The Project

Chapter 11

The Project Chapter 11

Arna and Garmik thought nothing of the ships AI being "haunted" by Karla-Ann's spirit, but after some more questioning Alex came to the realization that this "spirit" was just a compilation of everything Gideon had entered in his journal. Arna had let he and Kelly read it, discovering that he detailed her thoughts, and feelings, her picture, and anything he could think of about her.

"That guy really had a crush on her, didn't he?" said Kelly,

"Looks that way," replied Alex, "It's gonna be weird talking to a computer like that."

"Kinda like one of those GPS devices that tell you when to turn and what road to take," said Kelly. Alex grinned and added,

"I wonder if there's a way to mute her?"

"You don't like me speaking to you?" Came Karla's "voice."

Both Alex and Kelly looked at each other and grimaced,

"Uhh that's all right Karla," replied Kelly, "We just aren't used to talking to a computer."

"Well just talk to me as you would a friend," came the reply.

Whispering to Alex, Kelly said,

"Remind me not to keep a journal on the computer."

Alex chuckled and shrugged,

"Whatever!"

Garmik soon pronounced the Karla-Ann in top shape; everything looked good, and ready to fly. He had also completely re-modeled the whole cargo and living area of the ship. Utilizing every nook and cranny, for storage and by adding special partitions, he also created another sleeping area. Asking the teens if they would rather have one area in which both could sleep together, both rejected the idea,

"That's all right Garmik," said Alex, we'll be fine." He told Kelly the bunks reminded him of pictures he's seen of crew quarters in old sailing ships. Early on he had told Garmik to keep the basic cargo area as large as possible,

"Hauling stuff might be a way of making money; you never know what we'll run into."

The galley had a table that folded into the bulkhead when not in use, and the "oven" and sink were set into small alcoves, everything else was located in cabinets. Alex was quite impressed with Garmik's skills and abilities, and told him so.

"Thank you very much Alex, "He said, Arna and I have to speak with members of the committee first, then we will be able to leave."

While the two droids were gone Alex and Kelly sat in the pilot and co-pilot seats and talked with Karla. Still intrigued with the idea of the ship's AI being "possessed" by the spirit of a living person, both teens quizzed Karla on her knowledge of Z'hadum. However both soon realized that "Karla" only knew what Gideon had written into his journal. Karla's voice was real enough, as Gideon had stored a voice message from the original Karla-Ann in the computer. Still, it was rather interesting to actually be talking to a computer that didn't respond with a stilted voice.

Before long, Arna and Garmik returned,

"Our business is done," announced Garmik, "We are now ready to leave."

"Where are we heading?" Asked Alex, Arna brought up a star map on the scanner screen, then she said,

"Karla, bring up quadrant XXL30056." Suddenly another map appeared on the screen, turning to Alex and Kelly Arna said,

"This map comes from the data we recovered from the creator's computer, the notes that go with this suggest there may be several habitable planets out there. Apparently the creators intended to explore it but never got the chance, now we will go have a look ourselves."

Soon the Karla-Ann was leaving Xindus behind. They hadn't entered hyper drive yet, or as Arna explained it,

"We don't know what this new galaxy consists of, if it's littered with asteroids, comets or any amount of space junk care must be taken, besides we have the time, and you two must learn how to fly this craft." That was just OK with Alex, Kelly wasn't so sure, but he insisted.

"You never know what might happen out here Kelly, don't sell yourself short, I believe in you, I think eventually you'll make a good pilot."

So far, the infusion of Karla's data into the computer didn't seem to have any effect on its operation other than the fact that various controls could now be activated with simple voice commands. Arna used this feature in her training of Alex and Kelly to fly the ship.

"Karla, please retard the port thruster," or "Karla, sometime in the next arr, change course unannounced at least three times." Sometimes Arna would have Karla simulate an attack by shutting down various instruments or controls requiring Alex or Kelly to recalibrate, or recite to Arna what the last reading of a particular instrument was. Arna started the training at two arr's a cycle, then increased it to three, then finally four. The two teens soon discovered that Arna was a real taskmaster and didn't grade on a curve. Once, when Kelly complained, Arna read her the "riot act" about the very real possibility of coming under attack and Kelly being the only one who could fly. Or another possibility of damage to the ship such as meteor hits, or damage from space junk. Garmik also began instruction in how the ship worked, giving his own tests.

Both teens knew deep down their very lives depended on learning this stuff, their real-life educations had begun, it wasn't much fun, but each knew they had no choice.

It had now been close to three weeks by Alex's reckoning since they had left Xindus Karla had alerted them to a small galaxy consisting of five planets with a moon orbiting around one. A large star was acting as its sun with life very possible on the planet with a moon. The data gleaned from the creator's computer didn't give much information other than the two planets showed indications of containing life.

"Let's go for it," Said Alex, "We've been cooped up on this ship for three weeks now, I don't know about you and Garmik, but Kelly and I need to stretch our legs, and we need to look for food and water as well." Kelly was in the pilot's seat as Arna was showing her how to enter a planets gravity field when suddenly something felt like it was clawing at his brain. Kelly cried out as well, loosing control so that Arna had to pull her out of her seat and quickly take over.

"Oww, s**t! What is going on?" Cried Alex, Kelly wasn't faring any better, Arna and Garmik were desperately trying to understand what was going on with these two humans. Suddenly the face of what looked like some demented demon appeared on the scanner,

"Who are you? Why do you come here? The pressure in Alex's head suddenly eased, allowing him to respond.

"My name is Alex Russom, my friend here is Kelly Parkinson, the androids are called Arna and Garmik. Kelly and I are from the planet called earth, Arna is from Z'ha'dum, and Garmik is from Xindus."

The face didn't change expression as it asked,

"What are these other two, are they being or machine?" Alex looked at Arna and Garmik,

"They are a combination of the two, please we mean you no harm, we are weary from traveling, and just want to stop for awhile and rest."

"Let me think about this," said the face on the scanner,

"You may continue to orbit my planet, but if I should decide that you are not welcome, you must leave immediately."

"We understand," replied Alex.

The face then disappeared from the screen as Kelly announced,

"What the hell was that, my head felt like bugs were swarming around inside."

"I don't know" replied Alex; my head was all screwed up as well. He then asked Arna and Garmik,

"You two didn't feel that, nothing was screwing with your brains?" Both shook their heads,

"No," replied Arna, "I felt nothing,"

"Nothing here as well added Garmik."

Suddenly, another face appeared, this time it was a rather exotic looking woman with green eyes and long black hair.

Alex was admiring her beauty, when Kelly pointed to the screen and said,

"Look at her ears, she's an elf, ohmygod, there really are elves!"

"You know of us I take it," came the voice."

"Oh yes," replied Kelly, back on earth we know all about elves, pixies, fairies, uh, leprechauns, oh and unicorns."

"Interesting, but have you ever met any of these beings?"

"Well…Uh, not exactly, they don't exist anymore, if they ever did, but our ancient lore is filled with them." There was a long period of silence, then the woman's face appeared on the screen again.

"These lepreehun, what do you know of them?" Kelly started racking her brain for anything she could remember about the "little people."

"Um, well there is a country called Ireland on our planet, um, leprechaun's come from there. The Irish call them the "little People," supposedly they leave pots of gold at the end of rainbows, uh, if you can catch one they offer you three wishes. They are all dressed in green, oh and there's a college that has them as their mascot, that's about all I know about them, but maybe I'll think of something later." There was another long silence, then the woman's face returned.

"My name is Queen Breca…Queen of the elves; you have my permission to land. If you will notice the large continent below you, roughly at the center you will notice a very bright flashing beacon, land there, but remain by your craft until someone comes." Her face disappeared again leaving Alex and Kelly trying to come to grips with what they had just seen.

"Who are these leprechauns' you were speaking of?" Asked Arna.

"Back on earth, there are many cultures that feature elves and such in their folklore," Explained Kelly, It's the one thing I truly enjoyed reading about when I was younger. Eventually I got into UFO's and stuff, but you know what I'm talking about Alex."

"Yeah, Lord of the rings, the Hobbit, yeah I saw the movies, leprechaun's who doesn't know about them. She's right Arna, everybody just assumed that they were folk characters or something Tolkien made up, but obviously they are real."

"Are they dangerous?" Asked Garmik, Alex shrugged,

"I don't know, ask our "expert" here. Kelly gave him a dirty look,

"Well I've read that leprechaun's pixies and fairies like to play tricks on people, damn I hope these elves aren't like that."

"Well I hope not either," replied Garmik,

"Well let's go find out," said Alex.

The scanner easily located the beacon below them with Arna showing Alex how to manually lock in the coordinates on a given landmark. When they got to about twenty thousand ing's above the flashing beacon, it suddenly winked out, but by now their landing location was locked in.

The Karla-Ann set down on a large courtyard surrounded by a low stone wall,

"I detect no threats," announced Karla," do you want me to charge my hull?"

"I don't think that will be necessary," replied Arna, but just place yourself on standby."

"As you request captain," came the reply. Playing it safe, Alex grabbed his AR, and handed the Mossburg to Kelly, passing her a shoulder bag filled with shotgun shells, a med kit, and an MRE.

"Sling it over your shoulder," he instructed, "But for Christ's sake don't point it at anyone unless they attack us first."

"Is this wise?" she asked. With a look of concern, Alex replied,

"Until we determine their intentions, we are at triple red, got that?" Kelly nodded. Alex then looked at Arna and Garmik,

"You know, I never thought to ask, but do you two have any sort of weapons built into you?"

"We do," replied Garmik, "But we'd rather not reveal them at this point, to use them quickly depletes our energy supply, and I haven't as yet created a re-charge unit to re-charge Arna and I should the need arise."

"So much for that," thought Alex, "Well let's just be on our guard, let's go take a look." Arna thought it must be around mid-day from the position of the sun, although Alex wondered how she could know that, not knowing this planet's orbit cycle, or the length of "days" on the planet. At one end of the low wall was a high tower just like in some of the video games he'd played. There was an open gate at the other end and it looked like they were surrounded by a thick forest.

"Wow! This is so cool!" Exclaimed Kelly, "I wonder if anyone lives in that tower, kinda looks like something a mage or wizard would live in."

Suddenly five Centaurs' came galloping through the gate and quickly surrounded them.

"Holy s**t!" Gasped Kelly "Centaur's, my god they really do exist!" Alex could only look at them and accept that fact, but slowly he was coming around to the idea that he was going to be seeing a lot of very strange things on this trip.

The Centaur's were naturally a half horse half man combination, but unlike the mythological depictions, these Centaur's wore grey or linen colored shirts under brown or black waist coats. They also wore felt hats, and large saddles, that extended around their fronts like aprons, with what appeared to be cargo type pockets on the front. Alex smiled to himself at their appearance. Arna and Garmik just stood there looking intently at the creatures.

In a tone of impatience, one of the centaur's said,

"Hurry up, climb on, let's get out of here!"

"Oh s**t! They even talk!" Exclaimed Kelly.

The centaurs gave her puzzled looks,

"Of course we can talk human, now if you're quite ready, swing up into our saddles, so we can get out of here."