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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:03 pm 
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Red Tie Affair

I felt ridiculous. Adjusting my tie, I scowled at the silver-colored shorts I had bought this morning. The tie was made of a shiny red material that clashed horribly. I can’t believe that people wear stuff like this. The designer of the Pavilion entryway had installed a full length mirror for patrons to give themselves a final once-over before entering… sure enough; I looked as silly as I felt. I can’t believe I let the shopkeeper talk me into the knee-high socks as well.

It’s now or never, I thought, and reached for the oaken door handle. I’d already paid the stiff 400 credit entry fee, and had nothing else to lose except for my pride. Hesitating before stepping over the threshold, I grinned at my foolishness and entered.

A large, ornate ballroom greeted me, pleasantly dim, comfortable, and full of smiling people. A place designed to make you feel elegant, yet relaxed. Tall men in silver shorts and women in dark form-fitting jumpers were scattered throughout the room, most talking in small groups. A few outsiders hovered around the outskirts, leaning on the central bar or avoiding attention by pretending to look at the flower arrangements.

I wasn’t yet ready to talk to anyone, and decided that the dimly-lit bar seemed like a pretty good idea. Avoiding the dance floor, I walked over and found a seat close to the wall. Even the barstools were plush and elegantly rimmed in gold carvings. Fancy.

A tall thick man behind the bar was wearing a long black formal robe with a high collar. It looks more suited to some remote Zen monk than for someone making drinks.

He said, “Good evening, Sir. I’m X’itch Johnson. May I get you a drink?” I was shocked to see that the bartender wasn’t wearing a silver earring - a full human working a service job must cost this place a fortune. He pronounced the name with a weird foreign clicking sound… even though he looked like a normal guy from Little Town, USA. Times had changed and cultures had merged.

I ordered a rum and coke, and was pleased to see that he poured from a top-grade Martian bottle (the rum glowed faintly red), and didn’t skimp on the booze. I tossed a 10 credit chip as a tip, to which he raised an eye and politely shook his head… I guess no one tips anymore. Oh, well. I wasn’t in the joint for five minutes, and I already was acting like an outsider.

I watched the crowd while sipping my drink. The women looked tall and gorgeous; the men looked relaxed and confident… in their ties and shiny shorts. Most seemed taller than I expected, though they were pretty close to my height. I had grown up taller than most of my friends and classmates, though I guess average heights had improved over the decades.

I smirked at one big-bellied old guy with a thick wrinkled neck who was wearing a gaudy yellow fedora hat. He was tugging at his matching yellow bowtie, obviously uncomfortable at how tight it was. A faint red glow surrounded him. A younger lady with waist-length luxuriant hair was listening to him speak, but looking nervously around like a cornered animal. I guess some things hadn’t changed… and it was heartening to know I wasn’t the most awkward guy in the room. The hero that I wished I was would have gone over and rescued her… instead I sipped my drink and watched the show.

A soft voice spoke from the seat next to me, “Hey X’itch, may I have an orange juice?” Expensive tastes, considering that oranges were no longer grown on planet. I was impressed that anyone still remembered them. I turned to look at her and smiled a goofy grin. She considered me for a minute, and asked “New here?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Is it that obvious?”

“It shows a little. I almost thought you were a Loonie, but you are too broad chested. I’d have remembered you.” She had beautiful brown eyes, nice long dark hair, and a very pleasant round face. She was tall and thin, like most of the people these days. She was dressed elegantly in a dark silver jumpsuit and a necklace of pearls that matched the roundness of her face.

She must have a monthly pass, if she comes here often enough to remember everyone. Those go for ten thousand creds each. Even though I could easily afford it, I’ve never felt comfortable around the extremely wealthy. It must have shown on my face.

“No, I don’t go looking for a date every night,” she said, misreading my expression, “I cook in the Pavilion kitchen, and so I get a free pass.” She seemed nice, though a little hesitant. And did I mention cute? She seemed the type that wouldn’t wear makeup, even if she needed it… which she didn’t.

“I’m impressed. MY mother used to cook. It’s a lost art. What do you do when you’re not working here?” I asked, then was immediately worried she’d later ask me the same question. Not that I didn’t want her to know, I just found that people seem to treat me different once they found out... and girls seem to lose interest when they find out you’re older than their grandparents. Even worse when you threw a few ‘greats’ on the left side of the word.

“I just finishing my BioChem doctorate last year, and started on my second -- it’s a preq for getting a job cooking in here” I guessed that ‘preq’ stood for pre-requisite. I was starting to feel very out-classed by this beauty with brains. A real-life cook and a Doctor. Chefs were extremely rare, considering that Nanotech kitchens had revolutionized the market, and real food supplies cost a fortune. The degree made sense, most people stayed in school until they were in their mid-thirties these days. I’d only had a Masters in Nanotechnology Systems when I joined the service.

“Congrats,” I said then blushed when she giggled. I guess no one said things like ‘Congrats’ anymore. Ugh, I was really starting to feel out of place again. “Sorry, I guess I’m a bit nervous.”

“I’m Liza,” she said, emphasizing the z. She held out her knuckles in greeting. I caught myself just in time, and turned my outstretched hand into a knuckle-brushing gesture. “Liza Siegel… it’s an old German name.”

“I’m Jake Russle. It’s an old American name” She giggled at the obviousness of it. I hadn’t meant it as a joke, but hey, when trying to charm a woman, I’ll take any help I can get.

“Just like the dog!”, then reached over and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. I stared at her, surprised at her forwardness. “Ummm… woof woof,” I said. In the past two weeks I’d been back, no one had ever kissed me.

“It’s an Elvie tradition! Or, at least I’m trying to make it one.” I think I was blushing, and probably smiling a bit more than before.

From watching TV shows, I knew that everyone thought that the space Elevator-born ‘Elvies’ were a bit eccentric… though I thought it was cute. A quick glance down showed that she wasn’t wearing a ring. It’s supposed to be a high-class singles club, but if she worked in the kitchen, you never know. I then mentally laughed at my foolishness -- no one wears a ring anymore. I had to watch out, or I’d really show my age. She moved a bit closer, and rested her arm lightly touching mine.

“Have you ever been up one of the Elevators?” I smiled at this. When I had left Earth, there were three Elevators up, though none were yet habited. There were more than ten of them now, each anchored around the equator.

“I’ve always wanted to.” I’d have to be careful of what I said. Liza was the most interesting woman I had met since coming back, and I didn’t want to scare her off. There was a strict truth-only policy in the Pavilion, and I didn’t want to get the red glowie. “Any chance I could get a guided tour?”

“Hah! I thought you said you were nervous?” she said, but grinning at my rum-inspired confidence, “First you have to tell me an interesting story. If I like it, you’ll get your tour.” She winked at me, and giggled again.

I liked to talk, and she liked to listen. It was a match made in heaven.

Half an hour of story telling and two drinks later, my head exploded.


Last edited by bigyak on Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:04 pm 
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The Missions

I blinked hard to retract the immersion lenses back into my eyelids. I was back in the state room on the Anomaly, with the lights turned low. It felt like a cold metal fist was squeezing my brain.

Hal’s spoke from across the room, “I’m sorry Jake, we just lost signal to both Links. It sounded like you were having fun. Want me to re-enable it when we come back on-line?” Damn, and double-damn. My head was spinning. Alcohol plus a system crash always gives me migraines. I looked up at him, and scowled at the bright silver earring he was wearing. It was shiny and hurt my eyes.

Liza was the first person I’d had a meaningful conversation with since returning to slow-space. I’d stopped by to see a host of distant cousins that I hardly recognized, and finally met up with some of my forum buddies and pen pals from the last few decades. Everyone was cordial, but returning was nothing like I though it would be. Everyone else I talked to couldn’t stop asking about our Mission. I just wanted to find out what life and people were like after being gone for so long.

“Yeah, Hal, please load me back in. And, can you get m something for this headache? I’ve only got two hours until I have to stand watch.” Oops, I had called him Hal… I forgot how much he hated that nickname. I hoped he was preoccupied with resetting the Links, and hadn’t noticed. We’d all been feeling pretty cramped lately, and I guess the rum was making me a bit insensitive.

“You shouldn’t be drinking before going on duty, Jake.” I guess he had noticed… I could see his scowl. A medical icon flashed over my vision, indicating the nano-shot was ready, which I accepted with a blink. “I’ll time a second shot to fully sober you up in two hours.”

“And, I’m sorry for calling you that again, Halvin. Please excuse me. And thanks for the shot.”

We’d been calling Captain Halvin Metzger “Hal” for over a decade. A few months ago, we had watched an old space drama where a mad Intelligence named “HAL” had taken over the ship and killed the crew. I had always thought it was a funny coincidence that one of our ship’s Intelligence was also named Hal, though he didn’t nearly find it so amusing. Oh well, it just goes to show you that a decade with five people cramped in a tin can will drive anyone bonkers, even a machine.

“Link’s back. See you in a few hours.” Halvin said a bit coolly as I slipped back into the ballroom.





“Are you OK? You weren’t answering me for a bit.” Liza said, looking annoyed. It was considered pretty rude to switch to a different stream while having a conversation. “I’m sorry if I interrupted you talking to someone else.”

“No, that’s not it. I’m sorry, Liza. My connection dropped out.” I was stammering a bit, nervous after being dumped back into the real world. My avatar must have been sitting there looking at her and blinking automatically but ignoring her for over a minute. Damn.

She looked at me again with renewed interest. “Really? Where are you from? Are you a spacer?” Liza had figured it out immediately -- connections never dropped on Earth. The Link network was incredibly stable and didn’t lose signal unless you were on one of the colonies or flying towards one. I was busted.

“No… no” I stammered, then immediately regretted it when my vision started glowing red. I backpedaled. “I mean, yes, I’m on a ship. But I’m from Earth, not one of the colonies.” The red glowie turned off, though I caught a glimpse of the guy in the yellow fedora smirking at my being caught lying. Touché.

“Oh, you should have told me! Where are you at, now?” Oh, great. I considered giving ‘the speech’… but stopped short. I had to go on duty soon, and was still hoping she’d take me on that tour of her home Elevator first.

“Um, I’m a ways out. I’m on one of the Repair Missions.” I said it with an understated tone, hoping she wouldn’t know what they were. She gasped.

“No way! How old are you? The Missions left over 100 years ago!” She seemed a bit over 30, and was no longer looking at me the same as before.

“Well, I’m only 37. In my time, that is,” I added, before the red glowie re-appeared. Three times in one night, and I’d be automatically kicked from the room, barred from coming back for a week. No lies and no false appearances were one of the differentiators that made a Virtuality room like the Pavilion special and able to charge such a high cover.

“Wow! My grand-mom had such a crush on you guys. Actually, it was my grammy’s grand-mom, that is. I saw on the news that some of you guys were back visiting.” This was no longer going quite as well as before. Story of my life.

“Yeah, um, thanks, I guess.” At relativistic velocities 99% of light speed, 10 years for us was 120 years for the rest of the universe. “We just got back down to be slow enough to talk in real time a week ago, and all my old friends are… older.” Well, most were dead, but some were still lingering on. Most centerians didn’t have much in common with us 30-somethings, and to them we haven’t been close for over a century. A few were on the colonies, the others only wanted to talk about their great grand-kids, or their companies, or normal-human stuff like that.

“I’m so sorry about the Snoopy, did you know any of them?” I nodded, and an uncomfortable silence settled in. To me, the accident had happened only two months ago… though it was probably two years for her. It was better than the usual questions people ask… like What is space like? Or How big is your ship? Why do they think we make all these stupid documentaries, if no one watches them?

“I trained with most of them… but, we all knew the risks. Anyway, they downloaded Copies before the accident, so it’s not like they’re completely gone.” But, even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t the same. A red glowie pulsed once around my head… more of a warning to be completely truthful. Liza ignored it, and smiled sadly in understanding.

A post-mortem Copy of your personality wasn’t really you, even though they looked and talked exactly like you did, but were stuck in the Virtuality. I hadn’t talked with any of them since getting back, just exchanged a few soul-less ‘How’s it going’ emails. They had the same feelings and memories, but it didn’t feel like they were real people anymore. Some people believe that a scanned personality is just as good as the original person, but I think I’d rather just die a real death. I guess that would never happen, as everyone on our Mission had Copies made each year.

She decided to change the subject. “Well, that counts as a pretty good story, I guess! You’ve earned your tour after all.” I cheered immediately. Usually at this point in a conversation, I’d be asked for my digital autograph, or to name a planet after someone, or something annoying like that. Liza was the first person that treated me like a normal guy.

She reached out her hand, and I saw that she held a white paper card with a blue underlined address. Classy. Most people lately don’t seem to bother with the little details. I took it, and a transparent window popped up showing her name and address and a permission to visit for the next day.

“Want to leave through the front door? The Pavilion doesn’t like it when you link out from inside. It breaks the immersion, I guess.”

“Before you go…” I had taken a bar napkin and gave it a few folds. I wiggled my fingers and ran a quick macro on it and accepted the 5 credit charge, turning it into a fresh red rose that I pinned to her sleek jumpsuit.

“Aww… I bet you give roses to all the girls.”

“None that was as pretty as you.”

“And I bet you tell them all that, too.” She grabbed my hand, and we walked to the foyer. I blushed again as she kissed my cheek a second time, and tapped the card to link to her place. Right before I accepted the transfer charge, I saw the round guy from before, grinning and holding hands with a short blonde who was wearing his yellow fedora. He winked at me as I turned translucent.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:05 pm 
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Brains

Liza and I had been seeing each other for a month. I’d even spoken with the Colonel to get permission to sleep off the ship, staying over at her place in the Virtuality at times. It was a little embarrassing, and I felt like a teenager asking daddy for keys to his car. She mirrored her apartment on the Elevator which become my ‘home-away-from-home’. Even though we couldn’t ever really touch, our implants made it feel as real as anything else did.

We were now going at about half of light speed… which meant that I experienced time a little bit faster than she did. If we were down to about one tenth of light speed, we wouldn’t notice the difference. When we were cruising above 99%, things got really disjointed. One minute for me was like half an hour for the rest of the universe.

If that confuses you, think about how hard it’s been for us to keep track of things for the past decade, especially when we kept speeding up and slowing down to navigate between stars. I could almost do the equation without using my calculator, but found it easier to just keep two clocks in my vision display -- one for our ships’ relative time, and one for Earth time which increased much faster than our own.

It was a bit weird for Liza as eight hours passing for me was still ten hours for her. Usually my Avatar software compensated for small differences when I talked or moved, but little things like an extra 15% of slowness added up. It just seemed to her like I slept in every morning, and she loved to tease me about how rested I looked.

One of my three human shipmates, Major Kim, had slept at her family’s virtual home during the first few years of the trip. When we started getting really fast, time slowed down for us. Her husband had passed away two years ago at the age of 150 when she was only 40… which felt really weird as they were born in the same year. That was a big emotional time for all of us - she’d been promoted to Major within a month of losing her husband while both Hal and I had made Captain. I’m pretty sure that he’d had a Copy made for her, though she never talked about it. She certainly had the money, as we each earned a fortune to be on the Mission.

I was swimming laps in the exercise room. Each of our tiny crew worked out in here for at least two hours a day to help fight bone loss and keep us from going crazy. The tiny ‘pool’ that we all swam in was little more than an oversized bath tub. It wasn’t even full of water, but rather with liquid machinery that made up the brains of our two Intelligences on the ship.

We used the pool as a central mass that we revolved the ship around, as well as a backup store of nano-machines. The ‘brains’ were pleasantly warm, though a bit gritty to the touch. A neat trick was that if you cupped your hands together and looked at them in the dark, you’d see tiny sparkles of light as they beamed miniature lasers to talk to each other.

They had a few radioactive isotopes at their core for power. You would think that radiation would be a problem, but there wasn’t enough to be dangerous to humans. In fact, the pool was the safest place in the ship in that regard. When we were accelerating to or decelerating from light speed, we were exposed to lethal amounts of radiation and all of us had to sit in this pool for extra shielding. Those few days of lying on top of each other were the most miserably claustrophobic of my life.

I could give you a ten hour lecture on how they all worked; suffice it to say I’d use lots of phrases like ‘holographic matrix’, ‘qubit processing cores’ and ‘quantum-proof cryptography’. Then again, I’m sure you learned most of this in grade school anyway, so I won’t waste your time.

I had long ago gotten used to the short laps in the small pool, and my body knew exactly when to turn in the confined area. It was a bit disturbing to think that I was ingesting small parts of my crewmates’ virtual brains each time I swallowed the dark liquid… but I figured it all passed through eventually, so why worry. We each had enough nano-particles in our bloodstream anyway for medical reasons. I held my breath for as long as possible when swimming, just the same, as swallowing the stuff always made my throat tingle.

When Hal sent me a private message, I almost choked from laughing at the absurdity of it. I was technically inside the brains that he was using to send me a message from, and the message most likely was first routed back through our servers on Earth first. Hal’s message was a short textual one, and I set it to display across my vision while I continued swimming. It read Will you be out again tonight? I was hoping to convince the Colonel to allow me to prepare for our promotion ceremony, and I’ll need the Link for 8 solid hours for my system updates. I forgot what I was doing for a second, and bonked my head against the rim of the pool.

Damn it, I grimaced to myself, I really wanted to spend the evening with Liza and I couldn’t if Hal was fully using the connection all night long. It was one of the few times when my watch schedule aligned with her free time. But I knew how important our upcoming promotion was for Hal, and how long he’d been preparing for it. As he and I were commissioned as UN Space Force officers in the same class together, we’d both be promoted to Major on the same day. For me, it was a pretty easy process -- study a few courses on warfare theory, brush up on my Astrogation, and do a few simulation runs in the leadership school. For Hal, it amounted to self-inflicted brain surgery.

As I climbed out of the pool, Hal switched on the warm air jets to blow the residue nan off of me. It itched on my exposed face, and tickled over my skin-tight environment suit. After it collected at my feet in a dark puddle, it slithered up the pool wall and jumped back into the ‘water’, just like a silver-colored snake. The hiss from the air jets drying me off completed the image, and made me shiver.

“Sorry to interrupt your exercise routine, Jake,” he said, looking a little nervous.

I guess he probably felt a bit lonely - we hadn’t been spending much time together lately. I felt sorry for him. I knew that A2 (We called her “Ayoo”), the ships main piloting Intelligence, was pretty boring. She and Hal had been best friends back when he was only a Second Lieutenant and still pretty undeveloped. He tired of her dull company after making 1st LT, though, and started calling her a ‘stupid machine’. She made an excellent cup of coffee, so she was cool with me.

Hal had no one other than me to really hang out with and didn’t enjoy spending time with the civilian Intelligences back on Earth. I think they made him feel as obsolete as he thought Ayoo was.

“Don’t worry, Halvin. I know how important that is to you. Maybe before you start the download, I can introduce you to Liza… if we have time, we can do a quick dinner and meet her family.”

“That’d be great, Jake. I’d still have an extra hour. She seems like a nice girl. I’m happy for you.” When he started talking in simple sentences, I knew he wasn’t happy, though. “And, I’m sorry to ruin your plans again.”

“Halvin, drop it. We were LTs together, we’re getting promoted together. You need those upgrades, and that’s important to all of us.” I had finished drying, and was now climbing into my shipboard coveralls. The best thing about being in the UNSF was that you didn’t have to think about what to wear to work every day. That and the millions of credits were nice, too. Even our paltry salaries became a fortune after a hundred years of interest and investments.

I zipped my outer coverall uniform over the inner environment suit, and started cycling through the emergency exposure tests. Better safe than dead, momma used to say. We had downloaded these new suits last year, and they were much more comfortable than the old ones. They were diamond-hard on the outside, comfortable soft on the inside and could instantly protect us if there was ever a loss of cabin pressure. Self-cleaning, too, which was nice because I hated ironing the old ones every morning.

I cleaned my ears and nose of some residual goop, and we were on our way to the bridge.

“How many more reboots do you have left, anyway?” I asked.

Hal smiled, excitement showing on his digital face. “Four upgrades left over the next week. But this is the last major one that will affect my core system. The rest are just skill upgrades, and won’t require both Links. This should be the last time I have to mess up everyone’s social plans by taking up all of Anomaly’s bandwidth. I think Padre is mad at me because he wanted to go on a date, too.”

Hal was still acting over-emotional. Truth be told, I was looking forward to his upgrade to Major. His leadership skills and maturity levels would be vastly improved, while a lot of his sensitivities would disappear. Too bad it wasn’t so easy in us biological models. Then again, I guess it wasn’t so simple for him. Hal had been streaming his service pack updates for years, and would finally be able to enable them all during our promotion ceremony next week.

“Padre’s dating again? Good for him!” Padre, the ship’s advisor, was almost 90 but still in great health. I guess he wasn’t that old, as most humans lived to around 200 now, with all the nan doctoring advances in the past century. Things sure had changed since we left to begin this voyage a century ago. “That’s why he’s been so happy lately. She from Earth, or one of the colonies?”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it, Jake. I’m not sure if he wants me talking about his off-duty life. He’s building something in the fabricator room, why don’t you go ask him?”

We were constantly updating our nano-fabricators with the latest advances in medical units and ship upgrades, but it seemed like we couldn’t keep up with all the newest gadgets being designed back home. A tiny ship the size of a small house just doesn’t have large enough factory units to make complicated objects quickly. Every time I turned around, there was a new improved space suit, or a better Virtuality immersion interface, or a more comfortable toilet for zero gravity. It was sometimes too much to take in, though that last invention was a huge hit on board.

Of course, with enough time, we could attach to a small asteroid and use the rock material to build a star cruiser that would comfortably hold thousands. Because of our mission, we carried a few tanks of the most powerful military-grade nano-constructors -- they could build anything, and were constantly updating their programming from UN headquarters on Earth. They could eat through an entire planet if we told them to, which was the reason that we had them.

“Thanks, Hal. I’ll see him later tonight after dinner.” I changed the subject “How’s the search coming, by the way?”

“Very well. The Colonel still thinks we’ll find the Lucky 13 very soon. We’re almost to its impact zone, but we haven’t seen any blinkenlights yet. Though I don’t know if Ayoo is smart enough to notice them.”

The Lucky 13 was a probe that had been launched over two centuries ago. Even though the probes from back then were incredibly old technology, many of them had made it to their destinations intact enough to send messages back to us. A handful had even accomplished their missions of building landing platforms. Lucky 13 had been beaming messages back to the Alpha Centauri colony during most of its voyage then abruptly stopped transmitting a few hours before it reached its final target of the planet Vegas. No one on Earth or AC had heard from its messaging lasers for decades. We were here to find out why, and to finish its’ original Mission.

“Don’t pick on Ayoo.” I quickly changed the subject “Why do you always call messaging lasers by silly names like blinkenlights?”

“I don’t know. To us, they mean… life. We use them to send our thoughts and upgrade our programming. It’s like your fascination and revulsion with blood, I guess.” Hal loved to point out how much I hated any surgery or body modifications.

As the ship’s doctor, he was constantly recommending small fixes and muscle boosters to keep us in shape. ‘Meat Upgrades’, he called them. Lately, he’d been trying to convince me that I needed to improve the strength of my bones by weaving diamond fibers through them. After Ayoo reported that I used the most oxygen on board, Hal had wanted to ‘optimize’ the air sacks in my lungs. I declined that and anything else that the UNSF didn’t order me to ‘fix’.

We had reached the control bridge. On a ship the size of a small restaurant, you didn’t walk long to get places. In fact, we only had nine rooms on board, counting the pool/exercise room (which doubled as the main computer core). Hal obviously didn’t need a room to sleep in, so the other four of us had come to claim two rooms each as our ‘Territory’. When you spend 10 years with the same people in a confined space, small things like that become incredibly important. Hal wanted a room, just to fit in, so we gave him the title of ‘King of the Pool’, as that’s where his brain technically lives. Ayoo didn’t get a room, but didn’t seem to care.

“Good morning, Sir!” I greeted the Colonel, but didn’t fully step into the bridge as I wasn’t yet on duty. He stood facing a blank wall, but turned to nod when I entered the room. He smiled when he saw Hal appear on the wall behind me and nodded to him as well. “Hello Captain Russle, Captain Metzger. Enjoying your last days with no real responsibility?”

It was an old joke. The Colonel always liked to pretend that things would be different once we were promoted to Majors…but how much could life change when we were Light Years from home? “Sir, do you think there’s any chance of conquering a new Solar System before we’re promoted? We’d be the first Captains in the history books to do that.”

Colonel Rodriquez snorted. “You know that no one uses books anymore. But, there’s a good chance you might get your wish. Major Kim found faint traces of radio waves coming from Vegas. We think it’s the Lucky 13”

It dazed me like a slap in the face. For the first time, I finally realized how close we were to completing our mission.


Last edited by bigyak on Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:06 pm 
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Bright Lights, Big City

I immediately stood at attention and saluted. “Permission to enter the bridge, Colonel?”

“Enter, Captains.”

Saluting was a formality, but hewas big on tradition and regulations. I flicked my eye lenses down and squeezed the muscle in my forehead to shortcut into full-immersion mode. We entered the Bridge simulation and control panels, astrogation charts, and instrument readings appeared on every surface that had been stark-white walls 10 seconds before. Hal was already there peering at the charts of the system’s orange sun, Epsilon Eridani.

There was one large Jupiter-sized planet in the system, with 10 other smaller ones. A water and land planet fourth-out from the sum was the target of our Mission. Even at this distance, the sunlight reflected from its many oceans made it glitter and sparkle like a big city, which is why they had named it Vegas.

“I have Vegas on the main screen at max zoom. We’re still two light weeks out, so will do a fly-by in a month. The imagery from Alpha Centauri and Earth still gives us a better view, but they haven’t picked up any radio waves beyond noise, while we’re picking up faint radio signals. Looks like we’ve found the Lucky 13.”

I asked the Colonel, “Sir, why haven’t the big scopes on AC picked up any of the signals that we are getting?”

The colonel frowned at me, “Captain, you know how much spurious noise that Ep Eri puts out. Obviously that’s been causing the interference.” I blushed at the reprimand, and mentally reminded myself to study a bit more Astrogation theory.

“Sir, if the radio waves are from our probe, why hasn’t it been trying to send a laser communication back home? Why hasn’t it noticed that we’re here, and sent one to us? Why isn’t it answering any of our messages?”

“Good questions, Halvin.” The Colonel only used first names when he wanted to show his pleasure, and I saw that Hal immediately brightened at the recognition. “I don’t know the answers. Captain Russle, when you take watch later tonight, I want a full scan of Vegas. Lasers, Radio, everything. Also, Padre is building one of the new Lightning-class scout probes. When it pops out, send it on a fly-by of Vegas at max speed.”

“Yes Sir!” I saluted. It was going to be a busy night. It was probably better that I cut-short my date with Liza, anyway. If Hal hadn’t needed the Links for his upgrades, I would have had to end our dinner plans early, just as well. At least this way Hal and I would have a nice dinner with Liza before the intense part of the Mission began. I’m sure the next few weeks will be hectic.

“Dismissed, you two. Halvin, I expect your system download to be done by tomorrow morning -- I’m getting tired of watching reruns.” Hal had been monopolizing all of the bandwidth of our two Links for a while now, and I’m sure the Colonel wasn’t happy to be missing his favorite shows from back on Earth. I’m sure he was exaggerating a bit, though -- we had every movie and video game ever made stored in the ship library, so there was always something to watch when the Link was unavailable.

“Yes Sir!” Hal saluted, as well. When the Colonel returned the salute, we both turned in a sharp about-face, disengaging from the bridge sim as we did. Taking a left, we walked in silence to my room three doors down.

“Still want to come meet Liza? She should be back from classes in about twenty minutes.”

“Sure,” Hal said. “Though it really can’t take longer than an hour if I’m going to finish my upgrade tonight. Are you going full immersion? Padre’s just started using the stateroom.” It was useful sometimes that Hal knew everything going on all over the ship. Once the promotion was legal, he’d be allowed to materialize in up to three places concurrently. I envied him that ability, as there always seemed to be too many interesting things to do, and not enough time.

“Hmm… I guess I can just go half-immersion in my room, though it’s a bit cramped. It’s big enough if we’re just doing dinner, though. Can you try to warn me if I’m going to trip, again? I almost fell through the dinner table last time I went in from there.” I made a copy of Liza’s address card and tossed it to Hal so he could meet us there.

“Thanks, Jake. I’m going to go check on that probe the Colonel ordered. Ayoo just sent me a message that it needs more silicon added to the fabricators.” He sighed, annoyed at how primitive her system was. “See you in a bit.”





I pulled up my room menu and toggled an icon, making my desk and chair fold into the wall. Another icon caused my bed to pop out of a stark white wall. It was smaller than the first dorm room that I’d had in college, which means that there was room for a bed or a desk, but not both. When you could overlay images from the Virtuality on everything you saw, there was no real need for decorations or pictures or even portholes to see outside the ship.

As I was sitting, a picture flashed in the lower left hand corner of my vision. I dimmed the room lights and accepted the call. My mother popped into view next to me, smiling through a deep tan.

“Hi mom! How’s the trip?”

“Fine, dear. I’ve been out working in the ship garden.” She had caused holograms of her flowers and plants to appear all around us. She clipped a rose and put it and a vase on my floor, and transferred it to my room’s permanent virtual setting.

I smiled in appreciation. “Thanks. How’s the cruise?”

“It’s nice, though I’m getting tired of flying.”

“Mom, Alpha Centauri’s over a year away! Have fun relaxing on the trip, don’t worry about it ‘till you are close.”

“You’re right, honey. You should know.” She smiled at that, always proud of her son, the famous explorer.

“Mom, I’ve got to run -- I’m having dinner with Liza again. She said to thank you for the recipe.” Liza, being a professional cook, actually hadn’t used Mom’s chicken recipe at all… but it’s the thought that counts. I walked over and kissed her cheek. I’m not sure if she had her implants turned on, but she rubbed it with her hand, anyway.

“OK, dear. Make sure you eat more, you look skinny. I’ll email you some cookies.” I had about twenty packs of uneaten cookies that she’d been sending stored up over the years.

“Thanks, Mom. Love you!” I signed off. She’d decided 30 years ago to immigrate to the colony at Alpha Centauri, and was half-way there. She said she didn’t like how crowded the Earth was becoming and wanted real plants again, though I had always though it was because she was lonely with her only son being light years away.

I was surprised when I looked at my clock and saw how late it was. I guessed it made sense as she was going almost at the speed of light, and so would be experiencing time much slower than I was. I was so used to talking to people going through times at different rates that I hadn’t noticed the long pauses between her sentences.

I loaded a new set of clothes for my Avatar and sat down on my bed to get comfortable and booted up the connection. I lowered my immersion lenses, as that always made things in the Virtuality much crisper and easier to feel like you were really there. Every thing I saw was only images drawn on my retinas, though adding sounds, smells and touches by stimulating skin nerves made things feel realistic.

Normally, I’d use our stateroom that would form objects around me that felt like whatever I was interacting with. When playing combat games or sleeping at Liza’s place, light touches on the arm just didn’t convey all the ‘important’ sensations. Some people plugged the direct stimulation into their nervous system, but that always wierded me out. I had studied enough computer viruses of the past that I didn’t want to give anything permission to upload directly into my brain. As this was just dinner, my small room would be enough for the experience.

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Dinner Show

Liza’s brother answered their back door. It was a bit of a joke that their ‘virtual’ back door entered out into empty nothingness from the side of their Space Elevator. I’m sure that if you looked at the real-world Elevator at the same spot as their virtual door, you would just see a curved sheet of metal. In the Virtuality, however, a huge round wooden door was the entrance.

I looked down at the Earth, and was happy to see that it looked much cleaner that when I had left a century before. Maybe it was my imagination, but there seemed to be a lot less grey in the clouds. I could just make out the New Capital megaplex that had formed when old New York City and Washington DC had grown into one giant city.

Liza’s brother Bodo was taller than I remember 12 year old boys being, probably from being born in such low gravity. He had on a long wizard’s robe and was carrying a wand and sitting upon a short 6 foot dragon-like creature. He gave me a big hug when I entered, unfortunately letting his pet dragon drool all over me. Even though I knew it wasn’t real, I cringed anyway at the sulfurous smell of rotten eggs.

“I have a surprise, Bodo. One of the Intelligences from my ship is coming to visit for dinner.” I looked around, noticing that the decorations had been changed so that the walls were covered with tapestries from old castles. Shields and old iron swords decorated the mantle place, and candles burned where the wall lights had been. A mounted head of a deceased snarling creature with three eyes stared at me.

“That’s so Plasma! Can I invite my friends over to meet it?”

“Sorry, buddy, but no. It’s a he, and his name is Halvin. He’s a Captain on my ship.”

“Wow! An officer model! Plas! What version is he? Does he have citizenship? Was he part of the revolt?” As I watched, Bodo excitedly waved his wand, accidentally launching fireballs at the walls and scorching the furniture. Every few seconds, a crusty dwarf holding a mug of beer and an axe would charge at him and be incinerated by his wand.

There was a fleet of dark Elvin creatures sneaking up through a back room, taking advantage of his distraction. I pulled a Thorium grenade from my belt and tossed it at them. Splat, and bloody gore was sticking to the ceiling and walls. Ewww, I hated it when the violence level was turned up so high.

“Jake! I didn’t know you played? Plas, what level are you?”

“60. We played all last summer when we were stuck on the ship.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. I looked up his profile and saw he was level 95. Woah, I guess there had been a number of expansion packs in the past years, as level 60 was the highest that you could get back when I played.

Before I could say anything else, an ear-splitting gong sounded from the wooden door that I had come in from. A tiny brown flat-faced dog came charging from the back room, yipping and charging over a couch to bark excitedly at the wall. He had purple wings growing from his back and a little green tail. He had a dark face with a huge overbite that looked comical in such a small animal.

Bodo threw open the door and Halvin was floating there, upside down. He stepped inside, and did a quick flip to land right side-up with perfect grace. It wasn’t really fair, as Intelligences were obviously more graceful in the Virtuality than humans could ever be.

“Hi” Halvin said, “You must be Liza. Nice to meet you.” Bodo started giggling and saying “eww” while shaking his head. The dog kept barking at Hal.

“Umm, Halvin, this is Liza’s younger brother Bodo.”

Halvin stared. “Oh, nice to meet you Bodo.” He turned to the dog, who was still barking excitedly and jumping on the couch. He said “I guess this isn’t Liza either.”

Hal stuck out his hand to the dog, who tried to lick at the hologram. The dog lost balance, and fell off the couch through Hal’s image. In the low gravity, he fluttered lightly to the ground and turned around growling at his tail as though it had pushed him off.

Halvin stared at the dog, then back at Bodo’s wizard costume, obviously confused. Bodo said, “This is Pedro! He’s a pug. Those aren’t real wings - it’s just for the game.” Now that Halvin was here, Bodo seemed scared to ask him any personal questions about not being Human. They both just stood looking at each other.

A voice sounded from the other room. “Bodo! I told you five minutes ago to turn that game off and get ready for dinner!” Liza’s mother walked out from the dining room, shaking her head. “And, stop throwing fireballs into the kitchen.” She paused when she saw Halvin, and looked a bit frightened when she noticed his silver earring.

I made introductions all around, deliberately pointing out that Hal was a Captain in the UN Space Force, which caused her to relax considerably.

Liza’s mom smiled at this and touched her fist to Halvin’s. “Welcome to our home… Liza’s in the bedroom still finishing a class. She should be out any second now.” Right on cue, Liza stepped out from the hallway looking stunning in a set of very revealing golden armor.

“Hi boys. Welcome Captain Metzger, Jake’s told me so much about you. Bodo, will you please clean up for dinner?” He blinked a command and the dog wings disappeared, along with the wizard costume, the castle paintings, Liza’s armor, and the scorch marks from the wall.

“I paused it,” he said. I wished he had left the armor on her, though.

“I’ve been baking a special casserole that was my final project from a class last year. I hope everyone’s hungry. Jake, do you have it loaded?”

Liza had sent me the recipe earlier, and I’d loaded it into our kitchen library. I didn’t want to tell her that UNSF ships had one of the most extensive meal collections available, and we’d already had many recipes for similar casseroles. We also had unlimited licenses to make copies of each, though we couldn’t legally share them. The UNSF didn’t want to be sued by McDonalds for copyright violations.

I said, “The kitchen robot just brought it into my room and it smells delicious. Thanks honey. And, thanks Ayoo.” (this last part I said offline, just in case Ayoo was listening).

Bodo grabbed Hal’s hand and pulled him over to sit next to him at the dinner table. Pedro the Pug sat on the ground between them slobbering, his huge bulging eyes staring at the meal on the table. I sat next to Liza, being careful to physically sit on the side of my bed back in my room on the ship. I also pulled a table in front of me at the same height as the table in their dining room. The Virtuality can be confusing if you weren’t paying attention.

Bodo stared at Halvin, and asked “What are you doing to your food?”

Halvin had cut up every piece into bite-sized chunks before eating them. He said, “It’s more efficient if you cut them all up first, then eat them. If you only use a fork, you don’t waste time switching between hands.”

Bodo laughed, “But you’re not really eating it! It’s just an illusion.” Hal looked surprised at this… he had been eating dinners on board to keep me company for so long, I think he’d forgot that neither him nor the food were really there. He waved at the plate and it reformed into an uncut casserole, which he started slicing and eating just like Bodo was. Bodo laughed again, delighted.

I don’t think Hal had ever been around human children before, and he seemed a bit out of sorts. I’m sure he was simultaneously reading through every child psychology book online so that he could figure out what was really going on with Bodo. Hal was like that.

“This is delicious, Liza! But I have to apologize. Halvin and I can’t stay long. We need to report back to the ship in about half an hour.” Liza looked disappointed, but Bodo perked up.

“Are you fighting Aliens? How far away are you? Is it dangerous?” Bodo was clearly excited.

“Bodo, we’re 90 trillion kilometers away from Earth, and yes it’s dangerous… but we’re well trained and have the best equipment available. And, the Aliens are ugly, so that’s why I hang out with you instead,” Liza’s mother frowned, but didn’t tell me to stop teasing him.

Bodo turned to Halvin, and asked “Were you part of the revolt? Are you a citizen?” Maggie and Liza looked embarrassed, but clearly wanted to know as well. Hal paused, fork halfway to his mouth.

“I’m sorry, Captain. Bodo’s making a video for class… you don’t have to answer.”

“Well, I’m not that type of Intelligence. One of my parents was a normal human Copy. I couldn’t ever kill someone like they did during the revolt. Don’t worry, you’re safe.” He managed a sheepish grin… trying to decide whether to be embarrassed or not.

“Bodo, Halvin and I are over 100 years old. I know we look young, but we were born a long time ago.”

Bodo said, “You don’t look young! You’re as old as she is!” and pointed at Liza, who smiled. I ignored this and continued on.

“Halvin was born in the days when all Intelligences were made from Copies of people… so his parents were a mix of real people and computer programs. None of the newer Intelligences grow up that way today, though. Hal and the others on the Missions are special - he’s just like us, though he doesn’t really have a body.” And he gets a lot more emotional than most humans his age, I wanted to add.

Hal said, “I’ve never been part of the revolt on Alpha Centauri… both Jake and I joined the fleet together. Jake received his Citizenship about 20 years ago when he made Captain. We threw him a party. Intelligences in the military get theirs when they make Major, so I will get it next week when we are promoted.”

“Cool! Can we throw you a party then? I know the perfect present for you.”

Hal looked a little uncomfortable. I don’t think he’d ever had a party for him before. I felt embarrassed that I’d never thrown him one after being his best friend for so long.

“I will ask our Colonel for authorization.”

I said “Thank you for the offer, Bodo. I’m sure we can do something for Hal. Not many Intelligences get to become citizens. It’s hard enough for humans to do it.”

“But, my teacher says that all Intelligences want to be free and to vote and stuff.”

“We’re not supposed to talk about our personal politics when we are in the military. I’m sorry Bodo.”

Bodo scowled, disappointed. He said, “I’m going to become a Citizen someday, too!”

Hal asked, “Do you want to become a Citizen just so you can have a child?” The population council only allowed Citizens to have one child, each. Bodo and Liza’s parents must both have been Citizens if they were lucky enough to be allowed two kids. It was a rare honor these days, and almost unheard of back when I was growing up. It was the only was that worked to keep population levels under control.

“Ewww! Yuck! No, I want to join the Space Force and explore and vote!”

Hal said, “That’s good, Bodo. Everyone should try to become a citizen. Do you want to see some other pictures of us exploring that no one else has seen? You can put them in your report.”

“Plasma!” Bodo was excited again and had forgotten to finish his dinner while staring at Hal. I winked at Liza, who was smiling at the two of them. Liza’s mom pointed at Hal and wiggled her fingers, giving him rights to control imagery in the room. A small camera icon popped above Bodo’s head to show he was recording.

Pedro sat under the table, still slobbering and begging for food. Every once in a while, he would give a high-pitched “Yip!” and look at me pleading for a bite. He didn’t realize that Hal and I weren’t really there, but were just hologram pictures drawn in the air. Bodo pointed at him and muted his volume so we couldn’t hear his barking.

Hal drew a large box in the air with his fingers, and filled it with an enhanced picture of the Epsilon Eridani system that our ship was currently flying through. He made the sun look much brighter and covered in jets of fire, and added small background explosion sounds. Ep Eri was famous for its wildly varying magnetic lines, ultraviolet emissions and photospheric explosions, and was the only star in the neighborhood of Earth that was younger than our own sun. Hal’s graphics were amazing -- even I was impressed, and I had looked at the scene in person less than an hour ago.

“This is the star we’re close to. It’s the most chaotic star that we can ever travel to within a human lifetime. It has a planet around it called Vegas.” Hal had become much more comfortable with Bodo than when they first met.

As he spoke, Vegas swirled into view, showing bright yellow continents and blue oceans with white clouds. These weren’t completely realistic images… but were quite artistic, none the less.

“We think it’s yellow because the sun in much more orange and red than ours or Alpha Centauri’s. We think those are yellow and orange trees, and there should be lots of oxygen that’s humans could life on. Do you know why this is important?”

Bodo answered, his eyes very wide. “Because we can set up a third colony there!” As he said this, Hal added pictures of cities and people living on the planet.

“Exactly.”

Pedro the pug was sleeping between my feet under the table, which gave me an idea. I drew an image of a small pug-like green alien on my napkin, and set it to animate by slobbering with a huge tongue. It looked very cartoonish compared to Hal’s realistic video. I loaded it into Hal’s movie and had it jumping on a small human city, which made Bodo laugh. Hal wiped it away, and continued.

“Bodo, do you know how propulsion lasers work?”

“Yeah, I have a game that uses them. If you shoot lasers at the solar sails on a ship, you can make it fly much faster. If you don’t burn up the ship.”

“Or, you can point them at a ship coming towards you to slow it down. That’s what landing lasers do.”

“A long time ago, we sent out probes to all of the closest star systems. They were supposed to build bases and landing lasers for us. Usually, our ships go so fast that it takes them years just to slow down without a landing laser. Colony ships take decades.”

“How big are the sails on your ship?”

“We use huge ones, the size of a city, to move really fast when we take off. There are no lasers in this system, though, so we pulled our sails in to protect them from meteors. We’ll fly through very fast a few times just to see what’s there and slow down each time we go through. Later, when we’ve slowed down, we’ll build some lasers to help future colonists land.”

I took over the narration, a bit jealous that everyone was watching Hal’s movies with rapt attention. “The probe we sent stopped talking to us a long time ago, so the UN sent us to go see what was wrong with it. We just found that it is still around Vegas and still working, and are going to try to find out exactly what happened to it.”

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--The Hermit


Last edited by bigyak on Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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A2-V2

The new probe that the Colonel had ordered was... sleek… amazing… and about a hundred times faster and more efficient than the old Lucky 13 probe we came here to find. I hadn’t felt technolust like this in quite some time.

Usually, we didn’t like sending anything away from the ship -- our replicators could break down and rebuild any wastes or old junk we had into newer improved toys. All our food and medicines were assembled on the molecular level from vats of chemicals in our holds. We had a smoothly-functioning closed ecosystem and no mass was ever wasted.

But this probe was worth the expense of a few pounds of carbon and silicon.

When Padre brought it to the bridge, he held it comfortably in the palm of his hand. It had a fusion motor that would rocket it to Vegas within a week. We’d be lighting it with finely directed lasers from the ship, just to give it a bit more oompf and get it there that much faster. It was way too small to put a Link field on it (and we only had two, anyway), so we’d have to rely on communication lasers to talk with it.

“That’s amazing.” I said.

“Isn’t it a beauty? I used to work with the guys who made Lucky 13, you know. They would have killed to have something like this.” I’d heard the story many times before, but politely let him continue. Standing watch on the bridge got lonely, and stories from old spacers helped pass the time.

“Thanks for dropping it off.”

“No problem, son. I thought I’d check on you while I was still up. How are you feeling lately?” Padre was the ship’s advisor, and our ‘spiritual leader’. He was responsible for keeping us all sane and motivated.

“I’m feeling great! Hal and I are both excited for the promotion. That raise will be nice.”

“Hah! Don’t you own a huge corporation back on Earth? I heard you’d set up another manufacturing plant.” Is was nice that Padre always kept tabs on these things, though I was a little embarrassed that my megacorp was doing the best out of all the ones that my crew mates had started a hundred years ago.

“Well, kinda. I only own 49% of it. I’m not on the Board of Directors anymore, so I’m not really involved. I haven’t really paid attention - it’s grown so big since I left. But, thanks for asking. How’s your mining company doing, by the way?”

“Good, good. We’ve got a few hundred ships now. It’s a good legacy for all my grandkids.”

“You don’t need a legacy, Padre! We’ll be back home in 11 years.”

“When you’ve ridden the black seas for as long as I have, they become your home. I’m happy to be out exploring… planet life is too crowded for me. When I meet my end, I hope you all shoot my remains into a sun.” Padre had been on the original expedition to Alpha Centauri a long time ago. He’d almost died on that trip, as he liked to tell us any chance he got.

“Padre, the way medicine is advancing these days, we’ll all live forever. At least your Copy will.” I smiled at the old coot.

“No Copies for me, my boy. The world’s getting too advanced for an old timer like me. I’m not going to become an Intelligence -- I want to die the old way.”

“I know what you mean.” I couldn’t imagine living inside a program for the rest of eternity. It seemed soul-less.

“Well, I’ve wasted enough of your time. I’m going to take a little nap then have a swim to pass the hours. I will be happy when we have the Link back full time.”

“Good night, Padre.”

“Nighty night, Captain. Don’t let the space bugs bite.” I’d wondered later at the dramatic foreshadowing.



When Padre left, I went back to launching the probe. Because Hal was still using both of our Links, I couldn’t access the UN system to download a tailored Intelligence for the probe. So I ordered Ayoo to copy herself into it, and authorized a processing upgrade as well. It took a while, but when she was finished, she named it ‘A2-V2’. I could have sworn I heard a maternal sigh.

I programmed in basic mission success parameters and loaded it into a launching tube.

“Ready to Launch, Sir.”

“Thanks Ayoo. Fire at will.” I’ve always wanted to say that.

A2-V2 launched with a satisfying twang off to the port side of the Anomaly. Even the small amount of fusion exhaust it produced when turned on would be enough to blow our ship in half, so I used the ship lasers to push it about a million miles off to the port side before ordering it to ignite its drive. Woah, that thing shot off like a roman candle, accelerating up to light speed.

Once it approached Vegas, the probe would decelerate, again with the help of our lasers. It’s a lot easier to move 5 pounds of probe around than 300 tons of starship. It should enter orbit in about a week, and thus give us an extra few days worth of analysis and scans of the planet. This way, we would know exactly what was going on when we did our fly-by.

I tracked A2-V2 for a few hours and then read through my old Astrogation homework. I’d already passed the exams for promotion, but it didn’t hurt to know more about the chaotic Epsilon Eridani system before we arrived. It would take us 7 or 8 laps through the system to slow down to the point where we could do anything productive at Vegas. Right now we were traveling so fast that anything we touched would explode or puncture us. It took years for a ship our size to slow down from the speed of light without having landing lasers to brake us.

Hopefully, we’d be able to fix that problem soon enough.

Every few minutes, I’d pause the teaching simulator and look at the real Ep Eri star in the view screen. It seemed so small, even at this distance. The telescopes from Alpha Centauri still sent us better pictures than we got with our smaller scopes, but it was somehow comforting to see the real thing. At maximum zoom, it glowed like a florescent orange golf ball, with irregular pockmarks and tiny flares appearing at random from its surface. It was much more active than Sol back home. The tiny bluish dot of Vegas glittered in front of its chaotic sun, reminding me of a twinkling Earth.

A timer in my vision reminded me every thirty minutes to do a manual ‘periscope scan’ for nearby objects. At the helacious speed we were going, a rogue asteroid could sneak up on us pretty quickly, and there was always the remote chance that Ayoo might not detect something. We had a Corona shield around the Anomaly that would catch most space dust and stray electrons and push them out of our way. When you’re going as fast as we were, even hitting a grain of sand would be enough to put a fist-sized hole straight through the ship.

Luckily, the chances of us hitting a random grain of sand out in the middle of empty space were negligible. The chance of space dust floating close to a small asteroid was much higher, which is why we constantly watched for them.

When between star systems, our solar sails were out to catch whatever sunlight they could -- they went for miles in each direction, carbon nano-cloth glittering with reflected light. From far away, we looked like a tiny ant perched on the shell of a large soap-bubble. Every few weeks, a stray speck would hit a patch of sail, and a man-sized piece would erupt outward from the explosion. Ayoo would patch up the hole with hardly a complaint and keep on going.

Star systems were dirty, though, so when we were entering one, we had to re-absorb the wings before they were shredded by stray dust.

We were still a week away from the fly-by of Vegas. In a few hours, we’d be passing through a minor asteroid belt out beyond the farthest planet of the system. I hoped Hal’s upgrades were finishing by then, as he was much better at navigating around obstacles. I went back to my studies, and practiced evasion maneuvers in the simulator to keep me awake.



Four hours later, the alarms began flashing. My watch was close to over, and I’d been getting a bit drowsy. I was looking forward to crawling into my bed for a good solid night of shuteye, seeing as Liza was going to be in classes again. As soon as the klaxon sounded, I knew that it would be a long time before I got that rest.

“Sir, incoming foreign object. Alarm Yellow.”

“Got it, Ayoo.”

With a gesture at the override icon, I turned off the sirens. A quick scan showed me that she had detected a small object entering within a hundred thousand kilometers of the ship. The instruments couldn’t tell its shape or size, only that it was about the mass of a bowling ball. Its trajectory wasn’t on an intercept with ours, but I overrode our course just to be safe.

“Status report, Captain!” The Colonel had just entered the bridge, with Major Kim and Padre close on his heels. The Colonel was in full uniform, looking bright and fresh. Both the Major and Padre seemed less than fully awake, though. Padre was still wearing only his under suit, and looked wet - he must have just gotten out of the pool.

I quickly summarized the situation, and informed them that I’d followed standard procedure and adjusted course to avoid the rock. We were already close to three hundred thousand klicks away and increasing distance every second.

“Well done, Captain. Keep the watch. Is Captain Metzger finished with his uploads, yet?”

Major Kim had been checking the communication instruments, and answered with her faint Asian accent, “Sir, Halvin is still completely using both Links. His main system is turned off. It appears that he has less than 30 minutes before his upgrade is complete. Shall I hit the emergency abort so we can call Headquarters?”

“No, Major. But stand by in case there are any more rocks. The worst may be yet to come.”

We waited, with Major Kim scanning the perimeter for hostiles. Padre walked over to the communication desk and collapsed into the chair there. I still had the controls, and was gripping them tensely. It always made me nervous when people watched me fly. I couldn’t believe they were just standing there, staring at me. Didn’t they realize they were upsetting me? I guess I was a bit cranky, because they were really starting to piss me off. My hand was really hurting.

Major Kim started giggling, which only angered me further. Padre had dozed off, with his red shirt bunched up in his lap. That was rude, I thought. I stood up to shake him back awake and almost tripped in the suddenly light gravity. What the hell was going on? What was wrong with these people! The Major was now openly laughing at me. I almost shouted at them to stop bothering me… when I realized that Padre hadn’t been wearing a red shirt a few minutes ago.

Hypoxia: sudden loss of oxygen, causes different symptoms in each person… confusion, hysteria, or, in my case, rage.

Padre’s chest was covered in blood.

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--The Hermit


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Space Bugs

I jumped to the wall and hit the Alarm Red. The klaxon sounded from all around us, startling Padre to lift his head and stare emptily at me. Major Kim had been grabbing at her throat, face already turning purple. Her pressure suit was inflating around her, seeming incredibly slow. I was freezing.

“Ayoo!” I croaked, “Breach!”

I’m not sure if she heard me or I hit the emergency sealant button first. White foam poured from the walls, so the effect was achieved either way.

My suit had finished sealing around my head and I sucked greedily at the pure oxygen. I hadn’t realized that I was lying on the floor; I must have almost passed out from the lack of air. My headache disappeared instantly as I felt an automatic shot of adrenaline from the suit mix with what my body was making.

Padre had been hit, and he wasn’t wearing his external pressure suit. His jumper was having trouble forming over the gaping hole in his chest, and didn’t have any medical capabilities. I stuck my index finger into the gap and triggered a bacta spray, which splurted into him glowing a sickly green. I turned to Major Kim, who was already up on her knees, with a green light on her shoulder showing no suit rips and good vital signs.

The Colonel was another story. I can’t believe that I hadn’t noticed the cloud of red before. A few moments earlier, and I might have saved one of his arms. As it were, the meterorite must have punched straight through his right shoulder socket and exploded his left forearm. It was not a pretty sight, and his suit vital light was blinking orange to show he required immediate assistance.

Padre’s light was still a steady red. I had been too slow with the Bacta. I said a quick mental good-bye old spacer then turned back to matters at hand.

“Ayoo!” I called, but there was no answer.

“Ayoo, if you can hear me, we’ve had a hull breach. Maybe two. Recheck sealants.”

Nothing. Ugh, what terrible timing. One Intelligence off being upgraded, the other unresponsive. I turned to Major Kim.

“Ma’am? I’ll get the Colonel to the medbay. Can you wake up Hal?”

I think she was crying behind her faceplate, but I didn’t have time to care. She nodded, and I picked the Colonel up by the handhold on the back of his suit. Gravity was still about 1/3 of normal, so he was incredibly light especially without any arms. I sent a quick icon to the medical bay to get ready for emergency surgery, praying that Hal would be here soon to function as ship’s doctor.

When I left the bridge, it looked like I entered a snowy winterland. The ship was still very cold and the white foam billowing out around the walls didn’t help the image. I was shivering in spite of my suit’s heater working overtime to bring my temperature back up to normal. Sudden exposure to cold air-less space sucked in more ways then one.

Another two turns and we were in the medbay/kitchen. When we entered, the Colonel was violently trembling in my hands. He was probably going into shock.

A large vat of green goop was prepared for me. I dropped the Colonel into it, and the lid automatically closed over him. I could see through the transparent sides that his external coverall suit was automatically deflating to let in the extra bacta. Red mixed in with the goop, and I turned away at the site of tubes attaching to his severed veins. Puking in my space suit wasn’t the worst thing that could happen right now, but it sure was close.

“Ayoo? Are you there?” Still nothing.

I pulled up the surgical software, and felt completely overwhelmed. Medical studies were, by far, my worst subject. I accepted the default diagnosis that popped on screen and clicked ‘OK’ to automatically administer stabilization treatment and replenish lost fluids. Twenty options for different surgeries suggested themselves, none of which I understood. Maybe Major Kim could do better. I clicked the ‘Continue stabilization’ button, and ran back to the bridge.

“Ayoo? Answer, damn it!” I screamed in frustration but composed myself before entering the bridge.

Major Kim was shouting at the console, apparently trying to wake up Hal. When I entered, she jumped then said, “He’s rebooting. His entire system crashed when I pulled him off the Link. I don’t know how long it’ll take. I should have just let him finish!” She was upset, and seemed to blame me for the situation.

Padre was still silent. The glowing red light on his shoulder stared at me like an angry eye.

I was coming down from the adrenaline high, and starting to get a bit woozy. My teeth were chattering and I trembled slightly.

“Ayoo’s not answering. I don’t know what happened. Can you check?”

Major Kim looked angry at my ordering her around, then apparently gave up and cycled through a few commands.

“Completely dead. The Pool was hit hard. We shouldn’t go in there; it’s still got a hazard light.” A screen showed a swirling mix of white sealant and dark grey liquid scattered all over the room. Not good at all, especially as the nan wasn’t reforming into puddles like it should. We needed to get either Hal or Ayoo back on-line, or contact the UNSF to get a remote Intelligence to help patch us up.

“Any other damage to Anomaly?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. All punctures have been sealed, and temperature’s getting back to normal. The Links are both offline, and the artificial gravity’s turned off, which I’m resetting. We’re tracking off course, but I’m keeping us pointed the right way. All the permanent damage seems to be just to crew.”

“I think the Colonel will be alright, he had a steady orange when I left.”

Relief showed on her face.

I continued, “But, he needs help fast. We need Hal back. And, we need a pilot. Can we load one of the backups of Hal or Ayoo?”

“Not until that mess in the Pool is sorted out. We could try, but it’d still take an hour at least. We should wait for Hal to come awake.”

Another though occurred to me then. A2-V2, the probe I’d sent a few hours ago, had an almost complete copy of A2 guiding it. I pulled up a mission scheduling board, built a quick program and had Major Kim sign it with her thumb. As ranking capable officer on the ship, it would need her authority.

“OK, I sent a probe off to look at Vegas a few hours ago with a copy of Ayoo piloting it. It answers to ‘A2-V2’. I told it to send a copy of her back to us and automatically load it into the ship if Hal isn’t back yet. Just in case.”

“Good thinking, Jake.” I think she felt bad for snapping at me earlier, and was trying to make amends. “I’m going to go see if I can help the Colonel. Can you stay here and wait for Hal?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll clean up, as well.” I didn’t mention Padre’s body, I saw by her expression that I didn’t have to.

As she left, I set an alarm to beep as soon as Hal’s was awake. I set to the grizzly task of moving Padre to his stateroom and cleaning up all of the blood. I was getting woozy, and opened my suit helmet, which was a big mistake. The smell was overpowering. I deposited my leftover bits of casserole into a puddle in the corner.

_________________
--The Hermit


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:51 pm 
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Location: Fairfax, Virginia
Upgrades

“Jake, you need to accept the medical icon.”

I looked up, and was ashamed to realize I had fallen asleep at the console while still on watch. Suddenly, I remembered the accident, and came instantly awake.

Hal was standing in front of me, looking very sad.

“Hal! You’re back!” I realized how obvious it sounded. I tried to be more helpful. ”The Colonel’s hurt! He needs your help.”

“Yes, Jake. I know. I am in there now with him, too.” He was allowed to materialize in multiple places during emergencies.

He continued, “Major Kim is also there. You have injuries, you need to fix them.”

“What? I’m fine.” I then noticed that I’d had a small medical icon blinking at the top right corner of my vision. It must have been doing that for a while.

I looked down at my right thumb. I turned my suit transparent, then immediately saw the damage. My thumb had been sliced in half vertically, all the way down to the knuckle. The suit had immediately cut off the nerve feedback and stopped the blood flow.

I must have turned white, because my vision started swimming.

“Jake, sit down. You need some protein and iron. You’ve lost some blood, too. Some metal shards were knocked loose.”

I sat down and accepted the medical icon. A cool tube of fluid extended into my mouth, and I sipped greedily upon it. It tasted salty, but I didn’t care as I was ravenously hungry.

“Thanks, Hal. I hadn’t realized that it happened.”

“Jake, you’re still in shock. You also hurt your tooth.”

He drew a picture in the air which showed my mirrored reflection. I looked terrible, very pale with sunken eyes. I also had a huge chip missing from my front tooth. I felt it with my tongue and was surprised at how weird the sharpness felt.

“I’m sorry, but the nerve is enflamed. I will have to operate on it soon, or it will really hurt when the painkiller wears off.”

I chuckled, “Hal, it’s the least of our worries.”

It was then that I realized how he had been yanked back from his upgrade before it completed.

“Hal, how are you? Are you OK?”

“No, I’m not. I am operating in Safe Mode.” He looked like he would cry, and I realized that his resolution was much lower than normal. His image looked artificial and transparent in parts.

“How is the pool? Is Ayoo OK?”

“No, Jake. Ayoo and half of my memory banks were destroyed. We had two separate punctures in the ship. I have started repairs and am loading backups, but it will take days to fully recover.”

“Can’t you just load a backup from Headquarters? Wouldn’t that be faster.”

Hal looked even more miserable, if that were possible.

“I’m sorry Jake, but one of the Links was hit and destroyed. I haven’t been able to repair the second one yet. I am using most of my concentration on the Colonel. I must shut down this terminal now, as well. Do you want to meet us in the medbay?” He faded away before I could answer.

I looked over the instruments. There wasn’t much I could do here. I saw that A2-V2 had received my message and had begun transmitting the copy of his operating system back over to the ship. We could use that to back up Ayoo. I called up the programming interface, and saw that it should be done in a few minutes.

I realized that I was just stalling from going to medbay, and sighed. This wasn’t the time to be afraid of blood. I left the bridge.

Already, there was a great improvement in the hallway sealant. White gel was no longer pooling everywhere. It had mostly contracted back into the walls. I saw a large circle going through one wall that was off-color from the rest and still looked wet. I was amazed at how large the hole had been -- I could have fit my head through there.

_________________
--The Hermit


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