the monitor from the wall out, and myriads of symbols flashed over the screen.
Nandesrikahl looked them over. He shook his head after a moment. Swain pouted.
Nandy knew his friend was at his wit’s end. “Maybe, if I hear it?”
“Hear it?” Swain echoed. “Miss Day–”
“On it,” she cut him off.
Day asked the ship to verbalize the code. What they all heard was similar to antiquated, dialup connections of the late Twentieth Century on Earth. While Swain covered his ears, Nandesrikahl listened attentively. Each tone, break in sound, and sequential repetition provided a set of ideas, blocks of cogent logic. He easily translated the code into what only he saw as a digital alphabet.
“Sure…sure,” Nandesrikahl remarked between bits of laughter. “All we need is to translate it into binary. Then, your programmers can build their own version from the ground up. Astonishing….”
****
Nandesrikahl spent countless hours speaking into a recording device. The numbers one and zero poured from his mouth. He collected data until his throat was raw, but when he was done, he passed it on to programmers.
The following days were spent building a helm for Day, writing code, and toying around with some weapons. Since there was little for Swain to do outside of supervising, he had visited his old friends on the Explorer, where he handled a brand new photon rifle, one he had visualized for the captain. It was bulky, but light, had four, revolving barrels, each containing a lens, which allowed for an endless stream of photon blasts; it was a photon, machine gun.
He, DeReaux, Fitzpatrick, and O’Hara ran off into the woods to test it out. All manners of chirps, whistles, and rustling warbled through the trees. The captain tried out his new toy, searing right through trunks, and unfortunately, setting them ablaze. Swain suggested firing at boulders instead.
They had a riot. No one spoke two words about the Lokians; their upcoming fight seemed a thing of science fiction, and the odds were stacked against them. Rather than being mired in negativity, they enjoyed their time together, shooting through stone, chasing after scaly birds, watching lizards with shells climb golden trees; it was magnificent.
****
The time had come. Thewlian programmers devised a basic, operating code allowing Day to link with the alien through the newly fashioned helm. For safety reasons, the helm was built outside the vessel, and cables ran from the chair and helmet to the thing’s innards. After careful consideration, and words of confidence provided by O’Hara, she took her seat, and holding her breath, she established a connection with local servers.
It took a long time to translate the Lokian codes into binary—Nandy was none too pleased—but when their combined efforts came to fruition, they created a hybrid program to fully access the alien’s systems, including the subspace drives. As it turned out, how they functioned was irrelevant. What was important was her ability to control them.
Rounds of applause clamored throughout the hangar. Swain praised God. Then, O’Hara called everyone together.
“
Alright, we’ve come this far, and that’s great, but we still have a problem. We don’t know where to go or how to navigate subspace.”
“I’ve spent some time scanning Lokian data. There are bits of messages relayed to and from the ship,” Day said. “The ship received orders from multiple programs from a solitary source. I think it’s the Lokian in charge…the queen.”
“Does that mean you know where to go,” O’Hara asked.
“It means I don’t have to. I can tell the ship to take us back to its point of origin,” she replied, gravely.
“Stellar work, Day,” the admiral said.
O’Hara glanced at everyone. They looked ready, determined. The agents nodded to him. Lay even patted him on the back.
“Is there anything else we should do,” he asked
“We’re pretty much all set to go, son,” Lay answered. “In the meantime, I’ll be keeping lines open with the Carrier. We’re still not sure about the Yvlekesh, but things are looking good here.”
“Sir?”
“Humans and Thewls have Eon covered; you go give those Lokian assholes a taste of their own medicine.”
“Copy that, Sir,” O’Hara chuckled.
He saluted, and the admiral returned the gesture. With a final glance to those in the hangar, he took a deep breath, exhaled, widened his eyes, and motioned for the engineers to open the Lokian. Less than an hour later, the helm was integrated into the vessel.
“Alright, you guys ready?” Everyone nodded. “Let’s climb in that thing,” O’Hara commanded.
Chapter Twenty Six
The alien’s interior was surprisingly barren. Apart from the rich, brown walls and bony framework, the ship looked like a ship. Swain and the Thewls had worked diligently to forge a familiar atmosphere. It lacked niceties, though. There were no crew quarters, no mess hall, no tech lab, or bridge.
The reasoning wasn’t just a concern over time or resources, but the fact that there was no guarantee the ship was coming back. For all intents and purposes, O’Hara’s men were on a suicide run. As they stood inside a partitioned, storage room spanning the length of a football field, dual-system lockouts engaged in the event of a hull breach. Hisses followed by clanks rang ominously. The captain’s mind played on the image of a coffin sealed shut.
“Hm,” he groaned.
“What is it,” Day asked.
“Nothing…it’s just so….”
“Ascetic,” Adams asked.
“Sure…anyway, Day, would you take the helm?”
“Copy.” Once settled, she broke the silence. “I found data archives with some details about their world.”
“Thank you, Day. Now, if you don’t mind,” O’Hara interjected.
She sighed at his dismissive attitude, but removed her headgear to listen. The captain stood before everyone with his hands at parade rest. His eyes hardened before he spoke.
“First and foremost, I’m honored to be accompanied by this brave crew. You’ve all gone above and beyond what’s asked of you. The truth is….
“Well…the truth is that we’re going into subspace to travel to the Lokian home world. Our mission is to find the queen and destroy her. You know, we started this mission on an alien craft without comprehending the horrors that lied in wait, and oddly enough, we’re ending the mission in a very similar fashion.
“Sadly, there are friends who should be here, but they’ve given everything for the cause. Martinez, Zakowski, Imes, Becker, and several Thewls…countless lives gone in the blink of an eye; for them, we must put this mission—the fate of our world—before ourselves, and know, not fear, that we may fall as well, but not until we’ve succeeded. Failure now is bigger than the end of the world…it’s beyond the end of the world…it’s the end of all intelligent life in this galaxy….”
Furrowed brows, stoic faces, and deep breaths resonated. Adams and Franklin traded glances. DeReaux smiled. O’Hara smiled, too. He took one, good, hard look at the crew.
“Phoenix Crew, can I get a hoorah?” the captain screamed.
The crew resounded with a booming hoorah in return.
“I said, what’s that? Can I get a hoorah?” Again, the crew fired back, hoorah! O’Hara’s smiled melted away, then. “Alright, as far as the plan goes,” he started, but gave one of Lay’s patented, long inhalations. “We kept the original Lokian programming embedded in our own runtimes in order to hide that we’re using a rogue ship. Hopefully, this lets us blend in.
“Remember, we are one ship amidst billions of enemies. Any foul up, and we’re dead. Day, bring up the screen.”
On the bridge’s wall, a screen glowed. They turned to find it displaying a 3-D layout of the Lokian home world as provided by data within local servers.
“Lokians don’t dock the way we do. They organize like pieces of a program. Data is shared via their satellite uplink,” Day explained.
The image spun, revealing an odd mass. The labeling indicated where vessels docked and registered. The captain weighed the possibilities as he observed the image. Something clicked in his brain; they were not only a hive; they were a digital hive.
“The plan is to show up with information of a new civilization ripe for harvesting,” he started. “Obviously, it’s false information, but it’ll entice them to send out a scouting party…we believe.” Swain and the agents nodded. “While they scramble, their systems will detect an anomaly within our vessel. If I’m right, and let’s pray that I am, the Lokians will order us to a physical docking in order to flush the memory core and re-establish programming.”
“Similar to re-installing an OS on a computer with a virus,” Swain added.
“Right, this is our opportunity to leave the ship and enter the Lokian’s system core. Day’s data shows it here,” O’Hara said, pointing to a darkened, round opening in the flashing, 3-D display, “like an enormous hangar where they store everything including the physical equipment they need to do whatever it is that they do. Now, we move down this path.” By sliding his finger over the screen, the image spun. “At this juncture, we need to drop explosives on a time delay; I am hoping to make it back to the ship after all. Once on the ship, we haul ass out, and try to get back to standard space.” Adams stepped forward. “Yes?”
“Sir, we have some very special explosives.”
“Heh, very special, very dangerous, we obtained some anti-matter particles from Admiral Yew. A miniature AMRMC ought to wipe the Lokians out of existence,” Franklin added.
“Nice,” Fitzpatrick exclaimed.
“Yeah,” O’Hara remarked.
DeReaux stepped forward next and spoke. “Once we enter on foot, won’t we be detected?”
Nodding, O’Hara admitted that was a very real possibility. “I’m betting we’ll have to fight security forces. Think of them as antibodies; they’ll know a foreign substance is present, and they will try to eliminate us.”
“With what?” Fitzpatrick barked.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “Regardless, this ship’s archives show internal defenses are minimal. The enemy is designed to believe there is no way to enter the core without being Lokian, which means access will be simple if we get past docking procedures, but once inside, we gotta’ go, go , go.”
“Designed by whom?” DeReaux interrupted.
“By the Lokians,” Swain said.
DeReaux said it didn’t make any sense; that they designed themselves. He and Swain then got into an argument. The agents reprimanded them, but O’Hara laughed.
“Okay…what about the queen,” Fitzpatrick asked.
“The memory core is the queen. She’s a series of programs contained in a physical shell. The blast should sever connections with her minions, making them both blind and disorganized, which hopefully disables everything. These things don’t survive independently; they can’t; they don’t know how to move, where to go, how to eat, where to recharge–”
“What if we’re detected immediately?” Nandesrikahl interrupted.
�
��We integrated a stealth system similar to the traveler ship. By the way, I heard we named that thing,” O’Hara said.
“Yeah, we settled on Mittins,” Day replied.
The captain winced, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
“But if we are detected?” Nandesrikahl pried.
“Then, we have to overload the subspace drive and destroy it there,” O’Hara responded.
“Which will kill us,” Swain interjected and pointed with his left index finger for drama.
The captain shrugged, “Well, I mean, regardless, it’ll kill the queen and save the galaxy,” O’Hara said, unable to hold back a smile.
“Oh, okay this is funny,” Fitzpatrick inquired as she raised her hands to her sides.
“Well…maybe not haha funny….”
The agents shook their heads, exchanged a glance, and smiled.
“Is there a way to drop the subspace drive, maybe, and set it on a time delay to explode so we can avoid danger,” Fitzpatrick asked in a leading fashion.
“No,” Swain said. “Without the drive, we can’t leave subspace. Even at F.T.L. travel we might survive the blast, but we’ll be marooned.”
“So we could drop it,” DeReaux countered.
“But we’d still be dead,” Swain chortled.
“What about a second drive? A back up or something,” Fitzpatrick probed further.
“No, not without a second, Lokian ship. Even if we captured another, we have no way of piloting it. Day is the only one who can do it,” O’Hara snipped. “I need you guys to understand, this could very well be a one way trip.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment. Abruptly, Fitzpatrick exploded into a belly laugh. The joke was lost on everyone.
“They’ve all been suicide runs, man,” she said. “Fuck it. Let’s do it!”
“Real quick,” DeReaux started. “What if their ships attack us? Like, what if the queen calls for back up while we’re docked?”