Taking Space

ONWARD

“What in the -” Daniel began to say

Steven stepped forward and put his finger to his mouth, telling them to be quiet. A second later, the hologram of Alf disappeared, and the power in the room faded away plunging them into darkness.

Steven took a deep breath, letting himself relax. “Alf found a loophole in his programming. He is rebooting himself right now to make it stick.”

“I gathered that much. What I don’t get is how the world this could possibly work. I mean we all know that wasn’t David Kell or Zephyr and Alf’s programming can’t possibly fake that then tell itself it didn’t.”

“Actually Daniel it didn’t fake that. The Lionhearted sometimes used digitized versions of their commanders to make decisions in difficult situations they couldn’t possibly be present for. This was called the ghost protocol. They knew it wasn’t actually them so they didn’t use it that often or give them any authority but having a continuously updated version of yourself stored in the databanks ready to make an important call on any given situation can save lives.”

Daniel crinkled his eyebrows. “Are you saying that was a digitize version of them?”

“Yes, it’s very likely Alf downloaded them from whatever secret database last night and let them look over the situation this morning.”

“And this is the solution they came up with,” Michael added.

“Yeah.”

“What will happen to them now?” Stephanie asked.

“They will be turned back off and silently wait in the database for if they're ever needed again.”

“Cool, so I can like talk to a digitize version of David Kell if I want to later?” Daniel exclaimed excitedly.

“No, they are not real, and they are only allowed to be accessed in an emergency,” Steven answered coldly as the ship's power began to come back on.

Alf appeared on the view screens. “Sorry, sirs. I seem to have suffered an unexplained reboot.”

“That may be my fault.” Steven offered. “And I may have to do so again. I want to gut the prison surveillance room and replace it with much more size efficient equipment.”

“Understandable it is rather out-of-date; however, Sir, I wish you would warn me of such actions beforehand. I was in the process of rooting out and deleting what I believe was some mischievous reprogramming.” The hologram lion glared at Daniel.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because if you are anything like your predecessor, you are likely the one responsible.”

“What?”

Steven laughed. “Lord Maddog was well known for mischievously reprogram ships AI’s. In fact he’s the one that reprogrammed Alf naming him Alf. He was originally named something else.”

Alf looked rather disgruntled. “Yes I used to have a rather dignified name, and he changed it to ‘All Lionhearteds’ Friend.’”

Daniel burst out laughing, “Seriously? All Lionhearteds’ Friend? That’s hilarious!”

The lion glared at him. “I believe you were given orders you have yet to follow.”

Michael held his hand over his mouth as he said, “Yes, I think we’ve wasted enough time here. We need to get on this right away.”

Daniel nodded, and he and Stephanie once again began to walk off the bridge, but as Daniel walked out the door he said, “Oh, that’s right, All Lionhearteds’ Friend, where are the finished dimensional door hoops being stored?”

“It’s Alf!” the lion retorted. “And they are located where all the finished products under fifty pounds are stored: on the far right side of the lower end of the factory.

***

Several hours later, Steven walked back on the bridge. “I found out some rather interesting stuff how about you two?”

Michael swiped at the one screen he had been looking at closing it. “I’m not all that good at this type of stuff though Catherine has discovered quite the amount of alarming information.”

Catherine rubbed her eyes. “I did, but I’m not sure how much it’ll help us.”

“That bad, huh?”

Daniel took off his Virt helmet. “From hearing both of them talk I’d say it depends on whether or not we wanted to topple an empire or not. I just finished placing the last dimensional door hoops by the way. Most of the ones in space are in space trash dumps and the ones on the colonies or spaceships I tried my best to place them where they will not be detected.”

“Good, how is Stephanie doing?”

Daniel shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve been in here since I hooked the drones up.”

“Michael and I haven’t left either.”

Steven nodded and pulled a collaboration of curved metal tubes out of his pocket and dropped them on the floor. They quickly snap together to form a giant metal hoop that then stood upright. Steven picked it up and moved it right beside the door leaving the bridge then activated it. The dimensional door opened to the training room.

Stephanie was in the middle of the training room, and there was a small bead of sweat running down her face.

Daniel got out of his seat and walked closer to the door. “What are you doing?”

Stephanie angrily swished her hand at him, telling him to go away. “I’m trying to concentrate here!”

Steven looked back towards the main viewports and said, “Alf, please display the visuals and audio from the unit Zephyr is currently controlling.”

The main viewports flickered to life showing the side of a wall then the view of an alleyway as Stephanie slowly poked the droids head around the corner. The hum of a frequency-based weapon played across the speakers, and the corner of the wall Stephanie’s robot was hiding behind burst into shrapnel.

Stephanie expertly rolled the robot away then she snarled in anger as she bought it back to its feet and jumped into the alleyway running it as fast as it would go. Another hum filled the air and Stephanie dropped the droid to one knee and brought it shoulder back, twisting it at the waist.

The screen showed the glowing blue orb-like projectile passing by off to the side only a few inches away as sparks flew from the sliding knee.

Stephanie used the momentum to push out the right leg flipping the droid into the air. The desperate gunners next shot missed by a mile and the droid came down hard on him smash into the ground.

The weapon rolled away, and Stephanie pinned the man to the ground. “Who do you work for!?” The droid roared in a metallic tone.

The man stared terrified up at it but did not speak.

The construction droid slammed its fist down beside the man’s head bending the metal floor and spewing sparks. “I won’t ask again.”

The man opened his mouth to say something, but the sound of a charging particle beam cannon made both their heads snap up to look up the alleyway. The bright yellow of a charged beam filled the viewscreen.

Stephanie tried to roll the droid out of the away, but it was too late. The particle beam cut straight through the hind end and torso of the droid into the man and exploded.

The droid's head flew off, tumbling through the air, and the screen went black as it hit the ground.

Stephanie threw the hat to the floor. “Stupid clunky piece of junk!”

“Alf initiate micro self-destruction on that unit.” Steven hurriedly said.

“Already done sir.”

“Good.” Steven turned to Stephanie. “What in the world was that about?”

Stephanie seemed rather agitated as she looked the dimensional door and said, “I noticed that man because he was more than overdressed for the area in the colony he was in, so I followed him and what do I overhear? Him paying thirteen million to a freaky looking man for a data chip supposedly containing information on the Lionhearted.”

“Did you get the information on that data chip!?” Steven asked anxiously.

“Sort of.” She answered as she hung her head.

Michael looked dubiously at her. “Sort of?”

“I crashed through the wall into the bar coming in, right at the table and grabbing the chip. The freaky man reacted fast pulling some type of weapon out, and I punch him in the head a little too hard. He couldn’t possibly offer any information ever again so I run after that dude. As I ran I tried to stick the data chip into the information port on the droid, but the chip had been crunched into tiny pieces.” Stephanie angrily clenched her fist. “The stupid thing didn’t have anywhere near as fine movement as it should!”

“Well, at least no one will get that information,” Michael said comfortingly.

“It’s not the information I’m upset about! I killed that man!” Stephanie shouted back.

None of them knew what to say, so they just stood there staring at her through the dimensional door.

A giant hologram of Alf appeared beside Stephanie. “I understand your pain, and while I know it won’t bring you much comfort I think you should know I just looked over the view log and ran a face recognition on the guy you killed. His death was long overdue.”

Stephanie didn’t answer; she just sat down and started to cry.

The others walked through the dimensional door into the training room and sat down beside her Michael wrapping his arm around her.

After a bit, she cleared her tears. “If someone was willing to pay that much they might have real information on us.”

“I’d like to say that’s not possible, but Murphy’s Law would state otherwise,” Steven answered.

“But who would be willing to pay that much?” Daniel asked.

“That, I do know,” Steven said as he stood up. He took a deep breath. “Yesterday when I told you all I’d hacked into a private residence and I had seen something inappropriate I was only half telling the truth. I did hack into a private residence but what I saw wasn’t what I made it sound like it was. You see that message the mobile station had sent out went to the secret chamber in the vice president of Almandine’s mansion. I didn’t think it was wise for any of us to mess with someone that high up so I kind of lied. Sorry.”

Stephanie reached out and touched his leg. “That’s okay. I think all of us except Daniel would’ve done the same. He would have likely gone gung ho after him.”

“Hey, I’m not that stupid.” Daniel protested

Steven brought the subject back to the matter at hand. “I did a little bit more digging as Michael asked, and I found out that him and Winkler, the president, seem to have a lot more than just the typical you rub my back I rubbed your back type of deal going on with the real person behind ULIX who just happens to be a Halik J. Cox the older half-brother to Malik T. Cox.”

“The one we…?” Catherine asked.

Steven nodded.

Daniel whistled.

“Well, that explains why he would pay so much,” Michael said.

“Yes, without knowing it we’ve already made it more than personal. Worst yet I found that his battleship was produced in the Almandian shipyard and he is currently putting a lot of pressure on Winkler to give him direct control over the entire Almandian fleet.”

“Can he get away with that?” Daniel asked.

“Probably. He’s the one that gave Winkler and his VP that mobile station and they’ve used the assassination droids it produced quite often from what I can tell.”

“So he has them around the neck,” Catherine stated.

Michael rubbed his forehead. “I don’t like the sounds of this. We may have already gotten in over our heads.”

“So what do we do?” Stephanie said.

Steven took a deep breath. “I’d like to take out Cox himself, but sadly after Burlock’s death he’s disappeared from the map I can’t even trace his communications with the president.”

The hologram of Alf had laid down on its belly with its front paws crossed quietly listening as they comforted Stephanie, now however it stood up straight and took on a demanding presence. “I believe it’s imperative that we capture President Elroy D. Wrinkler and his VP and put them on public trial.”

Michael began to stand up but fell back as he said, “What!”

“From the information Soul Knight just divulged, and my own data I have concluded that Cox has become a real threat to your safety and my last order concerning you five was to keep you safe at all cost. Eliminating Winkler and his cohort will remove Cox’s power base completely. Not only that, President Winkler’s sins alone make him explicitly overdue for judgment. I understand that our current resources are limited, but allowing him to remain untouched just because of his position is against everything the Lionhearted stand for.”

“You can’t seriously be suggesting this. If we took the president out, it would destabilize the entire Almandine government!” Michael protested.

“Which would leave it vulnerable to Adolphian empiric seizure,” Catherine added.

Steven's head snapped towards Catherine. “What do you mean?”

“I found out that some of the men discovered dead yesterday were from the Adolphian Empire using unregistered empiric weapons. From this and other clues, I’ve believe that someone in the Adolphian Empire is feeding one of the groups involved weapons and men.”

Steven took a deep breath. “And the only reason to do that is to destabilize the sector.”

“Making it ripe for seizure.” Stephanie spat.

The AI lion flickered his hue subtly changing color. “I have already taken that fact into consideration and, according to my calculations, if things continue as they are, I believe they will succeed. However if you take out Winkler it’ll force their hand, and they’ll try to set their own puppet to power in this sector. Such maneuvering will make it easy for us to track the perpetrator back to its source allowing us take them out as well. There is also a high chance that Cox will make a play for power revealing his location.”

Everyone stared at Alf.

“Wow.” Daniel murmured. “Talk about ambitious.”

“It is the Lionhearted way and what you have sworn to upkeep and hold. Such grave transgressions and continual breaking of the three great laws cannot go unpunished.”

“I know but… dang man.”

“I understand that you all are afraid, but your lives are already in danger, and without immediate action you will likely be forced to cease to function.”

All five of them stood there in silence.

Alf turned to Daniel. “At times like this, Lord Maddog had a saying.”

“Ya?”

“The wicked flee where no man pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”