Pain wakens Alexis. She shifts and feels cold metal snapping her awake. The freezer tube is not a good bed overall she thinks as she gets up. She holds her head as a migraine pain rushes though it. She never notices the blood from her nose when she wiped her mouth.
The chemical shower helps her, but her head is still hurting. She gets in the clothes frowning as she only has one clean set left. Thankfully the pills they have in the medical supplies help her headache.
Alexis goes over to where the Warborg is recharging. “Are you awake?”
The machine is shut down and does not respond. Alexis really wants to start and knocks on the metal. “Hey wake up now.” The pain in her head is dull but still it gives her impulse to get in to the ship. She goes to the control and hits the buttons.
There finally is a reaction as a cylinder is inserted in to the Warborg. The creation makes a growl sound and steps out. “AI unit 4 activated. Operation mission and parameters not downloaded. Commencing under command of military personal 0501.4117.4117.1336 Alexis.”
Alexis backs off but her fear is not as bad as it was before. “Do you say that always?”
The Warborg, “It is mandatory by this units programming.”
Alexis nods and motions. “We got to get in to the ship.”
She leads the way to the hatch of the shuttle. Out of the training she checks the telltales and finds the lock has no red lights glowing, but not all are green.
The machine stops at a locker. It opens it and then pulls out a weapon.
Alexis is taken back by its arming itself. “Do we need those?”
The Warborg inspects the weapon then holsters it. “It is mandatory. When in hostile situation all military personal are to be armed. You are correct to be armed.”
The small weapon in Alexis’s belt was almost forgotten by her. One hand moves down the holster of it giving her some feeling of power. Her back straightens in pride.
A hit of a switch has the membrane inner emergency lock for the shuttle to open. Being a combat vehicle it has double reinforcement protection for the occupants.
Alexis looks back at the Warborg. It is nearly ready and well armed to fight off an army.
The main lock begins to open. An alarm goes off with flashing warning lights, the lights next to the hatch has some flashes to red suddenly, the LED is not working right or it would be solid.
She screams as the air rushes past her thought the barely open hatch. Alexis’s momentum to the hatch abruptly stops by the metal grip of the Warborg. The machine grips her left arm painfully.
Emergency closures procure activate closing the membrane hatch. The howling wind lowers to a whistle but Alexis’s own screaming increasing to take over when there is a loud crunch sound. Thankfully, to her, she does not keep conscious for long.
Pain wakes Alexis up from the warm comfort of unconsciousness, again. Her head and right arm are fighting over what hurts worse. She feels grimy and thinks she soiled herself somehow, again, mortifying herself over it. Trying to get up only to find she is strapped down in the capsule topless. The cord used feels rough on her skin.
A mechanical voice speaks to her left, “Finally you are conscious military personal Alexis.”
The woman turns her head to the left and sees the Warborg splattered in blood. Alexis’s gore rises from the sight and smell. Panic is increasing with her trapped like this and it bloody look down at her. The shifting gets more frantic and but the straps are tight.
The mechanical voice speaks again in its neutral tone. “Does this unit have to knock you out again?”
Alexis freezes at the threat of violence. She licks her dry swollen lip. “Again?” Her right arm hurts more when she tries to move her hand. The pain causes her to cry out.
The Warborg moves forward, “If you are in too much pain this unit will knock you out again.”
“No you do not have to do that, please.” She winces as her voice breaks in fear. Her head throbs, “What happened? No… first water please.”
The machine dribbles water and Alexis drinks it up greedily. “Your right arm was caught when the pressure membrane closed suddenly. The limb suffered multiple compound fractures along its length. This unit brought you to the bay and used repair parts to fix you as best medical programming this unit has allowed.”
Alexis’s worry is still present, “Repair parts? I am not a…”
The mechanical voice cuts through her rising hysteria, “Your right arm has been replaced.”
Alexis has to take a minute to digest this. The machine watches her patiently to see if she goes in to hysterics.
She looks at the Warborg not fully panicked, “Let me see.”
The killing machine removes dozens of straps that totally immobilized the young woman. It does not release her right arm though or the hand.
Alexis rises as best she can, turning to her right to see what it did. The right arm is marked with dried blood till it gets to the elbow. At the elbow there is a medical collar that seals it to something that never was there before. Where her forearm was is now a metal tube with some sort of view ports. Along the outside is some sort of battery system. The tube ends in a clawed hand similar to the Warborg’s.
Alexis thinks it is just a glove till she notices some viewing ports in the metal tube. Inside is a golden liquid but else she sees both fascinates and disgusts her. The bone is visible and connected to the inside of the tube. It does not go down the length but has a jagged end. Muscle has been removed from it allowing a clear vision of it. Tendons, like white rope, go from the elbow to the hand.
She looks to the machine, “Will it work?”
“This unit shows high probability of it working properly.”
“I need to find out. Release me.” She somehow says without breaking down.
The Warborg complies removing the last restraints from the woman. It delays her for a second switching on the battery. “The arm will work.”
Alexis lifts it up nearly falling over. “It is heavy.”
“It was not designed for you.”
“Yes I know.” The woman tests the hand and winces. Her tendons move visibly inside the golden fluid. It’s painful but then motors activate closing the hand. The metallic fingers touch each other. “I feel nothing. Well other then pain.”
The muzzle moves hovering over her right arm. Its mechanical oculars adjust before its metal voice speaks. “This unit could not pull the skin grafts needed for the touch sensation. That was beyond its programming. It was able to use your natural tendons to connect up to the corresponding components in the repair part. It is solidly bolted to what remained of your bone structure and protective chemicals were introduced to prevent infection. A power pack will help run servomotors to assist the tendons is installed on the side. Pain is irrelevant with such parts. Your limb is operational again.”
She looks over to it curious peeking from her arm, “are you in pain?”
The mechanical creature, “Organic components are in constant pain. As long as it does not interferes with operations of this unit it does not need to be redressed.”
Alexis blinks, “You are in constant pain?”
“This unit feels no pain. Organic components are.”
“But why don’t you?”
“I am designated as Unit 4 for this operation. An Artificial Intelligence that is plugged in to a mechanical shell that has organic parts integrated in to it. The government has found this to be the optimum use for military action.”
Alexis goes in to denial, “The government is the most progressive in all of humanity’s history. It would never do something barbaric.”
“This unit is not programmed with human history.”
“I am hungry.” She shifts the conversation to break the current uncomfortable talk.
The machine strides over getting the woman a meal of pills and the military energy bar. Alexis uses only her left hand after trying with both. The pain in her right stops her after a short time.
Her jaw is sore and she looks over, “You said you hit me?”
“Yes you woke up screaming as this unit was working on separating your tendons from the meat. Then again as this unit was filling the liquid in to the forearm.”
Alexis feels sick again. “That was my arm.” She blinks. “Twice?”
“It was useless and the mission required you have such. The blows stopped your conscious issues with the pain.”
The woman slams her left fist, “It was my arm. How dare you?”
“Military protocol overrides person issues.”
Alexis accuses it. “You would kill me.”
“This unit would.”
The machine walks away from Alexis leaving her alone. The young woman agonizes during that evening. In the late hours of it she wonders with bile rising what it did with the ‘broken meat’ that was her right hand. It has a lot of blood around its jaws. . The pain makes it hard to sleep but she does. When she wakes she finds herself once more strapped down.
Alexis sighs not wanting to but needs it and calls out, “Unit four?”
The Warborg comes out of the shuttle cockpit, “You require aid?”
“Release me. Why did you tie me up?”
“You were thrashing around and could have damaged yourself.”
A slight panic is rising in her. “I am awake. So get me out of these.”
The machine comes up and she can smell it from a distance. This makes her self-conscious of her own aroma. The impromptu surgery and night or torment has left her with a strong smell.
It uses a drill to remove screws that had the straps firmly connected to the capsule. She had not realized just what it fully used but it is same as last time she realizes.
“We have to get to work. I will need you to assist me with my injury. Why did doors closed?”
“This unit has not run any diagnostics on it beyond making sure hull integrity was not compromised.”
Alexis puzzles over this then asks, “Well why not?”
“This unit was not ordered to do so. It was not a threat to life.”
The short woman scrunches her nose having gotten a good whiff of herself when she got on her feet. “Didn’t you wonder why?”
The machine’s answer catches her off guard, “This unit is not programmed to do that.”
She sighs, “Well do so now. I am going to get cleaned up.”
The machine goes to its task while Alexis gets a much needed chemical shower and change of clothes in to her last clean set. The metal limb is very troublesome for her and she ends up forgoing the black shirt because it could not fit the sleeve. She then gets out a sling from the medical supplies to hold it when not in use. A pill helps her ignore the pain from it.
The Warborg has completed the task by the time she is cleaned up. The machine, “There was a failure in attachment that will be easily corrected. The sensors were not working right and did not recognize it.”
Alexis is not happy. “You mean a faulty sensor smashed my arm?”
The machine’s neutral tone is almost infuriating to her, “No, the sensor got wrong input of poor connection and did safety measure to protect the crew when the connection failed.”
Alexis tosses up her left hand, “Well reseal it and test it out. I am going to be in the cockpit where it is safest.”
Fixing it requires the Warborg to do a partial undocking then reactivating the seals. This time they take care to give a full pressure test before opening.
The two once more the hatch opens, this time without issue or mishap. Alexis is behind the machine feeling much like a little girl peeking behind her father to the ships airlock. The cycling of the airlock allows the two in to the ship.
The ship’s hatch opens and Alexis first impulse is to gags.
The airlock’s use activates the vessel’s automatic systems bring the ship to life. Lights flicker to life, not as many as should down the passage in to the ship leaving spots of gloom. Air vents start to blow stale air in to the passage.
The floors near the sides are stained from old deposits. Looking to the pipes she can tell where some of those marks were made from. None of the pipes look in danger having more then drips, at least from what she can see.
The short woman holds her nose with her left hand. “What is that smell?”
The machine moves forward ready for trouble. Its organic nose is moving a lot when it turns back to her replying, “Decomposing organic material, pollens, and ozone.” The inside of the vessel has the unpleasant aroma of a decaying swamp.
“The Hydroponics or Reclamation section must be in real bad shape.” She says off the top of her head.
The machines organic nose wrinkles, “Yes for some time.”
Traveling down the passage Alexis stops off to check with the computer consoles. The central computer is down and the subsystems are working independently if operating at all. Alexis staggers looking at the readout. Her mouth takes a minute to get out the idea from what she read on a display, “We have been asleep for 320 solar cycles…”
The Warborg, “That concurs with this unit’s internal clock.”
She looks to it, “But everyone I knew is long gone. It was only to be 50 solar cycles.”
The machine’s monotone voice almost sounds mocking to her with its reply. “Would that still have removed everyone you knew?”
Alexis looks at the creature and slumps against the wall. Her brain shuts down for a minute with all that has happened and realization setting in. Mechanical hands like her new one keep her upright till she recovers from the shock.
She gets her feet back solidly under her and then starts to giggle uncontrollably before blacking out. The only reason she doesn't get a new bruise from the fall is a mechanical arm holding her.
Alexis wakes up feeling warm. She stretches and feels almost naughty from some lingering dream and the feel of her smooth clothes. She smiles as she opens her eyes only to see a nightmare above her.
The scream is stillborn as the Warborg asks, “Are you operational?”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The emergency blanket that was keeping her extra warm slides off as she bolts upright the shuttle floor. The machine just looks waiting and then the woman’s cheeks turn red. She pulls the blanket back up her body.
The machine, “I will guess you are. I await orders.”
Alexis sighs, “Sorry I guess I lost it.”
“Are you stable?”
She has to think for a minute, “Yes I am. It just all hit me.”
“Good. I await our next endeavor.”
Alexis purses her lips looking at her clothes then to the machine, “Do you mind.” When it does not respond she adds, “Turn around so I can get dressed.”
The machine shifts so its back is to her and the woman is quick to get in to some clothes. The question of her having been undressed is never asked.
She grabs a bite to eat then thinking of Unit Four.
Alexis, “Shouldn’t you eat too?”
The Warborg, “This unit could use sustenance. Permission to eat.”
She nods to it thinking it odd having be asked to eat.
The machine’s fanged mouth tears though a protein bar.
She would swear the organic parts of the Warborg make a pleased animal sound.
After the meal and once more geared up the two go into the ship. The airlock cycle still causes Alexis some jitters. She rubs the connection of metal to her flesh arm.
The smell of the interior of the main vessel hits the two like a wall.
Alexis thinks the air vents are spreading a fresh strong increase in pollutants. She looks to the machine, “Lets first check the Environmental.”
They go over to a console and orientation on the ship. She looks over and sighs then giggles by accident. “I am going to have to show you how to repair stuff on the ship. Its in bad shape and with the Environmental glitched we can’t unfreeze others due to limited air.”
She leads, going to the center ladders of the ship. Alexis has issues with her metal arm and connection. The pain is not so bad as she climbs. The Warborg follows her obediently and assist when she stops for air. Getting to the correct level she finds the air here is tainted with chemical smell.
“Ugh this is bad. We are going to have a lot to do.”
Checks of the systems show its on standby. The air that is blowing is just the ambient air not cleansed of CO2. The work to get it active takes them both most of the day. It’s a dirty job repairing filters and connections. She goes through a few temporary airmasks that are positioned in the area in case of emergencies.
Alexis really hates how smudged up her clothes look after it. Wiping does not help. “Lets get this machinery doing its job.”
The startup of the system goes well and when its activated the air in the room gets better but error lights show up immediately in a number of sections of the ship. A few keystrokes and most of them go to standby or operational. The few that do not stop blinking red she turns offline or sealed till they can be repaired later.
Alexis looks over to the Warborg, “At least now we will not die from bad air.”
The machine nods and both return to the shuttle. Alexis has to stop once giggling a bit at some thought on the way.
Alexis gets another chemical shower and frowns looking at the Warborg, “We got to get you cleaned up.”
“That is not needed. This unit is perfectly functional.”
“Not working with me like that.” She sniffs the clothes and picks one that is less dirty. “Tomorrow real showers.”
“As you command.”
The woman sighs, “Then afterwards we will check out the Bridge and find out what happened. It will also let us know of the crew and who we can… Defrost? Yes I guess that is the word.”
“Why did you not gain extra crew instead of doing it with this unit’s assistance?”
“If we could not get the Environmental working it would have mean the shuttle would have to keep those other people alive with us. And it would mean at least a day before they got comfortable around you.” She gives a false smile, “At least a day.”
The Warborg shifts, “Understood. Warborgs were made to invoke fear. It can be detrimental when our own side fears us.”
Alexis grabs a protein bar, “Yes. I read about it from information and history slates. Even videos scan of your kind in action in a city.” She shivers remembering it. Her mind pulls up numbers killed by some of those, numbers she never knew before. “I had nightmares for days. Why I had… Such an extreme reaction.”
“This unit will agree the imagery can be disturbing but needed. Our enemies are plentiful. This unit is at the forefront of battle. Terror of this unit will aid the country.”
“Ok let us just retire for the a rest shift. I could use some sleep.”
Alexis lays back down for more rest in her bedding. She is woken by an alarm going off, and is still trying to get out of the makeshift bed on the floor to find the clock that is ringing. The right arm is not making it easy.
The Warborg’s heavy metal step distracts her from the blankets she is still trying to get out of. The machine comments, “There is an alarm going off in the main vessel. This unit looked at a console. Is saying it is from Environmental.”
Alexis scrunches her nose. “If you were near a vent I would say it was you causing it.”
The Warborg shifts going to the gunlocker, “Why is that?”
The short woman shakes her head as she dresses. Putting on the pants is an effort to ignore the pain from using her new arm. A top is still out of the question. The constant alarm is causing her to try to rush just to stop it.
Going out Alexis checks the nearest console and turns off that alarm. It has a listing of alarm from the Environmental section but with the main system down she can’t access why. At least she stops the siren and heads down with the machine. Flickering lights worry her and her left hand slides towards her weapon unconsciously.
It takes the lead with her behind just in case. The machines weapon is ready for trouble.
Entering the section the place looks the same as before. There is no major incident or mess. Hitting the computer Alexis finds out there is a source of trouble coming from another level. The intakes report contaminants are in the air. Without access to the central computer it is not able to say what but it is so the alarm sounded. Alexis gets the level information and looks to the companion.
Alexis nods, “We now find out why we were called.”
“What is the target warzone?”
Alexis is taken back by how it says that. She stammers for a second before getting it out. “By Hydroponics.”
The machine has a barely noticeable freeze then it looks to her. “This unit could not connect to central computer for map.”
“You could always just check with a console.”
The Warborg’s action if he has more emotions might be a glare before going to the console. Its combat grabbing appendages, hands, type slowly and carefully getting the map to show the route to the section. “This unit is now ready to lead.”
Alexis keeps behind the machine again. The two travel along the ship and find as they get closer to the Hydroponics section that more systems are not operating.
The lighting on the level blinks on causing many shadows with barely one in ten working. The pipes along the walls leave even more shadows as they keep moving. There are some odd spots of phosphorescence light ahead on the pipes.
The smell of plants is heavier as they travel along a corridor. The machine stops her and pulls a vine off a pipe. The vine has a purplish coloring with a phosphorescent glow.
Alexis looks at it and sneezes. “What plant is that?”
The mechanical hand moves pulling more of it away from the pipes. “This is the cause.”
“Hydroponics.” She sighs, “We are going to have to check that out.” She looks over the vine before asking Unit Four, “Does that glow?”
“You are correct. If the lights were turned off you would be able to see the vines. This units optics are well tuned and can pick up the chemical reaction it gives off.”
The doors ahead to the section are slightly ajar and vines are coming out from the opening.
Alexis staggers as she walks. The woman blinks as the colors shift in her vision.
The Warborg moves a hand to help keep her upright. The metal feels cool on her bare back. “You are having trouble?”
“Sure I am. Just feel lightheaded.”
“There is a strong smell. This unit’s organics are going erratic.”
Getting closer they notice many more vines on the ground and on pipes. Lighting in this area is just by the glow of the plants as the ship lights are all out having been infested by the vines. The metal of the ship looks to have been corroded by the plants.
Getting to the main hatchways Alexis is gasping a bit out of breath. She just can’t seem to pull in enough air.
Inside they Hydroponics main area is a horrible sight for the space ship. The plants took over and have grown out of their containers. All over are piles of vines that glow dimly in the room. Mounds of dirt cover the floor itself confusing Alexis.
The Warborg speaks, “Organic element of this unit is dangerously erratic.”
She looks over and sees its tongue hanging out and can’t stop from giggling. The shifting colors get more bizarre and she staggers back. Blinking she hacks a bit and barely makes her mouth work. “Seal this room. Do it…” Alexis never completes the sentence as she collapses in a dreamy state.
Once more Alexis wakes up in her bedding. Her flesh fist hits the bedding. “Damn not again. This is getting old.”
Getting up she finds she is shaky and goes looking for Unit Four. Clothes are forgotten in her haste. The shuttle is chilly to her bare feet as she goes to the recharging station. The Warborg is there shut down.
Alexis wets her lips. “Unit Four?”
The Warborg remains still but a console activates. A speaker gives a monotone voice. “This is Unit Four military personal Alexis.”
The woman looks to the console and the body. “You are?”
“This is Unit Four. Currently it is disengaged while the body is being recharged and the organic parts purged of chemical contaminates.”
Alexis cradles her metal arm subconsciously. “Chemical contamination? You mean what the plants did.”
“This unit does not know what caused it but it followed orders and sealed the room along with all ventilation systems to and from.”
“My guess it was just something the plant excreted.” She giggling and puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh I sound like one of my teachers.”
“You are still affected by the chemicals.”
Alexis sits in a fold out chair from the wall. It is chilly oh her bare body helping her to concentrate on her thoughts. “You most likely are right Unit Four.” She giggles for some reason her mind could not tell her. Once she stops she smiles, “Oh and call me Ally.” Morose feels should have hit but her mind was still under the influence and she didn’t feel the sadness for all those long dead friends she had. “All my friends would call me that.”
“Understood, Ally.” The machine voice says without any warmth.
“Thank you.” Her mind gets to some business. “What of the section again?”
“This unit sealed the section and intakes. There are still growths outside that were cut or that are satellite colonies of the organic material.”
“Well the scrubbers should be able to handle that. I need some more sleep. When we are both ready we go to the Bridge.”
“Affirmative.”
She pads back with her bare feet making loud sounds on the shuttle metal floor. The bedding is warm and comforting as she sides back to sleep with a giggle. She wipes a bit of blood from her nose barely noticing it.
Alexis wakes up slowly from sleep. No new alarms or dangers shock her in to immediate action.
She looks over the chemical shower supplies before using it. There is a large reserve for it and she enjoys a long slow cleaning.
Sadly her choice for clothes is the lesser of evils. All of them are used with some being much worse off from work and blood. The last item is the weapons put in their place almost naturally by her on her hips.
Alexis finishes and is feeling clear headed as she goes to the storage and hits the buttons to get Unit Four back operating.
Unit Four actives and gives its normal activation words. “AI unit 4 activated. Operation mission and parameters not downloaded. Commence under command of military personal 0501.4117.4117.1336 Alexis. Otherwise known as Ally.”
The woman smiles, “We go to the Bridge and see what happened finally.”
The Warborg’s oculars study her. “You have adjusted to the present situation.”
“I good night sleep helps a lot. After we hit the bridge we will get you a shower and my clothes refreshed.”
“This unit has to inform you there is no night here.”
Alexis smiles, “Just an expression.”
The Warborg arms itself again with a number of weapons. Alexis watches curious of what some are but makes no move to touch the lethal metal and plastic. They names come to her mind seamlessly.
The vessel’s damage shows as they go but gets less as they go toward the core where the Bridge is. A number of systems are on standby coming up. Alexis is reminded just how well built this ship is from its age. They use no acidic materials that would degrade over the decades. The ship was also helped with most of it being shutdown.
The Bridge doors are sealed and it takes Alexis’s code for the lock to disengage. Screens come to life but not all of them when she enters ahead of the Warborg.
She stops in the doorway. The Warborg’s weapon barrel sweeps over the room above her head. At the controls are two people still at the controls. The white uniforms of the crew hold the mummified remains of the two crewmen that died here at their station. The withered hands of the personal are holding their necks. Their faces still contorted in agony and death.
She has only seen pictures of dead before and does not know what to do facing them. The Warborg keeps moving past her in to the Bridge. The weapon in its hands moving to watch for trouble as it goes in. It breaking the spell of fascinated horror the bodies put over Alexis.
Alexis wets her lips, “Unit Four can you remove those… two from here. I can’t work with them…”
Unit Four, “As you command Ally.”
The machine moves taking the bodies frozen in the position they were in out. Alexis turns to the wall gulps as it passes by with them. There is no smell but Alexis still holds her breath.
With the removal of the corpses Alexis goes to an open console, not one the bodies were at, and hits her number to active it. She has to use her left hand after two tries with her metal right hand not yet up to typing.
The system comes alive listing her as a MIN. Puzzled as she was a CIN in the training she types and finds there are three classifications on the ship. MIN that is Military Identification Number, of which only seven were listed, including herself. SIN is one that the Ship crew Identification Number, the well trained personal of the vessel. Lastly she comes to CIN and is shocked. CIN is not crew as she thought but Colonist Identification Number.
The woman forgets about her main objective with her curiosity coming to front and pulls up each department and is shocked at as she reads and is slowly turning to a cold horror. She turns and calls out almost at a yell, “Unit Four you are programmed for Operation Colonial?”
“Operation Colonial? Yes this unit would be active for either of the two options.”
“Were you really going to shove us on to a planet and leave us there?” Her metal hand rakes the keyboard damaging it. She does not even realize the damage she has caused looking at the Warborg.
The machine voice replies, “Operation Colonial Option A requires it. Why those with Colony Identification Numbers were brought along.”
“What if there was no planet that could sustain us?”
The Warborg is still level in its speaking without a hint of emotion, “Then the colonist would be jettisoned as Option B would require.”
Alexis has nothing to say and just stares at it, “But they are…”
“Elitists that the Government chose to be removed from the system.” The machine adds when Alexis fails at words.
Alexis goes to type to learn more but finds the keyboard damaged. She spends a moment wondering how before she realizes it was from her new hand. Several choice curses come out of the woman. She pulls out a spare keyboard plugging it in to continue work on the station after moving the broken one to the station next to it.
The woman pulls of dossiers using her left hand on the crew finding them all flagged as Elitists. Her friends she made are listed in there. Greorge was in for many computer abuses. Zormie is listed for anti-Party sediments. When she tries her own she finds she is listed as amended to military personal, and the file was altered at a date when she was almost done training. Checking more she finds other then the four Warborgs she is the only military person on the ship. The other military shuttle carrying the rest of the compliment was launched twenty years after the ship set sail from SOL system. It lists who is in command and Alexis is surprised she is. When a military person is active they are the leaders.
She looks dumbfound at the screen, “I am in charge?”
The Warborgs mechanical voice says flatly. “Yes you are.”
“So if I say we are not going to get rid of anyone they can not argue?”
“You are in command Ally. All decisions you make are logged.”
She asks wearily, “And if they refuse my orders?”
“This unit would enforce the commands with force.”
The idea of her with so much power leaves her giggling at the absurdity.
The Warborg walks over and looks at her. Its nose sniffs the air before speaking, “Chemical effect relapse?”
Alexis shakes her head, “No. Just never thought I would be in control like this, ever.”
“The Party believes in you or it would not have given you such responsibility.”
Alexis almost laughs at that with what she knows. Checking the system she notices she has some messages. Pulling up the first in the queue it is from a Hilury and pretty large for a message. Opening it up she does not stop the laughter as some man gives a high pierced scream and the sound of a shaver buzzing in the background. She looks in and finds she has a good 50 sound bytes from the woman she met only for a few moments. Guiltily she hits another one that was highlighted only to find it’s her own voice and blushes when the Warborg looks over.
The weapon aims in to Alexis’s direction. “You screamed?”
The woman closes that message fully thinking to only listen to what is in the mail in private from now on. “Oh that was just… mail from myself.”
The machine goes back to waiting.
Alexis hits keys, “Bring up the records and try to find out when we lost control and what all happened to the computer system.”
When Alexis does so a screen pops up and her father’s image appears. He looks normal to her with signs of low sleep but deep focus. The man’s recorded voice cracks a little as it says, “Child continue on only in private.” There are two buttons under it waiting.
The stunned woman feels a tear forming knowing he is long dead. She moves her right hand to wipe it almost giving herself a black eye having forgotten its change. She takes a moment before saying, “Unit Four go outside the room so I can listen to an order in private.”
The machine moves to obey, “As you command.”
Alexis waits for the Bridge door to close. She moves to the command chair and hits the lockout function to make sure the machine can’t enter. She rubs her head with her organic hand hitting the play button.
The man resumes talking. “I am glad you are well or you would not be hearing this child.” The figure steeples his hands to think before continuing. “I did more research after hearing from a friend what the plan was for those sent out. Many times I ignored my morals for the State, so many times, but I could not this time. I found out more then I ever wanted. While you were training to go in to space I wrote new commands for the vessel you were to be in. I will have killed some but it will save you and the others from…” Alexis has never seen her father shaken and just stares at the screen as the man breaks down for a moment. He finally regains his composure straightening back up. “When you get back home you will have to decide your fate and the State might not be part of it.”
Alexis does not listen to him stunned by his venom and words to betray the very government she grew up in. The recording ends with her still trying to out it together. She saves the recording to look over later in a secure her eyes-only label.
After a bit longer she opens the Bridge doors. The Warborg is there on guard and she motions it. “We got to get this ship back in order.”
The main computer comes up when she gives the commands. Subsystems flood it with information causing the entire system to nearly locking up. Alexis stabs at the keyboard finding it slowly showing her input and commands. Centuries of stored data begin to build a complete picture of the condition of the vessel. Alexis notices other information coming in from external sensors and it is fascinating but the red flags on the ship condition brings her back to what matters more. Alexis has to wait long minutes as the information is compiled but afterwards she learns just how fragile condition the ship is overall. She spends almost an hour reading over the list of critical repairs required and why.
Many systems are on secondary equipment with the mains having not come back online. The crew has lost 37 including those when the ship gone down. The Colonist suffered worst causalities with 492 failed frozen and died while the ship had been shut down. The Warborg compliment shows that Number 3 Artificial Intelligence unit has been corrupted and one of the bodies died. Over three hundred cycles had cost the ship almost a fourth of its population.
She is still thinking when the system goes to alert mode as its processing hits some information. She had forgotten about this during all the other stuff that has happened to her in the past few days. She gets up and turns to the Warborg, “This is bad news.”