Enid waved at Miko who was playing on Maria’s bed. The little girl had demanded Aunty Maria, Esl and Darkie. Enid did not see the harm on letting Miko hang out on Pluto Station with her sister. Maria was happy to have her. She was just going through the last-minute checks for the jump to Andromeda. Miko held up her hands as if she were holding something.

“Esl ball!”

Enid glanced at Maria who nodded.

“Nice ball. It was nice of her to share it make sure you don’t hog it.”

“Thanks for looking after her sis.”

“Its nice, I missed having children around. Everything looks good from our side. Providing the star hasn’t gone supernova in the last fifty thousand years.”

“Okay, just going to call Hazel before I leave. Hey Miko, baby, mommy’s gotta go.”

Miko was playing patty cakes with some invisible force now. Enid pondered the merits of letting her almost toddler play with a ghost child, but she shrugged. The girl would see stranger hanging around with her family.

“See you in three weeks Sis.”

Enid blew a kiss to Miko who waved at her mother. Enid could imagine the girl in the yellow dress telling her to wave to her mom. Enid shivered slightly and hung up with Maria and dialed Hazel who was looking at her holo-tablet display from her pillow drool on her lips. She’d gone to bed in her clothes again. Enid sighed. She wasn’t going to scold the teenager right now. If something happened she didn’t want that to be the last memory the kid had.

“Hey hon.”

“Hi mom.”

Hazel shifted pushing her silver hair out of her face.

“Just about to make the jump. You got everything you need?”

“Ya, Amee’s here making breakfast. I can smell it.”

“Okay I love you hon.”

“Be careful mom, I love you.”

Enid blew her a kiss.

“See ya on other side.”

“Mom! Mom!”

“Yes?”

“Uhh Miles wants to take me to the movies. I told Amee you’d be okay with it…”

“Miles eh? The kid with the street racing car?”

“Its just a car mom.”

“Its fine, just don’t do anything I would do.”

Hazel smiled at her mother.

“I’m not crazy mom. I love you.”

Hazel blew her mother a kiss Enid pretended to catch it.

“See you hon.”

Enid closed the comm channel.

“Alright Apollo charge the drive.”

“Injecting exotic matter. Magnetic containment online. Five…four…three…two…one.”

Space turned blue-white around the starfighter and they shifted into dimensional space.

*****

Enid was reading another one of her ancient novels. This one was an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. She had decided her middle English was getting rusty. The hours were slowly ticking by. She took a drink of coffee flavored synth-o from her lucky travel mug and turned the page. She was translating the text to English for Apollo to keep the pair entertained. This was the ninth book they’d read together. Along with several movies, binge watching series. Twenty-one days in FTL was enough to try the patience of an immortal creature that didn’t need to sleep. Apollo interrupted Enid mid-sentence.

“FTL disruption event!”

Enid grabbed the stick as the fighter popped out of FTL. She the priceless book fell to the floor of the cockpit along with her travel mug. She was forced to do a quick dive, bank and weave as they almost collided with the wreckage of a ship. She managed to wave through a hole that cored the ship’s hull. Enid had to dodge another chunk of wreckage quickly.

“Apollo, I need to know if there is anything alive here! Cloak now!”

“Sorry Aunt Enid, no cloak ship’s skin has a residue on it from the debris field that is interfering with activating shields or cloak field.”

Enid swore under her breath.

“We’re being targeted by something.”

Enid rolled the fighter as a hundred-foot diameter beam of white light hit the space where they’d just been. A dozen more beams joined the first it was all Enid could do to stop from being vaporized. They just kept coming. If not from her vampiric reflexes they probably would have been. Enid slammed the throttle opening the thrustors wide. She zoomed around the planet they had come out FTL near hoping the firing arc was limited. She saw a moon on the scanners and flew towards it taking position on the far side. The planet had no fewer then seven wrecked starships in orbit. All were very large and impressive and had obviously been no match for whatever was going on down on the surface. Enid let her breath out. Not that she needed to breath but it was all she had to relieve the tension.

“Thank you, Aunt Enid.”

“Thank you.”

“You are a very good pilot.”

“Okay what’s our status.”

“Besides cloak and energy shield all combat systems are fine.”

“If we flick the skin, will it go away?”

“No. The residue is sticky. It will need to be scrubbed off.”

“Any idea what it is?”

“Looks like its designed for this sort of thing. Likely some form of anti-electronic warfare weapon.”

“How far are we from the target system?”

“Still reconfiguring star charts. We’re in andromeda though.”

“There were not supposed to be any star systems between us and Andromeda 1-A.”

“A lot can change in fifty thousand years, Aunt Enid.”

“Point taken.”

“FTL failed system check.”

“That’s not okay. Any idea what’s wrong with it.”

“Looks like the emergency stop caused a surge back into the antimatter core. Containment is fine and the surge protectors stopped it from causing a catastrophic failure, but the fuses inside have been burnt out.”

“That’s good…we have spare parts, right?”

“No. You ordered them but they were on back order because of the Cerberus. It uses the same parts.”

Enid pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.

“Think Enid, think.”

“Okay those wrecks, they likely had FTL drives right?”

“That is a logical conclusion.”

“Then we just need to go get fuses from there.”

“Aunt Enid, not even the standard FTL drive components are compatible with my systems. These are completely alien vessels.”

“Do we need the fuses?”

“Technically no, they are a safety mechanism. The drive doesn’t need them to function it just uses them to prevent power surges from destabilizing magnetic containment on the antimatter core.”

“So we just bypass it?”

“Yes, but it is not recommended.”

“We’re fifty thousand light years from home, I couldn’t give two shits about not recommended.”

“There is another option.”

“Go on.”

“If we find that the fuses from the alien ships are not compatible with my systems there is the option of the weapons on the planet. They must be powered by generators. They are probably very surge prone systems as they are so high energy. We may be able to find something down there.”

“Did you manage to get any scans?”

“There is a bubble of breathable air. The rest is irradiated and uninhabitable. Scans were not high-resolution enough to determine what the cause of the damage was.”

“Those guns.”

“Particle beams.”

“Hmm?”

“My mother theorized that particle beam weapons were plausible. Its on her list of upgrades for my weaponry. Those matched her predicted characteristics.”

“Okay, cool, I don’t care. What I care about is if we are going to get to those ships, or to the surface installation I do not want to run that gauntlet again. We barely survived.”

“Your armor is not suitable for space it is too cold your body will cease up. Or you will use blood at such a high rate it will not be sustainable with current supplies of Synth-O in your pack.”

“Point taken. Looks like they can only fire at targets on that side of the planet, once we got out of their arc they ceased fire. So if we were to do reentry wrong…we could burn off the residue.”

“Yes but the damage to my shell would be catastrophic and cloaking would still be impossible until I was able to absorb more metal and repair.”

“We have nothing to scrub it off with. My other idea was to clip the star’s corona, but the lack of FTL kind of took that off the table.”

“Aunt Enid!”

“Hey, we need our shields and cloak.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Your idea has merits. Even my limited scan has identified a good supply of metal in the habitable zone. But there are still the weapons.”

“I am assuming a high-speed approach skimming the surface will make us hard enough to detect that any antiaircraft defenses won’t have a chance to react until we’re on top of them.”

“This residue is going to make us appear much larger on sensors.”

“So then they’ll be aiming parts of that don’t exist. I don’t see as we have much choice. Go to the ships we face the big guns, surface approach guns will be smaller.”

“But my armor will be compromised from your…poor atmospheric entry.”

“Got any better ideas?”

“No, Aunt Enid.”

“Okay well better put on the brown pants.”

Enid hit the throttle and flew from behind the moon and headed straight for the planet. Rather then pay attention to Apollo’s suggest atmospheric she did the exact opposite. She willed her helmet on and as the starfighter start to heat up rapidly. When they blew through the ash cloud layer that seemed to cloud the outer atmosphere she looked out at Apollo’s usually spotless black surface and there were holes melted in the liquid metal. Every single alert and alarm he had was going off by the time she righted the starfighter. She banked over and dove straight down to the surface. She pulled up at the last moment. The surface full of craters. It the outer crust seemed have been turned into glass from being super-heated by weapons. She glanced down at her HUD. She was well past Mach 13 skimming the surface of this crypt of a world. The pieces of Apollo’s skin was flaking off. Its usual flexible metal surface was hardened and charred from being superheated. The plane was starting to shake itself apart. She still had several thousand kilometers to target. She kept the throttle completely open. She finally relented when she was less than fifty kilometers from the habitable zone. It looked like a walled military base no weapons fire me them. Six large dual barreled turrets pointed to space. They sit quietly waiting for their next victim.

“Looks like they have no antiaircraft weapons, or none left. Place looks pretty beat up.”

“I am not detecting any life signs.”

“Maybe its been abandoned and just has automated defenses?”

“That is a logical supposition.”

“Looks like they have man sized doors. I’m going to try and get in that way. That’s an energy shield isn’t? Won’t be able to land through it?”

“That is correct. Aunt Enid, the damage to my skin is severe. We will need several hours and a lot of metal.”

“But the residue is gone.”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be fine.”

She patted his charge surface as she hopped out of the starfighter. The usual ladder was unable to form due to the damage done by Enid in her bid to rid them of the residue. Enid tapped her wrist.

“Comm’s check.”

“Comm’s are good.”

“See you in a bit Apollo.”

“As you say, Aunt Enid.”

Enid walked across the remnants of what appeared to be a paved roadway. The shadow of the base’s shield seemed to have prevented its destruction. It took her just over an hour to reach the man-entrance on foot. Enid started looking over the check point. It was long abandoned, whoever had manned it didn’t die at their post, or it had been so long their cloths and bones had turned to dust. The language meant nothing to her. It was a just lines and dots. Though she imagined to aliens that is what English would look like.

“Apollo?”

“Yes, Aunt Enid.”

“Everything okay out there?”

“No signs of any movement. My scans indicate it was scorched barren several hundred thousand years ago.”

“What about the structure here?”

“It is much younger.”

“So they built it here after the planet was attacked?”

“That is what the scans indicate.”

“Did you get a chance to scan the shield?”

“It is very similar to the ones we use for the domes and my own. I dare say, identical.”

“Identical? There’s temporal shielding?”

“If that is a component of our shields, then yes.”

Enid quirked an eyebrow inside her helmet.

“Kind of strange isn’t it, we’re fifty thousand light years from home and they’re using identical tech? Language is complete gibberish. Still trying to figure out how to work this airlock. Looks like they were human sized at least. Going to be a while.”

“I suspect that there is no hurry at this point. Similar tech indicates that there are points on conjunction between humans and these people. Perhaps instead of trying to figure out what the letters say, attempt to use controls that would make sense to a human.”

Enid quirked an eyebrow and tried to remember the few security check points she’d see on Earth. She closed her eyes and let her hands do the work. She was rewarded with an angry beep from the controls.

“Nah, that didn’t work, maybe here is only way to do shields?”

Enid gave up on the control panel and went to the door and popped the panel off. Inside was a mess of wires. She was no electrical engineer but by using her helmet’s built-in scanner she was able determine to negative and positive power and ground and within forty-five minutes she’d hotwired the door open. She hit the button on the other side, the outer door slammed shut and as predicted the inner airlock door opened once the air vented in. Her helmet showed breathable if stale atmosphere inside the dome shield.

“Switching off helm comms and to holo-phone. I’m inside and its breathable.”

Enid let the helmet collapse back into her armor’s shoulders. She tapped her wrist and reopened comms.

“Well Apollo, at least they wire stuff the same way, but I guess electricity is what is two polarities. Anyway, going in further. See a few vehicles here. Look like troop transports. Something that could be a hover tank.”

“I am monitoring your progress, still no life signs on scanners.”

The planet’s ash field atmosphere didn’t let much light through. It left the sky dark and grey. Enid assumed the sun would be up, if it could get through the ash clouds. She looked up and realized she was walking in the shadow of one of the massive defense turrets and pondered how loud it would get when they were active. She still found no bodies. The place was pristine. She found an open hanger with what looked like a dozen starfighters. The tech was all organic looking. Her scanners saw no organic components but they were crafted to look it.

“Found some fighters they look ready to take off. Fusion reactors are all on standby. Also saw what looks like an FTL capable transport. Has the same lines you do. Might not need to harvest the guns.”

“That is welcome news. The fusion reactors…if your scanner is correct, they are the same design as ours too.”

“These fighters aren’t human. No way. They’re purple metal, never seen it before, its not paint. Its all built to look like its organic tech, but it’s not.”

“I would need samples to analyze your thesis properly.”

“I’m not seeing a control room, but they must have a way to get these space craft in and out of the shield.”

“Perhaps get closer to one of the fighters and scan it for me, Aunt Enid, I can get some analysis done while you search.”

Enid shrugged and approached one of the fighters. As she got near it the fusion reactor flipped over from standby and the crafted started to light up. It spoke, and Enid could understand that.

“Defense Wing 1 ready for lift off, pilot.”

Enid did not respond and kept scanning.

“Pilot should Defense Wing 1 remain in ready status.”

Enid sighed and responded in the same language.

“No, go back to stand by.”

“Affirmative.”

The starfighter’s systems powered off one by one and the fusion core entered stand by again. Enid took care to scan the engines, cockpit and weapon ports.

“There are a lot of similarities with my design. They even use liquid metal. The computer system is not as sophisticated. Weapons are different, however. Particle beams instead of gatling plasma and rail gun. Strangely our power systems are compatible. I believe those particle beams could fit into my hard points.”

“This is way too much of a coincidence. That being said, are they better than yours?”

“I would suggest swapping out the rail cannons and testing, but particle beams are the logical next step in weaponry according to mother.”

“Where did she get the particle beam idea from?”

“I believe it was from Amee. She provided input for many of my systems.”

“Did she?”

Enid hopped into the alien fighters cockpit.

“Defense Wing 1 wake up.”

The fighter started to power up. Enid started looking over the holo-HUD that formed once the cockpit sealed itself.

“Ya, I’d say someone had the design specs for this fighter and then modified it for human use. Doesn’t have an FTL drive though.”

“Pilot, we do not have clearance to launch.”

“Just systems test. You may power down and open the cockpit.”

“Defense Wing 1, entering standby.”

Enid moved to hop out, but a ladder formed in very much the same way it did on Apollo.

“Ya, this is like an episode of the twilight zone.”

Enid climbed down the fighter’s ladder and shook her head as she left the hanger.

“This place is creeping me out Apollo.”

“Perhaps check the transport? We don’t need the fluidic skin intact for FTL. If you can find fuses then you can replace them and we can just cancel the mission.”

“I like the way you think.”

Enid made her way to the transport and as she approached the loading ramp oozed out of the ship. It seems their use of fluidic metal had extended further then the human’s had. She walked up the ramp and started scanning.

“That is the FTL drive access point.”

Enid popped the panel off and crawled inside. She used the hand scanner to scan the various parts of the drive.

“Yes. Those will be compatible.”

“Lucky…or just creepy?”

“Aunt Enid, there is no need to ascribe a description to it. They are compatible and will fulfill the function we require them for. Their design is similar. All you need to do is pop them out by hand. They are meant to be easily replaceable.”

“Speak for yourself, if I was much bigger my ass would have gotten stuck crawling around in here.”

“Then perhaps when you are in your mortal phases you should refrain from eating such an unhealthy diet.”

Enid grumbled.

“Now my AI nephew is agreeing that my ass is getting fat. What is the world coming too?”

Enid popped out the last fuse and slipped all six into her pack.

“Okay one more pass for a control room. I do not like the idea of flying around without shields or cloak and with open holes in your armor plating. And Apollo, never agree with a woman when she says anything is too big on her.”

“I will remember this advice Aunt Enid.”

Enid walked out of the transport which once she was about ten feet away sealed itself up. She adjusted her hair and noticed grease on her hands.

“Perfect, and here I am three weeks away at maximum speed from a shower. There seems to be a passageway here under a grate. Going to check it out. If it is shielded you may lose me.”

“Understood.”

Enid pulled the grate off and went down the ladder. Rungs were a bit further part then she would have locked. She pulled a flashlight out of her pack and turned it on. The service tunnel there were several small side passages that seemed to lead to maintenance boxes. She finally found steal map with multi-colored lines all over it. Not of it was exactly visible. Everything down here was coated in a fine lair of ash, unlike the rest of the base. Like part of it undercut the wall and the ash from the air and surface blew into them. She rubbed her hand across the map she should make out specifics. Language was gibberish as she expected.

“Found a map…. Apollo you there?”

Enid glanced at her holo-phone. It was showing no signal.

“Of course.”

She started tracing the lines. She figured out which service way went to the hanger she’d been in just based on distance travelled and direction. After a few minutes she figured out the map was a cross section of the base. She started to talk to herself as she tried to decipher what the different buildings might be. She tapped the green line that seemed to indicate a shaft.

“Power core is probably here. Best way to shield it from bombardment, underground, probably he shields systems too with the emitters along the wall and the shield towers.”

She pointed to several of the highest points on the surface.

“So if that is the power core, they’re going to want the main buildings as close to it as possible to save conduit so there.”

Enid pointed to a red building on the map. She looked the service tunnel reference map that also occupied the same plate. There was a red dot on it.

“I guess dot dot dot pentagram thing square means you are here.”

She tapped the you are here marker and then traced a path to the main building through the service tunnels. She snapped a picture of the maps with her holo-phone and slide the display up in front of her face. The app she was using was smart enough to adjust facing for her and she made her way to the main building. She run into any access doors as she made her way under the main building. Once she hit the power core shaft, she found one though. She spun the metal wheel which complained very loudly and there was a hiss as she opened the bulkhead door.

She identified the turret conduits immediately they were thicker than she was tall and led off underground towards the four corners of the base. Another ladder that was much too large for her comfort led upwards. She climbed it slowly and popped a service panel off and found herself in a strange alien building. Again, it looked to be built for humanoids that were at least two feet taller than her on average. The same purple metal from the fighters featured prominently and as she walked lights started to turn on. She felt like she was walking through the insides of a gigantic beast but again everything was made of metal and plastic, no organic material.

“Apollo?”

Still nothing. She reasoned she must have still been in one of the sublevels. She found a set of stairs that she struggled to navigate because they were just a little too big for comfort and made her way upwards. She was rewarded with a ground level view of the airfield and base.

“Apollo?”

“Reading you.”

“I’ve gained access to what appears the main structure. If I read the map I just saw right the command and control room is nearby.”

Enid traced her way along the inside of this metal building and found a set of powered double doors. Her experience with the outer air lock had set her up for success here and it only took her ten minutes to get the door to slide open with a quick hotwire.

“I’m in. Computers are all on. Everywhere inside here is dust free, except those service tunnels.”

Enid rubbed her ash covered hands on her armor trying to rub it off. Truth be told she felt guilty about touching these pristine computer touch screens with her filthy hands.

“Looks like they’re logged in. Not holo-displays though old-style LEDs? Can’t read a damn thing. And the icons make no sense to me. I’m seeing if I can find one with a map or something on it.”

Enid spent a couple of hours looking over the screens and opening the different applications. She figured she wouldn’t break anything just looking. Finally she found what appeared to be a security console that showed that the four anti-starship defense cannons were active with full power to the capacitors and that the base was on lock down. She assumed that’s what it all meant but it could have just said the toast is ready for all she knew. She was working on ninety-nine percent assumptions here. She hit what she thought might be a cancel button. The various doors and entry ways all flashed purple on the display.

“Apollo, try one of the transport entrances higher up. I think I got it.”

“Yes its opening.”

Enid allowed herself a small celebration of closing her fist and jumping and shouting.

“I am awesome.”

“Yes, Aunt Enid you are."

"Okay land and start getting repaired. I’m going to see if I can take these defense turrets offline so you can open a comms to Earth.”

“Aunt Enid I am picking up stores of fluidic metal in one of the warehouses. That would make repairs very speedy.”

“Is it compatible with you?”

“I do not see why not. It seems more advanced than the metal used in my creation, but it is the same basic principle.”

“What do you mean more advanced?”

“I mean that it is roughly sixty percent more durable then my current skin and based of my scans of those fighters, resistant to the residue that put us in this predicament in the first place.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Pull the destroyed armor plates off of my super structure and pour the liquid metal again. There are mobile fighter repair vehicles that seem to be intended for this purpose.”

“Guess the guns can wait.”

To be continued….