Allison didn’t waste time after school she rushed to the open field at the rear of the building and tapped her comms to open a line to Bit. Her AI acknowledged the signal and her voice came through Allison’s ear piece.
“Ensign, how may I be of assistance?”
Allison smiled when she heard Bit’s voice. It was ambrosia for the ears. Much like all Synthlin voices.
“Please come to my location. We have a space patrol and I need a ride to the base to get my armor.”
Bit responded.
“Regulations state you should have your armor available at all times if you are on active flight status. I am on my way.”
“I know, I forgot it at the base.”
“Of course, Ensign.”
Allison closed the audio connection and smiled. She heard grass crunching behind her. Allison glanced over her shoulder and saw it was Besho her former archnemesis. Former because Allison had probably just promoted Trixie to the position after getting her suspended for three days. Allison was still linked to Bit through her holo-phone, she tapped the cloak command. Besho was accompanied by Ajay’s two minions. Allison turned to face the trio. Besho grinned.
“I don’t see any teachers around. I told you that Ajay was off limits, what is your damage? How dare you talk to him at lunch?”
Allison cracked her neck and then pointed at the pair of thugs.
“So, these two clowns are here to teach me a lesson?”
Besho nodded.
“I don’t know why Ajay didn’t put you in his place himself, but we will.”
Allison closed her fists and got ready to get things started when she noticed Bit was rapidly approaching on her display. She opened her hands.
“As much as I’d like to teach the three of you a lesson in manners, I’m actually on duty now, so I could get charged. However, if you were to start a fight, that would be interfering with System’s Alliance personnel in the course of their duties and I think that’s a… minimum two years in lock up?”
Besho laughed.
“Bullshit. Get her boys.”
Bit uncloaked behind Allison with gunports open. Her voice came out of the fighter’s loudspeaker.
“An attack on my pilot is an attack on me, and I am authorized to use lethal force in the defense of myself or her. Please, throw that punch so I may improve the gene pool of this colony.”
Sam and Andrew tripped over themselves as they bolted towards the school. Besho blinked in disbelief. Bit landed and some of the liquid metal near the cockpit formed itself into a ladder. Allison gave Besho the same finger wiggle wave she gave to Trixie earlier in the day.
“Better luck next time, skank.”
Allison started tapping controls as the canopy closed and she angled the fighter towards the base. She spoke to Bit as she set her course.
“Lethal force? Really? You’re so bad.”
Bit laughed, Allison smiled, the musical laughter of Bit always filled her with joy.
“You cannot tell me you did not enjoy the look of terror on their faces.”
Allison shook her head.
“I’m glad I got you instead of one of those stuck up human designed AI’s. They’re so boring. You’re more like a partner in crime.”
“I like that, partner in crime. So how did we get assigned to a boring patrol of an uninhabited system?”
Allison blushed.
“My fault. I’m trying to avoid my mom, so I volunteered.”
“What did you do this time? Fist fight? Did you tell a teacher they were an insufferable hag again? Spill.”
“I told a stripper named Trixie she was a sanctimonious bitch.”
“Was she truly an exotic dancer?”
Allison snickered.
“No, but with a name like that it sounds like her destiny.”
Allison brought Bit in for a landing with the fighter’s antigravity generators. She hopped out and climbed down the ladder of liquid metal.
“Be right back.”
Allison rushed across the tarmac and into the locker room. She pressed her thumb on her locker and it opened. She grinned when she saw her armor. She quickly pulled off her uniform and got into her flight suit, then her armor. It was made of the same metal as her fighter’s armor. Only it was black. It also had her rank markings on the shoulders and her surname on the chest piece. She was reaching into the locker to grab her helmet when she heard someone clear their throat. She turned and saluted.
“Hey dad.”
Her father had his arms crossed.
“You signed up for a six-hour patrol on a school night? Do you know how mad your mother is going to be when I get home because I signed off on it?”
Allison shrugged.
“They asked for volunteers. I didn’t think they’d actually pick me.”
Her father frowned.
“You know that no one wants to do local system patrols, so you knew that if you volunteered you would get picked. You forget I used to be a pilot and I know how boring two hours in FTL in a fighter is. You better do your homework when you’re in transit because that’s what I’m going to tell your mother you’re doing.”
“Sure, I’ll do it. Absolutely. Well, I better get going, if that is alright, sir?”
Her father waved her onwards, as she was leaving the locker room, he called out to her.
“I better see Bit logged as landed on base by 2330.”
Allison waved to him.
“She will be dad… can you pick me up?”
“Yes, now get going.”
Allison ran out to bit and clambered up the ladder and hopped into the cockpit. She slid her helmet under her seat and started tapping the holographic controls to prepare for launch. She tapped the comms.
“Skull Ten, requesting clearance transatmo, drone wing link up and FTL transit for assigned patrol.”
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She heard her father come through comms.
“You are cleared for launch. Be careful out there, Runt.”
Allison sighed, she hated that callsign, but she was the only non-adult in the squadrons and you don’t get to pick your callsign.
“Aye sir.”
She hit the antigravs and lifted off. Once she had Bit angled straight up she went ballistic. The fighter was capable of near lightspeed on its own, but in the atmosphere and near-gravity well she was limited to hypersonic flight. The metallic purple fighter blasted through the edge of the atmosphere and catapulted itself past the single moon that orbited Eden Prime. Two drone fighters took up position on Bit’s wings. Allison tapped in the FTL jump coordinates and sent a final message to Eden HQ.
“Skull Ten, we’ve linked up with our drone wing, transiting to FTL now.”
She tapped the FTL initiate control. Real-space dropped behind and a white-blue tunnel appeared around her. She was used to it now. The first time she’d been in FTL she’d thrown up, not her proudest moment, everyone assured her only vampires didn’t vomit, and they cheated because they were dead. She started tapping around to bring up one of her saved shows from the Alliance-net. What appeared was her first homework assignment. She groaned.
“What gives?”
Bit sounded amused.
“Homework first. Your father’s orders.”
Allison resigned herself to homework. She was a captive audience. She finished it before she’d reached the halfway point. Bit next forced her to review standard patrol procedures. Then numerous other military processes. She hadn’t managed to finish them when they dropped out of FTL. Allison started bringing up her scanners.
“Bit, open a wormhole comm link please.”
Bit acknowledged her request and the fighter’s holo-display showed the link was established. Allison spoke.
“This is Skull Ten, we have exited FTL and are beginning patrol.”
Her father spoke.
“Confirmed. Be careful.”
Allison shook her head.
“Skull Ten, approaching gravity well of the outer planet. Closing wormhole comm link.”
Allison took flight control over and skimmed the outer atmosphere of the yellow gas giant. She spoke.
“AGN07-6, nothing tactical to report. New storm in southern hemisphere, looks green from space.”
Allison plotted another FTL jump, a much shorter one that took a couple of minutes. She leap frogged between the planets. As usual nothing on them seemed to have changed. No signs of any ships. No energy readings. Same boring patrol they flew every month. The reason more experienced pilots dreaded them.
The innermost planet was in the yellow star’s habitable range. When they approached, she could see the vast blue ocean that took up one side of the planet. Allison flipped her starfighter. She tapped the control to turn off the holographic display that gave her an artificial three-sixty-degree image and make her canopy clear. She let Bit skim the exosphere. She reached out and touched the clear liquid metal.
“Its almost like I can touch the ocean.”
Allison looked forward and saw a dark cloud on the horizon. Then Bit’s collision warning systems started flaring to life. Allison quickly flipped the fighter and was forced to weave through a massive debris field that floated above the orbit. The planet below was engulfed in black clouds of ash. Allison swiftly pulled the fighter up and out of the debris field and set Bit to match a geosynchronous orbit. She quickly checked the previous month’s scans. They showed a blue and brown terrestrial planet with countless life signs, none of them sentient. Now it was showing rivers of molten rock and an ash cloud that would soon engulf the whole planet. It was off its axis and the computer projections were showing it would soon hit its own moon then fall into the star. Allison’s hand went to her mouth. So many living things wiped out in an instant, the rest doomed to a slow death.
“What happened to it Bit? Please tell me we got plant samples.”
Bit didn’t respond for several seconds.
“It looks like samples of indigenous species were taken by BMC six standard solar years ago. My projections indicate a large meteorite caused a chain reaction which resulted in a mega-volcanic eruption. Scans and projections indicated the planet was extremely geologically unstable and not suitable for colonization. It would appear they were correct. This correlates with my own creator’s scans of the planet. Ensign, I have detected energy readings of an artificial nature on the surface. Also, an emergency beacon. My translation matrix has identified the language, Qual’sa in origin, but they are extinct… System’s Alliance protocol is clear. We must respond to the distress signal.”
Allison tried to open a wormhole comm link. She saw a response scroll across her HUD. Commlink failed, unknown error. She tried again, and again, and received the same response.
“What is wrong with the comms Bit?”
“I am unsure. The planet, or meteorite seem to have been composed of something that is disrupting several systems. All human in origin.”
Allison reached under her seat and pulled on her helmet. Her contacts and holo-phone acknowledge full link up and her HUD confirmed she was now in full environmental armor. She started angling the starfighter for atmospheric entry.
“This is dumb, if they’re extinct its probably some stupid probe.”
Bit acknowledged Allison’s words, but then said.
“My creators were extinct until one of you answered a distress call, they are no longer extinct.”
“Well, here we go. I’m going to stay low, if there is something hostile or the signal is a trap I’d rather be a sensor shadow than a giant purple target.”
Allison powered on her shield and angled for a descent into the atmosphere over the ocean. She dove low and pulled up and skimmed the water. Within seconds of reaching the surface the fighter was engulfed in black ash. The planet’s surface was on fire and it was spreading. She’d seen controlled forest fires on Eden but this was on a global scale. The excitement Allison had been exhibiting for the whole patrol was dimmed and her voice was soft.
“How could a ship survive on the surface in this hell?”
Bit’s tone didn’t change. She was several hundred thousand years old. Not much phased her now.
“Likely a capital ship of some type. Heavy armor. The Qual’sa were an advanced species when my creators were gaining a semblance of sentience. Records indicate they had ships capable of entering a star’s corona. The temperatures on the surface here are uninhabitable for living creatures but a ship of sufficient size and armor density would be fine unless it received a direct hit from the meteorite. Plotting an intercept vector, be aware of lava geysers while the lava will not harm the shields, if it reaches my skin it could cause damage and build up that may make it impossible to escape the atmosphere.”
Allison pulled the craft up and weaved to the side to avoid a gout of molten rock.
“We should get out of here and call for help. I’m not ready for this yet.”
“Ensign, my experience dictates that you often say you are not ready, yet you prove yourself capable. Lives may be on the line and the loss of a people’s entire historic record could be the result of your choice to abandon this rescue mission.”
Allison sounded frustrated.
“Or it could be a stupid probe that got reactivated when the shit hit the fan. We don’t know.”
She weaved the fighter through several more gouts of lava. She swore under her breath.
“Fly high, fill the fighter with ash, risk attack, fly low risk getting incinerated. Why didn’t they have a simulation for this?”
Bit let the rhetorical question sit. Allison was talking like she always did when she was struggling through something.
*****
Eden Prime CDF HQ, System’s Alliance Colony World
Captain Wanjala had his arms crossed as he paced behind the duty comm’s operator, a corporal, and a quite experienced comm’s operator at that. Captain Wanjala sounded concerned as he spoke.
“Are you sure there is nothing? She should have been at the last planet thirty minutes ago.”
The operator tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice when he responded to the base’s commanding officer. There were so many reasons for a patrol to report in late that had nothing to do with anything dangerous.
“Sir, there is nothing to report. I will advise you as soon as I receive any information. It is more than likely stellar activity causing interference. That star is highly unstable and is very active. It happens all the time with this patrol.”
Captain Wanjala frowned.
“Get me the Endeavor.”
The comm operator tapped a few controls. On the operations room main screen, the captain of the Endeavor appeared, she was an attractive woman in her forties with greying brown hair and grey eyes.
“Jason, how can I help you?”
Captain Wanjala nodded to her.
“Sam, I was wondering if you could use your wormhole generator to pop by AGN07.”
Sam, or Captain Jolovich as she was otherwise known blinked in disbelief.
“Why, what is the matter? Has there been an attack?”
Allison’s father rubbed the back of his head.
“One of our patrols is forty-five minutes past due for a report and we cannot initiate wormhole communications. You know the policy on us sending more fighters.”
Sam motioned to her left.
“Give me a minute Jason. Pull up AGN07 for me and please give me a report.”
Sam read over something in front of her that no one else could see. She finally responded.
“Sorry Jason no can do. That system is notorious for comm link issues. You know the board’s views on unnecessary antimatter use. I will send the Zeus and the Demeter at max FTL, best I can do.”
Captain Wanjala nodded, the disappointment was apparent in his voice.
“I understand.”
Sam picked up on it.
“Jason, what is the matter, who is in the patrol?”
He paused before answering.
“My daughter.”
Sam shook her head.
“Sorry, Jason. I wish I could do more. She’s a good pilot, better than most already. I’m sure she’s alright. If I send the ships and it’s nothing to worry about, it will not look good for either of you. Are you sure you want me to send them? Another fleet admiral would not be inclined to help you so quickly.”
He closed his eyes. If he made this call and it was a non-issue he would definitely be reassigned away from his family. Allison would be furious with him. But if he didn’t and she was in danger… He sighed.
“Hold off, we’ll let you know if she returns.”
Sam smiled.
“Deep space scans are showing no unscheduled FTL activity. She’s going to be fine, old friend. Space weather can be unpredictable, there is probably something disrupting communications. She’ll be back before you know it. When is she due back?”
“2330 standard time.”
Sam nodded.
“If she’s not back by 0530 we’ll send a carrier and her escort. Keep me updated.”
Captain Wanjala nodded.
“Thank you, Sam.”