A/N
Woot, Woot Chapter 5, made it this far. For those of you still reading this you're awesome and I thank you for being patient with me. If you have any questions hit me up in the comments below. If you find any errors point them out and I will fix them as soon as I can. Also, Enjoy.
I see the one called Doc pull them to the side and Talk to them as Frank escorts me to the Bridge to give me a tour of my new home.
“What is the Meaning of this Mr.?”
“The name is Doc Dende Princess, and I can explain, I know you might not feel right about her joining us; however she was brainwashed and betrayed by her own people.”
“So you just want me to forgive her for relentlessly chasing us all the way here? Preposterous!”
“Yessicanda is just as much of a victim here as you are princess, if not more so. She believed she was receiving commendations for her efforts as a good soldier.
Instead, the next thing she knows is that she is waking up here, in a strange place, surrounded by strange people, chained to a table. Only to find out that she does not remember a large chunk of recent events do to the machinations of a megalomaniacal prince.”
“And you just expect me to let this FLY!!??” The princess progressively gets louder while Henry is trying to get her calm down from the side;
“Princess, please do not…”
“Don’t you dare princess me, I have been under incredible stress because of these Dradarians”
“Listen Princess” Wolfe says as he butts in to her rant; “quit yer shit, you still have people you can rely on, She Don’t. Her entire life is gone; you still have a title, and possibly even a position of power.”
Doc adds; “She does not have any of that, as soon as we removed that token the people that placed it on her, well they knew as soon as we removed it due to a transmitter in the token. Frank is probably explaining that to her right now. We are literally her only sanctuary, You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be assassins, sanctioned by the Dradarian head peoples coming for her head in order to keep whatever state secrets she recalls, ‘secrets’ ”.
Wolfe concludes Doc’s bit; “So princess if you want to continue your hissy-fit, I advise you to do it elsewhere, such as your Temporary, and must I stress the word Temporary, Quarters. Just think of it subjectively, you have a ship, a crew, and loyal men. She didn’t. She may have possessed them physically but she did not have the most important thing.”
“And what was that Mr. Wolfe??”
“Herself.”
“Gragh, Fine be that way all of you. I will be resting in my quarters until you, PEOPLE, come around form your insanity.”
“Princess, I will tell you this, if it were my choice, you could take your ship and leave. Seeing as how Frank would not quite like that, as it is not apart of his ideals and to a further extent, it is not quite the captain’s ideals. I will restrain myself from saying so, but until you quit your behavior, you know my feelings and opinion. You should be ashamed of yourself. Hells bells at this point I would not even mind letting Doc here do a psych-eval of you.”
Doc having heard this seemingly pulls a notepad and a pen out of nowhere and with an impish grin on his face asks; “Psych-Eval, really?”
Bryan turns pale and quickly interjects as he recalls what they had talked about earlier in the cantina; “NOOOOO!! No Evals, Psyche or otherwise. Scarr back me up please”
“Look Bryan, Wolfe overstepped his boundaries, however so did the princess. Princess, once you have calmed down we will talk about this again, on your terms maybe. However you have to go to your quarters and calm down first and foremost, alright?” Scarr asks.
“Fine, seeing as how you are either fools or idiots, I am not sure which, I will retire to my quarters for now, but once we are able to.”
“Please princess, let us retire for now, we can finish discussing this later. Please?” Says Henry with a sigh.
The princess turns and storms off to her quarters with Henry staying behind for a moment, once he notices the princess was out of earshot he turns to the men in the medical bay and says;
“Sorry, gentlemen, I will do my best to calm her down, but please just stay away from her quarters until I give one of you the all clear. She has been under a lot of stress recently this just pushed it all over the edge.”
The people in the medical bay nod in understanding towards him as he quickly begins to pursue the princess in order to attempt to get her to calm down. Doc looks to the other three men who are still standing there and says;
“Well that could’ve been worse.”
Wolfe, smirks and asks Bryan and Scarr; “You guys still want dibs?”
___*___*___*___*___*
“That’s it for the Tour, What do you think?”
“This ship is huge; it is at least eight times the size of the first ship I was commissioned on. The Athena class Sarkany is puny compared to this titanic behemoth. What class is it?”
“Well Miss Yessicanda, it is a Thanatos class Dreadnought.”
“Are there other Dreadnought type sub-class’s?”
“Yeah there were, along time ago. 19 of these dreadnoughts were created during the first great interstellar war as an attempt to counter the aggressors’ forces of Titan class Majestic’s.”
“19, of these Thanatos class? And what is a Majestic? I never heard of them.”
“And you never will, we wiped them out bar-one which we saved for use as a memorial which was the EIF’s (Eternal Imperial Fleet) Kronos class Monkshood. However, that one was ‘accidentally’ destroyed in the Second great Interstellar War. As for the 19 there was only 1 Thanatos type sub-class, there were 18 others sub classes with one of each specific ship type having been created.”
“Who designed these Giant ships?”
“The Cap’n.”
“What happened to the other 18?”
“Locked away, buried, or turned into some of our hidden bases, just depended on the ship. However if the need arises and the time ever comes and we must awaken the Maverick AI Protocol. Well, may God have mercy on our enemies. The only reason this one wasn‘t locked away is because it is the Captain‘s favorite and has part of our first interstellar ship built in it.”
“First interstellar ship, of what sort?”
“Warship, The Wandering Immortal was the first interstellar warship created, with its sister ship the Arcadia also being built soon thereafter.”
“Wait, throughout recent history there has always been Interstellar warships. What do you mean by the first, how do you know that? And how do you know all this right off the top of your head?”
“Well, we command crew members were there.”
“But wait, if I have never heard of it, how long ago was that?”
“Ohhhh, about that, yeah it was around 1700 Millennia ago-ish that it started. It ended 1500 millennia ago. We command crew members are, well, kinda immortals…”
Yessicanda stops and turns towards Frank looks him in the eye and says;
“So wait, you mean to tell me that your ship is crewed by immortals?”
“Yeah, pretty much, Yessicanda. Mind if I call you Yessi? Yessicanda is a bit of a mouthful?”
“I do mind, and would you please elaborate Cap’n Frank?”
“Sure thing Yessi, I ain’t the Cap’n, he is missing. I am the skipper, First mate, or Frank. Occasionally Speedy over the comm.‘s but that’s for another time.”
Yessicanda, deciding to bear with her new nickname for now tries to steer the topic back towards her original question;
“Grhg, so you’re an immortal Mr. Frank?
“Yeah, all of us command crew members are.”
“And you just expect me to believe that Mr. Frank?”
“Well yeah, it’s the truth.”
“Say wha…”
“Look, after we find the captain, he will make the call and decide for himself whether or not you are command crew material. Then it would be your call, after AI Ducky explains the consequences of course.”
“So I could be immortal, if I give this Cap’n a good impression?”
“Well kinda sort-of Yessi, he doesn’t really stand much on first impressions, he prefers to mess with people till he gets to know them properly. Trust me it is a bit odd at the beginning but once you get used to it he’ll change.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, it has led to some interesting diplomatic situations, which is why we decided to cast off the ties of race and call ourselves Pirates.
He hates anarchy, but he also does not like any government that becomes overly powerful. He believes that people should be free to choose, if they want overly harsh restrictions, and iron fisted regimes then he won’t stop them. But if the people protest and are forced into silence, It is not the best in the end for the oppressors.”
They turn and continue heading towards the ships bridge.
“What sort of morals does he live by?”
“If we come across oppression he will end it. He refuses to let slavery, rape, and a few other things fly by him casually. There are exceptions to the slavery thing, but it is generally in the case of criminals, and they must retain basic rights.”
“He sounds incredibly old fashioned.”
“To you maybe, but time is relative, especially for us immortals.”
“How do you gain immortality in the first place?”
“Hold up, let me ping Ducky to help me explain that part. Seeing as how he is the one that deals with the procedure, he would be the most appropriate one to explain.” Frank says as they start nearing the bridge, “Ducky, come in.”
“What is it skipper?”
“Could you explain to our new crewmate Yessicanda how the immortality procedure works?”
“Very well Frank, Yessicanda are you familiar with how the misnamed dark matter drives work?”
“No not really, they attempt to keep us in the dark about engineering’s jobs, partially because of state secrets. Besides it does not really pertain to a command officer, the less we have to deal with the more efficient we can deal with the more important things, according to the instructors at the academy.”
“Ok I will put it in layman’s terms, basically the ‘Dark matter drives’ are not purely dark matter, they work on the principle, of when proto and anti matter combine they cause a massive explosion of energy. These controlled explosions, when done right can cause a continuous stream of propulsion.
The problem faced was achieving that continuous stream without destroying a ship from the inside out. The tiniest leak and the entire ship turns into a bomb. That is where the Dark matter comes in, It shields the antimatter save for an extremely small bit that is used for the propulsion. It is the only known material that can shield antimatter without causing a big boom.”
“Mr. Ducky, I fail to see how the ships engineering relates to immortality.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Just Ducky is Fine, and I am getting to that. You know how the Magikin evolved due to cosmic radiation which allows them to live for a much greater span of time than your average creature?”
“Yes, they having beings said to live upwards of 10 thousand years in their midst.”
“Well that cosmic radiation is almost the opposite of Dark matter. By infusing the body and the brain in certain ways with Dark matter, we gain a similar longevity. Yet at the same time due to the different nature of the material, we gain a totally different set of abilities. You don’t really have to worry about some of the more complex ones for now.”
Frank interrupts Ducky by saying;
“The only ones who actually get the full treatment are those who the Cap’n approves of for command crew positions. And of course the dedicated crew members who have sailed with us for a while.”
“But Ducky, and Mr. Frank, That still does not explain how you have lived for such long periods of time, the oldest Magikin ever recorded by our records is the current leader of their race and he has reached 17,000 Years just recently.”
“Well, let us just say that the Cap’n found a way to perfect that sort of tech. Why do you think we are all still sane, despite having lived so long. The reason that the Magikin rarely live over twenty thousand years is because all those memories take a toll on them and drives them to insanity.”
“Wait, how do memories drive them insane?”
Frank answers and resumes speaking taking advantage of ducky having been interrupted by Yessi;
“I was getting to that. Not quite insane, the more you have to remember the more stress is put on the brain’s Hippocampus. That is the part which records ones memories. Eventually there comes a point where the memories overload that part of the brain, after that they can no longer retain any new memories. Once one part of the brain goes screwy, it leads to a break down of their bodies’ entire neurological synaptic network.
So they live the rest of their short lives after that point reliving random memories, and gradually losing their motor control and perception of their surroundings. They die trapped in random memories as their brain starts rapidly decaying. The reason why most of them die before that point is random causes, war, and radiation poisoning.”
“And how do you dodge this bullet?”
Ducky Interrupts Frank in turn, “S-e-c-r-e-t, When the Cap’n decides we will let you know. It would be poor form to tell you everything then you not stick around, no offense. It is just how my protocols are designed.”
“None Taken Mr. Ducky.” Yessi responds, “I understand how these things work. But I have a question now?”
“What is it Yessi?” Frank asks.
“Well, where is his voice coming from?”
As Frank launches into an explanation as to how there are multiple AI’s on the ship and how the main AI is down, they reach the bridge to find Wolfe waiting for them.
“What is it Wolfe?” Frank asks.
“The Princess had a hissy-fit about our new member just thought I should give you a heads up about it. Henry was going to attempt to calm her down, but no guarantees on his end, you know how royalty can get.”
“Hahhhhh, I will deal with the princess once we get to the base if she hasn’t calmed down by then. Hopefully Henry can get her to cool her jets enough so that she wont try anything to rash.”
“Who knows, she is royalty and all that crap after all. Also I would advise that if we are going to fight we pick up some additional men.”
“What did you have in mind, Wolfe?”
“Androids.”
“Really?”
“Yep, they are some of the best fighters that we could get easily to help with the ships armaments, less training and supplies would be involved since they learn faster than most. Who knows how loyal others would be, not to mention if we would even have enough time to train them to standard.”
“True,” Frank replies with a grimace.
Wolfe continues; “The Biomechatronic Federation owes us big time and they will probably recall their debt to us better than the other races would due to their leader’s longevity. They wouldn’t mind us recruiting people, especially since it would be a good experience for the junior members of their armed forces who haven’t had any combat experience.”
“But we would have to find the Cap’n first in order to get the Federations full support. Ghost which arm of the galaxy are we currently in?”
“Frank, we are currently traveling through the outer tip of the Perseus arm, heading inwards.”
“Current velocity?”
“Let’s see, we are at a low cruising speed of ½ the speed of light. If you want me to I could increase our speed, or even make a quick jump in to subspace using the Minovsky particle drivers?”
“Refrain from doing so please, we don’t have enough dark matter to properly shield the ship for FTL (Faster than Light) travel, and Ghost, I don’t trust our current data if things have shifted by such a huge margin over a period of 7000 years our standard pathways might not be safe. Just Increase speed to ¾ the speed of light.”
Yessi asks quickly, “You can travel faster than light?”
Ghost answers; “Not quite, with our Minovsky Particle drives it is semi-possible. There is a lot of quantum physics behind it, and it gets boring fast. Lets just say there is a way to control dark energy, and by utilizing dark energy we can travel faster than light. However we can only do this if we can set up a proper Dark matter bubble, and enter non-baryonic space aka subspace.
The only problem is we can control the dark energy, but we can’t store it, yet. If we run out of it or into an area where there is very little, we could randomly be sucked back into real space. Going faster than light in real space, well it gets messy. Big time. Bye, bye, Knightstalker, bye bye crew, we would be a smudge in space. Regardless, by far the best way to travel would have to be Via Einstein Rosenberg Bridge, AKA Bridge tech, AKA Warp Gate.”
“You have a warp Gate on board this ship???” Yessi Asks in a shocked tone.
“Yeah, what of it.” Wolfe says with a smirk. “The captain developed that tech as a way for colonists on the outer rims to Ship their produce, wares, and the like to developing colonies in the Norma Arm during the age of exploration.”
Ghost continues; “The awesome thing about the Warp Gates is that they almost break the laws of physics, but at the same time they follow them all perfectly. Why are you so surprised Miss Yessicanda?
“Well the major interstellar Governments are the only ones who really have the resources to maintain such expensive pieces of Tech.”
“Chhh as if our gate is that knock off junk. They just copied one of the Captains early inefficient models and tried to pass it off as this amazing thing. Anyways with that I am heading down to the Mess, I need some more Coffee.”
“Aright Wolfe, Drink one for me would ya.”
“Sure Frank.”
Ghost pops up on the Holo-deck and says; Frank I roger on your previous orders, sorry I got distracted. I have to go back to focusing on piloting the ship we are going to skirt around some outlying systems.”
“Roger that Ghost let me know when something comes up on Luna.
As Wolfe walks out Yessi turns towards Frank and asks him;
“Could you please Explain what you mean by inefficient, Mr. Frank?”
“Sure, and please just call me Frank, consider it an order. After we finished mapping our Galaxy during the age of Exploration There was the first great interstellar war, which was a big messy affair. Bridge tech was widely used by the Aggressors to attack backwater civilian worlds as a way to demoralize their foes. After the war was over save for these dreadnoughts he just up and destroyed all the other Gates, those that are left are just rudimentary attempts by Governments at best to reclaim what is lost.
There is an exception to this though; in the Orion Arm of the Galaxy, the human race uses them. However seeing as how they have become isolationists I doubt they really allowed other cultures, save for the Bio Federation to have contact with them.”
“How did they obtain them?”
“They were the best at reverse engineering the captain’s designs.”
“So Frank you mean to tell me that he just let it slide?”
“Well yeah, we Theriocephians were all originally genetically modified humans. It was a project created in order to help human colonists survive better in harsh colony worlds.”
“Why don’t they work together or coexist?”
“They have changed a lot over 1800 Millennia. trust me, things changed much more rapidly for the Therioceph than the humans evolution wise, it got to the point that they could eventually be considered their own ‘race’ so they split off and formed their own Civilization.”
“Frank, yo, the scan is done.” Ghost says as he pops up on the Holo-deck.
“Yessi, I will have Maxx give you access to the data banks in a bit then you can read it all there. Now go ahead Ghost, What is the word from Scarlet and Solomon?”
“Luna’s kernel (os) was fried.”
“But Ghost, I thought that was Impossible?”
“Not quite Frank, she was linked to the QMC in order to monitor us as we were hibernating. Which means that if someone is able to fry the QMC, she would be zapped as well. Now it gets worse, her short term databanks will be inaccessible until we get her repaired.”
“How the hell did someone zap the QMC? And how the fuck are we supposed to do that Ghost? The only one even remotely capable of that would be…”
“No, not quite. Part of the Maverick Protocol involved putting backups of the AI in all of the bases, when we get to Naraku 4 we can make a copy of her Kernel, Insert it into the relevant area of the QMC and
Presto Luna’s back.”
“Ghost, she won’t be Happy that the Cap’n is missing.”
“Frank, if we wanna find the Cap’n she should be able to scan for his beacon.”
“Fine, well what is the eta to Naraku 4”
“We’ve got 3 days Frank, and when we get there I advise to use caution.”
“Why?”
“I have been picking up lots of chatter from there; it seems to have become a ripe spot for smugglers on the surface, while there are honeycombs of caves all around our base.”
“Ghost, can you tell me if it has been breached?”
“Yes I can, and no it hasn’t. All the bases have been made to withstand the planet that they are on having been destroyed around them, while maintaining structural integrity.”
“Good, we will figure out our landing strategy once we get closer, but right now I am going to get me some more coffee, let me know if anything else comes up.”
“Roger Dodger, I will be sure to keep you posted.”