Taking Space

ANCIENT

Stephanie rubbed her freezing, goosebumps-riddled arms. “Poor man.”

Daniel shifted uncomfortably as he stared down at the floor. “He... he looked so broken.”

“He witnessed the greatest war crime of history. Still to this day, the event known as The Valdarians' Folly has one the highest estimated death tolls. The universe of his time had never even imagined such a tragedy was possible.” Catherine said solemnly.

Steven interjected. “Wait, I thought the first destroyed planet was hundreds of years earlier.”

“It was, but that planet kept its rotation as it drifted out of orbit. It took the planet Dolos over a month to slowly freeze over and die, so most of the civilians were evacuated. The graviton weapon that was used here caused a gravitational pull equal to that of a class five star. It lasted only for a minute, perhaps even a fraction of a second, but during that time it ripped the two nearby planets out of their orbits so violently, it disrupted their spin. Countless died in the first hour, and the co-orbiting planets smashed into each other just four hours later at such speeds that their remains were scattered all over the sector. Out of the billions of people that lived on the planets, only a hundred and eighty thousand eyewitnesses survived.”

As Catherine finished speaking, the room felt five times colder.

“And that is why I don't study history!” Daniel exclaimed, shaking himself. “Steven, I feel like every single part of me is frostbitten. While a part of me does feel it's justified when hearing about such a dark time in history, I would like very much to be warm again!”

Steven clenched his hands, trying to keep the blood moving in them. “Aye give me a sec.”

Steven looked at the console for a few more seconds, then put one drone arm under it, cutting a small hole. He then used the other arm to insert a pin-sized antenna. “I think it's best if I can establish direct control from here.”

Two screens popped up; they were filled with walls of codes.

“Ah wow man I have hacked governments that had protections only one-tenth this good.”

“Can you do it?” Daniel asked.

“I think but only because the ship thinks I'm the dead guy. If he had logged out and the anti-security droids weren't hiding my presence not a chance.” Steven said.

He went to work.

Five minutes later, Daniel's teeth began to chatter.

“Ssh I need to think!” Steven scolded.

“Ssoosory… just ssoo ccold”

“Sssh!”

Catherine waved him over, and they hugged, trying to keep warm as she quietly whispered in his ear. “You guys sure like to go from one extreme to the next, don’t you? One minute it’s so hot I could burn myself touching a wall, now it’s so cold that in a few minutes I will have hypothermia.”

Daniel smiled and jokingly whispered back. “Well, if you’re going to do something, then do it with all your heart and might.”

Catherine let out a soft giggle.

“Grr, I have it connected, but it won't let me power down the guns because our earlier actions have put it in a high alert state. My only option is to turn the whole ship on from the get-go.” Steven said.

“Can you do it?”

“Yeah but none of us is authorized on the ship... Oh, there’s an Idea. Never mind give me a few more minutes.” Steven went back to work.

Ten more agonizing minutes crawled by; before Steven said, “Ok Mike, I replaced the dead man with your profile, it will recognize your face your DNA and voice. I have made a direct remote control link, and you will have full control over the ship as soon as I activate it. However, the ship’s AI is in a hibernation mode designed to help it focus solely on factory production. But when you take the ship out of stealth mode it will wake up. You will need to act like you are the leader of the Lionhearted or it might be unpredictable.”

“I'm not sure I can do that. I'm so cold I can barely-”

“Wait! Did you say ‘Lionhearted’?” Daniel looked up, shocked, cutting Michael off.

Steven smiled. “I did.”

“No way! They’re like the coolest people that ever lived! Half of the good games I've played have been about them.”

“I know.”

“Wait, Steven, you mean the dead dude you have replaced my identity with is the leader of the Lionhearted?” Michael asked stunned.

Steven nodded.

“He was David Kell?!”

Steven opened his mouth, about to say yes, when Stephanie stood up and said, “Guys, we’re freezing to death here! Get us out alive first. Then you can nerd out on game characters.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Michael apologized. “Steven.”

Steven hit a switch, and the giant ship became a slave to Michael's captain seat. The seat lit up and projected a myriad of holographic controls.

Michael studied the controls for a few seconds until he found what he was looking for. “Well, here goes nothing.”

A myriad of powering up noises played through the drone's mics, and its cameras showed the lights coming on in the big spherical cockpit. Then, the view screens on the pirate ship went black, plunging them into darkness.

“That can't be good,” Stephanie muttered.

Michael looked down. The holographic controls were still there. “Steven?”

“I don't know. It should be working; maybe the drone malfunctioned.”

The view screens came back on: this time displaying a large, impressive golden lion.

“Initializing,” it said in a surprisingly gentle male voice.

They all froze.

“Stopping production as per ordered... Production stopped. Elapsed time since production began... three hundred and thirty-two galactic years, four months, seven days, four hours and forty-two minutes. Total objects created... 254,120.”

They all just stood there in dumbfounded.

“Two... two hundred thousand?” Daniel breathed.

The AI took control of the pirate ship and scanned Michael with its sensors.

“Identity confirmed... Welcome back, David Kell. It has been... two minutes since you logged in, three hundred and thirty-two galactic years, four galactic months, and seven days, four hours and thirty-six minutes since we last spoke. I am glad to see that you are in better health, and you have outlasted your life expectancy.”

Michael tried to say thank you, but his teeth chartered halfway through the “thank.”

The pirate ship made a few beeping noises, and the lion AI said, “Sir, it appears that your vessel has been severely damaged. Without maintenance or intervention, you will likely expire in forty-nine minutes from hypothermia. I advise immediate action.”

“Oh, it does, does it,” Daniel mocked.

Mike flashed him a glare, then looked back at the lion. “I'll take your advice into consideration. Now though, please power all exterior and interior defenses down.”

“Sir that is ill-advised. There has been a threat detected, and it is believed to be in your vicinity.”

“I'm well aware of the situation. Please do as I say and power all units down.”

All the red dots on Stephanie's console disappeared.

“Done sir.”

A collective sigh of relief ran amongst the group, and Michael let out a heavy breath as he reached down and turned the ship’s power back on.  The dynovamator purred back to life, the ship hummed, and all the lights came back on.

The giant lion’s color shifted hues, and his eyes narrowed. “Enemy detected in your immediate vicinity. Sending units to assist.”

A warning alarm chimed as fifty red dots appeared back on the radar.

“No,” Michael shouted.

The lion turned its combat-ready eyes on Michael. “Sir?”

Michael half froze with fear, but he knew their lives were on the line, so he forced himself to say the first reasonable thing that popped into his mind. “I... I have already dealt with the pirates and have taken their ship.”

A small red light on the side of the captain’s seat blinked on and off a few times.

“The logs show Charles Vane and his crew were indeed pirates. Their removal from functionality was overdue.” The computer-generated creature’s lips turned up in what seemed to be a smile. “The tactics used to disable his vessel were superb, marking your craft as friendly. Well done, sir,” it congratulated.

The red dots on the radar turned green.

An almost audible noise of relief swept the cockpit, even though none of them moved nor made a sound.

“Thank you,” Michael said, with a smile of his own.

The AI's joyful expression turned into a frown seconds later, and his eyes narrowed once more. “However, that was the last log. There seems to be some time discrepancies.”

“Thank God I didn't re-enable the log,” Steven whispered underneath his breath.

The cockpit sensors flashed again.

“Nor does it mention your current passengers,” the AI continued.

Michael began to fidget, then realized something. If I'm supposed to be acting like David Kell, then I’d better act like him, instead of a fidgeting crook.

With this thought, he straightened his back and said, “My life is in jeopardy, and I do not have time to discuss that with you right now.”

The AI nodded. “As you say, sir.”

 Michael turned his attention to the pirate ship’s controls and shuttled all the available energy into the heaters.

The AI took note of the influxes of power. “Good job, sir, you have bought yourself some time. However, it appears the heaters in your craft are inefficient to heat your quarters fast enough to preserve your life.”

“I know this. Please connect your ship’s viewports to my vessels, and turn yourself off so I can concentrate.”

The lion nodded again. “Sir.” Then disappeared, shortly replaced by the view from the large factory ship.

“That worked?” Michael mused.

Steven laughed. “Looks like it.”

“Wow, that thing must have bolts for brains.” Daniel changed his voice to match the AI's mockingly. “You have outlived your life expectancy.”

“It's a locked AI. A program that has to stay inside its parameters and it can't write new codes itself.” Steven said in the lion's defense.

Catherine shook herself. “I'm starting to have to fight to stay awake.”

Daniel, realizing just how cold she was, started to rub her arms vigorously.

“Thank you.” Catherine smiled.

“I'll go see what I can do to increase the heat output. Mike start to bringing the ship here. “Steven jumped up and dashed through the door.

“Yeah right, you probably just want to crawl in a vent and snuggle by the heat output,” Stephanie shouted after him.

Michael grinned. Truth be told, that's exactly what he wanted to do, too. He stretched his fingers and pushed the ship's holographic control forward.

The huge ship roared to life. In seconds, it was at the edge of the cloud.

Michael stopped and watched, as whatever was holding the cloud back broke, letting it flood into the clearing. Then the asteroids did the same slowly bumping into each other and bouncing into what had been a giant clearing moments ago

“Oh, great.” He whispered.

Daniel stopped rubbing Catherine’s arms and looked up to see what was wrong. “Ah man, I was hoping that whatever the ship was doing to make that barrier, would keep doing it as we moved it.”

“I was too. In fact, I think we all were counting on it doing just that.” Michael said.

Stephanie scratched her head. “Well, now what?”

Catherine walked over to Michael and Daniel, shrugged. “I'm not sure. We might be able to put all the ship's energy into the shields, and just ram through.”

Michael frowned. “No, that is not a good idea. I'd like to bring back up that barrier, but I don't have a clue what half these controls do.”

“Maybe you should turn back on the AI,” Stephanie suggested.

Michael thought about it. “No. I'd rather ram through the asteroids like Dan suggested than have to deal with that thing again.”

“Ah, thought so.” Catherine reached down and trapped at something in the hologram controls.

A new hologram appeared. It began to extend out to the room, but stopped a little bit away from the captain’s seat, unable to project its entire image.

“Hum… that's not going to work. Do you think you can get the images from the drone back?” She asked.

“Probably, now that the AI is off.” Michael touched a couple of the controls on the pirates’ console. One of the viewports showed the images from the drone again. This time, however, the giant ship’s cockpit had a massive 3D holographic display in front of the command seats which stretched the entire length of the deck.

“Whoa!” Daniel exclaimed.

“Command mode?” Michael asked.

Catherine nodded.” Yes, I knew a ship this large had to have one. Can you link it to my console?”

“Sure. Give me a sec.” Michael examined the holograms for a bit, then swiped at one.

The console that Catherine had been sitting in lit up. She walked over to it and sat down. “Dan, Dan, can you move the drone a bit, so I have a better view?”

Daniel sat back in the pilot seat and moved the drone until it had a clear view of the massive holographic map. “What are you going to do?”

“There are over two hundred and fifty thousand units out there. I'm going to use them to clear the way.” Catherine said.

Thousands of green dots appeared on the giant map. Catherine moved her hand over the controls, selecting and dividing them into groups, then started to move them through asteroid fields, well, what was left of the field. It seemed that the g*n emplacements had formed more than half of it.

After a bit, Daniel frowned. “They move too slow.”

“Minimal thrust and maneuvering. They were meant to be set in place and only move to correct placement.” Michael said matter-of-factly.

Steven walked back in. “The heaters are utter junk, so I took some of the busted up metal parts of the ship and wired them directly to the dynovamator with small resisters. It should get quite warm in here shortly.”

Daniel turned to see an extremely bright red glow coming from one of the rooms behind Steven. “Wow, talk about extremes. It looks like you're melting down metal back there.”

“A bit,” Steven admitted.

Michael glanced back “Wow, I can feel the heat already!”

Stephanie started to get out of her seat to get closer to the heat. “That looks dangerous. Are you sure what you did is safe?”

“No, it's not safe, and I wouldn't go close to it,” Steven warned.

“Oh,” Steph said and sat back down.

“If it gets out of hand, I'll pull the plug, but for now it will keep us alive and nice and toasty for a bit,” Steven said.

“Thank you, Steven. I was having a hard time thinking in this coldness.” Catherine said over her shoulder.

Steven gazed perplexedly at Catherine. “What are you doing?”

“The instant I moved the ship, the barrier dissipated so Cat is trying to use the fake asteroids to clear the way,” Michael said.

“Ah.”

Stephanie drummed her fingers on her console, as she watched the green dots move on the pirate's ship radar. “How come they’re not being destroyed when they smack into the asteroids?”

“I'm not sure,” Catherine said absentmindedly as she maneuvered the fake asteroids. “But if I had to guess from what we’ve seen in the factory, I'd say they were almost made entirely out of octagon molecularly shaped metal.”

“No way. It takes hours to change the molecular makeup of metal properly; that’s why they’re so expensive. I had something made out of molecular metal about the size of my foot before, and it cost me more than I'd like to share.” Steven said.

“I know, but think about it, Steven. The ship produced on an average three of these asteroids a day. A factory that large should be able to produce at least eight to thirteen a day.” Catherine said.

Steven realized she was right as he watched one of the g*n emplacements on the giant 3D map bounced off of a normal asteroid and continue on unaffected. The impact had happened in the cloud, and the 3D map showed a small explosion that should have destroyed the fake asteroid, yet it kept operating as if nothing had happened. “You're right they are without a doubt constructed out of molecular metals,” He affirmed.

Now that enough of the asteroids had congregated Catherine begun to use them to push the other asteroids out of the way, forming a tube-like path. “All right start heading towards us now,” she said without looking up from the controls her hands flew across.

“On it,” Michael said and guided the ship along the path straight through the cloud. It took some time, but thanks to Steven's makeshift heater, they had more than enough.

When it emerged on the other side, Catherine made a solid wall out of the asteroids, and just blasted everything out of the way of the ship.

“Wow, looks like you’re tired of being trapped in here.” Daniel teased.

“No, it's just the most efficient way.” She answered, as the typhoon of lasers eviscerated everything in its path.

The lasers overheated on the first wall of guns and Catherine swiftly replaced them with another wall. This happened one more time before the giant ship pulled up beside the massive asteroid their ship had embedded itself in.

“Everyone to the hatch, and put on your space shields. Let's get off this thing!” Daniel happily proclaimed.

Michael turned off the ship as the others got up and went for the external hatch.

Soon, everyone had their shields on, and Stephanie opened the door. Together they looked out into open space.

A small strand of fake asteroids Catherine had maneuvered into place formed the perfect pathway across the open space and out to the strange factory ship.

“Oh wow, that is a big ship,” Stephanie exclaimed.

Steven blinked. “It's as big as our station!”

“It is quite impressive,” Michael noted

“I can't wait to explore it,” Daniel declared pushing himself out and latching onto the first dormant g*n mount. Leaving the others behind he crawled over it, then jumped to the next.

“Careful,” Stephanie called after him over the intercom as she and the others followed after him.

“No need I’m there already,” Daniel responded several seconds later using his magnetic gloves to latch on to the giant ship and turned back around to grin at her.

Stephanie rolled her eyes as she and the others caught up to him.

 Michael put one hand on the pad, and the access port popped open.

They all eagerly crowded in, and the door closed behind them as the room recompressed.

Michael took off his mask. “The air is surprisingly pleasant.”

“It is.” Stephanie agreed as she took hers off.

“Good, I am quite tired of the smell of pirates,” Steven said.

“I am as well,” Catherine agreed as the others took off their space shields as well and stuck them on the universal recharger embedded on the wall of the airlock.

While they finished putting them away, Michael opened the second hatch.