by G J Ogden
“Not quite how you remember it, I take it?” said Sonner, who was standing behind him.
“Not exactly,” Taylor replied, looking at the contraption that he now saw in place of his bed. It looked more like an operating table, with conduits and wires and plugs sprouting from it like tentacles. Even more disconcerting was the compartment directly above it, which was molded in the shape of a head. He knew the question he needed to ask, but didn’t want to hear the answer.
“What goes in that compartment? And please don’t tell me it’s my head.”
“Everything about your existence up until a few hours ago was a lie,” Sonner answered. “Do you really want me to lie to you now?”
Taylor shook his head, “No, I suppose not.” Though in the case of the ominous head-shaped compartment, he didn’t feel an urgent need to know the truth either. “What is this thing for?” he asked, gesturing to what used to be his bed.
“You didn’t think that you actually spent your days literally walking around this ship, did you, like a little simulant happy family?” said Sonner snarkily, though Taylor chose to let it slide on account of her obvious exhaustion. He also become grouchy when he was tired, though he wondered if perhaps that wouldn’t be a problem for him any longer. “Your simulant bodies are only needed when you embark on a planetary mission or have to physically leave the ship for another reason. For the rest of the time, you lived out your fantasy life in a sort of dream-state. In essence you existed inside each other’s minds.”
Taylor remembered how disorientated he had felt after waking in his cabin, before the mission had begun, and how the rest of the crew had appeared to suffer from a similar malaise. And then he recalled his strange dream-like experiences after falling from the stack of containers in the hangar, and how he had appeared in the void in space, in the corridor with the starlight door. And, before that, the memory of standing on the balcony of an apartment in Astoria, looking out across the Columbia River, and seeing Casey, Blake and Satomi there with him, but in what he now recognized as their simulant bodies. He didn’t know what it all meant, but certainly what Sonner was saying made sense in a sick and twisted kind of way. The Hedalt had maintained the pretense of normal life and real human relationships, while for the most part these were just interactions between their brains, which had been neatly stored in head-shaped compartments, like some sort of gruesome nineteenth-century circus attraction.
Taylor had never hated the Hedalt, despite them having killed millions during the war, or what turned out to be his altered memory of it, in which Earth had actually prevailed. For him, serving in Earth Fleet and commanding the DSR mission was merely doing his duty. But the reality of what the Hedalt were and what they had done was far worse even than the monsters he remembered. They had destroyed the Earth of his memory and almost wiped out all human life in the galaxy – for all he knew, Sonner was the last human alive – and he had been complicit in this act of race extermination. That he had not been aware of his actions didn’t matter to him; the Hedalt had manipulated him like a marionette and used him as a weapon to mop up the rest of humanity. He wondered how many missions he had really been on, and if he had ever actually destroyed a human colony. Where his memories of the four-year DSR mission were concerned, all they had ever found were ghosts, but if they had the ability to manipulate what he remembered, then perhaps they could also manipulate what he could forget.
“Can we have this thing dismantled?” asked Taylor, feeling disgusted at the sight of it. If he’d still had a stomach, he was sure it would be churning.
“I’m afraid not,” said Sonner, ominously. “You’ll still need to use it to maintain your simulant body.”
“Taylor turned his back to the room and peered into Sonner’s eyes, “You’re telling me I need to plug-in and recharge?”
Sonner laughed, “No, nothing so rudimentary. The simulant frame can harvest energy from a number of sources, including your little bed there, but remember that your brain is organic, and so it still needs to sleep.”
“Great, then I’ll be needing an actual bed.”
“You don’t need a bed…” said Sonner, nodding towards the head-shaped opening in the wall, her lips curled into a mischievous grin.
“Over my dead simulant body!” cried Taylor leaving the room and hearing the door slide shut behind him. “If I’m going to live in this frame then I’m going to live as much like a normal human being as possible. And that means I need a proper bed.”
“Fair enough,” said Sonner. “I can try to rig something up that interfaces with the cranial storage unit in the wall.”
“Can we not talk about that?” Taylor complained, leading them towards the bridge.
“Okay…” Sonner replied, but then her lips curled into a wicked grin again, “though it does give a new meaning to needing some headspace.”
Taylor stopped and spun towards her, “Look that’s not funny!” he said, but was unable to stop himself from laughing, and for a few moments they were both afflicted by the giggles.
Sonner wiped a tear away from her eye, “Oh damn, I’m sorry. I really must get some sleep!”
“It’s okay, laughing makes me feel… normal.”
“Then I’ll do my best to make you laugh as much as I can,” said Sonner, warmly.
As they continued on towards the bridge, Sonner detailed the internal modifications that she planned to make to the ship so that it was more hospitable to both humans and simulants. She had already loaded a small army of the maintenance drones from the hangar into the ship’s hold, since they were far superior to the Hedalt equivalent on the Corvette, and would complete the tasks with greater efficiency. Plus, if they were to suffer damage during their future adventures, the greater number of more advanced drones would be better equipped to conduct deep space repairs to the ship, too.
Taylor had pointed out that before converting the ship to be more hospitable to humans they first needed to find a few more members of Earth Fleet, but Sonner had not been deterred, and again Taylor was cross at himself for being negative. It was like he’d turned into Blake and Sonner had become him, filled with optimism even in the darkest of situations.
The door to the bridge slid open and they stepped inside. This, at least, looked completely unchanged from the way Taylor remembered it. “Finally, something that seems normal.”
“Good, because you’re flying,” said Sonner, as she practically collapsed into the command chair.
Taylor shot her a look that, even with his artificial muscles and shimmering silver eyes, left no doubt as to his displeasure.
“Hey, I told you that we needed to maintain a rank structure, and in case you hadn’t noticed, Commander outranks Captain, which makes this chair mine.”
“Technically speaking, I’m a Hedalt secret operative who never enrolled in Earth Fleet,” Taylor hit back, unwilling to capitulate his command so easily. “And since this is in fact a Hedalt Corvette , I believe that actually makes the chair mine.”
Sonner considered this for a moment and shrugged. “That’s a fair point.” Then she scratched her ear and half scrunched up her face, “I’ll let you into a little secret, Captain. I’m an engineering officer, so I actually don’t know how to pilot this class of starship...”
Taylor laughed, not cruelly, though it was hard to tell from the way his body reproduced the sound, and the bleak expression on Sonner’s face seemed to highlight this.
“No offense intended, Commander,” he said, raising his hands, “It’s actually nice to know that you’re not infallible. It makes you... well, human.”
Taylor walked over to the pilot’s station and placed his hands on the back of the chair, careful not to apply too much pressure this time. This had been Casey’s domain; he had never known a better natural flyer than her, or at least that’s what the original Taylor’s memories told him. But he’d seen her fly with his own eyes too and although not all of what he’d seen had been real, Casey’s flying had to be, otherwise the sh
ip would have been a wreck lying on the volcanic rock floor of the lava tube. The only way he would ever know for sure would be to find Casey again, somewhere out in the stars, wake her, and see if she really was the maverick pilot he remembered her to be.
He sat down in the chair and ran through the pre-flight checks, but then he noticed the flashing indicator on the main status panel, showing that the ship’s connection to the CoreNet was still down, and he had a thought.
“If we leave the lava tube in this ship, it will re-establish a connection to the CoreNet,” said Taylor swiveling around in the chair to face Sonner. “That would make the Hedalt suspicious and they’d want to know what happened. It might even prompt them to come out here and find out for themselves.”
“Way ahead of you, Captain,” said Sonner with a smug smile, “I already made sure your ship’s transceiver was deactivated, while the drones were busy repairing the ship.”
Taylor was impressed. “And I suppose you already deactivated the comms tower on the surface too?” Sonner’s face fell, indicating that she had not.
“Is that how you found this place?” she asked, hurriedly punching a complex sequence of commands into the panel on the chair.
“Yes, though it still took some finding. In fact, if hadn’t been for Satomi...” Taylor’s voice trailed off abruptly as Satomi’s name was spoken out loud. He looked across to her station and felt her loss keenly once again.
Sonner glanced up at Taylor, and then followed his gaze across to the mission operations console, before finishing the sequence of commands and resting forward on the chair arms.
“I’m not even sure why I’m asking, because I don’t know how it would work, but was there something between you two?”
Taylor physically recoiled back into his chair and blustered a response. If his face had been capable of blushing, it would have turned a crimson red. “No, of course not. I was her commanding officer, it wouldn’t have been right.”
Sonner sniffed and rubbed her nose, before nodding, “Uh huh, I understand.”
“I mean it! I mean, I liked her, sure, but it was purely professional,” Taylor lied. He wasn’t even sure why he was trying to hide it.
“Don’t sweat it, Captain. They wouldn’t have put you all together if there wasn’t some kind of chemistry between you,” said Sonner, resting back again. Then she smiled another mischievous smile. “Though it does explain why you’re so eager to put the team back together. And one person in particular, I think?...”
Taylor had recovered his composure; it helped not having to deal with flutters in his stomach. “I’m keen to put the team back together, because I got them killed,” he said, sourly. Then he jabbed a finger at Sonner, “and, in case you forgot, you killed them.”
“And I’ll help you find them again, and wake them, Captain. You have my word.”
Taylor didn’t yet know what this woman’s word was worth, but he had no choice but to find out.
The status panel on Sonner’s chair bleeped and she checked it. “The deep space comms tower has been deactivated. Let’s hope that’s the last malfunction this base throws at us.”
“The Hedalt could still send a ship to check on what happened to us,” said Taylor. “I mean, to the original us. And if they do, there’s still a chance they might find this base.”
Sonner rubbed her face and sighed heavily, “Yes, you’re right. If they find this place then there’s no hope of fighting back, no matter how many survived in the other locations. The entire Nimrod Fleet is right here.”
Taylor swung his chair back around and checked his panel. Pre-flight checks had been completed and the ship was ready to launch; but they weren’t the only ship in the hangar, which gave him an idea.
“What if we load the transceiver from this ship onto a Nimrod, and then crash it into one of the planets in this system?”
Sonner’s face suddenly looked less fatigued. “Not a bad idea, Captain. They would conclude that it was actually this ship that had crashed on the surface.”
“If they looked very closely, they might be able to see that it wasn’t a Hedalt Corvette,” admitted Taylor, finding fault with his own plan.
“They won’t look that closely,” said Sonner, confidently. “They are cold-hearted bastards who wouldn’t shed a tear over a lost ship, or crew, especially a simulant crew. They’d only mourn the loss of equipment.”
“I know my memory of them is pretty screwed up, but I don’t remember the Hedalt having tear ducts.”
“Very funny, Captain,” said Sonner, though she was struggling to hide a smirk. “I’m glad to see your sense of humor has survived intact.”
“Well, since I can’t cry either, I guess I have no choice but to laugh,” Taylor answered. “So, what do you think, do we try it or not?”
Sonner coughed and sank deeper into the chair. For a moment, Taylor thought she had nodded off. “One haggard Earth Fleet officer who feels half-dead already and a simulant with an overactive sentimental streak and a terrible sense of humor... we don’t really have much more to lose, do we?”
“At least you still have a beating heart, Commander,” said Taylor and then he did a double-take, “at least, I think you do anyway.”
Sonner laughed and Taylor joined in, adding his own slightly artificial mirth to the harmony.
“Okay, Captain, it’s a good plan, let’s do it. I’ll get the transceiver loaded onto a Nimrod, and then we’ll head out and see who else is still out there in this miserable galaxy.”
Taylor started to program the new course into the navigation computer, before replying, “Aye, aye, Commander Sarah Sonner.”
NINETEEN
Taylor slowed the modified Hedalt Corvette to a hover in front of the tunnel that led back out to the moon’s surface. Behind them, programmed to mimic Taylor’s every maneuver, was a single Nimrod-class cruiser, loaded with the Hedalt transceiver that Sonner had removed from the Corvette back in the hangar. It was through this device that the ship had interfaced with the CoreNet, through the vast galactic network known as the Fabric. The transceiver was currently deactivated, but with a press of a button on Sonner’s command chair, it would re-establish its connection to the CoreNet and give up the decoy ship’s position. By then the Nimrod-class cruiser would be on an unstoppable collision course with the surface of the fourth planet in the system. This was hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the small moon where the Contingency base and Nimrod Fleet lay hidden inside a lava tube, protected from ship’s scanners thanks to the unique composition of the volcanic crust. With the comms tower deactivated, it would take a miracle for a Hedalt scout to find the base, Sonner had argued. And if the Hedalt did send a recon vessel to the fourth planet they would simply discover the wreckage of a ship on the surface and move on. At the very least, it would draw the Hedalt’s attention away from the moon. Taylor and Sonner both knew there were no guarantees, but it was the best they could do.
Taylor gripped the control column and let out a long slow breath as the tunnel entrance grew larger through his pilot’s viewport. Then he laughed at the stupidity of what he’d just done; after all, he had no nerves to calm so taking a deep breath was utterly pointless. Sonner also appeared to have noticed his very human reaction to the challenging task ahead.
“Did you just sigh, Captain?” She asked the question as incredulously as if Taylor had just broken wind.
“Yes, and don’t ask me why,” Taylor replied, “though for some insane reason, it actually made me feel better to do it.”
“Fascinating…” said Sonner, though for a change she wasn’t being sarcastic. As an engineer, Taylor wasn’t surprised that she would find the intricacies of his synthetic body intriguing. “You know, your simulant frame was something of an enigma to Earth Fleet’s scientists.”
Taylor glanced back, with an interested frown, “How so?”
“Compared to the rest of Hedalt technology – this old bucket, for example…” she said, gesturing to the ship around them,
“the engineering complexity of the simulant frame was light years ahead. And we could never work out why they had gone to so much effort to make the bodies appear so real and organic. Take your simulated breathing as a prime example. It just seemed to be excessive and completely unnecessary.”
“Maybe the idea of millions of stiff, walking, talking shop dummies freaked them out, and so they made them seem more real?” suggested Taylor, though he was being mildly facetious.
Sonner shrugged, “Who knows? But I for one am glad you don’t look like some sort of early twentieth century sci-fi android, because that would certainly freak me out.”
Taylor shook his head. Of all the people that should be freaked out, it was the man locked inside the simulant body. “Well, I’ll try my robotic best not to offend you…”
“Appreciated, Captain,” Sonner replied, missing the sarcasm. “Now, can you get us out of this damn cave, already?”
“Aye, aye, Commander Sarah Sonner,” Taylor replied, before pressing his eyes back inside the pilot’s viewport, and letting out another long breath. Come on, Taylor, you can do this... he said to himself as he encouraged the ship forward into the narrow mouth of the tunnel. Casey had made it seem so simple and now, more than ever, he wished that he had his quirky but brilliant pilot back in her seat, sequined sneakers and all. He didn’t care if she was real or a simulant; she would still be Casey to him, and that’s all that mattered.
The collision alarm sounded, gently at first and then increasingly louder as the hull of the ship came closer and closer to the side of the cave. Taylor adjusted course, grateful for the precision of his simulant hands for the first time since he’d seen the pale gray digits, and as the RCS thrusters inched them away from danger the alarms faded again.