by Kord Stone
Desperately he called out, “Alise? Can you hear me?” Still there was no response.
He went to the passage to the engine room and thought Entry but nothing happened. He put his hand to the wall and as he did an arc of energy passed between him and the wall.
The passage opened and he went into the inner corridor and put his hand on the wall to enter the engine room. The engine was dead silent, not a single light flickering anywhere. He approached it in the near darkness and, thinking it had worked for the door, he placed his hands on the engine and proceeded to push energy from his body into it.
It wasn’t a complete failure. He did feel the energy pass from him to the ship, but it just wasn’t enough to restart the engine. He tried repeatedly to no avail.
He thought out loud, “How the hell am I going to restart this engine?” A moment later a new archway opened.
Jason stared at the archway, hoping it was the answer but also remembering Alise’s concern about his going into unknown rooms. Figuring at this point he had nothing to lose, he cautiously entered.
The blurring effect passed over him and he stood in a hexagonal room. A table in the same shape was situated in the middle. He walked around, taking in the configuration and looking at the walls. All six had monitors on them. The archway he had just come through closed and turned into a display that read, TDS 1 System Failure Imminent. To his right a display read, TDS 2 Off Line. The next wall read, TDS 3 Powered Down, and the next read, TDS 4 Off Line, followed by, TDS 5 System Optimal. The last wall just read, Stasis. He walked around, looking for a console or some way to interface with the ship but had no luck.
Jason muttered to himself, Okay now what? As he did a console rose from the table in front of the wall through which he had just entered, and came online. He went to the console, sat in one of the two chairs in front of it, and read, TDS 1 System Failure Eminent. A system restart flashed on the screen, and he reached out, hesitated only a second and then pressed his finger to it. The screen went blank a moment then the lights seemed to dim in the room and a second later the screen came to life with a complex algorithm. Fifteen minutes later the display changed to read, TDS 1 System Optimal. With a sigh of relief, he went back to his ship to check on everyone.
When Jason reentered the ship, his mind was assailed with voices from all over. It was almost nauseating. He managed to suppress the voices and entered the control room then he heard Alise’s voice ring out. “You are back. Where have you been?”
He took in a few deep breaths and as he did, the voices faded away completely. He saw Alise at the control panel and explained about finding the archway in the engine room and restarting the ship.
Alise looked stunned. “How long did that take?”
“About fifteen minutes, I’d say…not too long.”
“The ship has been back online for almost two hours now. The final systems restarted a couple of minutes ago. I was concerned that one of the other ships had transported you off this one. What happened after the shutdown? I thought we were all goners.”
He explained about feeling the sense of calm and how his body seemed to be reaching out and crushing the ships and how the others fled. When he got to the other pyramid ship, he paused.
“And?” she prompted.
“Well I could sense the other TDS ship just out of phase. It angered me that they were watching us being attacked and I became more focused, then reached out to grab that ship. I concentrated as much as I could, but when I reached out to end all of this I felt a surge of energy rebound back to me. Right after that they took off and I couldn’t sense them anymore.”
“Something is not right. There is no way that commander could have beat us to your family.” A glazed look momentarily passed over her face. “Unless he was already heading there, before…” She said the last part in a muffled tone. “Well at least none of our passengers was injured too badly. Scrapes and bruises mostly.”
“Have you talked with them yet?”
“Yes, and now I am wishing I had not done that stunt at your birthday party. They will not stop pestering me for answers I did not have. It took me a good hour to get your parents and uncle to go up to the second level. I had to threaten them with depressurizing the ship if they did not leave me be. Every minute or so they open the communications demanding to know what is happening.”
As if on cue, the communications console chirped and his father’s angry voice shouted for Alise to tell them what was happening.
“None of your family were amused at being stuck in decon for a little over forty-five minutes.” A smirk that looked like a mixture of amusement and pity had crossed her face, and she told him, “Now that you are back, you can take care of them.”
He could feel the relief emanating from her as she walked away and he stifled a laugh. That was until it sank in that she was right. He did have to deal with his family. Letting out a groan, he opened the communications and informed his father that he would be right up.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jason could understand Alise’s pain in dealing with his family. He did not want to go into too many details, so he just explained about the other TDS ship and how that commander was tracking them, and the attack that all of them had just survived. But they just would not let up. The only ones who stood up and finally got the rest of the family to back down were his brothers. They could see he was stressed and not in the best of moods. Didn’t the others realize what a close call it had been? Guess not.
He was back on the first level and was about to go into the control room when an idea came to him. Looking to the engine room a second he called out, “Alise, could you come over here a second?”
“How did the family take it?” she asked with a knowing smirk.
“About as well as I expected. Jerren and Justin got them to calm down a little. I was about ready to send them back to the planet to fend for themselves when my brothers stepped in.”
She chuckled. “You would not have done that, and you know it.”
“Yeah, but the thought made me calm down,” he said with a laugh. “Enough of that, I need you to do me a favor… Nothing to do with the family!” he stated, seeing her hesitation.
“Okay then what can I do for you?”
He looked at her, knowing full well she was going to argue. “I need you to perform a DNA track.”
“Who do you want me to track?”
He hesitated a second. “Me.”
Alise looked a little befuddled. “You are on the ship. It will not work with you so close, not to mention all of your family onboard.” She paused a moment, apparently lost in thought, then said, “I could tag the others to block them from showing up but as I said, you are too close.”
He steeled himself for the argument. “I’m going back to the meeting room and I want you to track me while I’m there. How long will that take?”
He was right. Alise was not happy about his idea at all. Her main concern was he might not be able to get back. That was when he argued that he had made it there and back when the ship was a mess and thought it would be fine. In the end Alise relented but she insisted he put on a life monitor similar to the ones she had given to his brothers at the birthday party.
Their plan was simple. He was to go there and wait until the alarm went off on the life monitor, then come right back. She told him it should not take any longer than twelve hours, so he figured there would be time to poke around in there.
* * * * *
Jason had been in the meeting room for about an hour before he got into the computer enough to finally get some usable information. The room he was in was listed as the master control room. It was directly connected to five ships, or at least it had been connected at some point. The data showed one of the five ships had been destroyed thirty-five thousand years ago and the second had been destroyed a year later. The third ship went offline fifteen thousand years ago, which left his ship and one other still active. It was fascinating. The deeper into the systems he de
lved, the more he seemed to absorb and understand about the running of the ship. There was an endless stream of data and he knew it would take far longer to examine than he had.
Jason had been sifting through the files of information for about six of the allotted twelve hours when his attention was drawn to the third ship. It had powered down and he wondered if there was something wrong with it. With that thought, a diagnostic program began running on the wall. Startled by the activity he thought, How am I doing all of this? As if another command had been input, the monitor in front of him brought up a schematic showing a very complex system that indicated the connections between his ship, the disk attached to his head and the master control room, more specifically the console directly associated with his ship. On the console were the words,
TDS 1
Minimal access protocol
Reengage full access (Yes) or (No)
He thought what the hell and clicked (Yes). For a moment he thought his head was going to explode. He could feel the information throttle back as he saw the screen flash and heard alarms sounding. The pain receded and he looked at the display, which now read,
TDS 1
Minimal access protocol.
Reengage full access (Yes) or (No).
Safety Protocol engaged auto data stream reduced to 25%.
As the safety protocol activated, his head ceased to pound as much. He silently admitted he was never going to mention what had just happened to Alise if he could help it. He figured she would never let him hear the end of it. He saw streams of data pop up and instantly knew what was in them. This is the only way to learn. From the looks of the diagram he was reviewing, he would be streaming data from the control room even if he were on his ship. He stood and went to the TDS 3 station and requested a console. One appeared but it allowed only minor queries regarding the status of the ship. He did a status check and the diagnostic that had started a few minutes earlier popped up on the screen. A few seconds later the report read out,
TDS 3
AL not online
No life forms onboard, fifteen thousand one hundred thirty-three years
Location 374.4 KKSLO Terra .5 PTD.
AL commander no longer viable.
Reset binding disk for new commander? (YES) or (NO).
Jason’s mind was reeling. He looked to the wall and thought, Where is TDS 3 location 374.4 KKSLO Terra .5 PTD?
As he thought it, a map of a spiral galaxy appeared on the wall. Then it zoomed in until it came to rest on a blinking dot on the far side of a moon that if he was not mistaken was orbiting Earth. Well it looked like Earth. The continents were a lot closer than he remembered but it was definitely an image of Earth.
He knew from what Alise said that the ships could not be in the same location and phase at the same time. So how was he going to be able to board the ship? Once again, as the thought crossed his mind, an archway appeared on the wall where the map had been, and he thought, No guts no glory. He took a deep breath and stepped through the archway.
* * * * *
The second he entered TDS 3, he knew he had made a serious mistake. The ship was colder than shit and the gravity was gone. When he exhaled, his breath instantly turned to ice and he began floating in the darkness as his face and eyes began freezing. He reached behind himself and grasped the archway to pull himself back through. A freezing burn filled his lungs when he made the mistake of inhaling. That is when he noticed his hand began to burn as well. It was freezing to the metal he had grasped. He jerked as hard as he could to remove his hand from the archway and was hurtling back through the archway into the master control room. His hand tore free as he fell to the floor of the master control room, and he began coughing in painful rasps.
His hand was frozen and felt as if it and his lungs were on fire at the same time. A large portion of his skin was missing from the palm of his left hand and fingers. He grasped it with his other hand when the pain began to surge. Taking deep breaths, he tried not to lose consciousness. He was just about to open the archway to his ship when the pain began to subside in his hand. He looked down and found his hand was regenerating itself, but seemed to stop when he lifted his other hand away from it. He put it back and the wound continued to mend. About a minute later, he stared in amazement. There wasn’t even a mark where the injury had occurred, and he noted the pain in his lungs and face was diminishing as well.
He took a seat in front of his console, and thought. It was a damn good thing Alise was not here. She would be furious that he didn’t do as she asked. Curiosity had always been his weakness. Well not just his, his brothers’ as well. They had gotten into a lot of trouble over the years as children. The trio had once wandered off and had a grand adventure with their imaginary friend. At least that’s what they kept telling everyone, even though they couldn’t recall any of the details.
When they got back home, their father had grounded them for the rest of their lives. That turned out to be little over a month but to three eight-year-olds it felt like a lifetime. They couldn’t understand what was so wrong until their father calmed down enough to enlighten them. He sat them down and explained that they had been missing for over three months. Their father feared they had been kidnapped or dead, which made them feel guilty over the pain and grief they had caused him.
Their punishment had been lifted on their ninth birthday and they swore they would never wander off again. Their mother had been struck by lightning the morning they were born and died during childbirth. Their father did his best to raise them on his own, but after they went missing he must have decided going it alone was a bad idea, and soon after that he married his on-again-off-again girlfriend from work.
Before long his half brother Timmy was born. From that point on, he and his brothers’ lives changed a great deal. He and his brothers were constantly being watched by their new mother. They became the live-in babysitters and were forced to be more responsible, thus ending even the potential for minor adventures, but his curious nature was still there.
Jason broke from his reminiscing, stood and in the process of stretching he glanced over at the TDS 5 wall. He considered the possibility of entering TDS 5 and removing the other commander by force, to stop him from pursuing his family. Thinking it had worked for TDS 3 he approached and said, “Archway TDS 5.” He waited, but nothing happened, and after repeating the request a couple more times, he turned and called for the console associated with TDS 5. He tried several times to access any of the ship’s functions, but those requests too were fruitless. So he went back to his terminal to see if there was any way to access TDS 5 from the console he did have access to.
What he found was that the connections between the master control room and the individual TDS ships were all set to minimal access, and full access could be activated only by the commander of each ship. Currently his ship was the only one with the full access activated. The only function available to him for all the ships was communications. He was never one for negotiating. His brother Justin was more of the people person, and Jason considered going back to TDS 1 to have Justin contact the other commander. He didn’t want to interfere with the DNA tracking Alise was performing any more than he might already have done by entering TDS 3, so reluctantly he opened communications with TDS 5.
Jason spent a good hour attempting to get TDS 5’s commander to speak with him, but those requests were met with silence. He considered the possibility that for some reason the other commander was unable to hear him, so he also sent several text requests for negotiations as well. That was when he realized the other commander was just ignoring his requests. His terminal showed that the messages had been received and opened, but he still did not reply. At a loss for what to do about TDS 5 for the moment, he continued his perusal of the master control room’s database.
Jason glanced down at the console then he inspected his healed hand. He silently chastised himself. He should have realized that being powered down for so long, the ship would not have active life support.
That would have included heating and gravity. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again! From now on he would scan a ship’s environment before entering. He tried and tried but couldn’t activate the life support system on TDS 3. It appeared as if only the commander or the AI could restart the ship and reinstate life support. It did appear however that he could assign a new commander. He chuckled as he thought, Who do I know who would make a good commander? His alarm went off, snapping his mind back to the present. He stood and thought, Archway TDS 1, and once it appeared he stepped through with a grin.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alise had been beside herself with panic and was not above letting Jason see and feel her displeasure. “I was afraid something like this might happen! Why could you not make it back in the allotted time?”
Jason shrugged. “What are you talking about? The alarm went off and I came back.”
This knocked Alise off kilter and she asked to see his life monitor. He handed it over to her and she examined it thoroughly, her irritation fading slowly at what she saw.
“So?” he asked.
Alise evaluated the data from the life monitor a moment longer, then remembered what Jason had told her after he restarted the ship. She handed the monitor to him. “Put it back on please. You have been gone for over ninety-six hours. I was tracking your DNA but I could not get a lock for about forty-eight hours. After the first twelve hours, I tried repeatedly to contact you over the life monitor but there was no response. Then about forty-eight hours after you left, you appeared on my tracking for about thirty seconds and vanished again. I see why I could not track or contact you however. There was a phased time difference. You were in a phased negative eight dilation wherever you were…”