Taking Space

AI

The door slid away to reveal a holograph of the AI lion standing there with two security droids on either side of him.

They all froze.

“Welcome back aboard David Kell. I'm here to escort your guests to the chambers, where they will be staying for the duration of their time on the ship”

Mike straightened his back and said, “That won't be necessary. I will see to their procurement myself. Please turn yourself off for the time being.”

“Sir, that is not the protocol.”

“I am well aware of that. Please, turn yourself off.”

“Sir, you have been acting strange ever since your injury. I am worried about your mental state.”

Michael realized it was not going to be as easy to turn this thing off this time. He closed his eyes and thought for a second. “I've witnessed the death of millions of people when two planets collided. I believe it is perfectly reasonable for me to be a bit shaken up.”

A light played through the lion. “My system tells me you are lying, even though I know you did indeed witness the said atrocity... Sir, it appears that you are in denial. Please recount the events of the said tragedy.”

Michael was bewildered. “I...I, wait, why?”

“It is as I feared. Not accepting and dealing with the past can put you in a rather dangerous mental state.”

Mike started to get what the AI was getting at. “I assure you that I am quite mentally sound and in my right mind.”

“Are you? In normal circumstances, telling anyone about the existence of me and this ship is a grave infringement, much less bringing them on board. I understand the direness of the situation, and therefore your actions may be excusable, but you intended to give your guests full access to the ship. Did you not, sir?”

“No.”

More lights flickered in the hologram. “Your actions are not consistent with your personality. I'm sorry, but I'm enacting protocol fifty-one. As of now you are under house arrest. I'll contact your fellow commanders and let them decide what to do about your mental state. Until their reply, you and your guests will be confined to your quarters.”

Daniel's eyes grew wide. “Oh. That's not good.”

Michael, realizing this conversation was not going to get any better, shouted, “Run!”

However, before any of them could even move a muscle, the gravity in the ship came on, slamming them to the ground, then increased, pinning them down.

The security droids walked through the lion and took hold of their arms.

The gravity lessened, and the droids hauled them to their feet, then started to take the guys one way, and the two girls another.

Daniel flailed against the droids desperately reaching for Catherine. Their eyes met, and tears welled up in Daniel's eyes. “I'm sorry.”

The droids yanked him harder.

Anger grew in Michael, and with all the authority he could muster, he shouted, “Stop this at once!”

The droids stopped moving, and the holographic lion said, “I am sorry sir, but you have shown signs of, and have admitted to, great mental trauma. Therefore you must be confined until your fellow commanders are able to determine if you are fit for duty.”

“What you are suggesting is a death sentence, and neither I nor my guests deserve that!”

“Sir?”

Daniel forced his head around to look at the AI. “The Lionhearted died over three hundred years ago! They were ambushed at Sindàrin. The system was crowded with innocent bystanders. Instead of fighting, they fled to the planet's surface because they thought Kell was coming with the rest of the core, but he never came.”

The lion looked at Michael.

“He never came...”Michael swallowed. “I mean… I never made it. I was too wounded. The rest of the core was killed by the weapon that caused the two planets to collide, and you were in factory mode. They were trapped, overwhelmed, and… and... “Michael took a deep breath. “ There were no survivors. You are all that is left... and me, of course.

The lion continued to stare at him for a few seconds, then said, “My sensors detect there are some falsehoods in your statement.”

Catherine realized that Michael adding himself to the story was causing problems. “We don't know exactly what happened. All we know for sure is that they were ambushed. They retreated, then were forced into one of the galaxy’s most commemorated battles. As far as we know, there were no survivors.”

The lion switched its attention to her. After what seemed like an eternity, it finally spoke. “Truth confirmed. Adding new information to memory banks and checking protocols.”

The droids released them. Another long moment of silence took place.

“Error: memory banks full. Cannot process new information. Unable to continue functionality checks. Enacting maintenance protocols and removing irrelevant data. Error: no expungeable data found. System memory full. Unable to continue processing. Error: no known alternate protocol. Entering maintenance mode. Please contact AI's programmers.”

The lion stopped moving. Its hologram froze, and so too did the droids.

Daniel walked up to the lion and waved his hand. It did not react. “Um… what just happened?”

A giant snicker spread across Steven’s face. “Its memory banks are full.”

“How's that possible?” Michael asked, confused at how such a thing was possible. “Even if this thing is three hounded years old, it has to have like a zillion zettabytes.”

“A three-hundred-and-thirty-one-year long recorded message that is marked priority that's how,” Steven said, almost laughing with relief.

Stephanie’s eyes widened with understanding. “If that’s not divine intervention, I don’t know what is.”

“If an that ain’t the truth,” Daniel said, as he playfully stuck his hands through the frozen hologram of the artificial intelligence.

Catherine watched him, then dubiously examined the droid that had been manhandling her a few seconds ago. “Is it okay for us to move?”

Steven shrugged. “Yeah with the AI in maintenance mode they will unquestioningly obey any command given by the highest-ranking officer.”

Catherine nodded. She walked over and dragged Daniel away from the lion. “That thing was about to incarcerate us for the rest of our lives! Even if it’s no longer functioning, I’d rather you not mess with it.”

Daniel gave her a rueful smile, and playfully kissed her on the lips. She rolled her eyes and turned her head so he couldn’t kiss her again. She glanced past him and noticed that Mike had his head bowed and was praying.

She motioned towards him, and the others notice as well.

Shame flashed across their faces, and they all bowed their heads as well. Stephanie’s jovial proclamation had been right. Such good fortune was no mere accident.

Mike finished praying first and patiently waited for the others to finish saying theirs. When they were all done, he said, “Let’s go to the bridge and commandeer this thing.”

***

It wasn’t long before they made it to the bridge. The giant 3-D map hologram of the asteroid field still filled the room, and the assassin drone had dropped down into the dead David Kell’s lap.

Steven went up the ramp to the commander’s seat, rolled the drone onto the floor. Michael and Daniel reverently picked up the dead skeletal Kell, setting him out of the way. “This will most likely take me some time.”

Michael finished putting down the skeleton. “That’s okay. There's plenty for us to explore.”

“No, I don’t think any of you should leave the cockpit until I’m done,” Steven blurted.

“Ah, I want to explore,” Daniel complained.

Catherine put a hand on his shoulder. “Honey, I love you, but you have gotten us into enough troubles today. If Steven thinks it’s best for us to stay here, then we will.”

Daniel sighed, walked over to what appeared to be the inactive pilot seat, and plopped himself down into it.

Steven sat down, took off his right shoe, and put it on top of the console.

Catherine stared at him, scrunching her eyebrows in question. “What are you doing?”

Steven pulled out some wires from the shoe and commenced in Jerry-rigging them to the command console. “It’s my personal hacking computer. No one expects the bottom of your shoe to be more than rubber and metal with the occasional electromagnetic stripping for ease of movement in zero-G so they never give it a second look. I walked through some of the most secure places in the sector without them ever realizing I had the power to take over their entire facility in the heel of my boot.” Steven happily proclaimed with a mirthful smile.

Michael, seeing a good opportunity for one of his jokes, seized upon it. “Yeah, and he uses ‘sole’ operating system as well.”

Daniel slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead.

“Ah... and the shoe is well-equipped for ‘dirty’ computing,” Michael added.

Stephanie bowed her head and covered her eyes, shaking her head even though there was a giant smile on her face.

Steven finished hooking the shoe computer to the console and took a deep breath. “Well here it goes...”

The others became silent so Steven could concentrate, as they looked around and found a place to make themselves comfortable. Just as Stephanie sat down against a wall and pulled out a foldable tablet with the book she was currently reading on it, Steven said, “We... It’s a miracle we are alive.”

Daniel slouched till his head was against the back of the chair. He put his feet up on the console. “Well yeah, a couple times over.”

“No you don’t understand, I mean... completely dead. The AI’s protocol states that it’s to blow itself up if everyone dies or goes MIA to protect the secrets it holds.”

“It wouldn’t do that because it still thinks David Kell is alive,” Stephanie said.

Steven put down the hologram sheet he was looking at. “That’s just it. It is common knowledge the easiest way to take over a ship is to hack the mainframe and replace the identity of its owner with your own. This ship has a secret identity backup that restores every time it learns of a death of one of its commanders.”

Daniel sat upright. “Ouch. So it would’ve… Dang, that would have sucked.”

“A lot more than sucked! If it hadn’t gone into maintenance mode, it would have restored its commander list, scanned us then instantly self-destructed with us on it!”

Michael put his hand over his eyes. “Wow, thank you, heavenly Father, for Your mercy.”

“That’s still not even the half of it. Because the message had been marked priority the AI had disabled and compressed over 75% of its functions, as well as all information that was not marked priority, effectively crippling its functionality, if it hadn’t, it would have almost instantly recognized our ruse.”

Daniel whistled.

Stephanie glared at him. “Yeah, you better whistle! Thanks to your foolishness, if it hadn’t been for God’s extreme mercy, we’d all be dead right now three or four times over.”

Daniel hung his head. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Catherine got up, went over to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Honey, you’ve got to start thinking about the possible consequences of your actions.”

“I know.” Daniel looked around the room. “I really AM sorry.”

Michael gave him a heartwarming smile. “That’s okay. We all went along with it, so we were partly to blame. Also, don’t change your name to ‘sorry.’” He added with a smirk on his face.

The cockpit fell into silence, at Michael’s lame joke and more or less remained that way for the next hour as Steven reprogrammed the capital-sized ship.

***

Steven finished disconnecting his shoe from the console and put it back on. “All is good I have completely rewritten the AI wiped his memory of the last hours and scrubbed all secret backups replacing them with our own. The ship is ours and in tutorial mode so it will explain to us many of its features and capabilities as well as information about the Lionhearted. However, I couldn’t directly add us to the command database, so I had to replace some of the current commanders with ourselves. I tried to match them to us the best I could, and you all need to know who you are and a little bit about your replaced selves.”

Stephanie looked over the top of her book tablet. “So, who am I?”

“Zephyra Lily Kell the younger sister of David Kell. She was the quartermaster as well as the hand-to-hand combat trainer, though she wasn't near as short as you are,” Steven teased.

Stephanie glared at him and bared her top teeth, making her lips and cheeks quiver, giving her a rather impressive furious look.

Steven chuckled and continued. “According to the records she was here with David Kell, and she died either when the graviton weapon was used or during the time afterward. And even though her name was Zephyra she went by Zephyr and all the systems were programed to address her as such.”

“So I’m Zephyr, huh? Not bad. I like it.”

“I thought you would. I’m James Teal Zilon more commonly known as Soul Knight.”

Daniel bolted upright. “Hey, you can’t be him! I want to be him. You’re nothing like he was!”

“Yes, I am! He may have been an excellent pilot, but he was better known for his stealth and his ability to get into places that no one could get into. You couldn’t be stealthy if your life depended on it, but I excel at stealth.”

“In your dreams.”

“Okay, you two, let’s not get started,” Michael said.

“But he just stole one of my favorite game characters!”

Catherine shook her head, disapprovingly at Daniel. “Come on Dan Dan, don’t.”

Daniel sighed and let it slide.

Catherine had wanted to know a little bit more about Soul Knight, but she decided it was best to change the subject. “So, who am I?”

“Snow Fire Snoire and she always went by her last name. Sadly I can’t tell you much about her past because it’s behind a security wall so thick it will take me a week to break and the only one who had access to it was her with some type of extremely complicated access code. Sadly, it’s a known fact that she died at The Battle of Sindàrin because she was one of the last three standing. All I know for sure about her is that she was said to be the greatest tactician ever to live.”

“So, Snoire?” Catherine smiled as she mulled it over. “Sounds like a combination of snow and fire just like her name. I like it.”

Daniel was becoming impatient. “Okay, so who did you make me?”

“Someone who's real name was never known, and at the age of twelve he had such a criminal record that the Lionhearted decided to take care of him. However he led them on a merry chase for over a month and a half, and when they finally caught up to him he disabled ten out of the fifteen starfighters they took against him before they finally shot him down. He was badly wounded, and they had to nurse him back to health. During that time many of the core became attached to him, and he was the only one on record that had his criminal record expunged and was allowed to join the core.”

Steven had piqued Daniel’s interest. “Sounds cool. Who was he?”

“Mad Dog or rather Lord Maddog as he programmed the ship to refer to him as.”

“No! Absolutely not. All the games depict him as crazy, and everywhere he went, something was guaranteed to explode. I’m nothing like him.”

“Sounds exactly like you to me,” Stephanie commented.

“Does not!”

Michael waved his hand, trying to calm him down. “Daniel, the game’s depictions of him are wrong. We all know that. He was undoubtedly the best pilot that ever lived. Even Soul Knight’s skill didn’t compare to his. And even though Soul Knight was the main hero of most of the games, if you think about it anytime they got themselves into a really hairy situation, it was Lord Maddog they released.”

“Yeah, ‘released.’ I’m not a raving mad dog that blows stuff up everywhere he goes!”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Steven said. “I’ve watched you play games. You get out the biggest most destructive weapons you can and blast your way through and if the game is coded so that if you are detected you automatically fail you find some ways to bypass it or you spend hours on the StarNet learning how the game’s codes work so you can change it.”

“It’s called modding, and I like modding games! That doesn’t make me a stark raving lunatic that likes to blow things up.”

Catherine stood up and walked over to him. “I don’t know how games project this guy, but I like the sounds of him. He sounds very roguish, and his back story gives him the rather mysterious air. I think he fits you quite well and makes me think you’re all the more handsome for being compared to him.”

Daniel let out a puff of air, and she hugged him.

Steven, seeing his chance to change the subject, seized it. “Anyway… You guys know how the Lionhearted were said to be ten times stronger than any human and to move impossibly fast on top of being able to see things behind them?”

Michael nodded. “Yes, they were also said to be able to instantly tell whether you are lying or not. There are also a few cases of them being able to fly, and many rumors of them coming back to life after being killed.”

“Yes, even I know they were said to be superhuman,” Stephanie replied. “It’s much of how they were able to make sure no one was above the law for the two hundred years when they existed.”

“That all had to be rumors though because science has since proven all that stuff to be humanly impossible,” Catherine said.

A knowing smile spread across Steven’s face. “After reading some of the logs on the ship I can guarantee you they were NOT rumors.”

Daniel frowned at him. “But how’s that possible?”

“Because it wasn’t them.”

“Huh?”

“Follow me you’ve got to see this!” Steven said, as he got out of the commander seat and left the bridge.

The others hurried to follow. A few steps down the hall, Steven remembered something and ran back into the bridge.

“Alf.”

The hologram of the AI lion appeared. “Sir?”

“Set course and go to waypoint ‘Home mining station.’”

“Yes, sir Soul Knight Sir.”

The capital-sized ship started a gentle hum, and the viewports showed that they were moving.

Steven grinned and motioned for the others to follow him.

Michael hesitated, as he glanced out the viewports towards the asteroids. “Will this ship be able to navigate through the asteroid field all on its own?”

“Yes, it’s equipped with its own gravity matrix so it can push any asteroid that comes too close out of the way,” Steven said as he walked down the hallway.

Daniel followed him and asked. “Why didn’t we use that to get here then?”

“Because none of us knew how to use it,” Stephanie answered. “Duh.”

Catherine grabbed Daniels hand to keep him for responding. So instead of saying something stupid back, he just gave Stephanie a mean look and continued to follow Steven.

***

The factory ship, more properly known as the Prometheus, proved to be quite enormous, and it took them some time before they arrived at wherever Steven was taking them to. It didn’t help that it seemed like he got lost a few times.

“Ah, here this has got to be it.”

“Finally,” Daniel remarked as they all looked at the door that had “Training Hall” written on it.

Michael waved at the door. With a small hiss, it slid open. They walked in and froze.

The room was massive and dissected into multiple parts. Some of which consisted of training equipment and courses that a galactic athlete would be jealous of. But that’s not what made them froze. On the far wall, there was a bench. Sitting on that bench was David Kell and two others. Off to either side of them along the wall were hundreds of droids.

“Uh… hello?” Michael greeted hesitantly.

Steven laughed. To all their surprises, he started walking across the room towards David Kell and his crew.

To their horror, he reached them, stood in front of the pretty girl besides David Kell, turned around, and sat down in her lap.

None of them dared to move nor breathe. They waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. Nor did David Kell or the man off to the right him.

Realization hit Catherine. “Androids?”

Steven gave her a mirthful smile that reached all the way to his ears. “Yep. Far more advanced than any others that existed during their time and probably till today.”

Understanding washed over the others as well. “Wait,” Daniel said, “are you saying that all those awesomely heroic things they did in the games, they never did, but some androids did them?”

Steven continued to smile.

“Ha! No way! You can’t be right!”

Michael shifted his weight and began to walk towards Steven. “To be honest, Daniel, I think most of the stuff in those games are exaggerated. However Steven, are you sure androids did them? I mean, wouldn’t someone have detected that?”

Steven stood up and looked over his shoulder at the life-like androids. “Well they’re not exactly androids and in a sense Daniel they did do those things just not in the ways we think.”

“Huh?”

“They flew the space fighters, well most of the time, because the range would have caused too much latency for them not to. However they never left the cockpit. Their starfighters had a two-person cockpit, and one person always stayed in the fighter to protect them while the other one got out. Or so it seemed, but in reality there was only ever one person in the cockpit, and he mentally controlled one of these androids that got out instead of him.”

“They mentally controlled them?” Catherine asked.

Steven nodded.

“But mental controls are still iffy at best even today, much less three hundred years ago,” Stephanie argued.

“I know. I’ve tried to improve them myself but got nowhere.” Steven said, as he took the android of David Kell’s hat and put it on his head.

Michael took a deep breath. “Well, we know they had better technologies than we do already. What I’m more confused about is how come no one ever realized that they were robots and not humans they were talking to.”

Steven squinted at android David Kell and drummed his chin with his right index finger. “These things send out falsified biometric reports they would never stand up to close scrutiny or scanning. But as you well know from the games we played they always carried sensor scribblers on them everywhere they went. So you would never get a correct scan of them or an x-ray anyway.”

Catherine continued the line of thought. “And androids today are so easy to spot by any casual observer because they just don’t move correctly. They always seem... off. Because we as humans move so sporadically and casually, it’s impossible for a computer to perfectly mimic our movements. But if they were controlled directly by a human brain…”

“They would seem life-like,” Michael finished.

Daniel scratched his head. “So wait… if they were all like controlling a fake them, then all those cool things they did would be more like a game to them instead of life and death, wouldn’t it?”

Michael shrugged. “I guess. If your android got destroyed, you just send out another one.”

“That’s so COOL!”

Stephanie, seeing the expression on Daniel’s face, said, “Oh no. no! No! Don’t even think of it.”

“Think of what?” Daniel said innocently.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Daniel put his hands up defensively and began to say something, but out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed David Kell began to move. He froze.

The others followed his line of sight and froze as well.

David Kell’s chest swelled as he took a deep breath, and his eyes opened. They flickered around the room, and he instantly noticed them. His eyes became the size of saucers, and he shot to his feet, shouted, “Who are you? And how did you get in here?!”

Stephanie jumped back, tripping over Michael, knocking them both down. Daniel pushed Catherine behind him and tried to back up at the same time, almost ending up on the floor just like Stephanie Michael.

Steven burst out laughing.

They all stared at him, then realized what had just happened.

Daniel reached out and grabbed the hat off Steven’s head. He flipped it upside down to reveal hundreds of sensors embedded inside it.

“You all should have seen yourselves. You nearly jumped out of your own skins!” Steven said, mockingly.

Stephanie pulled herself to her feet and glared at him. She shook her fists. “I’m going to kill you!”

Steven bent over in laughter.

The AI’s lion hologram appeared in front of them. “Destination reached, sir.”