The next morning, we got to meet the rest of the command crew for our mission. General Nova introduced us.
“Eric, Arduwan, I’d like you to meet Captain Baylocke the Star Corps. He will be piloting the vessel that will take you to the central nervous computer station.”
A man in his mid-thirties, with a blonde beard and wearing a futuristic flight suit stepped forward and shook our hands. He said, “Pleasure to meet you. I’ve done many missions with your father. He’s a great man and a hero to us all.”
“The pleasure is mine,” I reciprocated.
General Nova continued, “and this is Lieutenant Celica. Special Operations. She volunteered to go aboard the station with you and lay the explosive charges.”
An attractive woman about my age stepped up. She wore a form fitting white jumpsuit and had jet black hair evenly cut at her cheek bones.
“Happy to serve with you, Noble,” she said, “I’ve never met your father, but as Captain Baylocke said, "he's a well-known hero.”
“So, what’s the plan, General?” I asked.
“The plan is for Captain Baylocke to fly you straight into synth space, directly to the central nervous station, drop you and the landing team on board, and lay the explosives. You’ll hopefully meet little resistance once on the station. The trick will be getting you into synth space in the first place. Our ships have been under constant bombardment on the perimeter of that region of space for the last few weeks.”
“That’s where I come in,” Baylocke added, “there’s no pilot in the galaxy that can maneuver a Light Frigate the way I can. I’ll get you past that perimeter. But once you reach the station, it’ll be up to you.”
“How long is the journey?”
“Five hours at lightspeed. Less, depending on how many jumps we need to make in order to avoid blockades,” Baylocke answered.
“Finally! A world where travel doesn’t take forever,” I expressed.
“But you were only in World X for one day?” Arduwan corrected.
“That was different. Don’t worry about it.”
“You leave immediately,” General Nova said, “best of luck to you.”
And with that, we boarded a long starship and prepared for our mission. The ship probably would have stood twenty stories or more if it was up on end. Captain Baylocke was on the bridge, but Arduwan and I stayed below deck with Celica. I was hoping for some nice conversation with her, but she kept all of her answers brief, so I didn’t bother her too much. She was probably just focused on the mission. The people in this world were tired. They had been fighting the threat of the synths for decades. I hoped me and my father’s work would put an end to that.
A few hours into our trip, we felt a sudden drop in speed.
“What’s going on?” I asked Celica.
She replied, “I’m not sure. We weren’t due to drop out of hyperspace for another twenty minutes. Let’s go ask Baylocke.”
Arduwan and I followed Celica to the bridge, where Baylocke was repeatedly calling out to another ship that we could see out the window before us.
“Problem, Captain?” Celica asked.
“We received a distress signal from that ship. After I pulled out of hyperspace to respond to it, we’ve gotten nothing back.”
“You think it's the synths?” I asked.
“Very likely actually. They ambush ships out her and turn them into synthesizing depots.”
“What are those?”
“They’re centers where synths collect captured humans to have them processed into becoming other synths.”
“Well, we’re gonna stop and help them, right?”
Celica intervened, “we can’t. It’s outside mission parameters and too dangerous.”
“But they just sent the signal out! We can’t just leave them out here!” I protested.
“We have a specific goal in mind!” she swatted my statement.
“I don’t know what you’re fighting for if it’s not to save people from those damn synths,” I argued.
Baylocke looked back at me from his Captains chair and said, “Lieutenant Celica is right, it’s out of mission parameters…”
Celica smiled in satisfaction with Baylocke’s agreement. But then he went on to say…
“...but Noble has a point. If not for these people, then for who?”
Celica’s smile turned into a frown. “Alright,” she said,” I’ll lead the boarding party, but you two are putting skin in the game too.”
“No argument there,” I said.
Baylocke brought the ship in closer to dock with the distressed vessel. He made one more attempt to contact them before we boarded. We put on special space suits with glass helmets in case the ship's life support systems went down while we were on board. Celica said that was unlikely though since synths needed to keep people alive for them to undergo the synthesizing process.
“Okay, Arduwan. You need to keep this suit and helmet on while we’re over there. I know you’re not a fan of heavy clothes, but you could die without it. Understand?” I coached Arduwan in plain English to ensure her safety.
“I got it, Eric,” she said as she smiled and gave a thumbs up.
When we boarded the ship, we took three space marines with us. They would move to the right and search the rear of the ship for synths and survivors while Adruwan, Celica, and I would go to the left and search the front.
It was spooky on board. Quiet. No damage was found on our initial contact, but no people either. As we walked down the corridor, Celica moved in front of us with her plasma pistol aimed forward. I had a plasma rifle and Arduwan opted to just use her sword. Room after room we checked, and nothing was found. Not in the crew's quarters and not in the medical bay. Celica made a call on her wrist radio to see what the other squad found.
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They replied right away that they had found nothing so far.
When we reached the bridge, Celica opened the door cautiously and when no one was found, she turned around and said to us, “okay, looks like the cargo bay is the only place left to check.”
No sooner than she said that a synth dropped down from the ceiling behind her and grabbed her saying, “We must synthesize!”
She had a look of terror on her face as it pulled her backwards and knocked the plasma pistol from her hand. I reflexively raised my plasma rifle and opened fire directly in the synth's face. It let Celica go and stumbled backwards. Arduwan dashed forward and started slashing the synth to bits with her greatsword.
I ran over to check on Celica as she caught her breath. “Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” she replied, “come on. Let’s get to the cargo bay.”
By the time we had got down there, the three space marines were already there and engaged in combat with a half dozen synths. On the far side of the room were over twenty members of the crew, all of them tied up and awaiting their synthesizing. Arduwan and I immediately joined the fight and together with Celica and the marines, destroyed the synths.
Fortunately, when all was said and done, most of the crew survived. We were able to turn command back over to the crew immediately and send them on their way back to the inner worlds. It seemed my judgment in coming to their aid paid off.
Back on our ship, we set off once more to complete our mission. Celica, who was previously cold towards me, had something to say for a change.
“It appears I owe you a debt of gratitude, Eric,” she said, “not only did you save me back there, but you saved all of those lives, merely by taking a chance.”
“Oh, it’s quite alright,” I dismissed, “it was just the right thing to do, and the timing was exceptionally lucky that we came upon them when we did.”
“Just the same,” she continued, “it would appear I was wrong about you. I took your offer to rescue the other ship as a declaration of bravado. I thought maybe you were just trying to convince all of us that you were the son of Noble. Even if you never intended to back it up.”
“I can certainly understand how you would think that. And also, how you would think that it was too risky for the mission.”
“I’ve been in this battle for a long time, Eric,” she added, “a long time. And a person like you is a rare breed.”
Baylocke came over the intercom and said, “Alright, everyone. We’re coming out of hyperspace near the synth central nervous computer space station.”
“That’s our cue,” Celica noted.
We suited up again and prepared to dock. Just like the General said, there was no resistance from the synths in the area around the space station. It was like they all just didn’t care. I had been told that synths commandeered vessels and used them to spread throughout the galaxy and commandeer more vessels. But the ones in this region of space just simply floated around, aimlessly.
The space station itself was a giant metal platform with huge steel squares at each corner and one in the center. There was a cubed glass barrier on the exterior where you could see straight through to the center of the station. Baylocke came in and got us close enough to drop onto a land platform but didn’t risk docking. Celica said we could space jump back up when we were finished.
The team was me, Arduwan, Celica, and eight space marines. We each carried a crate of explosive charges with us down to the space station. Once we got aboard, we could see synths there, but they were either standing in place or walking around paying us no mind. Still, the marines kept their weapons trained on them while their comrades moved around placing charges.
Arduwan, Celica, and I decided to move towards the center of the station to get a look at the main computer and set our charges there. Celica said, “from this computer, messages are delivered to all the synths around the galaxy. Collecting information and moving in unison.”
Before I could say anything in response, a voice called out to me, “So you decided to come after all, Eric?”
Arduwan drew her sword up as I turned to see how was speaking and to my complete and utter shock…it was my father.
The man standing before me looked familiar but only through recent memory of the video that was shown to me at the lawyer’s office the day I received my inheritance. It was hard to believe, but sure enough, it was my father.
I signaled Arduwan to lower her sword, “It’s okay, Arduwan. This man is my father.” “What?!” she yelped.
“It’s good to see you my son, but you shouldn’t have come here,” he said.
“But why are you here?” I asked, “I was told you were dead.”
He took a few steps towards me and said, “in a way, I am,” as he moved to place his hand on my shoulder, but it passed right through, showing me, he was a hologram.
“I don’t understand, dad. What happened?” I said, as tears started to well up in my eyes.
“In the final days of my life, I wanted to maximize the impact I could have in the fight against the Seven Devils. So, I decided to write that journal for you as well as devise a plan to turn the tide in this world. You see, I discovered that the Devil of this realm was not a living thing. It was an Artificial Intelligence. I thought if I could just find a way to infect it, I could cease its hostilities. That’s when it hit me. I remembered during my time adventuring in Callist, that spells could be written on scrolls and used by non-magic users when they were read off. It just so happens I discovered a spell called, ‘Retain Consciousness’. Its original use was for evil, because it could be used to transfer someone from one body to another under the right circumstances. But I wanted to use it to take over this station.”
“So, you allowed the synths to take your body and used the scroll at the last moment to become one with the central nervous computer?” I asserted.
“That’s correct, my boy! Once I took over, I sent out a signal to cause all the synths to just wait around to be destroyed by the galactic resistance forces. Eventually, they would come here as you are now, to destroy this station. But there was a problem. The reach of my signal only went so far and the synths beyond that barrier were still acting on their own. The resistance would have to fight off the remaining synths themselves before it would be completely over. Luckily, they would get no reinforcements anymore from synth space since I had full control in this domain.”
“Higgins said he didn’t know what your plan was. Was he lying to protect your plan?” I asked.
“No. He truly didn’t know. I couldn’t risk any chance of the synths finding out what I was planning. But son, let’s sit that aside for now. I’m sure you have something important you want to ask me while there’s still time.”
I held fast in keeping my tears back and asked, “If you could go back and make the decision to bring me and my mother to the Mansion instead of shield us from this life, would you?”
“That’s a difficult one, son. On one hand, I feel as events played out in the best way possible…but on the other hand…I so missed your mother and wished I had been a part of your life. Tell me. Has Higgin’s done his best to try and fill the void I left?”
“Yes. Yes, he has,” I answered.
“I knew he would. Now, son, I need you to finish placing those detonation charges but turn over the ignition codes to me. I can set them off myself once the resistance wipes out the remaining hostile synths.”
“No! Dad, we’ve got to help you. We need to find a way to reupload your consciousness in your body and cure you!” I cried.
“It’s too late for that, Eric. My body has long since been destroyed and there’s no way of even telling if you’re talking to your real father and not just a copy that was made during the synthesizing process. Tell me one thing before you go though.”
“Yes?”
“Besides Higgins, do you have people in your life that love you?” he asked.
“I do! There’s Arduwan,” I turned to point to her, “she’s a barbarian princess who’s sworn her life to me. There’s my ex-girlfriend Stephanie, who is still a big part of my life. Anabel, a girl from Bristol who helped me defeat Washington the Third. Emily, a master detective from Murk. And then there’s my best friend, Wraith, who I haven’t seen in a while, but he came through when it counted. Dad, there’s so much I wish I could tell you!!!”
“I know, son. I do as well. But we’re just going to settle with what time we did have together.”
“What should I do now then, dad?” I asked as I sniffled.
“Go back to the well, Eric. Spend time with those who care for you and forget this awful place. I’ll hold the line here. The resistance can handle the rest.”
“Alright,” I submitted, “I understand that it's the way things are. I am glad I got to speak with you, just this one time though.”
“I am too, son. Goodbye.”
Celica finished placing the charges and gave the detonation codes to my father’s hologram. Arduwan comforted me by laying her arm across my shoulders on our way back to the ship. The space marines all gathered, and we leapt up to reboard our vessel and head back to home territory. This was not how I expected the mission to end up, but there was a level of peace in knowing that my father saved a world even after his own demise.