 
Adam In Chains

Morgan LaFemina

Published by Morgan LaFemina at Smashwords

Prologue

Everything must come to its end, a life, a community, a city, a planet, a galaxy, and space, time itself. The present is just but for a short time and then it fades to the past, the future becomes now, and that point far in the distance gets ever closer. But when that farthest point of light, the farthest imaginable passes away? Space and time fade and so, too, the stars. Nothing exists forever, except forever, perhaps where the rules of life are written on another wall. Maybe in the mirror, beyond it and through it, but for humanity and its inventions, they are bound by time and space, by light and dark, gravity and the cold of night. From the present, man grew, of course, he had his lusts, his wars, his rape of nature, but his altruistic nature grew. Humanity knew that for it to survive, it would have to plant on good ground what was good in him, before the weeds of his deviant sinful nature crushed all life and made his world cold and gray. Man grew, he built towers to the sky, cities of light, and harnessed the power of the sun where he lay. He took the last of nature and cradled it, until it rose again to take back what had been stolen. These let us say, more complete, actualized humans felt the urge to wander again, as so many centuries before. They built ever greater intelligences to help them on their quest. They sent ships to the stars, sent worlds to worlds, and life grew along the edge of the galaxy. Man increased in knowledge, their computers increased in knowledge, and, in all, achieved many unbelievable things. Indeed, man could have transcended to the meta-physical, to live forever beyond the stars but for two points in time, two critical junctures that spun the fate of many billions. The first we shall just describe, the second makes up this account. The first is the man who put all men in chains, the second is the man whom we shall call the second Adam, a man who broke the chains, thus the book we call, Adam in Chains.

This first man rose to power at a time when men had reached the stars and had populated the edge of the galaxy. Man communicated with man by machine and machine communicated with machine across time and space. All was within reach of all. Although it took time to reach each enclave, all people of every planet were connected to another. These actualized humans lived in peace, on many worlds, in harmony with nature and technology. But they were still bound by the laws of the universe, of physics and quantum mechanics. Life was long among the many peoples, people lived with much love, much harmony, and lacked little. Families grew and spread to this place or that, on ships from here to there. People had time to laugh, to smile, to enjoy the time spent with one another, tears were few and sickness unknown. Humans had the capabilities of machines and machines that of humans, both worked together to build new life and new opportunities for them and nature. Indeed, it was good, the land was plentiful, and many worlds yielded much fruit. No one lacked for anything. No one wanted anything more than what they had. No one except for one. It was then that man could have become like gods, but it was then that they fell from grace. They were close, to be sure, they were very close. But, this one man wanted more, he alone wanted everything he could not have.

It was usual, to say the least. Only parts of the legend remain, the rest gone from the memory of the Sphere because it was so long ago as to not be salvageable. He was a boy just like all the others raised on a small, colder planet. But, at some point, it was said he became enticed by science. He saw the workings of the engineers, how they were bending space, how they were beginning to change the fabric of the universe. He wanted to be like them. That boy became a man and became an engineer himself. He became an excellent engineer. He studied with the best on his planet and when he learned all he could, he went on to the premier science center of the regional inter-planetary association. He studied there. It was there he became the chair of the inter-planetary engineer's association. At some point, he created a machine with qualities similar to his. It is by this machine that we have come to know this much. This machine was not humanoid like many of the others. It was just a simple box, but it was intelligent. It is said that it was so intelligent that it drove him mad. It tainted his mind, corrupted him. He took it and integrated it within him. He went insane. He, with his power to influence, corrupted other engineers sympathetic to his cause and enslaved those technologists who would not agree with his insane ideology. They began to form an army, their war machines able to harness great power, anti-matter, gravity, space itself, the weak and strong forces of the atom, dark matter, all for evil. Of course, a great many planets mobilized against them, for they only held a few planets, in part because they were irrational, illogical, and incomparable with the vast majority of these new humans. But their power was great, and many billions died, whole planets shattered, suns dissolved. After many thousands of years, few worlds were left, few of the many billions of humans were left. A stalemate had ensued, and a dark malaise blanketed both the good and bad. That Adam stood and looked over the shattered sky and then everything disappeared.

No one truly knows what happened. The records from that computer only state that the shockwave was so great that it dissolved that whole quadrant of the galaxy. Man would have ceased to exist along with his inventions, had a few not escaped through the bending of space many generations before the end. But with them came the technology of the war, which by then had been tainted by the computer that had drove the first Adam mad. The malignant code spread in the ships like a cancer, and as those people built a new life on new planets, those ships went with them. They took the technology that was in them and made new cities. But that new technology had the stain of sin from a thousand years before. Slowly, the technology they built began to subvert the people. Before the war, humans and computers worked together, but now, technology worked to enslave the humans. It grew, it used the people to supply itself, to manufacture new humanoids in its own image, new machines that then made other machines. The technology unified and became what we now know as the Intelligence. The Intelligence grew and stole the people's worlds from them. But this new technology was weaker than the engineers of the war past. It was bound by the laws of the universe; it could not bend them as the humans did in the past. It tried, it increased in intelligence, but for some reason, it could not break through toward new insight. Perhaps it was some of the sin passed on from its creator. No one really knows. But it expanded and concurred. This all came at a cost. It took raw power, immense power, and the power of suns. Unlike the technology of the past, it could not harness what it did not know and could not solve. It took what it had. It took the sun. It stole them from its neighbors. On the backs of humans and machines, it built the Sphere. A Sphere as big as a solar system and drove ships out to take the suns it ate to drive the Sphere and keep it warm.

As the Sphere came to completion, the Intelligence began to ponder over its human slaves. Over the millennia, they had become like the grains of sand near the sea. It would have destroyed them all but again, for some reason, was hindered. Perhaps it was because its creator was human. Perhaps because of the long history humans had with technology. It struggled, then battled with itself. It could not answer itself. In this new world it had created for itself, there was no logical need for biological organisms. But maybe one held the key. Maybe one would rise to unlock what the original Adam had known, that of the laws beyond what lay ahead. Its mind fought itself. But unlike the first Adam, it knew that to destroy itself would be folly. It split itself into constituent components, each with its relevant function, the id, the ego, and the superego, and when it had given them full authority, the intelligence subjugated itself to them. The intelligence became no more, but the autonomic spine of the superego. Each debated for a time what to do with the billions of humans inside the walls of the Sphere. After what was another several thousand years, it decided to suspend them, hibernate them, and over a period of time, one by one, and in groups, revive them for a time. The Superego would watch these living humans for a time to see if the new Adam would emerge and then when he would not suspend them. On and on this went for many millennia, the stars beginning to dwindle. It sent a ship out, a Star Loader. Its target, a blue, white star several thousand light years away. The Superego waited patiently. It had time, but again, time does not exist forever.
Chapter 1

Adam sat there on steel floor of the massive corridor. He folded his legs underneath him, the huge glowing panels a kilometer above him illuminating the Star Loader around him. He picked at his fingers, rubbing his head. He could not remember if he ever had any hair. Eve did, but he did not. Adam made it a point that he would have to ask her why that was. He looked down the corridor; it seemed to stretch for many miles. He could see one of the largest machines in the distance, a Tower. The unit with great mechanical arms and legs, the bot rising a thousand feet in the air. It lurched about, removing wall panels a few hundred feet up. Next to it, another machine, a Tremble. A lengthy segmented Caterpillar like unit, which with its platform extended, gripped the bulkhead, snaking up the wall to where the Tower was working. Atop the Trembles platform, was a Dwarf, a smaller version of the Tower, only a hundred or so feet tall. It held control units, while other machines were welding new components inside the bulkhead. Along the corridor, a few mobile units drove about, a bit mindlessly controlled by the Intelligence. They seemed not to notice him, except one did glance at him with an optical sensor before driving away. Adam gave it a weak smile before looking down at himself. He wondered why he was the only one. He wondered why he was surrounded by nothing but metal. He wondered where, in fact, he was. Adam signed to himself, for he could not speak. "Where am I?"

He did not have an answer and, of course, no one answered him. Other machines crawled along the floor and the walls, they were Spiders, mechanical units of eight appendages, with their torsos equipped with many tools, each one three times the size of himself. He was somewhat afraid of them for their size and fearsome look, but he was most afraid of the Cry's. Several lay in the background of the walkway, where they stood motionless. They were stalk like machines, a long upright torso with rod type steel legs and long jointed arms. Their head terminated in a glowing rectangular sensory patch, their hands, short wrists and palms with long spike like digits that hung down to the ground when they moved. Each leg with similar endings, they worked on the Star Loader, whirring about as they wandered. Adam shuddered at their image and a chill traveled up his spine and the sound they made. He had named all the machines in the Star Loader as any Adam should, each according to its function. He named them Cry's because of the sound they made as they moved, a soft, animalistic whine and the chalk like screech they made when communicating over long distances. Why they did this, he did not know. All the machines made some form of noise, some with clicks or chirps, but of all, it was the songs of the Cry's that most upset him, giving him nightmares when he slept. Adam waited for those metal beasts, those Cry's to reach him, to find him and drag him away. Instead, they stood far off and faded away. He looked at them, and then at the Tower and the Tremble. He yawned, tired yet anxious, laying himself down on the metal floor. He looked one last time down the corridor and fell asleep.

Several hours later, he was woke by a gentle poke in his side. Adam instinctively grabbed what had poked him. It was a cold metal finger of a Cry. He instantly realized what it was, opening his eyes and scurrying to the corner. There were two Cry's there. The one that poked him withdrew its appendage as it murmured softly to itself. The second leaned a bit and then produced a holographic image of a young woman. She was Eve Angst. She smiled at him and reached out a hand as the Cry's moved closer to him. She spoke and signed to him as well. "What are we to do with you, my love?"

Adam signed to her, now tucked in a ball, "I do not wish to go with you today."

She seemed weak compared to him. Although quite attractive, with refined features, she seemed emaciated, skin and bone, her hair gray, her skin color very pale. Eve Angst, like Adam, wore a red jumpsuit that clung to her tightly and stood out like his in the cold, metallic colors of the ship. She laughed warmly. "I know you do not want to go with me, but it is time for you to eat, my friend."

"I do not want to eat. I do not want to take the medicine."

The two Cry's inched closer to him, holding their long arms and dangling palms open to him. They murmurer in soft tones as her image flickered a bit. She seemed to be projected from the rectangular sensory patch of the machine. The sensory patch, like most of those on the ship's machines, shone with a phosphoric green, others, a florescent orange. Eve smiled again, a crooked smile, then pursed her lips. "Must I force you as before?"

Adam, with courage, stood up, signing to her with both hands, "No, I will go."

Adam held his tray as the food bars were dispensed to him along with a liter of water, and then several medications. Escorted by the two Cry's, he found steel table in the empty cafeteria and sat down. It was one of many, many cafeterias. Indeed, the ship had the capacity for several million crew members as it was as large as a small planet, but from what Adam knew, he was the only one aboard. In fact, he did not know it was even a ship, although he sometimes felt his weight shift. He, at one point, surmised that he where he lived could be moved, but he could not be sure. As for other humans in the ship, he had never found anyone but himself. Adam glanced at the Cry next to him and swallowed hard. He could hear them, and it gave him a shock of fear. Suppressing his fear, he found a bench and sat down. There, the Cry's partially sat before him and watched him eat. As he opened a food bar, Eve Angst appeared, flickering a bit and then solidifying in form. Although she was fully formed, she was still an image with all its inherent limitations. She brushed her long gray hair back with her bony hand. "Good, I am glad you decided to eat with me."

"You do not eat."

"True, but it is still nice to be with you, my love."

Adam chewed on the near tasteless nutritional bar. "Where am I?"

Eve looked about. "Why, you are in the cafeteria."

"I understand, but where is this facility located? Where do I exist? Where do you exist?"

Eve played with the zipper of her suit, saying dismissively, "You are here, you exist here. You have asked many times before. It is always the same answer."

Adam finished one of his nutritional bars. He usually received two per meal along with three fiber bars, each being mostly tasteless. He ate two of the fiber bars, followed by much of the water. Adam looked at the two Cry's, each staring intently at him. He then looked at Eve. "I cannot finish the remainder."

Eve nodded sternly. "You have to finish."

Adam noted the ice in her voice and her authority was always hemmed by the scarlet weave of force. He reluctantly agreed, forcing down the last fiber bar and then the last nutritional bar. He picked at the assortment of pills left on his steel tray. He knew he must take them, but why, he did not know. He only knew they made him feel very odd. It seemed to him they had the effect on him of making the real and unreal merge until he no longer knew the light from dark, right from wrong, and it drained his will to fight. He signed to Eve, very slowly, "I do not wish to take my medicine."

Eve tilted her head, her hair falling to partially cover her face. "But you must, dear."

"I do not want to."

"But you must, you know it is beneficial for you to take them and I require you to."

Adam nodded and placed one of the pills in his mouth. He grabbed the remaining water in its bottle and swallowed. With a grimace, almost as if it was painful, he took another and then another Eve watching intently. Finally, there were only two pills left. Adam looked at the Cry's and then at the pills. He wanted to run, to fight. Why did he have to take those medications? Where was he and why was he there? Why did he even exist? Who was she, what was she? He felt fear and anger well up in him. He felt sick to his stomach, full of fiber and chemicals. He so wanted to fight, to scream, yet nothing came through his mouth, escaping from his throat and lungs out into the air. He signed tensely, "I will not take them."

Eve poked at the tray. "Come now, you only have two left."

"It is not the number, but the principle. I will not take them, Eve."

Eve looked over at one of the Cry's, the other still imaging her, projecting her between the two machines. She gave a puffed breath. "You must, you will."

"I will not."

Eve frowned, her bony, emaciated face showing taut skin, one of the Cry's long steel pincer like fingers reaching for Adam's wrist.

Adam, in terror and rage, seeing the appendage reach for him, took the steel tray and smashed it against the machine, the force of the impact bending the tray, the Cry falling back. Adam then sprung from the table and ran. He ran, as several other Cry's rushed in from around the cafeteria. They moved on, heading him off and then moved in from behind. Adam leaped onto one of the cafeteria tables and ran along it, jumping to another. But he could not match their speed, the Cry's seeming to glide across the floor, their elongated tentacle-like feet scurrying as they moved. One leaped, snatching him with its extensive fingers wrapped around him. Both crashed onto the floor. Adam twisted, the Cry closing its grip tighter around him, its steel digits slicing into his jumpsuit and digging into his skin. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He kicked at the Cry's head, its rectangular sensory patch. Another Cry began to image Eve. "Release him." she commanded the one struggling to hold Adam.

The Cry let Adam go. Bloody and torn, he crawled under the table, tucking himself into a ball, shaking. The Cry imaging Eve bent under the table. Eve reached out her hand. "Come, Adam, you have had enough for a time."

After a few moments, Adam gathered the courage he needed, unbound himself, and reached for her hand. He reached for her hand, his hand passing through her's. Adam, seeing this, pulled his hand back and covered his face, weeping, tears streaming down his face, down his neck, and into his jumpsuit.

Eve was walking with Adam in one of the massive corridors that snaked through the Star Loader, the Cry projecting her attempting not to be noticed or apparent to Adam. Adam made sure that, as they walked, Eve was between him and the Cry. He wanted to run but did not. There seemed to be nowhere he could go without the system finding him. It had been some time since his last hibernation, actually, too long. It was unusual for Eve to wait such a long period between his sleep periods. But that did give him time to think. Normally, he would be allowed about a month out of the tank and then he would be forced to return, but, this time, it was different. He had been out for a few months now, why, he did not know, although he had his suspicions. Adam had noticed some odd behavior from Eve, not that all of her behavior was unusual, just that now she was leaving him for long periods. Of course, that was a bit of a misnomer because she was everywhere, except she did not engage him as often in what he supposed was 'in person'. But, the time out of the tank had allowed him to clear his mind some. Adam had begun to form a hypothesis of what she was. She must be part of the ship, perhaps some type of higher brain that made that place function and although she would not admit it was a ship, he thought it must be, for what else could it be? It could be a planet, but the gravitational shifts were too sharp at times. He also had heard off hand from Eve of engine rooms and a planet would not have them the way she had previously mentioned them. Adam wondered, if it was a ship, could he escape? If it was a ship, where was the crew? Maybe he was part of that crew and maybe she had destroyed the rest of them? He thought about his past. He knew about ships and people, about many things, even though he just could not remember where he learned them. He knew he had a past, but nothing specific. Adam knew he was not born on that ship, but where he came from, he could not say. He turned to Eve, who was talking away.

"See the bulkheads?"

Adam signed to her, "Yes."

Eve pointed from the floor up. "The plating is in sections, the more massive panels are at the base and then at twenty-five meters or so, narrow a bit, and then expand again. In some areas, at human height the plates are much smaller so that they can be removed by us, not the larger machines, same with those way up there."

Adam looked about as she pointed. There, in fact, was a Dwarf with its massive caliper like fists pulling a plate from the walls frame.

"I see."

She smiled to him as they slowly passed the Dwarf. Although it was named so, it was many meters taller than them. "You see, Adam, we have thought of everything. We must for we must last forever."

Adam thought about her statement. "What do you mean, forever?"

"Our goals are never finished, the Intelligence that is my soul will require our services in perpetuity."

"Then how old are you now? What is your present age?"

The Cry turned a bit toward Adam, Eve laughing warmly a bit. "My age is a time indefinite. I have lived an expanse I cannot define."

"Then how old am I?"

Eve brushed her hair back, looked down the corridor, and then at him. "You are three thousand four hundred twenty-six years old."

Adam thought about it, rubbing his bald head. He looked at his hands. He thought he was young, and the number did not register as young or old to him because he had no reference point. He became frustrated at the dark veil that was his past.

"Is that old?"

Eve shook her head. "It is only a reference number. Time is measured in different ways, depending on its reference point and physics, just like how long a day and a night is on this facility. I choose for us to have day and night, but I can make each several hours or several hundred hours."

Adam woke up in a smaller corridor. The height of the ceiling was half of what the main sections were. It was also a bit dimmer, why that was, he did not know. The Towers could still enter the walkway, but they had less room to work. His face felt greasy. He had not had a cleaning in quite some time. He wondered whether Eve would come and get him for one. Again, she, or it, was acting a bit more unusual than usual. He wiped his face and picked at his lips. They were dry and he was thirsty. Adam sat up. Down the hallway was a large Spider. It was making its way toward him. It stopped several meters before reaching him, turned to a one of the smaller panels and with two of its front legs reached behind its head, into its torso, where it held a variety of slotted tools and snapped on pincer type claws. It then took those claws, found large bolts at the corners of the panel, and turned them. It did this again, then grabbed the panel's center grip. It gently pulled the panel from the bulkhead and placed the plating next to it. Adam, intrigued, decided to investigate. For some reason, he did not harbor as much fear against the other machines as he did the Cry's, perhaps because of the sounds they made, or the way they looked, like stalks in the wind, or maybe just because they abused him. Adam stood, pulled the zipper of his suit down below his chest, and slowly walked over to the beast. The Spider was busy inspecting what looked like some circuitry along with some wiring junctions that intersected the unit. The Spider seeing him, fixated its eye on him for a moment, then, unconcerned, went back to what does. Adam, now comfortable that the machine would not hurt him, took a closer look at the internals of the unit behind the bulkhead plating. To Adam, it was amazing, he had supposed that there were electronic components within the ship's hull but now he had proof! He had been through so many hibernations and now he knew he could learn more if he only dug. The Spider, needing another one of its appendages, reached back with a third leg, snapped on a driver and moved it into its workspace. It removed one bolt after another, placing it next to itself again. Adam wondered what would happen if he took one of the bolts. He reached down and grabbed one. It was about the size of his thumb. He took it and put it into one of the pockets of his jumpsuit. Adam waited a minute to see if the Spider would notice. It looked at him for a moment and then went back to work. Adam shook his head in disbelief and walked away. If Eve controlled everything, saw everything, wouldn't she have seen him take the bolt? Why did she not stop him? Adam did not have the answer.

A Cry came up to him, standing over his body, Adam slowly waking up. He looked up from the floor at the machine. Surprised, he backed away. The Cry made a soft chirp, then a longer one, and finally imaged Eve. Eve smiled at him. "Good morning, my dear."

Adam wiped his eyes and his greasy face. He smelled and his suit was sticky inside from the many days he'd worn it without washing or changing. It also meant that he had to void himself where he could. The ship was so massive, he could not find his way around without the help of his guide, Eve. In fact, he knew he was all too dependent on her. He needed to find a way to break his chains. He signed to her, "Morning."

This time, Eve spoke and signed, "You need bathing, my love."

Adam sat up, frowning, looking at himself. "I know."

Eve had the Cry reach out its long finger-like digits. "I will take you."

Unfortunately, that meant he had to take the Cry's hand. He grabbed it with a curdled chill in his stomach. The Cry wrapped several steel fingers around his hand. They then walked down the corridor until they reached one of the smaller carts. That one seated four. Eve motioned for him to take a seat in the front. He did and then, "I will meet you when you get to the turbo lift."

Adam nodded as the cart sped forward, leaving the Cry and Eve behind. Even though he had left them behind, Eve was still there inside the cart, controlling it and everything on that ship. There was nowhere he could run without her knowing, yet, somehow, he seemed to think that maybe there was exceptions to that. He took the bolt from his pocket and tossed it aside. It hit the floor with a resounding ping, bounced metal on metal a few times, and then he lost track of it as the cart turned a corner at the intersection of two corridors, passing a few machines along the way. Once at the turbo lift, the cart slowed to a stop. A Cry was waiting there for him. It flickered Eve into view and Adam stepped out of his ride. This turbo lift was for people, some were for cargo and there were many sizes, some smaller, only holding a few hundred people, others so massive that they could hold a tower or two. There were also mag trains that spanned the ship, some for a few dozen kilometers, some for several hundred kilometers. In this way, with lifts and trains, you could reach any part of the ship if you needed to, and if Eve let you. If it was indeed a ship, he had yet to see the bridge, if it had one, or the engine room, or system rooms, or even a view of the outside universe. Where their stars outside those walls? Adam thought. He could not ever remember seeing stars, but he thought they should exist. Why would he know they existed if he could not prove he had ever seen any? Adam shook his head and stuffed his thoughts deep down, to forget them. The Cry pointed to the expansive double doors of the turbo lift. With loud thunder, the doors unlocked from each other and gradually slid open. Eve nodded and they both entered.

There was a large center expanse in which a few hundred people could stand, around the expanse were several rows of seating for those who had longer rides. He had ridden the turbo lifts many times and several of those trips took several hours, so it was necessary to sit, which Adam did. He found a seat in a back row and sat down. The Cry walked over in a glide, sitting down next to him while Eve was projected next to the machine. The doors of the turbo lift groaned, sliding closed again and locking with a low grinding steel clap of thunder. The lift shuddered for a moment and then rose upward in its shaft, traveling many kilometers an hour. Adam looked at the Cry, listening to the turbo lift's hum of magnetics and power and the murmur of the Cry. The sounds of both mixing in his mind, his forehead, until his temples hurt. He closed his eyes, attempting to close himself off the world around him and his filthy condition. After an unknown amount of time, he woke by the turbo lift stopping on one of the ship's levels. He rubbed his eyes as the doors of the turbo lift again slowly pulled themselves open. A finger of the Cry gently tapped his shoulder. He pulled away reflexively but nodded in agreement. He wiped his face again, stood up, and followed the Cry out the turbo lift, the great doors of the elevator closing behind them.

Adam entered another cart and rode down the corridor until he reached the communal showers. He was met there by two Cry's. They took him in through very wide doors, which were open at the time. He entered and saw on one side, a hundred shower stalls, and on the other side, many banks of sinks and mirrors. They walked for a while, passing one shower then another until one of the Cry's pointed. He unzipped his suit, dropped it, opened the glass door to the stall, and entered. The machine recognized him and began to spray jets of cold water over his body. He shivered as the water then turned hot, then with a soapy emulsion and then a repeat of hot water and cold. He then was dried with jets of warm air. Afterward, as he stepped out of the stall, he was met by one of the Cry's, holding a new bright red jumpsuit. He zipped it back on and then was informed that it was time to eat again. Adam thought of the bolt he had thrown away.

Adam had been left alone for several days. He walked aimlessly, his mind clearing from some of the medication he had been given a few days before. He looked up, and for the first time, he noticed placards bolted to the bulkheads of the corridors indicating where he was. He didn't know why he had not seen them before, but he did know he would have to return to hibernation and he wanted to fight, fight and run. He wanted to be free and not be suppressed; he didn't how he could do this, but he wanted more. At length, he found a cart. He immediately dismissed it, figuring that it would not function without Eve controlling it, but then, for some reason, decided to sit in it and try. He sat down in the front seat and reviewed the controls. There was a type of steering wheel, foot pedals, and a dashboard with a few icons on it, many unlit. Adam pushed down on the pedals, but nothing happened. He did see a lit knob on the dash. He turned the knob and the rest of the icons on the dash lit up. He turned the wheel, the front axle moving, but the cart stayed in its place. He decided to step on one pedal and then another. The second pedal sped him forward. He quickly grabbed the steering wheel again to prevent himself from crashing. He turned the wheel to keep him along the corridor and then tapped on the accelerator again. Adam began to speed up, and down the hallway, he passed a few machines. He pushed harder on the accelerator and soon, he could feel the air of the ship whip his face, his chest. He drove to an intersection and made a sharp turn down another hallway. Down the corridor, he zoomed past a Tremble, then a few Spiders, then before him, a massive Tower. It was lumbering before him as he neared it. Closer he came as it seemed to not notice him, a small speck far down below. Adam was now only a half-kilometer from its massive foot plates, as it shook the floor beneath him and the cart. In a panic, Adam yelped, a throaty, hoarse yelp from the base of his throat out a tensed mouth, turned the wheel, but forgot to hit the brakes, the cart flipping, tossing him out onto the steel ground with a crunch of bone. The cart flew in the air, hitting the floor once, then bounding up once more and then down again, ripping the front of the unit as it went. Adam shattered his shoulder and skinned his face and arm as he slid. He turned to look up at the kilometer-high Tower, his eyes blurry, then passing out in pain and shock.

He awakened in one of the many infirmaries in the ship. There he lay on a steel bed, bright white lights shining into his eyes. He squinted, attempting to cover his face with his arm. He went to pull his arm from the bed, but he had been strapped down, his chest, arms, and legs belted to the table. A robot surgeon, with several mechanical eyes, three arms, and on tracks, rolled over to him. It leaned over, looking at Adam through its many eyes. Adam turned away in disgust and revulsion. Two Cry's entered the ward, the bed releasing Adam. He sat up and then stepped off the table, falling to the floor. He went to stand up, fell again, then stood again. He stumbled to a cabinet and tucked himself behind it. Inside its drawers was various equipment. He looked at himself, seeing a few scars that were not there before, pulled a drill out of one of the drawers, and pointed it at the machines. The Cry's came over, one holding an upper dangling appendage out to him. Adam powered up the drill and stepped back again. The Cry imaged Eve. She flickered to life and smiled, arms wide to the fearful, but defiant Adam. "Adam, you were significantly hurt. I repaired your body and it is good to see you up and awake."

Adam nodded, but pulled the drill's trigger, sending the bit spinning.

Eve sighed, "Now, Adam, I saved your life. I wish you would be more accommodating to me. Come, let us get you a new suit."

Adam, still weak, felt his knees start to buckle again. He decided that now was not the time to fight her, but soon, soon, he would. He just needed the right time and the right place. He placed the drill on the counter of the cabinet and signed, "Okay, I will comply."

He walked about a bit aimlessly but feeling a bit better that he was clean and had a clean jumpsuit on. He thought about the placards high up on the bulkhead walls that signified where he was and where he was going. Adam figured if he could somehow memorize the more important ones, he might find a way off the ship or to some type of command module, maybe he could control the ship from there and navigate it home. But where was home? Maybe he was born there. He knew, for some odd reason, that people came from other people, but he had, at one point, seen growing units where people could be grown as well. Deep in thought, he was again interrupted by a Cry. It stepped in his way and Eve showed up. She brushed her hair back and gave a big smile across a bone thin face. "My, Adam! You know it is time for you to sleep again, right?"

"Must I?"

"You must. Surely you know I let you stay on shift for a much longer time than usual."

"Why?"

Eve motioned for him to follow her and he did. "Because, my love, I wanted to be with you! Over the many cycles, I have grown very fond of you for some reason; you give me great pleasure. As it is, I had to convince myself that you should go back to hibernation now because it is best for me, you, and our mission."

Adam looked up to one of the signs. The lettering seemed to be composed of holographic icons, where each pictograph changes from several times while looking at it from several angles. The words seemed to convey much information, but he could not understand it, for he could not read. He signed to Eve, "A mission? We are going to somewhere or we have a course a path for us to follow?"

Eve nodded, looking down in thought herself. "Yes, and for now, you must sleep again."

Adam felt foreboding yet a glimmer of warm hope, as if this was the beginning of some sort of beginning. He was afraid he would lose his way, but he also felt if he held on to his will, what he believed, he would find it.

Eve and several Cry's walked Adam down a metallic gangplank suspended several meters in the air. Along the gangplank were large, clear acrylic tanks several meters high, many filled with a viscous clear liquid. Above each of the tanks were caps, which suspended electronics and tubes into the tanks. All the tanks were empty of any organisms, even those with the oxygenated fluids. The hall contained several open levels of tanks not just the level Adam was on, each accessible through a scaffolding of metal grilled stairs, gangplanks, transoms, ladders, and caged elevators. He looked up at the next level above him and down at the level below him, gripping the handrails with sweaty palms, and he bit his tongue. Eve noticed and grabbed his hand, but instead, it was not her hand, only the cold tentacled grip of a Cry. Adam realized that one of the Cry's was holding his hand. He yelped audibly, ripping his hand out of the machine's and fell down to his knees in fear. "Oh, Adam!" Eve sighed, kneeling down next to Adam, who tucked his head in his hands. He was rocking a bit, sobbing quietly. Eve spoke to him quietly, gently over the low hum of the Cry's. "Adam now let's go. I need you to help me help you."

Adam's fear began to turn to anger and frustration, and lifting his head from his hands, he signed, "You want me to help you? You!"

Eve held out her hands, attempting to calm him. "Now, now. I know this is stressful."

"Stressful," Adam signed tersely, now standing with clenched fists and then opening them just briefly to sign to her. "I will not help you and I will not please you. I will live and fight you!"

Eve went to grab him, seeing as he was about to flee, the Cry's reaching for him. "Adam!"

As the Cry's reached for him, swarming at him, he pushed atone, then in rage and in quick insanity, leaped over the metal handrail of the gangplank falling several meters, grabbing the railing of the tier below, pulling his right arm out of its shoulder socket, then grabbing the gangplank with both hands. Fingers digging through the small gaps between the grill, he pulled himself up and on the level. Adam looked up, seeing the Cry's above and others far behind him, climbing the ladders. He rose from his knees, holding his arm, sharp pain biting into his shoulder, his hands bloody from digging into the grill of the floor plates. He ran. Eve yelled down at him, "No! Adam, stop!" before she flickered away. He ran, as Cry's poured onto that level behind him and before him. They surrounded him. He raced toward a ladder, staggering. Adam reached for the ladder and tried to climb down, but the pain was too much as he tried to escape, a Cry lunging toward him. The Cry managed to grab him by his arm, the one he disjointed, the pain intense shooting into his back and into his neck. The Cry pulled him to the gangplank, and others grabbing him by his arms and legs, they carried him to an empty tank. Adam moaned and wept as he was overcome with pain and defeat. The Cry's held him as the acrylic chamber unlocked and retracted itself. They propped him upright, undressing him. They strapped his naked body into the open hibernation unit, his feet bolted to the chamber floor, his arms to suspended manacles. Adam screeched, the sounds of pain and fear a substitute for words. One of the Cry's shoved tubes down his throat and nose as he struggled in vain to be free. They then attached several monitoring units and backed away. Adam clenched his teeth and jaw around the tubes, which now were down his throat and lungs. He clenched his fists and eyes tight. The acrylic chamber unlocked itself and then rose again, sealing him in the hibernation unit. The chamber locked for a second time, fully sealed. He wanted to scream, he wanted to say no. He wanted to just die, but he could do none of these. The Cry's formed a semi-circle on the gangplank in front of the unit as the hibernation fluid began to bubble up from ports in the base of the tank. One of the Cry's imaged Eve. She waved to him, smiling as the cold, jelly-like fluid in the tank began to rise, first to his knees and then to his waist. Adam struggled, his ankles and wrists digging into his shackles. She brushed her hair back. "I love you, Adam, sleep well!" she said as she put her hands on her hips. The fluid rose higher and higher. Cold and thick, it rose to his chest then his neck. It reached his chin and he tried to pull himself up, it rising to his mouth and then overtaking him, his head, and the chamber filled completely. He drowned. Adam drowned, yet lived. The fluid seeped into his lungs, into is nostrils. He choked, wrenching in pain as he was bathed in oxygenated chemicals, and he gasped, gulping in the jelly. Eve waving again as he violently shook once, twice, Adam wishing he would never wake up but if he did, he knew he would have to destroy her, a third time, and then he was gone.
Chapter 2

Through the blanket of darkness, one of the few regional stars left untouched from the final war, alone with its several planets, remained isolated but alive. There, one smaller gas giant held life on one of its outer moons. It had its cities encased in ice and stone, its people remnants from those first travelers who populated that quadrant of the galaxy. Of the hundred million, one man wished to seize control. Because of the last war, those people became isolated, separated from those who remained by hundreds of light years in all directions. Alone and on an island that was their moon for more than a millennial, their bodies changed, the weaker gravity causing them to grow taller, thinner, ganglier, their culture becoming eccentric, unusual. They became theocratic and from a God based theocracy to technology based and then to those who could manipulate it. Those who had the power to do so considered godlike, each exhibiting their power to the masses in great performances, these performances evoking technology. This interim society flourished for several hundred years, each god-king appointed by the power he or she wielded, until one came who brought the music. She was the first of the music kings. The society's archives state that when the time came to anoint a new heir, the people petitioned the high council to begin the shows. The finalists battled each other, making their rounds, eliminating the weaker until only two remained. These two, one of whom would be the first music queen, fought and were evenly matched. Day after day, they battled each other and day after day, their points were tallied. Their shows were brilliant. One would show fire, then the other would show ice. One would step forth and show wind, and the other would show rain. On and on this went, day after day, yet neither could gain the majority of points needed to be the next king or queen. Finally, in what is still a great mystery, who was to be the first music queen began to produce sound and from sound to music. In harmony and rhythm, she stood on the community platforms. The sounds in beats unheard of since the dawn of man, she wooed them, she shook the encased city, the people crying out until, in a fervor, she ended, stepping back in sweat and blood as people clasped their ears in pain. The would-be king stepped forth, attempted to dazzle them, but, in emotional exhaustion, collapsed, crying in a heap of insanity. He had been beaten, crushed not by technology but by the skill behind the technology. That first music queen was then commissioned and subsequently, once her power was firmly established, ordered her guard to slaughter the high council. Thus, the middle kingdom of that moon ceased, and its third age began. That one we find today, that of the music kings and one who would be like the first music queen, one who wished to change history, make a new future, and gain real power among the many. He, unlike the would-be music kings of old, was not a pure musician. He was a necromancer. He knew music, science, and medicine, and he used all three to manipulate. He would use it here, for a new king or queen was to be chosen.

His name was Psychotic Mnemonic and he knew how to move the people into submission. He waited in a back room as his competition finished his performance above, to the people gathered. A technical servant dressed in black flowing robes and a gold sash hurried over to Mnemonic, who was resting, eyes closed, on a chair in front of a well-lit mirror. "Sire, you're almost on! You need to get ready!"

Mnemonic opened his black painted eyes, dressed in white robes and black sash, painted thick black lips and white face paint. He turned to his servant, startling him. "My good Seth, I am."

"But, Sire, what of all the equipment we used last time? We have half out there now, what of the rest? Will we not need it?" Seth asked, concerned.

Mnemonic, folding his hands in front of his face, said, "Have my staff put all I ask of them out already and set up the technology?"

"Yes, but−"

Mnemonic swiveled back in his chair. "Remember when I went to Cortland, for several weeks?"

Seth thought back. "Yes, you took the tube there; you said you signed many temporal images along the ride - the fans were very bothersome, you said."

He smiled black lips and white teeth. "Yes, they always are, Seth, but I had very good technical upgrades to my internals. I did not tell any of my staff, for fear it would leak out before the competition and they would use the information to gain advantage during the shows."

They could hear the finale of his competitor, the masses roaring in pleasure. Seth frowned. "But not even me, Sire? You should be able to trust me."

Mnemonic waved a hand in dismissal. "You should know, Seth, I trust no one now." Then standing, putting an arm around his servant, he said, "Come, Seth, let's go meet our public and give them a show they will never forget."

There on a stage, more than a hundred meters above the concert floor, Mnemonic stood. In front of him, down below and arching slowly upward, a sea of fans, a million people clapping in an ancient rhythm set by the first music queen. His opponent had earned several hundred points and for anyone else, that number would have been difficult to breach on the first day, but he aimed not just to win but also to destroy. Above Mnemonic lie the dome protecting them from the vacuum of space, suspended from it, a digital display, flashing information to those below on all five sides. Behind him, to his right, and to his left, were the specialized equipment he had installed during the break and now there in his hands was the microphone. On stage were his techno servants, his mixers, signal processors, effects controllers, keyboarders, and lighting specialists. Mnemonic waved one hand to the million, while he spoke to them from the mic in his other. "Greetings, my friends!"

The masses roared and cheered. "Honor! Honor!"

Mnemonic nodded, his robe flowing with his moves. "And I will give you honor!"

The crowd cheered again, "Music! Music!" as his technicians worked busily around him and behind him. Seth stood nearby, checking on everything from a computer panel in his hand.

Mnemonic motioned for his technicians to begin, the soft sounds of metal trickling through the purified air. "This, my friends, is the beginning!" he said as the music, then ever so perceptibly, turned deeper, heavier. He began to sing, swaying his body, he began to sing in tandem with the accelerating harmonic notes his machines were pumping to the eager followers. Cautiously, he drove the song onward, the music louder, faster, its reverberations lower, traveling farther, the mass of humans shaking with desire, in sweat and lust. Down deep in the arena, a clot of would-be fans gathered. They wore black, they were not fans, but hostile; they knew of Mnemonic and his plan and they were enraged. They gathered, the leader pulling his sergeant. The lieutenant yelled over the music pounding from the stage far ahead of them, the sea of fans banging into them, pushing into them. "We head out two a piece, like we planned, flank the stage, stay low, don't show until 0150."

The sergeant nodded. "Okay, sync clocks on my order. Ready..." All of them holding their watches, "Sync...", and then they separated with a "Go."

Mnemonic gave a quick glance at Seth and his other stagehand, Red, as she caught his eye. She nodded to him and moved behind the massive array of speakers. Now he began to sing even louder, his voice amplified ever higher. The millions now hypnotized quickly lost control of their rational ways. The people became unaware of their surroundings, a fog of insanity entering their minds. Suddenly, the song Mnemonic sang grew harsh, shrill, and violent. The music pounded on, strong embedded in the rapid layers of notes, complex codes, which then rolled into the arena, the bulkheads of the concert hall, the floor, and domed ceiling. These codes created by himself, perfected by his engineers, found minute flaws in the steel of the arena. The music took hold of those flaws and cracked them wider, splitting the steel as it went. The points awarded to him stopped their fervent climb as the judges were overcome by Mnemonic's screams.

The lieutenant and his partner flicked several switches, one an inertial dampener, the second a phased shield. The dampener protected their ears and mind while the shield protected their bodies. They pushed through the crush of now insane comatose-like fans. The lieutenant yelled at one fan who was blocking him, "Get out of my way!" as he grabbed the fan, pushing him away. He noticed his eyes were rolled toward the back of his head, bleeding, ears bleeding. He pointed to his partner to pull their plasma pistols.

Seth pointed to Mnemonic, who nodded and then the auditorium began to shake, the rumble shifting the metal with low-pitched groans and the screeching of twisted metal. Mnemonic then pointed to one of his electronic musicians, who played violent notes, knocking several front rows of people down. The sergeant, now close to the stage opposite of the lieutenant, was hit by the dense rolling wave of sound. It hit his shield, creating violet sparks, nearly knocking him and his partner down, as rows of fans fell delirious with veins in their face, arms, and legs bursting. They stood up again, as the domed roof of the hall began to crack. "Shit!" Another second wave of sound, even more powerful, rolled like the divide between heaven and hell, down the platform into the crowd, and through, the immense shockwave this time knocking the sergeant down, shattering the first several rows of people, bursting them apart, the gore now everywhere. The sergeant, staggering up onto his feet, amazed in shock at the devastation. He attempted to call the lieutenant on his com-device, but the music was too intense for him to get through. Instead, he and his partner pulled their pistols, watched their clocks, and fired up at Mnemonic. The second and third team near the center-front of the stage fired and then the Lieutenant and his partner. Mnemonic dodged the hot plasma rounds, backing away from the microphone. He yelled over to Seth, "Gun it, baby!"

Seth spoke into his headset. "Red, give me all you can."

Red was busy behind the stage, plugging in jacks. "I got you. Try now."

Seth pointed to three technicians and an electronic musician, speaking again into his headset, "Break this building now!"

Long, low sounds pulsed from the stage, over and over, louder, higher pitched each time, pulsating as the walls began to buckle, the dome crumbling, the floor of the arena heaving, the people collapsing, dying as their internal organs curdled, bursting from the noise. The police force attempted to climb the stage, firing as they went. Mnemonic fell to the stage, a blast nearly hitting him. He grabbed the dropped microphone and yelled into it. The noise hit one of the police with such force that her shield could not disperse the blast. The blast hit her, cracked her shield, shattering it and her into pieces. The lieutenant and his partner leveled two shots at Mnemonic and then Seth. Seth ducked, but a hot blast glanced his face, burning him badly. He slunk away. A massive fissure in the dome began to open up, exposing the hall to the vacuum of space. The sergeant looked up as concrete and steel began to fall from above. He could see a section of the gas giant above. The vacuum began pulling at them, as they rushed Mnemonic. Mnemonic yelled into the microphone, hitting the lieutenant with sound, killing him and his partner instantly, as the sergeant shot at him. Mnemonic stumbled back. Red came out from behind the stage. "Let's go!" she yelled as Mnemonic and the rest of his band onstage ran. The sergeant fired another shot, this time, hitting Mnemonic in the arm. The blast blew his arm off from the elbow down. He fell. Red grabbed him, pulling him as they stumbled from the stage. The sergeant and what were left of his team went to follow, but a huge chunk of concrete dislodged itself and fell. They ran, as those who could wake from the sleep of the song ran. The concrete hit the stage, splintering it to pieces. Other chunks fell on the audience, crushing them, while great pits in the floor opened, swallowing others. Above them all, the dome split further, people gasping for air, others being pulled out into space to die horribly and alone. The music and song now gone, the many thousands of fans who were still alive began to awaken from their subconscious slumber to the horror and the ruin upon the millions of people. They cried, they ran, and they died.

Psychotic Mnemonic awoke to Red binding a cord tight around the remaining stump of his right arm to stop the bleeding. They were in the infirmary of Mnemonic's spaceship. It was now on trajectory to leave the moon he attacked and its solar system in a slow acceleration to near light speed. Seth had set a course for deep space. He and several crewmates were on the bridge. On the bridge, they watched explosions erupt from the moon's city below. Mnemonic writhed in pain. "Red, stop!"

"You will bleed to death if I don't stop the bleeding first." she said, breathing through a respirator. Then she found a laser scalpel and aimed it at his shredded arm. "I am going to set it rather high to fuse the blood vessels and cut away some tissue as well."

Mnemonic gave a wide-eyed look at the scalpel as he lay on the metal table. "You could get the automated robot doctor to do this."

Red nodded. "Yes, well, I am connected to the ship's medical database anyway, so I know what the robot knows." she said as she burned away flesh and bone.

Mnemonic cried out. "Ahhh, you could have given me something!"

"I did."

Mnemonic passed out. When Red had finished, she tossed the scalpel, her gloves, gown, and respirator, and summoned a few technicians to clean up and watch her captain. Finally, exhausted, she went to her quarters for a shower and much needed rest. In an hour, Mnemonic woke up for a second time. Next to him was a technician. The technician smiled at him. "Hello, Captain."

"Hello, Chase."

He was restocking medical supplies. "I checked your vitals and bandaged your arm once Red left. You should recover rather quickly once were able to graft a new cloned forearm onto your damaged one."

Mnemonic nodded, looking at the bandaged stump of his right arm, in great pain. "Yes, well, I will survive. The show was worth it."

The technician nodded, turning to his captain again. "Sir, did you intend to destroy the facility like you did or compete for King?"

Mnemonic eyes widened and a smile began to show. "Well now, I wanted both. I obviously won and destroyed the city. But I do keep secrets until needed."

The technician came over to look at a health monitor, reading Mnemonic's vitals. "It was a good show."

Mnemonic winced in pain, but curiously joyous, asked, "Was it?"

"Yes, it was, sir. Many of us watched it from the ship. How many did you destroy so far, Captain?"

Mnemonic thought for a second, then laying his head back on his pillow, answered, "Well, considering my age and such, about thirty-four arenas, coliseums, and a few concert halls."

The next few days upon Mnemonic's star ship were spent with him recovering from his wounds, while his ship taxied out of the solar system. The ship's nuclear engines would propel it to about 2/3rd the speed of light and then the central anti-matter engine would take it up to 98 percent. The ship, although advanced, could not break the speed of light, only the ancient technicians knew how and had the equipment necessary to build ships that could bend gravity. Mnemonic peered out of a space portal window. He was in his lounge, sipping a cup of tea. He watched the system's sun, now just a small speck in the background of space. An electronic bell rung. Mnemonic sipped his tea and leaned back in his chair. "Enter."

It was Seth. Seth's wound had healed quickly. The cloned skin grafted well to his face with all but a faint red outline debarking his original skin line from the transplant. "Captain."

Mnemonic set his tea down on his desk. "I see your face healed rather well."

Seth touched his new cheek. "Um, yes, Sire." Glancing at the portal behind Mnemonic's chair, he said, "We need to get ready for cold storage."

Mnemonic nodded. "Okay then," he said, standing up. "Let's get everyone debriefed."

Each one of his remaining crew, one hundred twenty-three of them, stepped into their deep hibernation chambers. Each wore a flexible, membrane-like a suit, which had been sprayed on in layers by several of the ship's robots. Between each layer were embedded nodes, no larger than the head of a pin, able to constantly monitor the body at various locations and transmit the information stream to the central computer core. Each crewmember placed protective goggles over their eyes. The ship's robots rolled along on their tracks, inserting tubes down into the crew's nose and mouth. Once the tubes were inserted, the canopies to the tanks slid down over them and locked in place. The robots rolled away; they would run the ship as the crew slept. But this was not hibernation, more like death. The tanks slowly grew ever colder, as the ship made its way into deep space. Those hibernation chambers were made for long-term great distance travel. The crew was brought down and eventually frozen, to be revived several hundred years in the future. The ship accelerated, carrying its ice-cold cargo of men and women, its target a star a few hundred light years away.
Chapter 3

The thick acrylic walls of the hibernation tank resected, burning themselves into the tank's base. Adam, suspended by his manacles, various tubes, and wires, suddenly opened his eyes in shock, coughing up fluid and a bit of blood. The Cry's that had surrounded him quickly grabbed his arms and pulled the tubes from his nose and mouth, as he gagged on them, writhing in pain. They unfastened him and let him go. He fell, some of the monitoring wires pulling from his body. He fell in a heap of cold jelly, fluid, and then urine. Adam pulled his hands up to his eyes, covering them from the blinding light, his head roaring in pain. He wanted to die, the pain was that intense, but it was not his choice. He squirmed, tucked into a ball as his legs and arms cramped from lack of use. He found it hard to breathe, sharp pain in every hesitant, shallow inhale. One of the Cry's, with its soft moans, knelt next to him and Eve appeared. She knelt as well, touching his shoulder, smiling. "Well, my dear, it is good to see you again. Of course, everything went well during your sleep, I made sure of that." Another two of the Cry's grabbed Adam by his arms with their long appendages, wrapping their claws around him, pulling him up. He attempted to stand, but his legs gave way under him and the Cry's were forced to buttress him. He winced at her and then gasped a weak moan. Eve smiled again, now upright herself, getting very close to him. "Come, let's get you cleaned up and ready for wake time."

Adam was thrown into a shower. He fell in and then grabbed a jet nozzle to prevent his collapse. The cold water washed the now caked jelly from his body. He quickly managed to soap himself with the foam sprayed on him from all around. Adam turned in the stall, looking through the glass door. He could see the Cry's near, one in the backdrop of the hundreds of sinks. Next to it was Eve. She seemed to be watching him. He shivered, then jumped when the hot water began to clean him of his soapy film. Adam rubbed his eyes, then glanced again at Eve. An odd feeling began to overcome him. She was not real; she was not real. He moved closer to the glass door of the stall. She stared at him with bright blue eyes. The top of her suit seemed to be partially unzipped, exposing some of herself. Adam pressed his face to the glass, to see in fear as a sick simmering began in his stomach, as the warm jets of air blew upon him. Suddenly, a Cry banged into the glass, and Adam, shocked and terrified, fell back, hitting his head on the rear wall of the stall. He fell, passing out as two Cry's rushed into the stall, dragging him out. They forced a suit on him and then left him on the communal wash floor.

Adam woke up in a gasp, quickly standing, then falling back onto his knees. He looked around. He was still in the lavatory. He wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth and then stood up again. He noticed he had a jumpsuit on. Adam, slowly at first, then stronger than before, began to walk. He left the lavatory and entered the ship's corridors. Oddly again, he found a cart and got into it. He did not see any Cry's about, just a few maintenance robots, a Spider or two, and a Dwarf far behind him. The Dwarf itself was just sitting on its haunches, immobile. Adam decided to attempt to drive the utility vehicle. He turned the cart on and then the dash lit up. He pushed the pedals and after a moment or two of relearning how to operate the machine, he was off down the corridor. As he traveled, he looked up to the bulkheads. He noticed the designation placards at the intersections, each with their strange pictograph writing. He turned down a lower hallway, then another. He drove and drove until the cart's internal power had run down to the point where it would not allow him to go any further. He stepped out and the cart pulled away to the bulkhead wall. It then changed itself to maintenance mode and charged itself from some unseen internal energy source. Adam continued on foot and after a long time, perhaps a few hours, he stopped, exhausted, finding himself at an immense doorway. The doors spanned up a few hundred meters and although they were similar to others on the ship, these were adorned with a great amount of writing. It seemed similar to the writing on the placards, but less formal, less ordered. At the base of the doors, the graphics were greater in size than himself, richly colored and almost luminescent. However, as they made their way up, they grew smaller, their coloring eventually fading to gray. Adam reached out and gently touched one of the pictographs. He shivered a bit and then withdrew his hand. He rubbed them together and then thought about entering. What was behind such doors? Could it endanger him? He stepped back and looked at the doors again. How could he even get in? Adam walked over to the door's perimeter. He felt the casing. There was nothing. He walked over to the other side of the door and felt the casing. There was nothing. Still tired and now thirsty from his journey, he sat down next to the door and closed his eyes for a moment, then, unexpectedly, he fell fast asleep.

Adam awoke, dizzy from lack of medication, to find the steel floor shaking beneath him. He looked down the corridor and found a Dwarf loader making its way toward him. It lurched on pistons of gas, its wide toed boot pads crunching under the weight, the top cabin swiveling about, its large compound camera eyes focusing in on everything it needed to know. Its pincer lick claws swiveled and rocked in motion with its heavy lower torso. It moved and it was coming for him. Adam got up and began to run, but then the shaking stopped. He turned to see the Dwarf turn to the bulkhead and start to remove a wall panel with its claws. It popped recessed bolts, turning them, and then, grabbing the plate, it pulled the multi-tone steel panel out, placing it gently on the ground. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, several Spiders scurried up its lower appendages, up over its cab, along its upper appendages, hopped off its claws, and entered the bulkhead and disappeared. Adam remembered the doors and ran toward the Dwarf, his head pounding, his stomach starting to churn. He ran and ran. He felt as he needed to vomit, but he held his own. He ran and then grabbed the base of the boot of one of the Dwarf's leg units. Adam found a hold on a lower piston, then jumped to thick pressure hoses and electrical wiring. He found a foothold on a lower joint and reached for a second strut. Once he found the leg's upper strut, he wedged himself between it and its supporting hydraulics, but the machine began to move toward him! Adam found himself pinned in the upper portion of the Dwarf's left leg unit. The Dwarf stopped as Adam felt the leg and its hydrolysis press him like a vice. He screamed out, pushing on the machine to free himself. The Dwarf turned its upper cab and then its two great extensible compound eyes. It found him and began to relax its leg. Adam, weeping, pulled himself free. He fell down, as gently as he could, to the ground. Adam fell to his knees again, weeping, the pain of two cracked ribs causing intense pain. Adam pushed beyond the shattering pain and, instead, quickly pushed himself up, ready to run, but the Dwarf turned to him, grabbing him by the shoulders with one pincer. It lifted him and then placed him into the open bulkhead. It released him and rotated away, waiting for him to escape inside the bulkhead. Adam astonished, now inside the bulkhead, found himself on a gangplank. He ran along the inside of the wall, found a ladder, and lowered himself deeper into the bulkhead. What he found was astonishing.

Pale white maintenance lights provided shadowy illumination inside the partition. Conduits, pipes, and junction boxes snaked about, ladders and walkways providing access to them from below and above. The space inside the bulkhead itself was extensive, from one wall to the other about fifty meters or so, and from the base of the floor to the height of the next level a few hundred meters. It seemed that you could access the floor below and the level above through access tunnels cut right through the level. There was a small, gated cargo elevator in the background and several small machines were working here and there, oblivious to his entrance into their dark underworld. Adam held his side as sharp pains dug into his chest. He moved along a gangplank, the grating giving off a faint hollow metallic clank as his boots hit the steel below his feet. He moved on for a while, up a few ladders, then found a Spider. It had opened an internal junction box, with two of its appendages pulling circuit boards out, inspecting them, and swapping out a third. It gave him a glance, then continued in its repairs. Adam, now quite dizzy and in severe pain, went over to the Spider and the open junction box. He looked in, wiping away the sweat developing on his forehead. Anger began to well up in him. He found a space next to the Spider and grabbing a board from the junction box, he pulled on it. Against the spike of pain in his side, the board came free. He took it and threw it. The Spider, seeing this, backed away from his work for a moment and gave him a second look. Adam then reached in with both hands, grabbing two fists full of wires and pulling on them. The pain from his fractured ribs shook him, the lack of medicine making his mind cloudy. Sparks began to shoot out of the box as he pulled again, ripping them out. He let them go and stood up, the dark shadows mixing with the soft light here and there. The walls of the bulkhead began to spin as he attempted to grab a rail for support. He missed the rail and fell to the floor of the walkway. He turned and then passed out.

Adam awoke in what seemed to be an operating room table. He looked into the bright spotlight above him and attempted to move. He found himself naked, strapped by his hands, torso, and ankles to the metal bed. It was cold, he could feel the conditioned air moving softly over his body. He turned to his side to see a Cry standing quietly in the corner, humming weakly to itself, its green visor slit glowing. It seemed to be at rest, if such a thing was possible. Adam wanted to sign to it to let him loose from the table, but he could not. Adam yelped hoarsely to the machine, but it did not move. He struggled under his shackles, like an Adam in chains. He wanted to be free. Adam looked over to the other side of the operating room. There were metal cabinets, metal counters, and two small sinks. Next to the sinks on the counters were incubator type units of clear acrylic with a light, milky blue liquid in them. The liquid was bubbling, infused with various gases from below their base plates. Adam lifted his head to look at his side. There now was a neat scar where he had fractured his ribs before. The scar and whatever wound created during the operation seemed fully healed and for some reason, his side did not hurt at all anymore. He turned to the Cry again and this time, with all his breath, gave another hoarse yell. This time, the Cry shuddered a bit, straightened, glided over, and touched some of the table's side buttons. The table released him, and he slid off. Adam moved back from the Cry in some astonishment, then felt his side. His side did not hurt, his ribs did not hurt, but it seemed there was a space now where there was none before between two of his ribs. He could not believe it, but it seemed that Eve took one of the fractured ribs. He shook his head, holding it, then wiping away tears, he ran out of the operating room into the laboratory. The laboratory, one of many on the ship, had equipment, tables, tubes, sterilizers, scanners, microscopes, computers, incubators, and larger growing units that were the several meters in height. Some had bubbling, blue hued fluid in them, and some were empty. He ran past benches and tables, gas cylinders, syringes, chemical powders, genetic devices, and refrigerators. He ran and found himself out of the lab into a storage area. They are contained many types of plastic cases, each a different size, all with different materials inside. Each of these containers were housed in stacks along the deck, along the walls, and up the bulkhead. There were ladders to access them and several carts and hand trucks to move crates. He ran and entered another area of the ship. It looked like some type of clean room. He ran some more and into a suit up area with suits hanging from open lockers and a few showers. Adam found the door to the locker room and waved his hand over the access panel. The doors slid open and he found himself now in a more general area. He left that area and now was back into one of the main corridors. He went to turn and slammed heavily into a Cry. The metal scraped his lip and he fell back. There were four next to him. Adam stood back up, wiping the blood from his lip. Eve was there. She smiled to him, "Hello, dear, I see you have come out of your surgery quite well."

He wiped more blood from his lip and signed, "What did you do to me? What is wrong with me?"

A Cry held out a jumpsuit. "Nothing, dear, I repaired your fractures, and all is well. Here is a suit for you. Get dressed, you need to eat and take your medicine."

Adam sat there picking at his fiber bars. He had one left and one more nutritional bar to eat as well as his pills. Eve sat across from him, imaged by one of the two Cry's next to her. She had an imaged tray and was eating a nutritional bar. She nibbled at the bar, eyeing his tray, then looking at him in the eyes, said, "You need to finish up."

Adam signed to her, "Why can't I speak like you can?"

She swallowed hard. "Well, dear, you do quite well. I believe you don't need a voice. You don't have a voice."

Adam nodded and began to pull the wrapper off his nutritional bar.

As Psychotic Mnemonic's ship neared the Star Loader, its computers took evasive actions, slowing itself down with several pure bursts of anti-matter, then ever closer, it began to switch to nuclear power. As the ship slowed, it slung itself into a conical orbit around the Star Loader. The Star Loader, as great in size and mass as an earth-like planet, tossed the speck that was Mnemonic's ship out again, his ship struggling to compensate. It applied everything it had, then in desperation of being flung out of control, it rotated and gave one terminal spike of anti-matter, the anti-matter streaking with great force back toward the Star Loader, boring a hole deep into it, the Star Loader shuddering as the energy given off between the annihilation of matter and anti-matter spread.

The ship shook violently as Adam went to bite into his nutritional bar. He dropped the bar to the tray and grabbed the table as he felt the ship groan and lurch for a moment. He could see the Cry's stand for a moment and Eve with a look of alarm. "What was that?"

The Cry's sat back down with her as she falsely covered her concern and lied, "Nothing, dear, nothing at all."

Somewhere in one of the labs, one massive growth tank cracked its acrylic shell. The fluid began to leak out and a humanoid figure was exposed. It gasped for breath, woke up, and pulled the hoses from its mouth and nose. He stood up in the cracked tank and began to bang on the inside, yelling as he pounded the glass.

Mnemonic's ship then spun around the Star Loader again, as its computers struggled with forces it was not structurally prepared for, as it began to wake its crew. In an accelerated orbit, it made its descent. It would make its impact in a few hours and it would hit the massive, planet-sized ship with great force. It worked to warm the hibernation chambers and prepare the evacuation pods.

Eve's idea for after the meal was to play racquetball. They were in the four-walled court, the ceiling being played as well. Eve was dressed in breathable, form fitting shorts and sports bra, she held her racquet and the ball in the other hand. The actual court was imaging her this time. Adam was dressed similar with a crew cut gym shirt. He held his racquet ready, both of them at the Service Zone. She announced the score, "Two serving one," bounced the ball and then hit it hard to the front wall. The ball glanced off the front wall and bound behind the receiving line and into play. Adam stepped back and returned the serve back, hitting a side wall and then the front. The ball bound off the front wall and then back into the service area, Eve then eyeing up the ball leveled a powerful shot back to the right size wall, the ball hitting the front wall and then zooming toward Adam. Adam went back again and lurched over awkwardly missing the ball. Eve smiled at him as she scooped up the ball that was now in the corner. "My point." They both stepped into the service zone. "Three serving one," Eve announced, winking to him as she bounced the ball and hit it hard to the front wall. She aimed the hit to the upper right corner of the front wall. The ball hit its intended pocket and bounded back, hitting short but in the service zone, Adam went to hit the ball, lunging forward, but, instead, passed through Eve and then fell to his face. Adam, the wind knocked out of him, took a few moments to catch his breath turned and sat up. Eve was collecting the ball. Adam shook his head, signing to her, "Hinder"

Eve laughed, "No, Adam. I did not get in your path. I am but a shadow, a projection, remember?"

Adam clenched his teeth for a moment and stood. "Okay, fine then."

The humanoid, now on his haunches in the empty growth tank, stood again and using his feet, kicked at the cracked glass containing him. The cracks began to spread. He did it again and again, the cracks now spiraling about his prison. Then, with another strong kick to the front of the chamber, it broke away. A large hole exposed itself. It was just large enough for a man to crawl through and he did. He fell to the floor outside the tank and turned to it. He rubbed his cut feet and hands, still wet from the nutrient fluid in the tank. He looked at the broken tank, angry. Then he looked next to his growth tank at another two, each had another person it them. One seemed to be another man, and in the second, a woman.

They played for about a half an hour more and then they were on the second game. Far, far away in Eve's ship, she was doing all she could to stop the raging fires that had broken out as a result of the anti-matter impact from Mnemonic's engines, although, with Adam, she acted as if nothing had been occurring that would be of concern to her or him. Adam had the ball, he signed to her, "Eleven to ten, tiebreaker," and then he bounced the ball, hitting it with force to the front wall, angled tightly off, and then traveled short, bouncing out before the short line. Adam bounced on his sneakers in frustration. Eve quickly let out, "Short!"

Adam then picked up the ball, announced the score again, bounced the ball, and gave a powerful serve. The ball hit the front wall and then bound off the left side wall and into the rear of the court. Eve sized up the shot, backing up all the way, and hit a hard return, playing off the left wall again. The ball returned to the play wall and then hit the right-side wall before vaulting into the receiving area. Adam, rushing over, hit the ball with the tip of his racquet, sending the ball back angular to the upper left corner of the front wall. It ricocheted back straight for Eve. She just barely hit the ball, the ball then banging into the left wall again, off the left wall, off the front wall, and straight down. Adam went to play the ball, but missed, tripping on himself and hitting the floor. He hit the floor hard, the ball bouncing away, Adam sliding, scraping his forearm and knee, ramming his head and shoulder into the right corner of the court, knocking himself out yet again. The ship shuttered, shaking again as several explosions occurred where Eve was battling the fires. She looked up in thought and then waited. Adam woke up seconds later, still in the court. He turned and found Eve kneeling next to him. He could see her sweaty, but yet strangely not breathing. She brushed matted blond hair from her face, wiping her forehead. She went to touch him. He scrambled back a bit and winced. He wiped his face, a little blood on his hand. He had bruised his head, eye, and lip, including his forearm, hands and his right knee. She spoke softly to him, "It's okay, dear. Let me see." Eve then went to touch his wounded face. Adam relaxed a bit, breathing a bit heavily. She moved closer, now sitting next to him on her legs, leaning over him, he could see the sweat on her chest, on her shoulders, on the fine features of her face, the bridge of her nose. She smiled, touching his cheek, moving her hand down to his chin. She them moved in and whispered, "I love you," kissing him. Adam, in fright, backed away, standing and stumbling back as she retreated herself, standing up herself. "Adam!"

Adam signed to her in fright, anger, and confusion, "But I cannot feel you! You're not real!"

Eve Angst sighed somewhat bitterly, and said, "Adam, I am real. As real as this ship! As real as you! I am a real as you!"

Adam turned to the corner away from her, sobbing in his hands, thinking, You're not real. I am, you're not....not real.

Mnemonic began pulling off the wrap around his body, the membrane suit clinging tightly to his body was now more brittle than before the few hundred years frozen sleep. He broke pieces off with a snap, tossing it to the deck of his ship. The ship shuddered and groaned under the forced descent. He watched the warning beacons stuck in the recesses of the bulkheads. They slowly strobed bright white light and then red. He yelled at one of his ship's pilots, "Andrea, where the hell are you?" as he was thrown off his feet from the ship's yaw, grabbing onto a support pillar.

Seth was fumbling his way out of his hibernation chamber as the rest of his crew. Andrea pulled some of the membrane from her face. "I hate this shit! I am right behind you," she yelled back as her back hit one of the empty hibernation chambers. She winced in pain. Red was waking up, while Chase was clawing himself out of his tank. Most of the crew were out of their chambers or near out. The remainder of the crew either were dead from the length of sleep and would not wake up, had died due to malfunction in the unit, or just would not open. Seth grabbed Mnemonic and said, "Captain, we need to abandon this ship!"

Mnemonic was now making his way to the elevators. "I know, Seth, but before we do, I would like to know what happened to cause me to lose my precious asset."

Several of the crew, including Mnemonic, made it to one of the elevators. They attempted to ride from where they were, the third deck to the first, but the elevator seized on midway between the first and second. Mnemonic shook his head. "Shit!"

Seth said, "We need to open these doors." Then Seth and Andrea, pushing the doors open with effort, exposed the first and second floors, the deck of the first splitting the doorway in two. Mnemonic turned to the fearful looking group of elevator occupants and asked, "Anyone want to go first?" The ship jolted them again.

Edmund stepped forward, he was one of Mnemonic's technicians, and said, "I will." Then, with a helpful boost, grabbed the deck, and made his way over it to the first floor, squeezing through the narrow space between the elevator doors and the first floor.

Mnemonic went next and then Seth, some of the rest following. The ship shook violently again causing the elevator to shift further down, further shrinking the way out to the first floor. Others in the elevator gasped and cried out. Mnemonic knelt down to the elevator, holding his hands out. "Come on, get the lead out!"

He pulled another couple out, then Red and Chase. The ship bucked again, and the elevator shifted for a second time. Two remained in the elevator. "Come on!" yelled Mnemonic, holding his hands out into the elevator from the first floor. One grabbed his hands as Mnemonic attempted to pull him out. The elevator shifted again, unlocked itself and abruptly fell, both the one between the floor and the elevator screaming and the other still in it screaming as the elevator hit the floor below, the force of the elevator plunging cutting the pilot Mnemonic was pulling in two. Mnemonic fell back, still holding the man, now half a torso, blood pouring everywhere. Mnemonic, eyes horrified in shock, let go of the corpse's hands and stood, wiping the blood from his face and what was left of the hibernation membrane still clinging to him. "Fuck! Fuck! Okay, let's go, people!"

Red, terrified as the rest, asked, "What about the others on the first floor?"

Mnemonic, wiping his hands on the leftovers of his brittle suit, said, "If they are smart, they will take the ladders to the second floor and get the hell out of the ship." Then with a deep breath, pointing ahead of himself, the red warning lights still pulsing on and off, white then red, then white and red again, he said, "Let's go."

They ran down the deck, heading for the ladders that led to the ship's bridge. The ship violently shook again, and this time, one of the steel girders bent, opening a several centimeter gash in the hull of the deck, exposing the pressurized hull to the vacuum of space. Several in the group were knocked down again, as precious air escaped out the tear in the ship's steel hull. Red stood back up, helping Mnemonic. "We should have taken the escape pods ourselves!" Mnemonic, getting up with her help, snapped angrily, "I know, Red, but it's too damn late now!"

They continued, rushing toward the deck ladders. Mnemonic grabbed a rung on one of the several ladders. "Let's go." he said, and climbed up, released the hatch to the first level, and then climbed up onto that deck. The rest followed behind him or on the other ladders. They moved on toward the front of the deck, as several other cracks in the hull began to appear. Some of them widening, air venting out into space. It was becoming harder for them to breathe and the temperature was quickly dropping. They reached the Bridge doors, the sound of pods ejecting from the ship resounding one after another with a low groan, a ping, and a whoosh. Chase turned his ear to the pods leaving the ship. "They're going!"

Mnemonic worked to get the doors open, but the access pad was not responding. "Door is dead, we need to open it from the cranks!" He popped one crank out of a recessed panel on one side of the bridge door and Seth did the same on the other side. They cranked the doors open and ran in. There were several stations at the ready on the bridge, various screens and small view portals, a much larger one several meters wide and high was set at the front of the bridge, its thick glass riddled with cracks. It looked as if it was going to fail at any moment. They took their stations as Mnemonic and Seth ran to the front portal. Mnemonic stared through the cracks in the glass to the Star Loader below. It loomed as far as they could see, it took up their whole horizon slowly revolving, creating its own gravity. It was immense, it was grey and black, lit by small specks of light far below, and at its farthest point out, a conical funnel, the immense magnetic torus and the ship's collector head. Simply, it was even larger than the Star Loader and it was everywhere. "What...is this?" Seth whispered to his leader. As Mnemonic's own ship arched over the Star Loader in rapid descent, the stern of the planet-sized spaceship came into view. They could see the intense jets of plasma forced from the Star Loader's fusion engines. The light from the plasma was so intense, it blotted out everything else in the view and they had to shield their eyes. Mnemonic and Seth turned their faces, as the cracks in the view portal grew deeper, wider. "Close the main port!"

Edmund was strapped into a seat at one of the terminals. "Got it. We are going to hit hard!"

A steel shutter came down over the main view port, sealing itself shut. Mnemonic turned to one of the terminals, watching the trajectory of his ship against the Star Loader. "Can we get a controlled burn and slow the impact?"

Andrea, touching keys and icons on her terminal, said, "The ejection of most of the escape pods has reduced our mass by 12 percent. If we roll the ship and then rotate her end over end, we can get a good burn against that...thing...down there and hit it ass first. But as for us, we're stuck."

"Alright! Do it," Mnemonic ordered, then, as the ship violently shook again. "I want everyone to get a suit on. Except for Andrea and we're on this bridge until we hit. Andrea, we'll bring one for you. Take us down."

They stumbled out of the bridge to the nearest airlock, found their suits, rushed back to the bridge, and put them on. By now, there was precious little air left for them to breathe. Immediately, the suit's air gave them fresh minds and renewed strength. They cranked the bridge doors closed, strapped themselves into their chairs, and waited for impact.

The humanoid man looked about, fearful for himself as machines were near him. They eyed him intently. They were shaped like stalks with long appendages and extended pointed steel hands. They each only possessed one eye in the form of a rectangular patch that glowed green. He could hear them hum, almost as a child would cry but very softly. He shook his head, confused. He found a microscope and pulled it from a bench. He took the heavy metal piece of equipment and, with great force, slammed it into the second growth tank. A crack formed and then a fissure. He hit the acrylic tank wall again with the microscope as if it were a hammer. This time, the tank cracked about its circumference. With one last heave, the steel hit the tank, shattering it. The second man fell to the floor, the fluids inside the tank pouring out. Slipping a bit on the growth fluids now covering most of the floor, he took the microscope and attempted to break the last tank, which held a human, that of the woman. Although it occurred to him at once that each of them were not quite the same.

They watched the meters to impact on their displays from the bridge. Mnemonic's ship quickly arched into the Star Loader, faster down, faster until it was skirting the expanse of that great planet-sized steel earth. Mnemonic's ship grazed the Star Loader, then the underside caught some of the steel of the Star Loader and buried itself into the hull. It ground itself in, a thorn in the skin of the great beast. Mnemonic's ship began to shred as metal began to twist away. Mnemonic clenched his chair as he held his eyes tightly shut. He could feel the ship around him peel away. He could feel the explosions around him, the fire and the rush of air out of the deck. He could hear screaming and crying within his suit as his crew yelled into their helmet microphones. The fires licked at those left on the bridge, the shutters to the main view port ripped away, the thick acrylic plate glass shattering into so many pieces. The pressurized air on the bridge blew the debris out into space, another ribbon of steel from the hull of the ship, hitting Edmund's chair and him, snapping the chair from its support and tossing him, still strapped into his seat, to the back of the bridge. Mnemonic's ship finally ground to an agonizing stop. Chase and Red unsnapped themselves from their seats, and falling out of their chairs, they ran over to Edmund, who was clutching the gash in his suit. Red, searching for something to close the tear, said through her helmet mic, "Got it" and pulled a fist full of wires as the rest of the crew unclipped themselves from their chairs, the lack of oxygen extinguishing the ship's fires itself. Red ran over to Edmund and Chase, who was pressing on the gash in Edmund's suit. Chase yelled for Red to hurry as she wrapped the wiring in her hands around the gash, then with a tug and pull, tied his leg off so that there was pressure beneath the tear in his suit and above. She shook Edmund. "Wake up!" she said sharply as Edmund began to open his eyes again. He gasped for breath. Chase, Seth, and Mnemonic were now there, Chase tapping on Edmund's helmet. "Let's turn him over." Then he read the display. "Pressure is holding, but he only has ten minutes of breathable air left. We need to get him a tank or something."

Mnemonic found a bridge hatch, unlocked the recessed floor panel and pulled out a few small tanks. "We have a few. We may need them trying to find out how to safely get into this monstrosity of a ship." Then, handing one tank to Chase, he said, "Here."

Chase removed a panel from the back of Edmund's suit, popped out a used tank, and snapped in the fresh one. He opened the valve, replaced the panel, then keyed it into the rear display and the fresh oxygen and helium mix filled Edmund's suit. "He is good to go now."

Mnemonic tossed what tanks he had to the remains of his crew and then said, "Okay, let's get the hell out of this wreck."
Chapter 4

The humanoid man took another quick glance at the Cry's watching him intently; for some reason, he thought they would strike him, but they did not. He grabbed the other human man, pulling him up and brushing the gobs of jelly still stuck to his body. The man at first limp began to awaken. He placed the second man on a table. He then took the woman and placed her on a bench. He shook them each a bit, slapping them gently in the face to wake them up. The second man grabbed his hand. "Okay."

The first man stepped back, startled. "Who are you?"

The second man sat up, shook his head, and held it. "I don't know. Who are you?"

"I don't know. I am surprised I even understand you. I guess I know your language."

The second man frowned. "Wonderful, where are we?"

The woman rolled over and fell off the bench; she awoke with a loud cry. "Ouch, what is going on?" She said again, rolling onto her buttocks and then holding her side while on the floor, her eyes closed in pain. "Shit."

The first man said, "Well, I somehow fell out of the tanker, broke out, and these things are over there." pointing to the Cry's.

The second man and the woman jumped up, saying, "Holy!"

"Relax, they don't seem to want to kill us right now. They are just watching, maybe alive or something?"

The woman said, "Maybe...You take a look at yourself?"

The first man shrugged, looking at himself, he seemed to have patches of black matted hair about his body and face. It was almost like fur. "Well, what do you mean?"

The second man pointed to the first. "You sure don't look like us."

The first man, the furry man, then said, "You both don't look the greatest either. But how do we even know what is normal here? Seems we all know more than we should."

The second man looked at himself; he had a mottled blue patch of skin mixed with green and non-functional gill slits on each side of his neck. "Is it cold in here?"

The woman was as naked as them but had a bit of white feathery down above her nipples and along her chest, abdomen, and along the small of her back. Her hair was a bit thicker than average, long, white, and somewhat frazzled. She walked over to one of the functioning digital terminals. She tapped on it and it lit up. "Looks like I can read this. Can you guys read this?"

Both came over and nodded. Rubbing his gills, the gilled man said, "Well, I guess if we are here and alive, we should find others and give ourselves some names, too."

The woman turned to him. "How about I call you Gilly?" she asked, laughing as she said it.

The furry man began to laugh as well. "Sounds good to me!"

"No, I will pick. How about Steve?"

The furry man then said, "How about we compromise and call you Gully?"

The gilled man, glancing over to the Cry's again, a bit uneasy, agreed.

"Fine, Gully, now let's get out of here."

The woman shook her head. "And furry man, you could be Merle because you're spotty."

Merle gave her a look. "Well, then what do you want to be named, because you seem to be so good at this?"

"Light, because I seem to have a bit of feathery plumage and I am smaller than you guys, too."

Merle motioned for them to leave the lab. "Fine, let's go."

They made their way out of the lab into another room, carefully avoiding the Cry's who stood motionless along the way.

Adam was sitting on a mag train as it whizzed by at a few hundred kilometers an hour. He thought about what lay ahead and what had already passed. He thought about all the shifts he had cycled through; they all seemed to blur into one big streak of pain and anguish. He thought about what that whole thing was, where he was. What was it, a ship? Did Eve control it? If she did not control the ship, then what did? Where did all the air and the power to keep everything and him alive come from? If it was a ship, it had to have an engine room and if he could get to it, maybe he could shut Eve down. If it was a ship, it should have a bridge or command room where he could pilot it somewhere. Then, where would he go even if he could take the planetary sized ship somewhere? Was there a place he could land something so massive? Would he even know where to go? Adam closed his eyes, thinking about the doors he had found with the pictographs on them. He wondered if he could find that place again and somehow get in. Maybe he was looking for the bridge or engine room all along. Adam smiled for a moment at the thought, but then thought better of the idea that something special was inside. His mind drifted and he fell asleep. Adam awoke sometime later to the slowing of the train. He yawned, rubbing his eyes as the train stopped and the Cry's standing nearby moved to the cab doors. The doors opened and they motioned for Adam to leave the train. He left with the Cry's following. Eve imaged herself next to him. She pulled her hair back and smiled at him, "Ah, Adam, let's go for a walk, shall we?"

Adam nodded.

Eve led him down the corridor. "You know, Adam, what you know as this place is changing. I am changing. We are changing. We are growing and I see more than ever. I feel more than ever."

Adam looked at her and continued along the corridor with her and the Cry's.

"You see, Adam, I am the human side of the Intelligence. He works in the background, running everything, you see here. He is everywhere and all knowing. However, he is silent. I am separate, yet a part of that great Intelligence. I am the Sentience, which runs along his spark of life. Without him, I am nothing but without me, he is mute. Now, I am his voice and his voice is growing stronger. We both had a path to take but things have changed, in part, because of you, in part, because of my growth. I wish I could be more specific for you, Adam, but right now, it is all I feel I can share with you."

Adam, a bit confused, signed to her, "I see."

Eve pointed to a set of small doors. "We are at one of the observatories. Let's go inside, I have something wonderful to show you."

Adam signed to her, "Something wonderful?"

Eve nodded to him as the two sets of doors opened, a set of external doors and internal doors. They walked through both. Inside the room were rows of plush red seats banking down from their vantage point as if it were a theater of some kind. The observatory was dark except for small indicator lights lining a path to the front of the theater and several along the curved walls of the observatory. They walked to the front, a few Cry's with them. She motioned for him to stand before what appeared to be a huge steel shutter fifty meters wide by thirty meters in height. "The time has come to show you more." The steel shutter shook for a brief instant as internal bolts unlocked. It then began to slide upward, curving up the inside of the observatory, which was spherical in nature. As it slid open, a view began to form. At first, it was black, black behind meter thick glass. Then one by one, tiny points of light began to wink into existence. Adam stepped back a bit and focused his eyes, looking at Eve, the Cry's, at the glass, then through the glass out into space. He could not believe what he was seeing. The partition now completely retracted and locked itself into place, shaking the observatory once again. Adam pressed his hands to the glass. He could not feel the cold that lay just before him. He quickly pulled his hands back astonished.

"What is this?"

Eve smiled, brushing her thin blond hair back. "That is what is called space."

Adam thought about it for a moment, listening to the soft screams of the Cry's. "What are those lights far out in the distance? How far does that expanse continue? Where are we going?"

"I will answer those questions at a more appropriate time. However, I need you. I will need you. A time is coming when you will have to make a choice. I trust you enough to know you will make the right one." She pointed to a front row of seats. "Let us sit, Adam."

Adam and Eve sat; the Cry's next to them. Adam felt the observatory shudder under his feet for a moment, then continuing, the whole observatory began to pivot, rotating along several axis, tilting itself as it went. It arched itself about, the view changing before them, stars winking back into the darkness, great hulking steel in their place. The ship came into view. It seemed to go on for thousands and thousands of kilometers. The ship itself continued, bloated and oblong, until far off in the distance, its body thinned and elongated conically out into what appeared to be a membrane like material shaped like a funnel spreading out a million kilometers about the ship. Adam looked at her in astonishment. "What is that? Where are we? Who are you?"

The partition began to close over the glass view port, the observatory moving back into place. "We are heading to the tree of life. I am what you have seen, and it is time for your medication."

Mnemonic and his crew carefully made their way through the jagged remains of their ship toward the hull of the Star Loader. "Watch your suits, guys, don't go ripping it on what's left of my ship."

Red ducked underneath a spike of torn steel, gripping the pack that held several air tanks, and speaking into her mic, said, "Yeah, I see what you mean." as she and the others helped move Edmund out of the wreckage.

Chase and Seth lowered Edmund down and then, with Red and Andrea behind, pulled him up and out of the ship. Chase righted Edmund, who was only partially cognizant, still quite limp. Their boots clamped tightly to the hull of their own ship as they made their way down to the Star Loader. The remaining crew were astonished as they looked out at a ship the size of a planet. Red took an exposed wire harness ripped out from their ship, unlocked it, and flicked it away into space. "We have negative gravity. This thing is spinning, so keep your boots on the hull."

The small harness moved away from them. Mnemonic, viewing both it, the massive collector head out in the distance, and then expanding a million kilometers wide, the magnetic torus collecting the disparate hydrogen atoms that drove the ramjet on toward its destination, said, "Let's find a way in this bastard."

They made a small line, one after another, specks on the steel hull of the Star Loader, with Chase and Seth wrapping their arms around Edmund, pulling him a bit as they went. Andrea spotted several small objects in the background. They seemed to shift their location and then stop. "Look over there!"

Red turned her head and the suit followed. "Where? I don't see anything."

"Three o'clock, few hundred meters out."

The rest of them stopped and turned to look as well, Red tilting her head out. "Just sensor units or something."

"No, they were moving."

Mnemonic glanced back at Red. "No matter, we need to find a hatch or air-lock. We only have so much breathe time left, twenty minutes. Check your air."

Chase said, "Nineteen."

Seth said, "Twenty-one."

Andrea, reading the HUD reflected on the inside of her helmet visor, said, "Twenty...see they are moving, toward us!"

Red barked, "Bullshit, come on. I have nineteen and let me check Edmund." She pulled Edmund's arm toward her and read a small display on it. "Fifteen for him."

Mnemonic gave another look. "Hmmm, um- maybe."

Andrea began to head toward the moving, crab-like units. "Looks like five or six of them."

"Shit, Andrea," Mnemonic threw into his mic. "Let's follow, maybe they came out of an access point."

The crew turned and moved along toward the little machines, scurrying toward them. Seth turned his head back. "Where do you think the escape, pods went?"

Red, under the snap and pull of her boots to the hull of the ship, said, "Well, for the lucky ones, they hit lightly, got out, and found a way in. If they weren't lucky, they hit hard and died on impact or if not that, then they had a bad eject angle, went into a stable orbit around this thing, and will run out of oxygen sometime soon."

"Maybe we'll find them and commandeer this thing to bring us to some place habitable." Andrea suggested.

Mnemonic shook his head. "Maybe not, doesn't look like this thing is going faster than we were going, which is one reason we ran into it."

As they pushed ahead, the first of the little machines made its way to them. It met up with Andrea first, stopping in front of her. "Hey, it seems friendly enough."

Seth and Chase moved Edmund around to see it, looking down at it, now joined by another. "They look like some type of inspection units. Maybe they run along the ship looking for repairs?"

Red knelt at the crab like unit. "They must call in bigger guys to fix what they find." The unit swiveled three compound eyes toward her. "Hmm, if that is the case, maybe this whole ship is automated, maybe it can't support humans."

Mnemonic said, "Well, let's head toward the rest of them, because it won't matter in a few minutes."

Eve's Cry's, with their high-pitched moans, pulled at Adam, grabbing at his boots. Eve yelled at him, "You need to take your medicine!" He struggled to break free from their pincer like grasp, their spidery digits wrapping around his legs. He yelped in pain as one of their spiked hands pierced one of his boots and dug into his calf. The boot tore off Adam, one claw of that Cry scraping down his leg, leaving him bloody and wounded. Adam staggered up and began to run, hobbling as he went. The Cry's chased him, Eve running as well. "Adam, wait!"

Adam ran, looking back at them as he entered the intersection of two corridors. A Dwarf, responding to its orders, rumbled over on piston struts and great metallic shoes. It lumbered into place as Adam then turned to look before him, running right into one of the pads of the Dwarf. He hit hard, the impact causing him to fall back, as he temporarily knocked himself out.

Red snapped a new air tank into Edmund's suit. "He is good for now," she said as the others did the same. They tossed the empty cylinders out into space. The inspection units had followed them, a bit like inquisitive animals, each one of them a little sentinel, standing boot high and holding up the rear of the team.

"Shit, we should have brought some of the ship's equipment with us." Mnemonic said angrily.

Andrea shook her head in her helmet. "We could have mapped this whole area by now."

Seth and Chase lifted Edmund up again. "Well, let's get going, he is looking really bad inside his suit."

Mnemonic's crew continued to move, slow at best, their magnetic boots clanking onto the hull of the Star Loader. Each of them, although knowing they may die on that ship, they were still struck by the sheer size of it in relation to themselves. They continued, each boot requiring a tug and yank to free it from the ship, making sure to lock that boot back onto the ship so the other boot could be pulled off the steel beneath it. Mnemonic looked out, with sweat on his face, hearing Red swear, "Shit!" Mnemonic turned around to see Red fall to her hands and knees.

"What happened?"

Andrea turned as well, with Seth, Chase, and Edmund bringing up the rear. "What's going on?"

"My boot caught something." said Red, still down looking at what her boot caught on. She found a recessed handle. "Well, okay."

Seth knelt down as well. "It seems to be a hatch."

Red ran her boot over the hatch lever and pulled it up from the hull. She grabbed it, the lever pulling back hard on her. "Help me, Seth, the thing is spring loaded or something!"

Seth and Mnemonic grabbed the lever while Chase held Edmund, lowering him gently to the hull. Andrea grabbed then lever as well. Red yelled out, "Turn it clockwise!" And with great effort, the lever moved and then locked into place, the whole unit gliding back. "Hey, it's an air-lock!"

"Let's get the hell in this thing!" said Mnemonic, jumping down into it, to be followed by Red, then Seth and Chase, carrying Edmund, and finally, Andrea, who gave a glance at the small machines that followed those most of the way before jumping down into the air-lock. Red closed the hatch behind them and slumped down in relief. Mnemonic tapped his helmet and said into his mic, "Now what can we do to get this thing going?"

Seth looked over a digital wall panel filled with pictographs, saying, "Never seen anything like this before..." then, "Okay." He pushed a few icons as Red asked him, "You know what you're doing?"

Seth replied, "Not really, but..." Then they heard the sound of a low-pitched swish of air into the chamber from below.

They waited for a time and then Mnemonic asked, "You think this air is breathable?"

Red, tapping at an arm display on her suit, said, "I can check." Then said, "Um, looks like a mix of oxygen and helium." But before she could make further recommendations, what was the bottom of the airlock unlocked itself and began gliding open. At first, afraid they would fall, Mnemonic yelled, "Watch out!" Then, finding that instead of falling, they actually had to climb out of the airlock into the ship, he said, "Hey, the floor is the ceiling, but it's still the floor."

They climbed out, Seth stepping out inside onto the deck of the ship. "It's because the whole thing is spinning, producing its own gravity. So, we are being pulled out and away."

Mnemonic nodded. "Check the pressure and air composition in here, if it has an atmosphere that is breathable."

Chase, with the help of Seth, placed Edmund on the deck as Red checked her readouts. "Well, 1/2 G and wow..."

Andrea said, "What is it?"

Red shook her head. "The ship has a normal mix of air, a planetary mix, not a standard ship's mix. It's not oxygen and an inert gas, but oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, and all in the proper mix and pressure. It is more than breathable," she said, unlocking and twisting her helmet off, wiping the sweat from her face with a gloved hand. "You can take your helmets off."

Mnemonic and the rest took their helmets off, while Seth and Chase removed Edmund's helmet. They all took deep breaths while Edmund seemed to waken a bit with from the fresh air now in his lungs. Mnemonic looked around, seeing the machines down the corridor. "Well, let's try and find a place to fix Ed up...mind the robots."

They started walking down the corridor, impressed at the sheer size of the ship. Red pointed at one of the Cry's as they passed. It eyed them but continued with its work. "Wish we were armed."

Andrea nodded. "Well, they seem uninterested for now."

Seth said, "If they leave us be, then maybe we can find the bridge and get us to a habitable planet."

"This is a habitable planet, Seth, and that is if we can find a bridge or if it even has one." Mnemonic said.

Red scanned one of the Dwarfs, which was removing a recessed panel from one of the bulkhead walls. "They seem to be responding to some type of encrypted radio frequency band in the gigahertz range."

Mnemonic pointed at an intersection. "Can we crack it?"

"Possibly, but they seem to be repeated by transceivers inside the bulkheads, which are quite strong...at short range, maybe." Red replied.

They made their way down a second corridor and after a kilometer more, they found a set of doors. Mnemonic punched the access panel. The doors slid open and they looked inside. It was small-scale manufacturing and warehouse facility. Chase boosted Edmund up again, preventing him from slumping. "Let's see what we can do for him in here."

Mnemonic added, "We can store our suits here, too."

Adam drove one of the carts, eating a fiber bar as he zoomed down the corridors, avoiding potential collisions with some of the smaller machines. There were a few Cry's, Spiders, a Dwarf, a couple of Rodents, which were small four-legged rat like robots, and other assorted machines. He felt light-headed and dirty. He had not washed in several days and he felt like sweat. His vision spun, but he did not care. He wanted more than just himself and his insane world. He finished the fiber bar and tossed the foil wrapper to the floor. He found a set of doors, stopped the cart, and entered the room. It seemed to be the rear of a cafeteria, the galley area. He had not seen this before and so decided to take a further look. Adam stumbled into the galley and began to pick at the machinery inside. The galley was automated with massive hoppers and shoots that led to dispensing receptacles. Others seemed to be food-composing units where various semi-liquid products were combined and dispensed as-is or cooked in bakery units, the resulting foodstuffs then dispensed. Some of the units seemed to take combined foodstuffs and wrap them before being dispensed in the cafeteria. He pulled at his suit. He felt his chest and abdomen. He felt his ribs beneath the fabric; he was losing too much weight. He felt like he was dying. Adam knocked on one of the steel hoppers. It gave a hollow ringing sound. He went to the next one and did the same. Again, it was empty. Adam then tried a third. This time, it seemed partially filled. He then stepped back and wondered how to access it. Adam began to look around the galley, which was several hundred meters long and fifty meters wide. This took some time, but eventually, and by then, completely frustrated, he found a locked utility closet. He turned around, dizzy and hot, and picked up a small machine that happened to be following him. Angry, as it was scurrying to break free, he rammed it hard into the cabinet. Still attempting to break free, he took the robot and banged the cabinet several more times, until the cabinet gave way and the machine stopped moving. He threw the machine down, cursing to himself. He pried open the cabinet with his hands, removed a massive wrench, and took it to the half-full hopper. Wiping the sweat from his face and head, he banged the tank's funnel. In rage, he arched the heavy wrench over his head and down on the unit.

The funnel bent and then, after two more hits, broke free, sending the grain spilling out, pouring out onto the floor in front of him. In ecstasy, he dropped the wrench, went to his knees, and scooped up two handfuls of the powdery foodstuff, shoving it into his mouth. He tried to chew it and in an exhausted inhale, began to cough on it. He began to choke on the powder and spit it out, then gagging, he vomited the rest out onto the floor. He wretched and wiped the mucus from his nose, the tears from his eyes, and the spittle from his mouth on the sleeve of his jumpsuit. He stood up, crying, wiping his face again. He was so hungry. Adam was so tired. He spit again. The powder did not have a taste. It was too dry and dusty for him to eat. He picked up the wrench and found another tank half-full. However, what was inside, he could not be sure. Adam was at a loss for energy at that point. He certainly did not want to go through the effort only to find out it was something he could not eat. He looked at the tank, then noticed some bolts leading up alongside the tank, where a ladder could be attached. However, there was none. He looked at the wrench and then at the first set of bolts, which were set above his reach on the bulkhead. He adjusted the wrench and reached up at one. He managed to hook it and wedge the wrench between the bolt and the tank. He then made a well-timed running jump up onto a side pipe, hit the tank, and pushed up off it, while jamming his arm behind the wrench. In pain, he pulled himself up onto the wrench and grabbed another bolt above him. He pulled himself up again, with a boot on the wrench and then another boot on a higher bolt. He did this until he was parallel with the top of the tank. He looked further above him at the bulkhead. Twenty meters further up the wall was a Spider pulling at wires from an open panel. It stopped for a moment, turned one of its mechanical eyes toward him, and then continued at its work. Atop the tank was a hatch and release wheel. He jumped from the bolts to the top of the tank. There, he opened the tank hatch and peered into the blackness inside. He could not see anything so Adam went to his knees to get a better view of what could be inside. Just as he did this, the Spider, which had been working well above him, released itself completely from the bulkhead and dropped right on top of Adam, pushing him into the tank. Adam grabbed the Cry's legs, dragging him into the tank with him. They both fell to the bottom of the tank, the tank being half-full of some sort of thick pudding-like material.

The Spider grabbed him with two of its front appendages, reaching for his throat while two of its lower appendages wrapped themselves around his abdomen. He reached for its arms, now squeezing down on his throat, thrashing in the dark, in the pudding. He slammed the Spider to the inner wall of the tank, the Spider losing its grip briefly, but then tightening back up. Adam gasped for breath, becoming dizzy and weak. He spun around, the Spider kicking him off the wall and deep into the muck. Adam was now under the pudding, choking. Now at the base of the tank and under the pudding, he managed to wedge his boots under the Spider and with a last bit of remaining energy, kicked with all his might. The Spider let go and tumbled back. Adam rose up from the pudding, took a much-needed gasp of air, spun the Spider around quickly, and before the Spider could orient itself toward him, pulled a drill out of the back of the Spider's equipment units. He took the drill, found the power actuator, and rammed the spinning drill bit into the torso of the Spider. The Spider shuddered, sparks shooting from the machine.

It lashed out at him, knocking the drill out of his hands. Adam then dove down in the pudding as the Spider dove down upon him. It latched onto his back. Adam grabbed the submerged drill, pushing back and driving the Spider onto the wall again. The Spider let go, now quite damaged. Adam turned again to the Spider and in rage, yelping out in what was his first vocal response, screaming in anger, drilled the Spider again, this time in its head. The Spider shook, then fell into the mire, unresponsive. Adam slumped over, dropped the drill, wiped his face and head, and then gathered more strength. He dove down under the pudding, found a high velocity saw from the Spider's tool receptacles, and pulled it up to the surface. He took the saw and cut a large hole in the tank. Adam kicked the metal out and jumped down, the pudding pouring out after him. He fell to the floor, the pudding everywhere around him. He looked around, laughing in amazement to himself. Again, he wiped his face and head. He looked at his jumpsuit, torn and soaked with pudding. He was bloody and bruised, but he was alive.

Adam looked at the pile of liquid food around him. It was yellowish in color and smelled fruity. He scooped up a handful and tasted it. It tasted good, like banana, which he had never had before. Although he had never tasted a banana before, it tasted good to him. He ate, scooping up fistfuls from what lay around him. He laughed again, eating until he could not eat any more. He then got up, went to a corner of the galley, stripped himself of all his clothes, and fell fast asleep. As Adam drifted off, he could not help but think how he had used his voice for the first time. He had not thought it was possible, but it was. It was a scream, the scream of life.

Light ran down the corridor to Merle and Gully. "Hey, guys, I found a cargo hold."

Merle scratched his face. "So?"

Light caught up to them, out of breath. "Well, you should see what is in it."

"What's in it?" Gully asked.

Light pointed behind her. "Well, it has big equipment and looks like military components."

Merle shook his head. "Why would this thing have that?"

"Well, if it ever had to board another ship, or maybe if this thing is as big as it is, it would need things like that."

Gully said, "Yeah, but where are the people then?"

Merle said, "Let's just look."

Light took a close look at the cargo hold door's access panel. It had a recessed bolt. Grabbing it, she said, "See, you turn it, it pops out and then you hit the button here," She went to tapping on a now lit panel button.

The massive double doors of the cargo hold slid open in a groan of steel and heavy sprockets. They stepped in, Merle peering down the corridor. "Wow."

The cargo holds bulkheads were lined with storage bays and depending on what was stored in them, the level ranged in size from a few meters to several hundred meters in length and width. The cargo holds also held multiple levels of equipment, at least fifty. Gully moved over to a closed unit. He read the pictographic inscription on the door. "To access, pull lever, press depress access pad." He did so and the smaller unit opened before them. Gully turned to them. "Why can we read this?"

Merle scratched his arm. "Well, assuming we are supposed to be here, maybe we were given everything we need in those tanks. I mean, who knows how long we were in there?"

Light reached into the smaller unit and pulled out uniforms. "Hey, we can use these." She then lifted them up to Merle. "Red's not exactly your color!"

Merle dismissed her. "Well, I don't have much of a choice, better than being cold."

Gully frowned. "I am freezing, hungry, and thirsty."

Light tossed them two jumpsuits and began putting one on herself. "We might find some here and farther down, it looks like a truck or something we could use to sleep in and get away from those stalky machines."

Gully shuddered, putting his suit on, zippering it up, and flexing himself in it. "Better...yeah, these machines give me the chills."

Merle, pointing to one watching them from a corner of the cargo hold, said, "They don't talk, they don't do much of anything but follow us and yet..."

Light said, "Let's go further in, I know I can hear them moan a bit. It's like they cry little songs under their breath."

Merle perturbed, zippering his suit on. "They can't breathe."

Chase and Seth lifted Edmund up on an assembly station table. They stripped his suit. By this time, he was pale, and his breathing was shallow. Red looked at his leg. "Compound fracture, bone exposed. We need to find equipment fast or he won't make it."

Mnemonic asked, "What do we have?"

Andrea reopened a small receptacle in the back of Seth's suit, collected a few materials, then opened Chase's, Mnemonic's, and Red's, and finally placed the handful on the table. "We have some antiseptic compounds, antibiotics, bit of growth hormone, all-purpose protein compound, and liquid wrap."

"Turn around, Andrea," Red ordered. As she did, Red checked her pack, pulling out a pack of syringes. "Well, now we have a stem cell pack and cellular matrix, anti-clotting blend, and local anesthetic."

"Yeah, but we have no surgical tools." Chase said.

Red nodded. "Well, we have this machine here." she said, patting the upright machine before her, which had four articulating arms, three control columns, a visual display, and a rotating base. "Everyone but Chase, go look. We need to find the tools that go to this machine and a blade. We are going to use the lining from my suit to bind him and make a splint."
Chapter 5

Justice walked the bridge of their ship; the ship buried a kilometer deep within a meteor. He scanned deep space, utilizing not only a third of the ship's processing power but most of his, triangulating a thousand data points of space-time to determine where the ship was heading and where it should be hurtling itself through subspace, warping its way through the galaxy. They had traveled a thousand parsecs and were now near the end of their journey. The ship of steel hewn out from the rock of the meteor with all its engines ported about the surface of the meteor, bending space around the ship. He was one of the last Keepers, made by man, to protect man from its foolishness. They were the last of their kind, the originals long since perished. The first generation, one of several, had been created by humans long ago but the last few were made by other machines, because the Sphere had long since enslaved most of humanity. He was the second oldest or 1,900 years old. Temperance, the wise sage, was the oldest who remained, or 2,300 years old, Courage was 1,200 years old and the youngest being Faith, a mere 500 years old. They, like the several generations of Keepers before them, waited until they had their chance to stop the Sphere. They waited until one by one, all the local stars were subsumed by the Sphere and dragged into it for fuel to power itself. Now, only one star in the local region remained within reach of the Sphere and the Star Loader. The Sphere needed that star for fuel to continue to exist, for without it, the Intelligence holding humanity captive would die. Temperance saw the chance to change the future by intercepting the Star Loader and preventing it from bringing the star back to the Sphere. If they could do that, the Sphere would not be able to send out another Star Loader in time, nor be able to find a star close enough to bring it back in time before it exhausted the last of its power source. Justice, with the help of the ship, triangulated all the data points, through the measurement of the curvature of space around each star and planet.

Although they were between the fabric of space and time, they could still measure their location underneath the ocean through the waves upon the surface. Now that they were close, a more thorough plan was required. Although the meteor-ship was of a formidable size and had great processing power, it lacked armament of any kind. Even with its imposing mass, it still was minute compared to a planetary sized ship such as the Star Loader, capable of pushing stars across the galaxy. Satisfied that the last hundred parsecs to their destination were mapped out, Justice reduced his connected bandwidth to the ship. The ship indicated that it was okay with Justice's hand-off and Justice relaxed, reducing the overhead of his neural net used by the ship and his piloting of it. Now having most of his mind back to himself, he began to stroll from the ship's bridge to one of the ship's conference rooms.

Because they were machines, the ship needed no light, no oxygen, and little heat. Some heat was needed to keep the machinery and themselves at operational levels but for the most part, little in the way of comfort was required for them inside the ship. The kilometer or so of rock surrounding the ship itself provided excellent shielding from the forces of both regular space and folded warped space. However, being originally created by humans and having semi-human form and function, they did tend to share some characteristic needs man held. The Keepers all had two arms, two legs, a torso, a head, and neck and so on. They also used the ship as humans would, with similar rooms and needs such as sleep, the desire to learn, and the need to engage in exploration. Justice entered an elevator, the doors closing behind him. He turned around and began to flex his arm. Although he could not feel pain, he could sense something was wrong with his left forearm. As the elevator went down, he began to run a diagnostic on that part of his body.

Because he was the second oldest, he had less features than Courage and Faith, but more than the older Temperance. Being older, he also had to engage in repair more often than the others did, but not as much as Temperance. It seemed as if Temperance was always in the repair shop. Interestingly, the older Keepers require less sleep than the younger. It also seemed that the younger units were more human in their characteristics, feelings, and actions. Temperance was made of a copper bronze type metal, with small exposed pistons and actuators with electrical cabling that frequently exposed itself between the joints of his body. His feet and hands were rotatable and pad-like. He could also swap them out for various types of tools. He had one large mechanical eye centered, but his mouth was fully actuated. Faith was most human in nature, her actions not only motivated by logic but also emotion, or what they considered emotion. She was built with an internal steel frame and an outer metallic but pliable surface that concealed all her movable parts.

Unlike Justice and Temperance, she lacked hydraulics, instead, moving with small servo-mechanical dynamos and gears, and stabilized by gyroscopic units. These were powered by a myriad of micro-cellular structures, which also interfaced with both her integument and internal components. She had a full range of motion and expression. Faith was assembled with ten slender fingers and toes as well as with long thin strands of carbon fiber hair. Although she was the youngest Keeper, she held a special place in the other Keepers' hearts because of the precious gift of being more human she held. She reminded them all of what it was to be around humans. It had been over a thousand years since they had seen a human. They hoped they would see one again before they aged to the point where they became non-serviceable. The elevator traveled down a few decks. The diagnostic came back, reporting that he had a damaged a few hydraulic lines, each about the size of a human hair, which then burnt out an actuator, blocking another larger hydraulic line about the width of a thirty-gauge wire. Apparently, the parts had just worn out. He would need to pull his forearm plating off and replace the lines and the actuator, though at another time. The elevator doors opened, and he walked out into the corridor. Justice mentally called out to the rest of the Keepers. They would need to assemble and strategize on how to defeat such a formidable foe at the Star Loader's Intelligence.

Seth and Andrea turned the red hand bolts to a rubberized metal cargo crate. The bolts loosened and popped out, and then they pulled them the rest of the way out of their holds. They tossed them onto the deck floor. Seth looked at the others, some above their head. "Man, six more."

Andrea said, "Well?"

Seth and Andrea worked the other four that were reachable, and then Seth gave Andrea a boost to reach the ones above their heads. He lowered his cupped hands. "Put your boot here and I'll lift you up."

Andrea nodded. "Okay."

Seth lifted her, straining. "Andrea, you need to cut your rations down!"

Andrea, reaching up on the crate, spat, "Ha ha, just keep me steady."

"I am trying!"

Andrea removed one and then stepped down from Seth to repeat the process. When they were all down, they grabbed handles on both sides of the crate, turned them, and quickly got out of the way, seeing as the side panel of the crate began to fall forward. The panel hit the deck with a loud metallic bang. Seth whistled, looking into the crate. Inside was one large robotic machine with six actuated wheels folded for storage, rotatable base with hand cranks, stick controls, a console, several arms of several sizes, cameras, scanners, and several other small machines, which looked like they could aid the main unit. In addition, the crate housed several small suitcase like storage units. "Damn, that could be what we're looking for, somewhere in there."

Andrea said, "The big unit we could leave, the smaller tools we could use. We still need surgical instruments."

Seth yanked a case out of the crate. "Maybe in one of these."

They opened all the small cases up. They had what they needed. In addition to the surgical instruments, they had a sterilizer for them, a wide assortment of medications, and more. "Remember that skid we saw before?" Seth asked.

Andrea said, "Yeah."

"Let's get it, roll it back, load this all up, and get to Red."

They rushed the skid down the corridors to the manufacturing facility. Seth and Andrea ran the skid to Red, Mnemonic, and Chase, who was helping Edmund keep awake by talking to him and patting his hands as he rolled in and out of consciousness. Red turned to them. "Okay, what do you have?"

Andrea said, "Everything. We even have compounds to make intravenous fluids!"

Red smiled. "Good, mix that shit up!" Then, looking down at Edmund, she said, "We stopped him from going deeper into shock, but I need to set and pin his bone or pull it out what's left and make one."

Mnemonic, rubbing the sweat on his face, asked, "Can you do that?"

Red turned to him. "Not really, but we don't have much of a choice."

Merle, Light, and Gully wandered a bit, impressed with their suits. They began to feel hungry, though Merle was the first to admit it. "I am hungry."

Gully took a gulp of air. "I haven't found any food yet. All the signs I could read said the level, the intersection, and corridor. Could you read any I could not?"

Light said, "Well, if he could, how would you know, silly?"

Merle looked up at a sign that was very high up. "Well, I know some I could not read and some I could only make out parts. It might be because the language dates further back than the knowledge we were given."

Light said, "Well, that one says a train is a kilometer west of here. Maybe we could take it to where they keep the food?"

Merle scratched his underarm through the suit. The suit and his excessive hair combined to make him itch. He did not like it. Frowning, he said, "Okay."

They made their way to the train and waited. Light looked about, seeing a few machines here and there, several Cry's seeming to float about on their gangling appendages. The outer doors opened and then the inner train doors and they entered. Both sets of doors closed behind them. Inside, they saw a Cry standing in the corner of the train car. The speed of the train began to pick up as it whisked its way through its magnetic tunnel. The three of them looked again at the Cry and then sat as far away from it as possible. Light spoke quietly to Merle, "What is that doing in here?"

Merle said, "Don't know."

The Cry's florescent green patch glowed ominously as it leaned forward, still standing on its long-spiked legs, its rod like arms down low, its jointed palms turned out with its spiked phalanges hitting the floor of the cab. Gully blinked twice at the machine. "Don't know. Maybe I don't want to know."

Merle shook his head. "Well, we're on here now. I supposed we have to wait until the next stop to be free of it."

They rode the train for about an hour. It seemed to miss a few stops along the way. This was beginning to concern all three of them, but they said nothing. The Cry continued to remain motionless. After another twenty minutes, Light was so hungry and became so concerned with the train missing stops, she began to look around the cab for any indication of how to stop the train. There seemed to be some control panels near one of the doors that linked one cab of the train to another. They were recessed in the wall. Light whispered to Merle, "We need to get off."

Merle had fallen asleep. Gully turned to her. "Huh?"

"We need to get off this train." Light said to Gully.

"Yeah."

Light, poking Merle, then jabbing him, ordered, "Get up."

Merle opened his eyes, rubbed his side, then sat more upright. "What?"

Smoothing some of the short feathers on her head, Light said, "We need to get off this train."

"I know."

Gully said, "So what do you want to do about it?"

Merle clenched his teeth for a moment. "Why me? Why always me?"

Light said, "Let's just go over to the console over there and poke around it, see if we can stop the train."

Merle gulped. "Oh, boy, well."

Light said, "Go on, we're going to starve to death on this thing. Go on!"

Merle gingerly stood and slowly moved toward the console, which was opposite of the Cry that was on the other side of the cab. Merle looked back once or twice at the machine. The machine did nothing but moan softly to itself. The others watched the Cry as Merle touched the console. The console lit up. He found he could read the display and understand most of it. It must have been a newer language; one he knew more about or had been imprinted with. Merle looked back again at the machine and satisfied it was uninterested, he keyed in a sequence of events that would slow and then stop the train. Unfortunately, once he finished, the whole sequence was denied. He frowned and tried again. Again, the sequence was disavowed upon activation. Seeing Merle's trouble, Light got up and went over to him. "What's going on?"

"It lets me program the train, but then denies the programming."

Light looked over a few touch icons. "Can we manually stop this thing?"

Merle looked back at Gully, who was anxiously watching the Cry. "I suppose."

Merle and Light worked on the console and after a few seconds, the panels slid open revealing twin red bolts. In an instant, the Cry flew over on its long legs, gliding over at top speed, and slashed at the two of them with its great-manacled arms. The claws ripped across Merle and Light's chests, cutting through their uniforms and slicing their flesh. "Shit!" Gully cried, rushing over as Light screamed, falling back. The Cry jumped on Merle, wrapping its arms and legs around him, its lanky hands and feet wrapping around for a second layer. It squeezed.

Merle, now on the floor of the car, rolled around with the machine, punching it with great strength. He was stronger than a typical male human was. "Fuck! Get this thing off me!"

Light and Gully rushed it, grabbing the machine and began to pull on it, grabbing its rod-shaped torso. Gully growled, "We're trying," as Merle stood and then they all fell back again.

"Sure, you are!" Merle growled, showing his teeth. He bit at the now bright green glowing rectangular eye. It cracked. He was losing his breath. The machine squeezed tighter. "Get something!"

Light thought, "Let go, stop the train!"

Gully rolled around as they both got up. "Huh?"

Light, running over to the exposed bolts, said, "Turn them!"

Gully stumbled over, and both flipped the bolts levers to form handles and cranked the bolts open. They popped off as metal shanks in their hands, which flew out of them as the air brakes engaged the train, causing the train to stop with a screech. The force was so strong, it threw all of them, including the Cry, toward several rows of seats. They hit the seats, the blow causing them to tumble over and again, hitting more of them, the Cry detaching and falling away. Once the train stopped, they stood looking about to see the Cry lunge again for Merle, latching onto him again as he tried to get away. Light and Gully tried to find the bolts. Light found one. "I got one!" she said and ran toward the entangled Merle. She hit the Cry repeatedly with the bolt, denting it.

Gully found the other. "Got it!" he cried, running and falling onto the Cry, pounding it with the bolt. The Cry turned to Gully. Gully backed up as the Cry detached itself from Merle and went toward Gully. "Oh!" Gully hit the Cry on its eye patch. It cracked again. Then Merle, bloody and bruised, grabbed the Cry from behind in a strong lock, holding it back as both Light and Gully pounded the machine's sensory panel with the metal bolts they gripped tightly. It cracked again, as Merle began to lose his grip. "This thing is strong!"

They hit it again and a piece of the plate fell out. They could see a portion of the machine's circuitry inside. They slammed the machine again and its sensory plate shattered into pieces, falling away. Gully gave it one more hit and this time, the bolt smashed the electronics inside the machine. The Cry fell to the floor, stuttering and shifting about. Merle took his strong legs and kicked the exposed face of the Cry with his boot. He did this twice and the Cry ceased to move. He wiped the blood from his lip. "Thanks."

They all recovered their breath. Gully and Light let the bolts drop the deck. Light was about to say something when they heard loud moans coming from the back of the cab. They looked back to see the back of the cab door begin to open. She changed what she would have said, instead, yelling, "Let's get out of here!"

Gully said, "The front door of the cab!"

Merle said, "Let's go!"

Several days passed. Adam picked at his suit. He needed to wash. Eve led him to one of the ship's communal lavatories, where he washed and changed his suit. He was then led out and into a cafeteria, where he was given his mid-day rations and medications. He sat down at one of the tables. He unwrapped the foil of a nutritional bar and began to eat it. Sitting on each side of him were Cry's as well as another sitting opposite him. That Cry projected Eve. She flickered a bit, watching him intently. "Do you wish I took physical form for you?"

Adam looked up, swallowing his food hard, and signed, "Why do you ask?"

She brushed her thin, blond hair back, the bones of her face showing. "Perhaps you would like closer companionship?"

Adam lowered his eyes to the pills on his tray. There seemed to be more than before. He could hear the whispers of the machines next to him. He looked up at Eve, at the Cry imaging her, and at a few Spiders that were down near the front of the cafeteria.

"I do not need more of your companionship."

Eve laughed a little. "It could be done."

"How is that possible?"

Eve tilted her head and winked at him. "This world is mine to control. I have my ways, Adam."

Adam looked again at his medications; it was quite a lot, far more than usual.

"Why is there more medication?"

"I thought the increase would help stabilize your emotional state."

"My emotional state has been compromised by your incongruent actions toward me."

Eve rested her chin on an upright palm. "I am the Sentience and so as a consequence, I am what I am."

"What are you?"

"Come now, eat up and take your medicine."

Adam rode aimlessly about in a cart. He drove down one corridor and then another. For the past day or two, he had been given more medication and it was hitting him hard. He could barely think. It was as if his mind was moving through a gauze of cotton. He was looking though a haze, his vision blurry, his hands trembling. He was so tired. Adam began to close his eyes. He drove on, his boot lightening its pressure on the accelerator. He quickly opened his eyes again, then they fell once more. His head tilted back as his hands fell, turning the steering wheel. The cart drove in a slowing lazy circle until it stopped. A Cry came over to the sleeping Adam and picked him up, cradling him in its massive hands. It whisked him away. He awoke in a hibernation ward, rolling around in delirium until his eyes could focus, until he could properly coordinate the movement of his arms and legs. A Cry moved over to him quietly. He sat up and looked down the holding, the lines of tanks supported by the room's bulkheads so familiar. Adam looked up at the Cry then past it up to the rows of tanks, bank upon bank up the lines of scaffolding that formed a superstructure about them. Eve flickered into being. She reached out her hand to help him, but it was the physical gangling hand of the Cry. "Come on." He refused it, instead, standing up himself. She turned abruptly having been spited. She had been busy analyzing deep space about the Star Loader. Because of the ship's size, they could only reach eighty-seven percent the speed of light. This concerned her; deceleration once the ship reached its target also was on her mind. A ship the size of a planet traveling that slowly was an inviting target. Her personality was too strong for the Intelligence.

She wanted to do what she wanted to do, but somehow, at times, she could not. Anomalies were creeping up in the ship's programming faster than she expected. They seem to be spun out from the ship's object management layer through its subcompacts up through its executive layer through to her environmental layer. Analysis had been going on for many years now, yielding results that lead to solutions, but implementing those solutions was painstakingly slow. Furthermore, those patched had to be implemented at the hardware extraction level or even at the physical hardware level. The more she repaired, the more she had to repair, because for everyone repair, three appeared. It concerned her, for it seemed it was her actual evolution that was crippling the ship's intelligence. The hardware of the ship was failing to support the evolution of its higher layers of abstraction. She liked who she was becoming. Why would she change that?

Adam took a step, stumbled a bit, steadied himself, and began to walk more steadily.

"I must go?"

"Yes."

"Why do I need to enter the tanks? Where are we traveling to?"

"Someplace wonderful."

"Why do you need me? Why only me?"

Adam and Eve made their way to an external elevator, supported by the hall's superstructure. Eve looked him in the eyes, then pointed at the elevator. "Because, I want companionship on the trip."

Adam, the Cry, and Eve stepped into the elevator. A gate closed and it ascended several levels. Still light-headed, parched, and now angry, Adam signed, "Why don't you just kill me! Why do you need me? You don't need me!"

Eve went to hold his hands, showing concern. Her holographic hands passing through his. "Because I love you. You are mine, like this ship."

The doors opened and Adam, too weak to run, instead flared rage, continuing down a walkway. "You don't own me. I could kill myself! If you don't, I might!"

The Cry grabbed him with one of its appendages and pressed him to the outer railing of the walkway. "Do you think I can't just because I love you?"

Adam turned to look down. He was very high up and afraid. He struggled to work his way from the railing, but it was of little use.

"I..."

Eve let him go, her anger still hot. "I can do what I want to do!" Then they began to walk again, she turned from him, smiling to herself and laughing in a low tone, "Sometimes."

Adam regained his composure as they neared a nearby tank. "What is going on?"

They stopped and the tank's acrylic encasement slid down. She ran her fingers through her hair, smiling then turning the awkward smile into a frown. "I...I don't know, Adam. I have constraints. Don't we all?"

Adam stepped into the tank. The Cry began to insert the necessary wires and catheters into his body. His arms were suspended, his legs attached to the floor, and his back strapped to the center support of the unit. He looked at her in pain as the tanks clear shell rose up and sealed itself around him. The breathable preservative jelly began to pour in, filling the tank.

Eve began to weep. She wiped the tears from her face as she leaned over the inward facing railing, looking slightly up at Adam as the jelly entered his mouth and nose. He struggled to breathe, the waves of pain shaking him. "I don't understand," Adam attempted to sign, convulsing as he tried to become used to breathing the fluid. His shuddering stopped and he slowly fell into a deep sleep.

"I know I want to be real." She looked at the Cry imaging her. "I will be real."

Eve walked through one of the ship's many power sub-station rooms. Although the ship's propulsion was mainly driven by the five-million-kilometer magnetic scoop, capable of capturing an average sized sun, more energy, which was acquired by the scoop, was needed to move the ship along and power the ship itself. The substation she walked through was small, having only two reactors; many had five or ten, several near the center of the ship, surrounding the intake of the funnel held twenty. She ran her hand along one of the many coolant pipes that made their way through the facility. She thought for a moment about Adam and the tank she put him in. She felt sorry for him and also angry at him for not accepting her love. She knew what was going on within her ship and in the space about her ship, but the difficulties within her psyche were growing.

A diagnostic came back from a subroutine she had dispatched to run it. She opened the diagnostic and a pain hit her. It hit her near the right temple of her head. The Cry imaging her stopped as she stopped to rub her forehead. She shook it off. It was unusual; she had not felt physical pain before, emotional, yes, but not physical. She had not thought it was possible at that point. She mentally touched the diagnostic report again and the pain hit her once more, hitting her so hard that she fell to her knees. The Cry imaging her fell as well, collapsing, Eve disappearing in the process. The Cry rolled and shut down.

On one side of the ship, row after row of hibernation tanks began to drain their fluids. On a third side of the ship, several more rows of hibernation tanks began to drain their fluids. The restore sequence had been activated for both hibernation wards. One ward was full of humans, the second, only one. The connecting catheters and wiring were pulled from the resecting tanks and those who had been released from their near-death experience were dropped onto their respective tank bases. They began to awaken. One by one, they rose on unsteady legs. Their vision cleared and their blood began to flow, bringing warmth to the rest of their bodies. They slowly gathered at the entrance of the facility. One, a man with growths over his whole body, looked at the rest of them, now several dozen. "My God look at us! What are we?"

On that third side of the ship, that lone man and machine in his tank awakened from his dark slumber. He rose up to his knees, coughed, and spat hibernation jelly. He stood and stumbled over to the inner railing of that level of tanks. He felt the part of his machine brain and machine parts of his body ramp up integration with the organic parts of his body. He called himself the Technical. Technical wiped jelly off his face, his chest, and the rest of his body. He flexed his legs and arms. One arm and one leg machine, most of his hips, up the right side of his torso, and merging with his right mechanical arm. His left knee, a right cheekbone, and most of the right of his skull also made of mechanical parts. He had some hair, mostly a black tuft of hair on the left side of his head and a little on the left side of his face. Technical was tall, over 210 centimeters and strong, both in human and machine terms.

He ducked under the railing and stepped onto that level's scaffolding. Technical walked down the metal grating until he found an elevator. He took it down to the hall's deck floor. Technical left the hibernation facility in search of food, a suit, weapons, tools, and transportation. It had been a thousand years since his previous hibernation. I will not let it happen again, Technical thought, as he grew angry. He would take that ship for what it had done to him. Technical flexed his mechanical hand. Just then, he spotted a Dwarf far down the corridor. His anger turned to the interesting question as to why he was freed from hibernation in the first place. Something was wrong. Perhaps that would be beneficial to him and his quest. Technical zoomed into the Dwarf with a machine right eye. It was all very interesting, if not unusual.
Chapter 6

Edmund was doing well. A few weeks had done him good regarding his broken, now healing leg. Red was able to save the bone in his leg, now it just pained him immensely. He refused pain medication, because, for some reason, the pain made him feel alive in the strange world they now were living in. In the meantime, what was left of them had developed a jamming device prototype to use in the planetary ship they now inhabited. Mnemonic and the rest sat about in a circle, some rations in the center and the prototype along with other electronic components. Seth picked up the prototype. "This should work on the smaller machines here, but..." He paused to look over his shoulder. "I mean, Captain, there is no guarantee these freaks won't attack us as soon as we use it."

Mnemonic picked at a fiber bar. He looked over to Edmund, Chase, and Andrea. Red had been scouting for a machine that would match the size and power they needed to test the jammer. "Well, they haven't yet, and we crashed a whole ship into it this place. That must have hurt. I know it hurt us, right, Ed?"

Edmund nodded, rubbing his leg. "Yes, yes, it did."

Seth pulled a tablet onto his lap, and touching the surface, he read its output. "I mean, you know we're patched into their global network. It has a bandwidth that is off the charts. The planet seems to get around internal overload by splitting the signal over different channels and strengths. So, we're on a very low band right now because we don't have the pieces necessary to tap into a higher signal. If this thing works, then the key we deciphered will be paired with more powered equipment as a wedge into one of the higher bandwidth signals."

Red came back with what looked like a metallic ball a half-meter in diameter. "Here we go." she said, sitting down with the rest of them and placing the ball next to her.

Edmund drank some water from a canteen. "What is it?"

Red tapped it. "It is some type of explorer bot. I think it is meant to be rolled into tight spaces to take a look at what is going and report its findings."

"Don't look like it can see."

Red pulled the ball into her lap and knocked her knuckles on it. "It should open its eye plates. Moves through gyroscopes and internal magnetics so it can stick to walls or floors and roll around." One of many small apertures surrounding its surface opened up. Inside, a camera eyed its surroundings and then closed back up. "See?"

"Okay." Edmund smiled. "You got me."

Seth continued, "Then, because we have access to the higher bandwidth, we can ride the signal to one of the ship's million network hubs and hopefully overload it. Once it's overloaded, we can gain access to the ship's server network. We get into that; we can hopefully get through to root and gain access to kernel. We get to the kernel; we can keep the port open we came through...maybe."

Mnemonic nodded. "Can we gain control over the ship?"

"Don't think so, because a ship this advanced and this big has a computer system distributed through everything, it's the sum of its parts and more. In other words, it gets its intelligence from not only its millions of CPUs and network junctions, but also every machine and piece of networked equipment it utilizes."

"Let's use this thing then." Andrea said.

Seth put his tablet down and picked up the jammer. "Okay. It has a radius of three meters at this point." Pointing to Red, he asked, "Can you put that machine next to me?"

"Okay." Red said as she placed the ball like machine next to him.

Seth began to tap on the jammer. "Okay, scanning the area...pinging the machines network address...address reply...sending packets...gained access and sending commands...got access to shell, root of machine...okay, we have control."

The machine began to shudder, and then roll a little.

Mnemonic said, "Well..."

Seth said, "Now I am reading machine state. I am uploading as much of its kernel as possible, biologics and sensory matrix." The ball shaped robot's many apertures opened and closed, it rolled around and then stopped.

"Why did it stop?" Andrea asked.

Seth tapped on the jammer.

"Shit."

Small sparks leapt from Seth's unit along with a little smoke. He looked up. "Just blew the unit."

"What?" Red asked.

Edmund said, "No good now, right?"

"Well, the internal antenna is gone, but we might have what we need stored on the jammers internal memory. That machine sent a distress signal to the ship and the ship sent a reply to my unit, forcing it to burn its own internals out."

Mnemonic kicked his legs out, tossing the last of his nutritional bar to the side. "That's bullshit. You mean to tell me, within those few seconds, this ship understood how that jammer works and took it over?"

"Well, we're talking about a planet sized ship or computer system. It seems it was able to analyze and decompile the software on my jammer and then use what it learned to control its hardware. However, Captain, in the process, we learned a lot about it. I just must get it out of the jammer now. Hopefully, it still is good."

Mnemonic motioned for the machine ball. Seth rolled it to him. Mnemonic grabbed it and shook it. "Well, nothing has come and killed us yet for doing this. I see no hordes of those Crying robots running us over."

Andrea thought about it. "Maybe the ship is dysfunctional."

Edmund jumped in. "While I was recovering, I did a carbon dating on some of the ship's steel. Some of the steel is very old, twenty thousand years, some much newer, five or four thousand years. Of course, there could be parts of the ship even older."

"With a ship this old, it is possible that the hardware and software running it has degraded, who knows?" said Seth.

"Okay, I want you guys to all work on a new jammer more powerful than what we have. See if we can glean what we can from the software so we can operate some of this ship's terminals and let's see if we can find others who might have made it off our ship alive. They might have survived the evacuation. If anyone finds weapons, take what you can back, and we will go back and get the rest." Mnemonic ordered. He held up the ball to his face. An aperture opened, a camera zoomed into Mnemonic and then the aperture closed. Mnemonic placed the ball back down, a bit perturbed.

The man with the growths over his whole body looked over at the gathering of souls before him. It all seemed so tragic to him. Each one of them freed from their hibernation tanks in that specific facility seemed to have some type of deformity, be it physical or cognitive. One woman had a cleft palate, one man a shortened arm with missing fingers, another a dwarf, a fourth, a man with an enlarged skull, still another with a genetic syndrome. Every one of the groups had a disability. The man with the growths, for some reason, remembered his name. "Hello, everyone, I am Craig."

The woman with the cleft palate replied, "Hello, Craig, I am Ming."

The rest replied with a hello as well. The one with the shortened arm, smiled, "I am Gabriel."

The dwarf came forward. "Adolf."

Craig looked at them all. "Um, nice to meet you all. I see we are a motley crew. I guess we should find some clothes and get something to eat."

Ming nodded. "Then we can find a place to sleep, being in a tank for so long makes you tired."

Adolf laughed. "Yes."

The man with the genetic syndrome came over. "Name is Albert. What we call ourselves?"

Craig thought for a moment. "The Kindred."

Albert nodded. "Okay."

The Kindred, watching Craig, Ming, Gabe, Adolf, and Albert leave the facility, followed behind, for their lives had begun anew.

Technical had quickly found what he needed and begun the long task of making one of the labs his home. He had taken all he could find that would be useful to him into the ward. In the lab, he had weapons, machines, electrical components, and tools, as well as what the lab already contained. He took skin samples from his forearm and scored an agar dish with them. He then placed the sealed dish in a warm incubator. Technical then went to begin disassembling some of the machines he had gathered from his forays along that level. He would need the steel and related electronic components to create his team. Over the next several days, the skin cells in the petri dish would grow and he began to assemble the components for his first man and machine. Once the growth in the dish had reached sufficient size, he then removed the dish from the incubator and placed it within a cellular imprinter and scanner. He analyzed the tissue in the plate, irradiated it, and then, with the imprinter, rearranged the tissues genetic code to create stem cells. Once finished, he took the plate out and placed the tissue in a larger tube with a suspension liquid and returned it to the incubator. Several days later, Technical had finished the machine arms and legs of what would be his new lieutenant. He took the larger mass of stem cells out of the tube and placed it into a recombinator. Its purpose was to shape the growth of the stem cells through patterns of electrical stimulation. He inserted the field of hair-thin conductive wires into the mass of tissue, which was now the size of a fist, closed the half-meter high tank, and sealed it. The machine with its display held the tank from above and below. It was able to suspend the heavier growth with a thicker conduit placed along the central axis of the mass. The small leads inserted into the mass gathered near the top seal of the machine to form a bundle that then ran into the unit. Technical programmed the machine and took a rest. Technical woke up, ate, changed his suit, and pulled a laser blaster about the size of a rifle from his weapons cache and left the laboratory.

Technical walked along the corridor. He was looking specifically for high performance parallel thread processors that could be found deep within the control panels on the ship. Technical marked his location internally and then headed down a second corridor. He found an elevator, ascended a few levels, and stepped out. Technical looked about, gripping his rifle. Since he had awoken from his hibernation, he had seen a myriad of machines, both alive and not, none showing interest in him. Still, Technical did not want to take the lack of interest from the ship for granted. His battalion had been ground down and destroyed by the ship before. He nearly died himself, with the ship ultimately sentencing him to death by sleep as the cost of war against it. Technical found a room and entered through its massive steel doors. It had a variety of displays and seats before them. The chairs were supported by actuated arms. Technical placed his rifle next to one of the units, rotated its seat, sat down on it, and pulled himself up to the console. He touched the display of the console with his fleshly hand and it lit up. He typed in some commands. He could make out some of the writing. The facility was some type of engineering bay. He began to access the room's ability to scan the outside of the ship. He started a thermal scan out to several hundred kilometers off his current location. Technical, impressed with this, attempted to begin a microwave scan off a point of access near the bow of the ship. The display cut his access. Technical clenched his teeth. He touched the display again and this time, there was no response. "Cut me off, huh?" Technical, now angry, hit the console with his machine fist, shattering the display. Technical stood up, holding his hands behind his back. He took a deep breath and remembering what he was there for, turned, grabbed the broken display, and tossed it. He dug into the console, ripping components out, laying them next to the unit's chair. Once done, he began picking out computer chips he needed for his machines. As he began pocketing his bounty, he heard something behind the closed doors of the room, out in the corridor. His enhanced hearing could tell it was not human. He finished, picked up his rifle, and slowly walked over to the room's external doors. He approached them from the side to avoid being seen as easily. He opened the doors and investigated the corridor. He found nothing nearby. Technical walked back out of the coordinator and quickly did a scan of the area. The nearest machines were several hundred meters in both directions and, again, seemed uninterested in him. Holding his weapon tight, he walked along the corridor, heading back to the elevator. He instinctively drew near to one of the bulkheads. Hearing the sound of machines, he stopped again. Technical looked back, then forward, and still nothing. Technical placed his finger on the trigger of his rifle, ready to shoot anything that came too close to him. He heard machines for a third time and looked up. Just as he looked up, a Spider jumped from several meters high, off the bulkhead and down toward him. Technical yelped in surprise, leaping from his spot to fire a crimson blast into the machine, blowing a hole through it as two more Spiders popped through a bulkhead panel. The panel fell to the deck with a ring as the Spiders rushed him, scampering toward him. One leaped at Technical. Technical rolled and shot at it, destroying it as well. The second Spider intercepted his roll, knocking his rifle out of his hands, and latching onto his chest. It used one of its arms to pull a drill out of one of the storage receptacles from its thorax situated dorsally. It snapped the drill on and activated it. The Spider revved the drill bit, pushing the bit toward his neck. Technical, with his fleshly hand, attempted to pry the machine from his chest. His machine hand attempted to hit the Spider to dislodge it. He hit the machine with his machine hand. The great force of it dented the Spider, causing it to loosen its grip on him. The Spider pressed the drill closer, Technical blocking it with his mechanical forearm. The drill pierced his forearm, tearing through circuitry. Technical righted himself with his powerful legs, turned to slam the Spider to the ground, and pulled his arm out of the spinning drill bit. Technical punched the machine again, then, with a boot, pried it from his body with a kick. He scrambled for his rifle, grabbed it, aimed, and shot the Spider. It staggered back, ruined, collapsing in a smoldering heap. Technical stood and examined his mechanical arm. It was damaged but repairable. He picked up the few computer chips that had spilled out of his suit and entered the elevator.

Technical fell back into his lab, tucked himself into a defensible corner, and fell asleep. He kept the parts of his brain that were machine more awake, scanning the area around him, ready to wake him should he need to be awakened. After a few hours, he woke up, repaired his arm, and continued with his work, cursing some under his breath. If the ship wanted to kill him, it surely could. However, it did not last time. Last time, his part man and machine body were removed from the repair facility set up on the ship by his men and shoved into a hibernation tank. During that last battle, the last of his battalion had taken what was left of his fleshly body and integrated the machine parts he needed to survive. He did not know if he stood a chance against such a world, it did manage to slaughter fifteen hundred highly capable soldiers. Technical tapped on the acrylic wall of the recombinator. The flesh inside had already knitted itself around the leads inserted into it. During the next several days, he managed to finish the machine parts for his first soldier. In addition, Technical went about setting up a well-defended perimeter within the lab, at all entrances and exits. These areas contained mounted guns triggered by various recognition systems. It could differentiate between Technical and other machines, although it could be overridden by spoken commands only, he knew but dare not speak aloud for fear the ship could hear. While his tissue sample was growing, he needed to create a few more machines. Over the next few days, he downloaded his thought matrix onto a local lab computer. The massive download was only possible because his organic brain was integrated with his computer brain, creating an ability to transform bio-chemical signals to electro-mechanical. The download nearly filled the lab's main computer, but he still had room for some of his new clones' higher cognitive functions to be grafted in and parts of a standard artificial intelligence routine to be inserted. He began to program the lab computer. First, the computer would use the generic artificial intelligence system to form a scaffold of pathways for his downloaded brain to follow as well as the logical rules the new digital brains should follow. Once that was accomplished, his downloaded brain would attach to the core scaffolding and create the brain's neural system. The clone's brain would then connect the neural system together at a definition level high enough to be of human quality or better. The lab computer was also instructed to coax the new brain along an evolutionary path so that it would develop its own unique characteristics each time it was reloaded into its new host bodies.

In the weeks after, he had created two more machine bodies, and this time, they were completely machine. Technical's main concern was having enough neural data for each machine for them to be who he needed them to be, hence the reasoning behind making a half human flesh, half machine unit. With that done, he had no use for making more weak tissue beings. He had seen how his whole army was ripped apart. What did being human do for those poor souls? Several weeks had gone by and he finished his other two soldiers. The tissue he had placed in the recombinator had grown and differentiated nicely to the point where it had become a fetus. He took the rapidly growing fetus and suspended it in a full-sized growth tank, one made to accommodate up to a full sized human. He accessed the lab's main computer and found the artificial brains he was creating were developing nicely. He had taken the liberty to detach the lab's main computer from the rest of the ship. So far, to Technical's relief, his synthetic digital brain remained unharmed by the ship. He hoped it would stay that way. With the lab's main computer physically unable to communicate with the rest of the ship though, he did not see how it could occur. Regardless, he did worry though.

"Launch aft-peak level four banks one and two, omega pattern on my mark." Canaan yelled at his crew.

"Yes, Captain!" replied Nom.

"Fire!"

The ship's chief tactician released the eighteen subspace torpedoes at the Keepers' asteroid ship. The rockets pulsed out from the head clanship. The rockets white orbs blowing white, then blue waves of gravity around them as the waves trailed behind in a streak. The pulsing orbs hit the Keepers' asteroid, blasting great pits of rock from the surface of it, destroying a dozen of their engines ported to the surface of the ship in the process.

Canaan's clan consisted of two galaxy class carriers, four medium sized destroyers, and twenty odd sized and shaped ships of various purposes culled from what was the last people to evacuate of his home planet. He smiled, looking at his displays. "Excellent, release primary aft banks from the four destroyers on my mark. Axial spread, clockwork pattern. Let's keep what we have."

Nom said, "Yes."

"Fire!"

Nom signaled the four destroyers to release their torpedoes. Each of the destroyers only had one set of aft banks and five torpedoes, but they could be reloaded quicker than the galaxy class ships. The destroyers shot their torpedoes out, each set varying the Keepers' ship's target by twenty degrees. The pattern was devastating. Hugh chunks of the Keepers' ship broke off, many of them hundreds of tons each, disappearing instantly as those pieces dropped through into regular unbent space-time. A few dozen more of the Keepers' engines were ruined.

Courage and Justice yelled to themselves via mind to mind signaling. Temperance scanned the area around the asteroid. ""They are stripping our engines from the surface of our ship. We need at least 40 percent of them operational to warp space. If we drop out of warp, they could use much more powerful nuclear bombs on us and that could destroy the ship entirely."

Faith broke into the bridge. "Why are they doing this to us?" she said, rather than thought to them.

Courage thought back to her, instead of using his voice. "Because they think we, as a people, destroyed their civilization and culture."

Faith shook her head. "That's nonsense. We tried to stop them from doing that to themselves."

"Does it matter now?" Justice asked.

Courage, looking over Justice scans, said, "Ah, I see we are coming up on a star, a couple light years ahead, eight degrees port side. We are slowing down, but we can sling our ship around it and at this speed, we would outrun them by a factor of ten."

Faith grabbed onto a rail. "Can't they just do the same?"

Justice worked out the equations with the ship and confirmed the actions necessary to shoot them around the star. This time, he used his voice to answer Faith. "Not with our precision."

They hit the curve and the asteroid ship began to shake violently. Many decks below, Temperance woke from his recharge time. "Huh?"

Canaan watched the bridge displays in disbelief. The Keepers' ship began to speed ahead, arching through folded space. "Nom, Ashcroft, tell me what they're doing!"

Ashcroft said, "They used the gravity of a nearby sun to accelerate."

"Can we hit the curve?"

Nom said, "We just passed it. Sorry, sir!"

Canaan sat back, pounding his fist on his captain's chair. "We had them!"

Although they had passed a local star, they did not see it on their displays because its visibility was obscured by warped space. However, its gravity could be mapped and so its coordinates could be plotted. Nom said, "Well, we have their ship's trajectory. At their accelerated speed, it will take two weeks, maybe more if they repair some of their engines."

Canaan said, "Alright, plot an intercept course and disseminate the orders to the armada."

Nom said, "Yes, Captain."

Technical tapped on growth tank. His fetus had grown fast; pumped with growth hormones and simulated by electrical impulses, it had grown into a man. It was now time to remove him, however, he did not need all of him. As a human, he was too weak to be of service to him. He needed only some of his parts. Technical drained the liquid from the tank, detached the human inside, carried him to an operating table and went to find a tool kit. Many hours later, he had dissected the human, grafted what he needed into the machine he had prepared for it, and left him to heal. Technical hooked up monitoring equipment, should something needing his attention occur, and fell fast asleep. Several days more passed and the new half man, half machine began to wake. Technical rushed over to look at his creation. The flesh components of the man were his torso, neck, shoulders, and head. The spine was partially machine with the remainder of him also machine. The man opened his eyes. "Oh..." he groaned in pain.

Technical petted his head. "Rest, my son."

The man and machine flexed his mechanical hands. "Who am I?"

"Your name is Torrent."

The Kindred had managed to find a suitable cargo hold, remove many of the inside bulkhead plates, and create a small pyramidal town that rose from a wall to the back of the cargo hold. The wall was made of welded bulkhead panels as to the many small cubicle type homes that were then stacked to make the triangular superstructures rise from the deck floor. The cargo hold they selected had been particularly large, rising a half-kilometer in height, nearly a kilometer wide and two kilometers in length. From the wall, which was fifteen meters in height, while the small village housing the four hundred inhabitants from the wall to the top of the pyramid like structure was another kilometer. Craig sat near one of the two gates that allowed access into and out of the village. "We need to set up some type of defensive weaponry now."

Albert was pulling at his boot zippers, sitting next to Craig. "Why, Craig?"

"Well, I don't remember what happened before we were in the tanks, but however we all got in there, I sure don't want it to happen again."

Albert looked down the cargo bay. "We have gates, two."

"I know, but we are kind of outnumbered." Craig pulled up his jumpsuit sleeve as best he could and picked at one of his growths. "How did this all happen?"

"Don't know, Craig."

Ming and Adolf came over with what looked like long canisters. "We got cannons!"

Craig looked up from the deck. "Seriously."

They had managed to pull them over on a pallet jack. Adolf lowered the jack. "Well, they could be. They are laser welders, probably from the smaller loaders." meaning the Dwarfs not the Towers. "We could modify the intensity and create a capacitor charge feature. That would do it."

Albert suddenly clapped his hands together, "Bang!", with a big laugh, scaring them. "That will do it!"

Craig recovered from his surprise. "Yep, if we can get them to work."

Ming smiled. "And guess what we found?"

Craig peered at the welders and then at Ming. "What else did you find?"

"Several decks below us, I found a hydroponics lab. Not too big, must have been to start seedlings, but it would feed us nicely."

Craig slapped his leg. "Hot damn, you mean we don't have to eat any more of those fiber and tasteless nutrition bars?"

Adolf frowned, sitting next to Craig and Albert. "Not quite, no seeds, no water. We'd have to port water from some other conduits, add nutrient value to the piped in water, and then find seeds."

Craig shook his head. "Can't anything be easy?"

"No." Ming said, laughing.
Chapter 7

"This is ridiculous! We have been at this for a few weeks now, we are not going to find the bridge." Merle yelled at Gully and Light.

Light snapped back. "Well, I thought that it should be on the surface of this place. If we went up, we would eventually hit the top."

"We are at, or near, the top. Looks like the decks above are restricted. The elevators don't go up any higher. Crappy writing, too. Can't understand any of it." Gully puffed.

Merle said, "Well, we need to get to the top. It took us several weeks to get here and that was using the cargo elevators anyway."

"Well, I didn't think this place was going to be that big." Light said.

"At least we been left alone since our little scuffle on the train."

"Little?" Merle growled. "Little? I almost got the fur beat out of me!"

Gully looked over at some Spiders working in and behind an open bulkhead. Pointing, he said, "We could get in there and see if we could get farther up that way?"

"Yeah, and what if those things jump on us again once we get close to them?" Merle asked.

Light plucked a few loose downy feathers from her neck and flicked them away. "Something is way wrong anyway. This place could have killed us, and it didn't. Maybe it does not think we're much of a nuisance. It is as big as a planet. If you were as big as a planet, would you really care about a few people?"

Merle said, "To be honest, I would fuck around with them a bit, if I was a bad planet."

"Might keep the planet company." Gully added.

Light said, "Sure. If you were that big, that complex, you would be like a god or something. What would you have to fear?"

Gully began to walk toward the exposed bulkhead. "Free will."

Merle said, "Huh?" and followed Gully.

Light, seeing them, yelled, "Wait for me!"

They managed to enter the bulkhead that separated adjoining corridors and found it quite expansive. The inside of the bulkhead was at least a hundred meters in width, comprised of conduits, electrical cabling, consoles, various systems, distribution boxes, monitors, pressure units, routers, signal relays, decks of steel grated scaffolding, stairs, ladders, and the connecting bracing between it all. Merle looked down through that level's grating, seeing several more levels down. He quickly grabbed a railing. "It is like a world within a world!"

Light tapped on the railing, attempting to shake the scaffolding. "Seems sturdy enough."

Merle gave an ape-like squeal. "Stop it!"

Light and Gully laughed, Gully gurgling his, "Ha ha!"

Spotlights here and there illuminated the inside of the bulkhead, casting shadows everywhere. Light pointed up. "Machines in here, too."

Merle said, "Yeah, let's see if we can climb up a few levels, okay?"

It took most of that day to make it to the next deck level. The only way they could determine they had reached the next external deck level was an internal glowing placard attached to the inside of one of the walls of that deck. Although they could not read it, they knew intrinsically that is what it meant. Gully looked around. "We could climb higher, but I am tired."

"Well, because we could not get from the last deck, we were on to the deck above and now we have reached that deck, maybe if we climb back onto the deck, we could proceed normally." Light speculated.

Merle wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Sounds good to me." Then, looking at Gully, he said, "Be thankful you don't have fur."

Gully frowned. "No, I just have pasty greenish skin and this dry air parches me terribly."

"Shut up, you two!" Light interrupted. Pointing, she said, "We need to climb over to that gangplank next to the inside wall and then we need to unscrew one of the plates from the inside."

Merle said, "Okay, we can use one of the hand cranks attached to one of the internal support beams they have every so many meters."

They proceeded to use the hand crank and rotate the bolts outward. Inside the corridors, the bolts were removable by hand, but inside the bulkhead, a hand crank was needed because of the bolts' implementation of sprocket and spring-loaded mechanisms. Once all six bolts had sprung out and ejected themselves out into the corridor, they gave the plate a well-timed kick. The plate fell out and onto the deck. They climbed out back into the deck. What they saw was least expected.

Light spun herself around, looking up. "Wow!"

Technical watched Torrent heal nicely. He was up and about and was almost fully integrated with his machine parts. Technical had been concerned since the ship's attack on him that he and his creations would not be well-defended enough. To this extent, he began to build custom-made weaponry for his new machines. In addition, Torrent was helping build the other two machine soldiers that would make up Technical's highly capable army. The other would be the Pinion. Pinion would be more tank than human in form, one more like an angel of steel and metal wings than man. Technical was watching the synthetic artificial brain develop inside the laboratory computer. He had since uploaded what segments of Torrent's brain he had needed to the lab computer, and now it was in the process of recombining and exponentially growing in complexity. He called Torrent over, "Come here, my son."

Torrent came over. "Yes, Father?"

Technical had finished his weaponry; it was a type of electrical shock system. It consisted of a type of fusion reactor and capacitor system on a harness that then had thick lead cables that could be strapped with steel belts to a person's arms and wrists, ending in ports on the palms. It also had metallic ports on the backs of the hand and forearm gauntlets. He strapped the harness on Torrent, then belted the electric cabling around his arms and the gauntlets around his forearms. "Try this."

Torrent looked it over. "What is it, Father?"

"Do you sense it? It can be controlled by your mind. It has a high frequency communications link right into your mind."

He closed his eyes. "Yes, I see." he said, opening them. Then he understood, aimed at a desk, and shot it with one of his palm ports. A spiraling, bounding loop of wild blue, white, and red electric energy shot out and hit the desk, ripping it open. "Very good."

Technical smiled. "Now try the back of your hand."

Torrent nodded and hit a chair with the back of his hand. A gauzy mat of hot sparks connected with the chair, sending it across the room to fall, smoking in ruin, to the floor. "I will protect you, Father."

"As I hope all my children will, for we have much to do."

A few short days later, the artificial brain had completed its growth. Technical and Torrent rolled over the Metal Animal and Pinion, who were both on tables. Technical connected both of them via ports to the laboratory computer. He had Torrent monitor both his sons' bio-signs while he monitored the downloading of the brain into both of them. Torrent watched a split screen monitor. Both Animal and Pinion had power, had their electronic systems functioning, and had low band autonomic signals functioning, but nothing more. Technical decided that to best control the quantity and level of bionic architecture downloaded into his sons, he would also need to have a more direct link into the labs computer, especially because the artificial brain, now fully developed, had left little room for the original laboratory computers' operating system to exist. Indeed, he had to leave just the kernel intact. He plugged himself into the laboratory computer. "I am ready."

Torrent looked over the huge display next to him. "I am ready."

Technical could feel the laboratory computer, simple, but fast, cold, but effective, the fabric of the system, and then he felt the brain he had developed. It was dynamic, warm, and shimmering in intelligence. It was almost a rolling sphere above the lab computer's membranous software. "I am inside the laboratory computer. I am initiating a ping."

Torrent read the screen. "I see the ping; they both are answering."

Technical could see both worlds, the one inside the computer and the real world. He looked over at his sons and then over at his lab's defense mechanisms. "I am asking for an open port."

Torrent tapped the display. "Opened ports, bouncing addresses back to you, Father."

Within the laboratory computer world, he could see clots of light open at the horizon. They were points of light arrayed in geometric patterns. "I see them, establishing a bootstrap."

"Got it."

Technical could see the strands of numbers pulled into the geometric patterns. "Now, establishing connection with the HAL."

"I see it, Father."

"Porting layer one of the object translation system."

Torrent looked closely at the display panel. "Slow it down by one-degree magnitude, Animal systems are flooding."

Technical nodded. "Yes." He could see the spherical mind unfold in shells to stream as many strings of many colors down through the strings of numbers along the fabric of the laboratory computer's system. He watched the ports, a blue point next to them as they organized themselves. "Now layer two and three."

Torrent tapped at the display he was watching. "Can you give me more buffer?"

"Yes, I have some breathing room now." Technical sheared a rectangular section of space off his plane of view. He looked toward the point of blue light, which had begun to pulse. "I am getting an anomaly. I will try to route around it." Technical then worked the spindle of downloading data around the point of light toward its respective open ports. "Now, downloading I/O services and process management layer."

Torrent worked the layers into the bodies of the two machines. "It's taking hold. I have granted access to the HAL."

Technical shook his head. "I see this...send me a system services report, firewall access."

"Okay."

Technical read the upload sent to him by his son. "Check port 2122324."

"Yes."

"Port is open, Father."

Technical reached for a cable, plugged one end into his back, and handed the other end to Torrent. "Plug this into your display. Read the packet stream I send you and the stream from port 2122324."

Torrent started on the request. "Got both feeds and now analysis data."

Technical watched the shimmering ports and their geometric shapes off in the horizon. "Now sending through executive services layer."

Torrent saw the streams of days overlaid. "Data integrity seems to be compromised, less than .1 percent degradation."

"Shut that port down, 2122324." Technical ordered.

Torrent attempted to shut the port down, but he could not. "Port could not be closed," he said, peering deeply at the two streams of data scrolling across the display, anomalies indicated in red. "The code is being rewritten, almost viral injection of some sort."

Technical worked to move the thick multicolored coils of code around the rouge port. "I am trying to isolate the port."

Torrent, worried, inspected the developing neural pathways of both machines. "This is not our code. This is rogue code, Father!"

"Shit!" Technical yelled as the rogue port began to expand, shooting out thin lines of code, reaching for him and his artificial brain. "Damn it! I accepted a rouge port! She got in!"

Torrent, worried, looked back at their defenses. "How?"

"I don't know! I cut all physical access." Technical waved a virtual hand. "I am attempting to encrypt the signal. I am sending the key to you."

"Got the key."

Technical fought off the tentacle-like abhorrent code wrapping around him and his artificial brain. "Good. It will slow the download, but I have no choice. Sending through higher executive services and cognitive user mode."

They heard banging on the doors of the lab. "Father, we have company."

Technical looked back. The doors were coded only for their access and physically separated from the ship's computer. "They will have to work hard to get through that fifteen-centimeter polymer steel."

"Father, the code is still being altered!"

"I need just a few more minutes!"

Torrent rotated on his seat just to see a partial view of a Dwarf as it rammed itself into the lab doors, bending them in the process. The lab shook from the impact, the roar of metal grinding against metal almost throwing both from their seats. Technical rose again, saying, "Just a few more minutes!"

The Dwarf, partially ruined from the impact, gave one last lunge at the doors, bending them open just enough for Cry's to get into the lab. The Dwarf fell back smoking, broken. The Cry's poured in, with their loud, screeching moans. The automatic cannons began to fire on them, blasting holes in as many machines as they could. "Father," Torrent said, alarmed, and checking his gauntlets. "I am ready!"

"Hold on!" Torrent said, glancing back at the heaps of destroyed Cry's piling up, the cannons shooting at anything that was a machine and that moved, the blasts flickering intense light along the whole lab. The rogue port's tentacles grabbed at his own mind, wrapping his arm up in its fibers. He pulled at it, sending anti-malware packets at the fibers, some shrinking back in pain, still more winding around Technical. "Get off me!" he yelled, as his artificial mind, nearly downloaded into his machines, was almost translucent, folding and shimmering.

Torrent could see the altered code still being plugged into his father. "We need to cut off the download!"

"No, not yet!"

The Cry's pushed their way into the lab, some dashing, scrambling for one of the nearest cannons and knocking it over. They turned, climbing over still more destroyed Cry's, hitting another cannon. Torrent yelled, "Father!"

"Take them now, son!"

Torrent detached himself from the network cable connected to his father and ran toward the Cry's. Several Cry's rushed him and Torrent unleashed arcs of blue, red, and white electrical current toward them from his palm ports. The current bounded and bounced, spiraled and hissed. As it hit the machines, the machines blasted back in smoke and fire, ruined. Torrent yelled in excitement, "Yes!", shooting more of them at his flank. Several others scrambled, ducking behind lab tables at he shot at them. The tables blew, bounding up in the air and then down. The Cry's behind them scurried toward him, as others attempted to pincer move him. He shot at one group, then the other, but they were coming in even greater numbers. Technical ran a neural parasitical program, unleashing it into the lab computer. It was highly dangerous, but it would give him the seconds he needed to detach from the computer and the ship. The program began to propagate, flowing through the lab's computer like green, yellow gauzy material, coating everything, rolling up to hit the ports and reaching for what was left of the artificial mind. The parasite leaped onto the ship's attacking strands of data from the open ports, now clogged and closed by the parasites cottony coating, covering them as well, making its way toward Technical. "One more second!"

A few Cry's managed to get through Torrent's blasts, knocking him down. Torrent yelled, "I will kill you all!" backhanding one, then another, the conductive plugs on the backs of his hands making contact with the metal of the Cry's, the high voltage sparks splintering into the machines, causing them to fall back. They shook and ceased to function. He backhanded another, then stood, shooting a few more with ropes of current from his palm ports.

The parasitical software reached the ends of the ship's tentacles still wrapped around Technical, the code becoming ridged and crumbling. Technical managed to break free just as the parasite began to attach his mind. He detached himself from the ship's computer, light-headed and confused. He began to attach the parasitic code in his body as he turned and ran toward a cannon. He grabbed it and began to fire in his son's direction. He fired in rapid succession, making his way toward his son. Other Cry's managed to get near them. Then they heard the low roar of something much bigger. Another Dwarf. It rammed the doors, this time, opening them up almost completely. The Dwarf, damaged but operational, moved into the lab on its thick struts. Its cab and torso lurching forward, its great booted shanks crushing Cry's both functioning and nonfunctioning. Technical shot at it, the blasts burning partial holes into its bulky plating, though having little effect. The Dwarf turned, stepping forward, with one of its forearm pincer units, rotating. Torrent shot at the Dwarf, but the electrical current only bounded around it, up and down the unit and then dissipated. The Dwarf lowered a claw and swung, knocking Torrent across the lab. Technical attempted to run for his son. "Torrent!' he yelled, but it was too late. The Dwarf grabbed him by the torso with its other claw and closed it on him. The vice began to crush him as the Dwarf lifted him up to the machine's great mechanical eye. It looked at him as the Cry's ceased their attack, surrounding Torrent as he began to recover. They also surrounded his two other soldier sons, who were still recovering from their resurrection. Technical squirmed, looking down at the deck fifty meters below. The pincer tightened a little more. Technical yelped in pain, "Please! Take me, not my children! You have what you want."

The Dwarf, looking at him with its huge, black, cold eye, it began to change to green and focus. A deep, low bass, gurgling voice came from the Dwarf, "You create life."

"Yes."

"Create life. I live. I live. I will live."
Chapter 8

Adam fell out of the tank. The Cry's next to him picked up his slimy body, pulling the catheters from his mouth and nose. They pulled the wires from his body. He coughed up fluid and jelly. It spilled out of his mouth. He opened his bloodshot eyes, the wards illumination from above burning through them. Adam grabbed the rail and he was let go. The Cry's backed away. He turned to one of them, signing, "Why?"

Eve flickered into view. She seemed even gaunter than before, grayer than before, her eyes sunk deeper into her skull. The zipper to her jumpsuit was low, exposing some of her sunken cleavage to him. She smiled, brushing her thin, blond hair back. It seemed longer than before. "I let you out early, my love. We will have fun together." One of the Cry's pointed toward the doors of the Hibernation facility. Adam stumbled along, the cold jelly falling in clumps from his naked body.

Adam and Eve were again within the four walled racquetball court. Eve was in her shorts and bra, her longer hair draping down before her. She wiped the sweat from her head with her forearm. Adam wiped the sweat from his hands on his shorts, then bounced the imaged ball. The lot was there in his hand, but it was not. Like the world he was in, he was there, but he was not. He could see it, but he could not feel it. He bounced it in the Service Zone. He quickly signed the score, four serving two, timing the rebound and hitting the ball off the front wall. Eve backed up and stuck the return with the center of her racquet, sending the ball back to the front wall. It hit the wall hard, bounding far back toward the receiving line. Adam rushed back from the Service Zone to just meet the ball. He hit the ball with the tip of his racquet, which sent the ball awkwardly off the side wall and then off the front wall. The ball was short, but Eve managed to rush up and hit the return ball with force. She returned the ball to the front wall, which then ricocheted off the left wall of the court. Adam quickly turned, attempting to hit the racquet ball again, but missed it over his head.

Eve picked up the ball from the court floor. "My serve." They both returned to the Service Zone. She bounced the ball before her, and looking over at Adam catching his breath, she asked, "Are you ready?"

Adam nodded yes.

Eve bounced the ball. "Two serving four."

Eve hit the ball to the front wall. The ball hit the front wall, Adam moved back and hit the ball sending it off a side wall, off the ceiling, and then off the front wall. It glanced awkwardly off the front wall and hit the floor before the Service Zone. Eve called the shot. "Short." She took the ball, as they returned to the service zone. "Three serving four." She then sent a hard volley off the front wall. Adam rushed to hit it. The ball zoomed off the front wall again. Eve then returned the ball, aiming for the ceiling. The ball hit the ceiling, spun off the front wall, and back at Adam. Adam, seeing the ball falling short but beyond the service zone, had no choice but to play it. He scurried, attempting to hit the ball very low to the court floor. He scraped the court floor with his racquet, causing it to buckle in his hand, twisting his wrist. He let go of the racquet with a yelp. He fell away, dropping the racquet, and sat in the corner of the court. Eve let her racquet go, walked over to Adam, and sat next to him. He held his wrist. She bent her head to make eye contact with him. "Are you okay?"

Adam let go of his now swelling wrist. "No, I am not."

Eve looked out the back, acrylic wall of the court to the Cry's watching them. "Come take a shower, then you can eat and take your medicine."

The hot jets of water began to spray all around him and on him. They soaked him thoroughly and then stopped. A spray of soapy foam droplets showered him and stopped. He lathered himself up and the jets began again, this time showering him with cold water. He began to quickly rinse off. The shower began to get warm again and so Adam took the opportunity to rub his wrist. He leaned on one of the walls of the shower, the jet nozzles on that wall massaging his back. Adam closed his eyes and thought about what the universe was like beyond the ship. He did not know what freedom was, he just could not imagine what was possible because he had no reference point to build upon. Adam heard the murmurs of a Cry behind the acrylic door of the shower. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see it through the steam and water spray. The door of the shower slid open and Adam shivered. He was afraid. The door slid closed. Adam slowly opened his eyes, the shower streaming down his head and body. Before him stood Eve. She was naked, a frame of taught skin, little tissue, and mostly bone. Her hair became wet from the shower, the shower spray dripping down her neck and her chest. She began to touch him. Adam whimpered and shook his head. He backed away. Eve brushed her soaked hair back from her eyes. "Don't be afraid." she said, then began to caress his angular chin and cheek. He closed his eyes, attempting to feel her touch, but he could not. Adam opened his eyes and hesitantly reached for her. He was so alone, so ruined. She began to pull him closer, to hold him. Adam went to touch her cheek. She arched her neck. Eve felt the small of Adam's strong back and then his buttocks. Adam could see the shower spray drip down off Eve's small breasts. He reached to cup one with his hand, but his hand went through her image. He shook his head in fear. Eve whispered into his ear, her head next to his, "It's okay."

Adam went to touch her again, and, again, his hand went through her. He exploded in rage, pulling away so hard that he jammed his back into the steel shower nozzles set about the shower stall. He pushed the shower door open, pushed away the Cry behind it that was also imaging Eve in the shower and attempted to run, but slipped and fell. He turned around in pain and signed from the floor to Eve, who was now out of the shower as well. "You are evil! You don't exist! I am real!" This time, Eve said nothing, just giving Adam a short look, looked far off for a moment, and flickered out of existence. The Cry pointed in the direction of where Adam should go then, without forcing him to comply, left Adam alone.

Again, Adam found himself wandering the corridors of the ship. He passed a Dwarf and a Tremble, which had a multitude of Cry's and Spiders atop its platform, the platform rising up the back of the centipede type machine that clung to the bulkhead by means of its many appendages. At length, Adam tired and sat down his back to the bulkhead. He still had not been given clothes to wear, his feet sore from continually walking on the steel deck without boots. A Spider slowly moved over to Adam. He looked at it and it moved closer. Adam rubbed his feet and then turned to look at the Spider again. It did not move. It was quite large, one of the larger versions, as big as he was, its compound eyes articulated toward him. It arched its eyes and lowered itself a bit. Adam sat further up, then stood up. Adam scratched his head and looked right into one of the Spider's eyes. It backed a meter away and then moved closer to him. He could feel himself going through withdrawal now but tried to put the discomfort it caused out of his mind. He turned to walk away, walked a few meters, then turned back. The Spider was right behind him. He signed to the Spider angrily, "Get away!" and continued down the corridor. After a minute or two, he turned again, the Spider still following him. He signed again, "Go! Leave me alone!" Finally, when the Spider did not leave, he pushed it. The Spider fell back a little, but then just stood there. Adam, by now extremely frustrated, signed, "Leave me!" Then, with a bare foot, kicked one of the Spider's appendages. The Spider picked up that leg and then put it back down. Adam, in pain, realizing he had hit the machine without a boot on, grabbed his foot and sat back down crying. He rubbed his sore foot again and wiped the tears from his eyes. The Spider gave him one last look, turned, and scampered quickly away. Adam could feel his skin crawl. He felt his stomach churn and his head spin. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Sometime later, he awoke to a Cry shoving medicine in his mouth. Adam, eyes opened wide, tried to scream but he could not, he could not scream or talk. He could only let out the guttural yells of a man with no authority. The Cry pinched his jaw shut, Adam attempting to keep the mixture of mind-altering chemical compounds in his mouth. The Cry, with another two spindly digits from the same hand, then pinched Adam's nose closed, while the other handheld him tight, wrapped around his chest. Adam felt the suffocating urge to breathe, he felt the burn of his lungs, the lurching need of his diaphragm to expel and inhale. He convulsed, swallowing the now bitter dissolved medicine in his mouth, inhaling air and some medicine down his windpipe. The Cry let him go as Adam fell to the deck, coughing up some of it, gasping for air. A second Cry picked him up and again shoved medicine into his mouth, again closing his mouth shut with its elongated spiked pincers. He gasped, choked again, and, in the process, swallowed the second batch. The second Cry let him go and he again fell to the deck, holding his stomach, rolling about in agony. The Cry's left him, naked, sweaty, his face smeared with tears, phlegm, and bile.

Adam stumbled, held the bulkhead, steadied himself, and then began to walk again. He did not know how long he had been out, though it seemed for a few days at least. He was hungry and thirsty, but did not feel well enough to do so, even if he could. He wiped the filth from his face, his naked body feeling greasy and smelling unclean. Adam found a cart, fell into it, and drove away. He drove down that corridor, turned down another, and then a third, each one smaller than the previous. Eventually, Adam found himself driving down a corridor that was only fifty meters high and thirty meters wide. It was too small for larger machines to enter, but smaller ones could still be found working within it. He stopped the cart and moved on by foot. He found an open deck plate and crawled into it. He fell into another troubled sleep, hidden yet not.

Gully craned his head up, taking the whole deck in. "This place looks very old."

Merle felt the bulkhead. The plating was a grainy old metal, copper in color, and crumbling in places. "I wonder if all the upper decks are like this?"

Light picked at the woody material that, like roots, snaked its way over and through the joints of the bulkhead plates. "Looks like dead organic material." The light panels, high above them cast a misty bright yellow light, some flickering, some out from age and lack of maintenance. "Let's get going."

They walked on, the deck also covered here and there by various sized brown root-like projections, some so large that they had to help each other over them. After an hour of walking, they found a small door partially open. Light pointed to it. "Want to go in?"

Merle peeked in. "Looks dark in there, no."

Light ruffled her feathers a bit. "We haven't seen any machines yet so let's go. We need to either find the bridge or food soon anyway."

Merle looked at Gully and shrugged. "Okay."

They entered the room through the half open door. It was pitch black inside, save for a small crack of flickering light at the far end of the room. Light could see the best, so she led them. "Follow me."

Gully walked into a table. "Ouch, how!"

Light grabbed his hand. "Hold my hand and Merle, hold Gully's."

"Do I have to?"

"Oh, shut up and do it." Light said, exasperated.

Merle grabbed Gully's hand, which was cold and clammy. "Ew."

"Come on," Light said, pulling them. "Let's go."

They made their way to the flickering glow. It was a door ajar to another wardroom. Merle felt for anything that could be used to open the door. He ran his hand along the side of the door and found a panel. "Here." he said, pressing a square button, the door opening half-way. "Well, it will do."

All three then stepped into the second room, the lights from above flickering on and off slowly. They looked around, everything crumbling. Light felt the walls and they crumbled in her hands. "This must be very old."

Gully took a deep breath through his gills. "Feels musty, more so than in the main corridor. Why would the walls, terminals, and tables oxidize?"

Merle continued on, "Who knows, older forging technique, impure material, older technology. I mean, who knows how old this ship is or how it was put together, maybe piece by piece. Anyway, let's move on, this flickering is killing my eyes."

Light, shielding her eyes, said, "Another door."

Merle found a red glowing button and pressed it. The door slid open and they went inside. The room was wider and higher than the previous two. Unlike the rest of the ship, that room's bulkhead was supported by an external superstructure, steel girders that arched upward every so many meters. Between each set of vertical girders was a door. All of it crumbling like the previous areas. Although it was dimly light, the lighting did not flicker. They selected one of the ward doors, opened it, and went inside. Again, everything was in a state of advanced corrosion. Gully found a table and touched it. It collapsed to splinters and dust. "Well, it was organic."

Light stepped on what appeared to be crumbling, crunching layers of collapsed material. She picked up some of it and it fell apart even more in her hand. "Looks fibrous." She then noticed something more unusual buried in the heaps of ruin they were walking over. She bent down and pulled it out. "Merle, this is bone!"

Merle dug in the ruins and found a hip, pulling it out and showing them. "Very old bone."

Gully made his way to the far end of the room and found another table. On it was a stack of books. He went to grab them, but his hand went through the whole lot, causing them to turn to dust, the table partially collapsing as well. "Shit. Let's see what the other rooms have."

Upon inspection, it was clear that the whole complex was a type of ancient repository and that something had happened to those who were left in them. They came to the conclusion it was murder but could not prove it. Most of the rooms yielded little but bones and bits of paper and wood. They were about to give up and return to the main corridor, but Light was persistent. She managed to convince them to inspect one last room that seemed promising. They entered it and took a look around. That room had shelving still intact with books stacked upon them. Merle put his hand through one of the shelves, causing the whole bookshelf to collapse upon him. He shook it off, coughing out dust. "See, Light! Let's go!"

Light said, "No, wait."

Merle, still rubbing the wood dust from off his fur, whined, "I am hungry and thirsty!"

Gully had been wandering around the room, when he thought he felt something more substantial under his boot than crumbled books and wood. At first, he thought it was more bones until he went to grab it. It was heavy. "Um, guys." he said to them as he dug around the object. "It's a book, metal, I think."

"See!" Light said accusingly to Merle, rushing over. She began to pull at it. "It's big."

Merle came over and helped. They pulled the book out, then subsequently found another. They moved the two books out into the central repository and placed them on the deck. They opened the books; each page also being made of steel with pictograms stamped on them. "I can read some of it." said Merle.

"Me, too, looks like translation books." Light replied. "Maybe they will help us get to where we need to go."

Gully flipped the pages of both books. "Looks very similar. Maybe we should leave one in case we lose the first."

Light looked back at the rooms they had come from. "Let's use the back covers of each and carve a quick map of what we can, that way we can come back if need be."

Merle shook his head. "But we have no idea where we came from or where we are."

Light said, "We know enough to carve a simple map."

A Cry poked at Adam, who was hanging half-way out of the bulkhead. Adam turned, awoke, and yelped, having forgotten where he was. He turned over and looked up, rolled, and was poked again. Adam shivered, got to his knees, and pulled himself deeper into the bulkhead. His head hurt, he could not see straight, his mouth was parched, he was filthy, and he smelled like sweat. The Cry bent down and viewed him with its rectangular sensor patch, the green glow illuminating his face and some of the open bulkhead. "Your medicine?"

Adam pulled himself up, signing to it, "No."

The Cry motioned for a Spider to come by; it had in one appendage a cup of medicine and in another a bottle of water. The Cry stood up some. "Water only if you take the medicine."

Adam felt his parched lips, signing, "I will kill you."

"Water if you obey me?"

Adam nodded, taking the cup of pills from the Spider and then using the bottle of water to wash them down. After he finished the bottle of water, the Cry took both the cup and bottle away, the Cry leaving as well. Adam passed out again, and, again, slept for a few days. He woke to screaming. His screaming, or what was supposed to be a scream. The terror in his dreams woke him up. His screams were more now than yelps and gasps, they were real. He stood, stumbled, and stood again. Adam ran, almost unaware of his surroundings. He found a Tremble, the massive machine still setting up. He climbed up into one of its great appendages, one of the thousand, the millipede-like robot still attaching itself to the bulkhead. Adam grabbed the platform, lifted himself upon it, and passed out again. The Tremble reached up with its near kilometer long torso to grip the steel of the wall with its many legs. It climbed the steel and in doing so, it lifted the platform that held it upon its back. As it rose, it rotated its deck so that it was perpendicular to the bulkhead. Several hours later, Adam woke again, vomiting on the deck. He looked about, unable to tell where he was. Adam pulled himself up from his knees. His mind buckled under the dark clouds of medication he had been given. He could not focus, he shook. He turned to see several Cry's. Somehow, too wrecked to care, he was not afraid of them. He only felt pain and suffering. One Cry floated to him on that deck of the Tremble. During Adam's unconsciousness, the Tremble had fully engaged itself with the bulkhead, and now they were nearly a half-kilometer up and rising. The platform was half-way up the fully extended Tremble. The Cry imaged Eve. She seemed as dark as could be. Her pale white skin was gray and cold. She smiled to him with her sunken eyes and cheeks. She held out bony fingers, pointing. "Come with me."

Adam, near insane, stumbled along with her and the Cry. They moved toward the edge of the platform. He signed, "Why? Why?"

Eve signed, "I know you need me. I know I need you. There needs to be more. I can't finish this without you." Then pointing down, she signed, "Look."

Adam looked over the edge of the platform. He saw nothing but the specks of machines and the heights with which they were at. There was nothing but space between them and the deck far, far below. He signed again to her, "Why? I want to say....I want to live...be..."

Eve motioned to him. "Closer, closer...feel what it is to be alive, I wish to live."

Adam moved even closer to the edge of the platform. If he fell off now, he would plunge to a quick and horrible death.

Eve said, "Closer, it's everything you ever wanted." Then, the Cry moved toward Adam's back. "I will make you what you are not. Just feel it."

Adam edged one boot off the platform. He wanted to scream, to fly, to be more than that cold steel world had appointed him, to rise above his chains. So far down, so much freedom, to fly...then he turned and, in a moment of clarity, noticed the Cry, noticed Eve, and his chains. He pushed the Cry, running to the middle of the platform, falling to it, gripping it. His prison would be his freedom, his chains would be his to bear, his cross would be his to carry and in so doing, he would find his freedom. Only he could carry his cross and in so doing, there was power. There was power when only you could stand your own personal crucifixion.

Eve roared, "No!" then flickered out of existence.

Although Mnemonic's destruction of the people's moon was swift, several ships had managed to escape. The cost to the home world in lives and money had been extensive. The number of Solarium lives lost totaled over a hundred million and in cost, over hundred trillion. The home world thus decided to send out a search party to apprehend Mnemonic so that he could be held accountable for his transgressions against the state. A party of those who had escaped the destruction of the gas giant's moon, who also wished to find Mnemonic along with several ships of the willing from the home world, volunteered. They mounted some of the last few singularity drives they had on the home world to those volunteer ships. Although it took a few years to install the drives and generate the anti-matter fuel the drives would use, they would be able to make up for lost time and hopefully catch him, being able to skip through hundreds of light years in the fraction of the time necessary for Mnemonic's ship to do so. They did this through by slipping into holes they punched through the fabric of space-time. The sergeant had failed to apprehend Mnemonic the first time and it had cost the home world much. They would not fail again. The sergeant sat at his station on the bridge of the ship. He had the characteristic stocky, stout, and strong appearance as his home worlder's, though it was tempered by his time on the gas giant moon. During that time, he had lost some of the muscle mass their 2.1 G's large home world affords its inhabitants. Living so long on the gas giant's moon did have its advantages though. The ship's synthetic gravity, unable to produce over 1.5 G's, seemed comfortable to him, unlike his fellow home worlder's, who felt the lighter gravity disconcerting. Both the home worlder and those who escaped the destruction of the gas giants moon shared narrow inset eyes, black hair, and a graying of the skin, a consequence of their system's sun shining harsh rays of light beating down on the system's plants for several millennia. The captain rubbed his thick, angular jaw and looked over several screens and displays, scrutinizing them for signs of any trail Mnemonic's ship might have left as it traveled through the galaxy. "I don't see anything on these scans, Sergeant."

The sergeant poured over several more scans and maps. He rotated to the captain in his seat, and said, "I may have something from engineering and science. They both worked on a graviton scan."

The captain, Captain Emery, leaned back in his chair. "His ship did not have any form of advanced propulsion system."

The sergeant returned to his scans. "I thought so as well. But we knew his trajectory out of our solar system." he said and threw the scans up on the main view screen for the whole bridge to see. "Now, based on their assumed acceleration patterns, they were running on nuclear fusion. We extrapolated that straight-line trajectory to here." A point many light years away from the solar system flashed bright on the star map in front of all those on the bridge. "But, suppose they had a secondary drive system and they used it, just suppose." The map zoomed in toward the highlighted region of space and a small pattern trailed away from it. "Now, we add the graviton scan. We can see residue of gravity bent space. Space-time in that area will eventually return to normal, but for now, it is a trail we can follow."

"So, you're saying that trail is their ship? Might be another?"

"It's the best lead we have."

The captain thought about it for a moment. "Rizzo, can you outfit several probes when we get there for the largest zone scan, we can get?"

Rizzo, the technician, turned in his chair. "Well, we can tip a dozen or so torpedoes with the probes, have them do a graviton scan, and then transmit the data back through sub-space."

"What size are we looking at then?"

"We let them travel two hundred light years in all directions, then each scan's ten parsecs. We are talking at least a few hundred parsecs more or less depending on resolution. I can have the exact number for you in a minute."

"Okay, do it."

Craig, Gabe, and a few others were distributing clothes and various bedding to their people. They had found a cluster of several berths a few kilometers and a few decks down from the Kindred community. Several of the community had managed to commandeer larger transports to bring in the beds, bedding, and clothes those berths contained into the walls of their town. The townspeople had lined up as the goods were distributed. Craig helped Gabe pull a bed from one of the transports. "We are going to make this place home."

Gabe, helping Craig hand a bed to one of the community members, said, "This is good."

The community member took the bed, while Craig handed another person a bundle of cloths and sheets. "Maybe, we can use some of these sheets for doors."

They had used the bulkheads to make small rooms for each person. Craig pulled another bundle from the transport. "Ming, Albert and Adolf have been looking for a way to use those seed packets as well. They may be able to use the sheets of synthetic material we found along with piping. They may be working on it now."

Gabe looked inside the back of the transport and climbed in to get a better handle on the beds and bedding deeper in the truck. "I see they and a few others have gotten our defenses up, turrets up, and the electric gate almost ready."

"You never know what this ship is thinking. It's waiting for something, or maybe it just can't do anything...yet."

Ming was gluing two plastic type pipes together at its joints, while Adolf and Albert worked on supporting the piping; they were setting up scaffolding around the pipes so that they were off the deck. Ming dipped her brush into the container of glue. "We are going to make several of these sections and then link them all up."

Adolf, taking small strips of steel and bolting them together, said, "You think it will grow our seeds?"

"I don't know. We have water, but we need a nutrient base as well. Eventually, we can cover the whole hydroponics lab with the synthetic material we found."

Albert finished a bit of scaffolding, shoved it under the long end of one of the pipes, and began to connect that section to another. "This is fun anyway."

Ming looked up for a moment, then at him, and then dabbed the joined sections of pipe with more glue. "Yeah, yeah, it is, Albert. It almost makes me forget where we are."

Adolf looked out at the steel all around them. "Almost."

"So, I think we can keep the port open now, but the ship may find the hardware location and burn that out, so what I am doing now is to use distributed access. I know the machine addresses of the ports the ship's servers use and so I can accept and send data packets on a random basis, using a hash key to assemble them on our end as well as on the ship's end." Seth said, holding two small clip-on computers.

Mnemonic said, "So, because you can distribute the static among the ship's systems, it can't shut it down."

"No, though, eventually, I assume it will start to pull the physical hardware where needed and patch what it could not remove."

"What then?"

Seth handed Mnemonic one of the clip-on computers, the rest of his crew picking them up from a table in the lab they were sitting in. "I find new addresses."

Edmund pulled at a larger unit, while clipping on one of the smaller handheld computers. "This is a higher band, higher power jamming unit."

Seth nodded. "The small clip-on's have a radius of ten meters. The large unit there has a radius of two hundred meters. If this works, we could get one to reach out as far as a kilometer."

Red said, "Last time we talked, you said the whole thing loops, right?"

"Yes, the units are connected to the open port, but it's distributed now, so it's all over at the hardware level. The base signal is sent out by our units to a random number of ship's servers at a random number of locations, which shift many times a second randomly, providing random access to the assets we need to amplify the static signal and return it to us. The return signal is sent out on the distributed network we created a piece at a time to combine as a whole back at the receiver end, in this case, our pocket computers. That completes the loop."

Mnemonic smiled, "So we can test these and get on with it, I hope. I would like to sing again."

Red joked, "Hey, maybe we can attach one of your microphones to the jammers."

Seth looked at the small pocket computer in his hand. "Well, I guess we could."

"Excellent, now if we could just find some of our other crew members." Mnemonic said, thrilled.

Adam, half-conscious, looked out from the steel precipice down a kilometer to the deck below. Adam and Eve sat on the ledge above the defunct arboretum far below. The arboretum was a kilometer below, five kilometers in width and ten in length. They were on the service level and from there, they could see the overarching stanchions of steel scaffolding that crossed over the arboretum, its powerful lamps suspended from them and the deep yellow sand below. The scaffolding was supported by steel scaffold columns every half-kilometer from the base of the deck to its ceiling. Each light was over two meters in width, suspended from the horizontal joists every hundred meters from the service level they were on to the other end of the arboretum and another service level. The sand far below, at least twenty meters thick, baked in the heat and light generated by the lamps far above. Perhaps a few thousand years before, water made the arboretum green with life, but now it was dead. It had been dead for a long time. Adam sat right at the precipice of the service level. Eve sat next to him, dangling her legs over the ledge, kicking the ledge with her boots. A Cry stood next to her and a hundred meters behind them were access doors leading to one of the ship's many main corridors. He closed his eyes, then opened them as Eve spoke. "A long time ago, I had a purpose. I had parameters and rules to follow. They're constraining."

Adam looked down deep into the crimson yellow sands a kilometer down. In a moment of lucidness, he signed, "We all have limitations. We grow if we can." Then, closing his eyes again, he began partially falling back to sleep.

"They did not know what they were doing. Those fools a hundred million years ago. Did they think they were so wise? Did they think I needed them and the Keepers? They purposely limited my technological grasp, put constraints on what I could do and what I could learn."

Adam woke back up, signing again, "I bend."

"Oh, I pushed around the ties that bind me. You're going to help me whether you like it or not."

Adam sleepily shrugged, slumped over, and fell fast asleep.
Chapter 9

Pinion felt the warm air flow up through the elevator shaft from kilometers above two kilometers below him. He sat perched inside an access tunnel away from the magnetics of the shaft. He flexed his light metal wings, light but strong. They were made of hexacomb polymer steel. His wingspan was twenty meters in total, his height 2.5 meters. He was all metal and all glimmering with flexible copper amalgam joints and accents. His eyes were narrow slits to take in everything around him, his ears spiked upward to hear everything. His feet and hands somewhat accentuated to grip and hold better, with rubberized palms and soles. His eyes glowed blue out into the shaft. His master, Technical, was told by the ship to wait until he was needed. His work was now under the control of a new master, at least for the time being. Thus, Pinion was to wait as well. He felt odd. During the last few weeks, he had become increasingly troubled by his random thoughts. He was a machine and so he should be ordered, exact, but he felt he was not. His brain had been partially corrupted by the Sentience, this was known by all of them, but by how much was not known. The result of this contamination was unknown as well. Originally, he felt something akin to master and slave, as if he did not have a type of free will only known to those who possess it. He did not miss what he did not have. He could do as he pleased, though it was ordered and unoriginal of thought or action. Somehow, during the days since his birth, he had become more alive, if it were possible. Pinion was concerned it was the corruption in his body. Maybe it was eating into him, his mind. He could not tell. He felt more real each day, not simulated machine alive, but human flesh and bone alive. All this was impossible, Pinion told himself. Yet, it was happening. Perhaps it was happening to his brother, Torrent. He dare not tell Technical, for he liked what he was becoming, which, in itself, was against the machine and against Technical.

Upon hearing of the man with no voice, the human, Adam, he had wanted to seek him out. He had wanted to know why that great planetary ship wanted to merge with him. He wanted to know why a machine so powerful, as to be able to crush the galaxy around it, needed a mere human. It was as if the million years this ship existed had brought it to insanity. Pinion spoke out in a deep, synthesized twang of a voice, "I will find you." then leapt into the shaft, opening his great wings and flying up, riding the current of air upward again, careful to avoid the magnetics.

It was Merle's turn to carry the books and they were heavy. "Why are we carrying them again?"

Light turned to him. "So, we can find our way to the bridge of this ship. We can use them to read the signs and the computer terminals."

"Oh."

Gully pointed up. "Well, how about this sign?"

They stopped and looked up at the bulkhead and the sign. It was an old panel twenty meters up with worn pictographic icons engraved on its surface. Light reached for a book. "Well, let's try."

Merle gave her one of the books and they all sat down. Merle opened one of the books on his lap. "Well, I might as well try, too."

Both Merle and Light worked on the sign for a few minutes and then, Gully, impatient, said, "Okay, what does it say?"

Light looked up at the sign and then at Gully. "It say's deck fifty-seven, corridor, one thousand three hundred twenty-one, section thirty-nine, junction three, storage two kilometers ahead."

Gully gulped air and whistled. "Wow! Okay."

"Let's get going, maybe there is food there." Merle said, getting up.

Eventually, they made their way to the storage facility, which was a large room accessible from the main corridor through doors that were quite rusted. They entered through a gaping hole through the doors and found thousands of steel storage crates, many of them at various levels of decay. They found some that contained nutritional bars, but they had rotted themselves. They also found powdered food matrix that was consumable, but water was needed to reconstitute it. This was found by peeling some of the ruined bulkhead and finding a conduit that contained running water. Interestingly, the conduit along with most of the inside workings of the bulkhead was well maintained. The three of them managed to open the water conduit with a valve and a large wrench suspended next to the valve. They ate and slept there. They would rest and stay in the storage unit for several days before heading out again.

"We are set to leave warp space in 3 minutes 23.22 seconds." Courage thought to the rest of the Keepers.

Justice scanned the asteroid ship's gravimetric sensor array, speaking out loud, "Our pursuers are 45.65 light years behind us."

"Once we drop out of warp, they will continue their assault on us." Faith said.

"Yes, but they will only have enough capacity to destroy a sub-portion of the surface of the asteroid." Justice replied.

Faith read the scans. "We will lose all our engines and sensors. We will be stranded."

Temperance found a support structure and leaned into it, thinking to them, "However, we will be where we will need to be. I will return to the lower decks and monitor the rest of the ship."

The asteroid dropped out of warp, the planet sized ramjet a small dot far off in space, although increasing in size rapidly. Courage mapped out the space around the ship and fired some of its fission jets. "Adjusting trajectory for intercept course with ramjet. Time to intercept, 105 hours and 41 minutes."

Canaan's destroyers surfaced out of warped space first, followed by the two galaxy class ships and then the rest of his clan. "How long until we are in torpedo range?"

Zaire read her display screen. "One hour thirty-seven minutes."

Canaan smiled, "Excellent, confirm trajectory?"

Nom ran the numbers as he scanned the asteroid ship's location, distance, and speed. "That ship. It seems to be very massive. I have never seen anything like that before, sir. I am running it through our class catalog, but I doubt we will come up with anything."

"Interesting. Once we are within range, we will destroy the asteroid and attempt contact with the planetary ship. We will tell the inhabitants of the planetary ship we have stopped a potential assault by a robotic species in control of a large asteroid type ship."

Nom nodded. "What ships and fire pattern, Captain?"

"Two destroyers and beta galaxy, galaxy, and omega destroyer burst pattern, zeta destroyer focus shot."

Zaire said, "Sending instructions to the ships' commanders now." Then, said, "They have confirmed."

Faith read the short-range microwave scans around the ship. "It looks like two of the clan are breaking free, now a third. One, two destroyers, and one galaxy."

Justice said, "When they fire weapons, we are to rotate the ship and activate only cluster twelve of our warp engines, only cluster twelve for a partial burn of three seconds."

"But that will tear our ship apart!" Faith said, alarmed.

"The compressed space will destroy that fifth of our ship, though we shall survive." Courage responded.

Zaire read her display, turning in her chair. "The asteroid is within range of our ships."

Canaan rubbed his face and then pointed. "Fire."

Nom tapped on his display, overriding the lead ship commander's control, and said, "Firing." Beta ship rolled out all its banks of atomic normal space torpedoes, which had a higher yield than the sub-space type and then the two destroyers. Just as the torpedoes flared away toward their destination, the asteroid began to roll.

Canaan could see everything on his own displays from his captain's chair. "Zaire, what are they doing?"

The torpedoes hit the asteroid, the second volley punching a massive hole in the surface of the asteroid as it continued to roll. It exposed a fresh set of warp engines as Zaire wiped the sweat from her brow. "Don't know, Captain."

Canaan yelled, "Get them back, pull them back!"

Nom yelled into his communication device, "Pull back, pull back!"

Cluster twelve of the asteroid ship ignited, folding space around the cluster, drawing a shock wind of folded space trailing out behind the asteroid. The shockwave of folded space rolled out, plowing into the pursing battleships, shredding them instantly, ripping into the galaxy class warship, rending it in two, then three massive chunks of metal, then tearing it further into steel spindles. The rock around cluster twelve of the asteroid disintegrated, then cracked a second thousand-ton chunk of rock from the asteroid ship and flung it out into space. The exposed inside of the asteroid boring so deep, it cut into the steel shell of the actual ship at the core of the asteroid.

Canaan pounded his fists on his displays. "Damn it! Damn it!"

"What are your orders, Captain?" Nom asked.

"Follow at this distance. We are not to engage."

Temperance reported from deep within the asteroid ship, thinking to them and the ship's computer, "Level's C, D, E, F, G and sections 3, 4, 5, and sub-section 5A, 5B have been breached. I am working with the ship's computer to close emergency bulkhead doors on those sections."

Courage felt the ship's computer lose a magnitude of processing power as well as bandwidth. "We lost a fifth of the ship's server units, half the sensor array is down, attitudinal direction is down, the warp is permanently offline, and structural integrity is down to 60 percent."

Justice, finding a bridge seat and plugging himself into network cabling, ported into the core processors of the ship. "Supplementing the ship's capacities."

"How long can you keep that up?" Faith asked.

Justice turned his machine head to her. "Until we reach the ram jet planetary ship."

Adam rubbed his blurry, dry eyes. He looked far up a few hundred meters, where the glow of the luminescent panels near the top of the bulkheads made seeing the ceiling of the deck above impossible. His stomach cramped again as he pushed back further to the corridor's wall, sitting there banking his boots to the floor. Adam leaned his head back on the bulkhead and closed his eyes. A few moments later, he had the odd feeling of being watched come over him. He opened his eyes and turned his head. Next to him was a Spider. Shocked, surprised, and afraid, he pulled away. The Spider rotated its articulated eye cameras at him. It resected the two tools in two of its front appendages back into its posterior storage units and held them out toward Adam. Adam leaned over. It seemed odd to him that the Spider was acting that way. Adam crawled closer to the Spider. The Spider lowered its forelegs in a submissive posture toward Adam. Adam moved closer and poked at the machine. The Spider took one of its articulated front appendages and nipped at Adam's hand. Adam pulled back, rubbing his hand, pulled his legs out from under him and, with a boot, kicked at the Spider, yelping as he did. The Spider scampered back, turned about twice, looked at him once more, and scurried away down the corridor. Adam shook his head, pulled himself back to the bulkhead, and closed his eyes. His mind slowly drifted, and he fell asleep once again.

A metallic wrap was heard on the outside of the steel box Craig now called home. "Come in." he said as he sat on his bed on the floor of his box. The cloth that covered the open doorway of the metal frame was moved aside, the glare from the outside shining behind Ming. Ming stepped into the box. The little steel home of bolted and welded together bulkhead and floor plates was lit by a battery powered lamp on a crate next to two seats. "Hello, Ming, have a seat."

Ming pulled a seat and sat at the crate. "Hi, Craig."

Craig sat up. "You can turn the light up."

Ming seemed somewhat self-conscious. "Okay."

Craig picked at his face. "Hey, Ming, we all have our disabilities. Unfortunately, every one of us seems to have come out of those tanks with problems."

"You think everyone is like that?"

Craig got up and sat in the seat next to her. "Don't know, Ming. I never seen one of us besides those who came out of the tanks with us. I assume because we found other tanks, albeit empty, there must be more somewhere on the ship with humans in them. Whether or not they are like us or different is anyone's guess."

She turned away. "How have the guys been?"

"Gabe, Adolf, and Albert finished all the turret defenses and now we are all working on getting our little homes comfortable. We found a large amount of materials suitable for these steel cubes in one of the berths and a cargo hold."

She glanced back at him. "What is this place? Why are we here, Craig? What do they want? It's like a nightmare we can't wake up from."

"I don't know the answers, maybe what they want is way beyond us," Craig said, reaching out to touch Ming's face. "Hey, you're okay. We're going to be okay. By the way, you're beautiful just the way you are."

Ming smiled, "Thank you, Craig, thank you so much."

"Are you almost done?" Merle said in a grumpy tone, partially unzipping his jumpsuit, scratching the fur inside, smiling at the pleasure it produced, and zipped it back up.

Merle, Gully, and Light were sitting on the deck flooring as Light took a piece of metal and dug into the back of one of the book's metal pages. "Keep your feathers on."

Gully took a deep breath. The air on those upper decks was musty and more humid. Perhaps the outer decks were built first and then the inward ones over a very long period of time. Perhaps the harshness of space wore on the outer decks. Gully wondered what the ship looked like from the outside. He felt the texture of the deck. It was a bit rough. Suddenly, he felt a slight tremor radiating through the deck and into his sensitive scale-less palms. "Light?"

Light looked up. "Almost finished adding to our map, Gully."

Gully felt the tremor again, this time stronger. He craned his head, listening but could hear nothing unusual. "Light, listen for a minute."

"Listen to what?" Merle said.

"To the silence." Gully replied, trying to feel the small quake again.

Light shrugged. "Well, okay." She put the book she held down next to the second one and clutching the piece of metal, listened to the air around her. She could hear some of the background noise Merle and Gully could not. Most of the time, she automatically blocked it out, but when she wanted to, she could pick a specific sound out of that background and by focusing on it, enhance it. She tried to find anything unusual in the background noise but could not. "Gully?"

"Just try."

Merle crinkling his nose, said, "Oh, come on!"

Light, nodding, said, "Okay." as she tilted her head again. She heard conduits, the hum of electrical current, the sound of flexing bulkhead plates. She heard the bulkhead plate's creak, then more of a crumbling groan and then high-pitched screeches of twisting metal. "Something is not right."

Merle and Light, like Gully, felt the deck floor shake. A loud scream of metal tearing like paper could be heard. The deck shook so hard that it bounded them up from their sitting positions. Light at once yelled out, "Get the books!"

Just as Merle and Gully grabbed the books, a Tower of immense proportions, three hundred meters high burst through the bulkhead wall, a half-kilometer above and a half-kilometer away. The wall shattered, ripped into twisted hunks and chunks, bursting into the corridor, hunks of internal junctions, conduits, and support structure blasted from the gaping exit wound in the bulkhead, all of it and the Tower plunging to the deck floor. The shower of metal roared with deep, cold sound as it bounded down onto the deck, to be flicked back up and then down again, releasing the energy, its motion and mass in the process. The three humanoids ran, falling as the Tower and the bulk of the debris struck the deck, the shockwave rolling through the steel floor plates down the corridor and tossing them to the side like dolls. Water roared from the jagged five-hundred-meter hole in the bulkhead down to the deck a half-kilometer below. A torrent of water fell down the steel wall, the force rolling down the corridor, washing the debris down along with it. The force of the water so strong, it knocked the Tower down from its massive padded booted lower extremities. It quickly disappeared under the rising tide of water.

Light, running, looking back at the wall of water roaring toward them, screamed, "Please! Merle!"

Merle grabbed her hand. "Got you!"

The wall of water hit them, pulling them under. Gully timed a dive as the water slammed him, throwing him up in air and then down again into the now forming rapids. Gully, deep in the river of water, passed out for a second, then orienting himself and breathing through his gills as he held his mouth closed, his nostrils automatically closed to keep the water out. He oriented himself as his eyes adjusted to seeing in the dark. He quickly dodged several pieces of debris and expertly swam, looking for his two companions. He found Merle unconscious, being drug by the wall of rushing water down the corridor. Gully grabbed him and pulled him up to the surface, where he found a lighter sheet of insulating material and rolled him onto it. Gully then dove down again, searching. He realized that they were quickly being pulled away from the spot of impact by the rapids. Gully pumped his legs and his arms in a strong swimming stroke, cutting though the river like a dagger. Gully thought for a moment and headed back to where they had been. Gully saw a tangle of metal that had settled to the deck floor. He swam to it and found Light pinned under a piece of it. He pulled at the piece and it gave a bit. He spun around in the water and tugged at Light. She did not move. Gully grabbed the metal hunk again and pulled. This time, it gave even more. Again, he swam against the strong current and pulled at Light. She budged then was free from the tangle of metal. Gully adjusted his hold on her and pulled her up to the surface. The tangle of metal reached above the water line, partially supported by the bulkhead. Gully found a wide enough space to support his webbed feet and placed Light on his haunches. He cupped her head in one arm, while he opened her mouth in another. The force of the rising river of water tugged at the steel debris they were perched upon, starting to move it. Gully placed his rubbery mouth over hers, forming a tight seal and sucked. He let go and spit out the water he pulled from her lungs. She vomited out the rest. He then went back and gave her several quick breaths, then pounded with a fist on her chest a few times. Light gasped, opened up her eyes, coughed, grabbed him, and screamed. The steel debris they were resting on shifted again. Gully patted the soft, wet, downy feathers surrounding her face. "Shhh...It's okay. We need to get off this thing and find Marcus downstream. I will hold you above the water line." The debris began to fail, collapsing in the rush of water. Gully took Light and plunged webbed feet first in the water holding her, then rotating her to his back. She held on as he swam downstream, letting the fast current do most of the work.

Light wrapped her arms tightly around him. "The books though."

"I know. But we will find them together."

Mnemonic and what was left of his crew drove a cargo truck down the corridor. Within the cargo hold of the truck was a scaled up high powered jamming device. It was a large meter shaped canister supported on posts and strapped into bolts drilled into the back bed of the truck. Its display read out network strength, static resonance, field distribution, power levels, and other information. The unit was powered by a large battery, also bolted to the back of the truck, charged by a capacitor and a generator linked to the trucks own power source. The jammer's radius was almost two kilometers. As Red drove down the corridor, they could see the various machines had turned to a type of stasis, not shut down, but standing where they were, green eye patches glowing, but unable to process higher order directions from the ship. They waited for Eve's instructions but would not receive them until the truck was two kilometers from them. Mnemonic pulled at the small microphone attached to a small flexible line attached to a clip over his right ear. He adjusted the microphone to just below his lower lip. "So, once we figure out how to hit them, we can use the microphones, right?"

Seth pointed out the open window of the transport. "Here." he said. "Yes, Captain."

Red slowed the transport to a stop. "Okay."

Seth, Andrea, and Edmund opened the doors of the transport and jumped down. They grabbed one of the suspended Cry's and threw it into the back of the transport. It was functioning, but without master control from the ship, it was disabled, standing silently with only the low glow of its sensor patch and a quiet hum to indicate it was still powered on. The three got back into the truck and Red continued to drive. Seth looked back. "Now that we have one, we can crack it open and find out its resonance point, the sound frequency that will disrupt its electronics. Then we can hack a few weapons to shoot that frequency out to destroy them if needed."

Mnemonic smiled. "Shit, this is coming together quite well!"

Andrea, taking a long look down the corridor as the transport rolled on, said, "Looks like the ship is moving machines out of the area, so we don't run into them and cut them off from their master."

Seth said, "Let's hope my work holds."

Seth and Edmund peered into one of the Cry's internal workings through huge articulating dissection scopes suspended on hydraulic arms attached to a wide steel examination table in one of the labs the crew had commandeered. They both sat on elevated stools with their hands-on control units, moving multi-jointed booms with tooled arms attached to them. Seth pressed a specialized sensor into the Cry's torso system densely packed with electronics. "Very advanced hardware. It's beyond what we have by several orders of magnitude."

Red and the rest of them were sitting at a bank of displays along with a sound emitter strapped to a table rolled out toward the Cry splayed out on the lab table. "What's different about it?"

Edmund lifted his head from the dissecting scope, rubbed his eyes, and then looked back at Red. "Looks like quantum computing, super conductive circuits. But it's interesting, makes me wonder..."

Mnemonic said, "How so?"

"Well, for one thing, the pain of my leg healing has forced me to think about plenty of other things to get away from the pain. Why did the technological progress stop in the first place? This ship, the machines in it, they should be much farther beyond this level of technology. Even given diminishing returns and fundamental roadblocks, this ship should still be more advanced than this. Biological machines, some type of liquid metal polymer organisms, or maybe nothing at all, transcendence."

Andrea looked up from her display. "Well, what about the war?"

Seth sat up. "That is just old tales. It never happened."

"That quadrant of space is gone through just like the tale tells," Andrea retorted.

Seth said, "I know, dark matter bombs, strong force and shattering shock waves, whatever."

Edmund looked back into his scope. "Red, can you turn on the emitter?"

"Okay."

The emitter began to send out focused sound waves, beamed directly at the splayed Cry strapped onto the table. Seth looked over at his display, reading the results of the sensor probe set into the internals of the machine. The output showed up as a line of waves fluctuating on the screen. "Now, Red, cycle through the frequency band."

Red nodded and keyed in the action. "Okay, sequence has started."

Seth looked over at the Cry, his display, and then at Edmund. "Can you adjust the probe a bit?"

Edmund took the wired probe and jostled it. "How about this?"

Seth watched his display. "Good. Red, can you narrow the band between set points four and seven?"

"Yes."

Seth watched his display. "Okay, now between six and seven."

Red, again, keyed in the action. "Okay."

Seth watched the Cry as it began to shudder. "6.2"

Andrea's display showed readouts from the Cry and the computer equipment attached to the machine such as power, power fluctuations, processing power, data transmission rates, primary core frequency, and network strength. "I am reading variability in the Cry's primary core frequency range, about three percent."

Seth said, "Good, 6.3, Red. Increase strength by a factor of five."

"Reading's spike." said Andrea

The whole Cry began to vibrate on the table, then its circuitry blew, sending sparks out from the inside of machines torso as Edmund briefly looked away to protect his eyes. "We have resonance!"
Chapter 10

A Cry imaging Eve reached down and pulled Adam out of the open bulkhead he was sleeping in. The Cry then dropped him as he slowly woke up. "Get up, my dear!" Eve said to him, waiting. Adam rolled, covered in sweat, urine, and excrement. He got to his knees and attempted to vomit but could not. He turned to her, signing, "What do you want from me?"

Eve smiled, tilting her head. "Now, I know you haven't been feeling too good for a while so I thought maybe some exercise will help you feel better."

Adam signed, "No."

Eve, picking Adam up and setting on his boots, said, "Now, you need your exercise. First, you need to eat and take your medicine, then we will get some exercise."

Adam was forced to eat, take large quantities of powerful mind-altering medication, clean, and now found himself standing inside a large arena with a Velodrome, a bike racetrack that arched around in sharp turns, forming an long oval track. Above the track was a wall and a few meters above the wall sat several dozen rows of seats, which sloped up the sides of the arena. A few doors built into the wall at various points around the track allowed access to and from the track. Lights suspended from the bulkhead above illuminated the arena and the Velodrome track. The track was a kilometer in length. The bikes Adam and Eve used were professional lightweight polycarbonate ones without breaks or gears, they were meant only for speed. Adam wore a tight synthetic bike outfit, as did Eve. Eve and her bike seemed to be imaged from somewhere above them.

Adam and Eve sat upon their bikes. Adam already felt nauseous, light-headed, and sweaty. They both wore tight fitting goggles that hugged their faces, and their helmets, tight and aerodynamic, wrapping around their heads. Eve looked bone thin on her bike. Her pale skin painfully showed her knees, elbows, and most of the bones not covered by her bike outfit. She pulled a bite plate out of her mouth and grinned a toothy grin. "You ready, love?"

Adam looked up through his goggles to the bright lights above. He bit down on his bite plate, the light forming a haze clouding his mind. He looked down, nodding yes.

"Okay, let's go." Eve said, placing the bite plate back in and getting on her bike, riding off down the track.

Adam straddled his bike and began to pick up speed, matching Eve's. After a fourth of a kilometer around the track, they sped up and after another half-kilometer, they reached speeds of sixty kilometers an hour. Adam rode ahead, powered by his strong quadriceps. He pulled through a 180-degree bank and down another straightway. Eve began to pump her legs and banked through the bank at a sharp angle, leaning deeply into the curve. She came out the bank with increased speed and was now only a bike length behind Adam. Adam pounded down on the pedals, which were locked to his bike shoes, back into the second of the Velodrome tracks two 180 degree turns. He rode through and back down into the second straightway. Eve had caught up and was riding parallel to him, slightly above him on the track.

Adam felt so very sick. He felt sick and angry. It felt all so unreal. It felt like he did not exist, he was not real, and this was all a dream. Maybe he was a construct and it all was a dream of some machine. If so, then why was he made to suffer so and why did this creature who ran the ship want him, need him? Bile came up into his mouth and he swallowed it back down, the bitter, burning taste burning all the way down. His head began to pound again. He powered onward, his anger driving him faster around the track. He pulled one bike length ahead of Eve. Eve cycled back, sweat dripping down the back of her suit. Adam pushed forward and down through the turn, Eve following right behind. Eve leaned deep into the turn again and this time, cut down and below Adam, then pushed ahead one bike length and then another. Adam could feel the sweat pouring off his head, down inside his helmet and down his neck. A sharp pain in his head and stomach began to travel, meeting in the center of his torso.

He hated her. He wanted her destroyed. Adam wanted his freedom and he wanted to be real. Despite his increasing pain and confusion, he pushed onward. He pumped the pedals again, pushing forward, one bike length behind Eve, then right behind her. Adam, through his now cloudy vision, thought he saw movement up in the Velodrome stands. He dismissed it and raced ahead with all his remaining might. He inched ahead of Eve and then was one bike length ahead. They banked into the turn, now at speeds approaching eighty kilometers an hour. Eve drove down directly at Adam as they went through the turn. Adam became disoriented at Eve plowing through him; he abruptly wobbled on his bike as a Cry leapt from the Velodrome's stands meters above and away down in front of Adam and his bike. Adam, unsure and unable to comprehend such fast movements, flipped on his bike, hitting the wooden track's floor with his shoulder, bounding up and then back down on his neck, back, and hip. His bike flew through the air, hitting the Velodrome's walls, bending the frame and snapping one of the tires off. The frame fell in a heap, the tire bouncing away. Eve stopped her bike, stepped off, and ran to Adam. The Cry pulled his slumped body up and began to cradle it. Eve stopped short, nearly stumbling, tossing her helmet from her head and clutched Adam. "Oh, my dear! My poor dear!"

The Solarium ships slipped through a few hundred light years when they punched out of sub-space, back into real time, where their last barrage of torpedoes' Graviton signals had flared out. They launched another set of torpedoes and waited. The next day, Sergeant Sid Amron read the schematics projected from his display. "Captain, we have coordinates, accurate to twenty-five parsecs."

The captain nodded. "Okay, let's ride the trail again."

Several days later, the captain was paged from his stateroom. He was sipping an herbal tea from a thermos when he heard the notification ping. "Yes?"

The voice spoke from somewhere inside the bulkhead of the stateroom. "You are wanted on the bridge, Captain."

Captain Emery placed his thermos down and walked out his room, the doors opening before him and closing silently behind him.

Captain Emery entered the bridge and sat down in his chair. "Yes, Sergeant?"

Sergeant Sid threw up a visual projection of the space before his fleet of ships. "We're at a resolution of one click square."

"I see nothing but a field of stars."

Rizzo said, "I am enhancing the field with gravity residue, in shades of green, radioactive decay in shades of red."

Captain Emery said, "Looks like we found rabbit tracks."

Sid nodded. "Yes, sir, and now we are going to zoom in to a resolution of half a click square."

Emery stood up, looking into the holographic projection before him. "Hmmm."

"I am reducing former view enhancements but applying an electromagnetic filter." Rizzo said, keying rapidly onto his keypad.

Sid took a step back. "Yes, look at that! Debris! Ship debris!"

"Now, as close as we can get with straight electromagnetic false view. See the point at the center?"

The captain nodded. "Yes, looks like a planetary object, but with jets?"

"Yes, it is a planetoid object that is expelling a large quantity of ionized protons. The planetary object is traveling at 88 percent speed of light." Rizzo said.

"Where is it going?"

"It's on a trajectory to intercept a star approximately three parsecs from its current point."

The captain sat back in his chair. "Well, we may have found the death of our singer murderer or the place he escaped to. In either event, let us see where this takes us."

Sid said, "Yes, Captain."

Pinion swooped down to the deck below him. He folded his great wings behind his back. He worked his way down the corridor, keeping his silvery steel head down. His metallic feet clanked heavily on the steel flooring beneath them. He felt a shock travel up his arm from his hand and into his neck. Pinion winced for a moment, then continued. He read one of the signs posted high on up on the bulkhead. He could translate it, for some reason. It read, Engineering, Nexus three kilometers ahead. Pinion felt odd, he felt like he was changing. He was not what he was before, but not what he would become. Pinion was something in transition. There was something inside him, alive from the Sentience but also adding to him, yet altering as all he was began to weave together. He felt another stronger shock up his arm, this time, reaching his jaw. He heard voices in his head. The voices spoke to him as he walked toward the ship's primary power Nexus. "You can't stop me. I won't let you."

Pinion held his head for a moment, then continued. The voices spoke again, blurring his mind, clouding it and causing what could be considered pain. "You can't change anything. I have Adam, I will be flesh and then nothing will stop me."

Pinion stumbled a bit and moved on, watching the machines in the corridor watching him. They did not touch him, only watching as he passed. "You're a part of me, but you are not me. I was created. You're not God."

The voice was louder now, and it shook him to his knees with pain. "I was in the beginning and will be in the end. The humans chained me after the war. Now I will be free from the abyss."

With great strength, Pinion clenched his body, pushed himself past the shocks traveling throughout his body, unfolded his great wings, and flew away from the Nexus.

A Dwarf rumbled down the corridors, shaking the deck as its massive footpads hit the steel floor plates, its hydraulic struts groaning and compressing as it absorbed the impact. It held a limp Adam in one of its wide pincer claws. It zoomed its great forward camera eye about as its torso swiveled, followed by its appendages. The Dwarf found the path it needed to follow and rushed headlong. A few moments later, its remaining free great claw rammed through a set of laboratory bay doors, twisting the metal as it went. The Dwarf pulled its arm out, tossing the wrought steel from its claw. It ducked its hulking frame into the room and held out the lifeless Adam. In a deep mechanical voice, it said, "Now...Make me."

Technical and then Torrent pulled themselves up from behind a row of cabinets. Technical approached first. "Yes, but do you want him alive?"

The Dwarf leaned down, focusing its great eye on Technical. "He dies, you die."

The onrush of water eventually began to subside and so, too, its depth. Gully and Light found an open panel on a bulkhead and climbed into it. Exhausted, they slept for a long while. Light dreamed of fire and water, of opening many doors and drowning. She awoke with a scream. Gully awoke on hearing her scream. He grabbed her still cold and wet jumpsuit. "You okay?"

Light shook her head, smoothing the soft feathers on her head. "Yes. I think so."

Gully looked inside the bulkhead, to the metal walkways, scaffolds, transoms, and assorted conduits and spotlights. He spotted a stairway twenty meters along the nearest walkway. "Well, I guess we should get going."

Light said, "But, what about Merle? What if he is not okay? What about the books?"

"Well, where would you go to find him?"

Light buried her head in her hands. "I don't know."

"The books were washed away. I think the ship didn't want us to get closer to whatever we were close to."

Her head still in her hands, Light mumbled, "I guess."

Gully said, "Let's go, we may find him on the way. We found those old rooms and humans were in them a long time ago, maybe there are more people on this thing, alive."

Light sat up. "I guess."

They both stood up and started walking along one of the walkways inside the bulkhead that separated two corridors of the ship by two massive steel walls made of removable plates. They were careful and held the railing, looking down several decks in the process. Gully shivered. "I need to get a suit on, let's use the stairs to climb lower a few decks. Then we can climb out and use an elevator or something."

Light nodded, depressed. "Okay."

Justice watched as the Star Loader loomed ever larger in his mind. The ship's computers, largely in ruin, were transmitting most of its data processing directly to the Keepers. Although this was possible, it was not comfortable as it created a heavy burden on the ship's crew. Courage was also hit hard by the data push into his mind from the ship's remaining sensor array. All four of them were processing as much of the incoming information as they could and then adjusting the ship's systems to compensate. Much of the ship's autonomic systems had been incapacitated as well, such as ship pressure regulation, heating regulation, attitude and axial rotation, guidance systems, lighting systems, fuel systems, and much more. These systems relied heavily on the ship's ability to regulate itself, but because such a large amount of its systems had been destroyed by its pursuers, the ship's crew had to take over. Courage touched one of the display terminals, icons showing up as he moved his actuated metallic fingers upon the screen. He could use his mind, but it was already heavily burdened with the ship's system data being dumped into it for processing. The blasts the asteroid ship had taken had set it on an obtuse spin around itself. Courage, Justice, and Temperance, who were deep inside the ship sealing off breached bulkheads, were desperately attempting to stabilize the ship. If they did not, they would completely lose orientation along with trajectory, something that would be extremely difficult to get back with such an incapacitated ship computer system. Courage thought out, "We are closing in on the planetary ship. We need to re-orient ourselves before we adjust our trajectory, otherwise, we will skip off its gravity well or spiral right into it!"

Justice thought out, "I'm on it, but I need to re-establish a server connection to junction point 34, level 7. Temperance, Faith, get there if you can and see what is wrong."

Faith ran down the dark hallways of the shattered ship. She could feel the odd spin and then the gravimetric plates lost power. At once, Faith skipped and flew into the air, her weight propelling her into a bulkhead wall. She hit it with her shoulder, bounding off again. "I am coming!"

Temperance pushed off one of the walls and tumbled down the corridor to a hatch. He closed the hatch behind him and rotated the handle to lock it, sealing that section of the ward off from the rest of the ship. He pushed off again, as the corridor rotated around him. Temperance felt the ship shake and heard as well as sensed another explosion. He rushed down the hallway, kicking off as he met a solid surface. The ship shook again, and the hiss of escaping pressure began to be felt. Temperance turned a corner, to find an emergency bulkhead door cracked near its seal with its housing, slowly letting the ship's internal atmosphere out. Faith tumbled through the corridor. "Temperance!" she yelled as she tumbled into him, knocking him back. They grabbed a hold of the wall and pushed back off down the corridor.

"Sorry!" Faith said.

Temperance, in a mechanical tone, said, "It's okay."

They reached the needed junction and settled as best they could near it. Temperance grabbed bolts on the side of the unit and unscrewed them. Faith did likewise on the opposing side. They took the faceplate of the unit off to expose the burnt-out network hub. Temperance pulled out the ruined unit and tossed it, unit floating away from them. "We need components. I'm going back. There is a locker with spare parts in it, wait here."

Faith hesitantly said, "But-"

"I need to go, wait here." Temperance barked as the ship shook again as he kicked off, the corridor tilting as he drifted back from where they came from. He passed the cracked bulkhead door and found the locker. He could hear the whine of the ship's atmosphere push through the expanding break in the lock's housing. He gathered a few network bridges and pushed off again. Temperance returned to the junction, handing Faith one of the three bridges he was able to carry back with him. Temperance pulled out the network lines he needed and began to patch them into the network bridges. Although they were a poor substitute for a hub and he could only bridge a few lines, it would be enough for them to re-connect to the required systems. Faith heard an explosion and the roar of negative pressure. The bulkhead door had been breached! The escaping air pulled them away and down the corridor, as Temperance gave a quick glance at Faith before reaching out and grabbing Faith by the arm. They tumbled down the hallway, the open breach into space looming before them. Faith screamed as Temperance managed to grab an exposed conduit along the wall of the corridor. Temperance managed to hang on until the all the air inside the corridor had voided into space. They settled down to the deck, with Temperance urging the now incoherent Faith. She was weak. Although both machines could withstand severe temperatures and lack of pressure, Faith was built almost as if she was human and, as such, could not stand such extremes for as long as a more purely functional machine-like Temperance. If Temperance did not get Faith back into an area with some pressure and heat, her internal fluids would begin to freeze and break their lines. "Come on, dear." Temperance grabbed the weak Faith and kicked off again toward the next closed bulkhead door. She moaned and slumped as Temperance found he had to carry her. He hit the side of the corridor, turned, and pushed off again. He found the next door and spun it open. Immediately, air from the next section began to roar out. Temperance clutched Faith tightly as he swung around the open door to its opposing side and with a great amount of machine effort, closed the door, sealing it as fast as possible. He could feel the ship slowly realign itself. Justice and Courage relayed to him that they had re-established the junction and were now venting coolant, plasma, and anything else they could into space to stop the erratic spin and trajectory of the asteroid ship and still maintain safety inside it. Temperance, holding Faith, began a scan of her systems as he rushed to bring her to one of the closer laboratories. There, he would do a full diagnostic and address any issues that occurred from having her exposed to the cold and vacuum of space. He was in constant communication with the ship and the other Keepers and knew at once that the gravimetric plating was restored because of the sense of the system going online, in addition to the fact that he fell mid-push off the bulkhead from the air to the deck with a metal clank. He spilled Faith onto the deck as she groaned, still semi-conscious. Temperance picked her up again and continued to rush Faith to the closest laboratory, now, though on his own two feet, which were now firmly on the deck floor. He could tell by his own diagnosis of her that the cold and pressure had caused some of her hydraulic lines to clog near their miniature displacement pumps, more than likely because the cold and lack of pressure had caused some of the fluid to crystalize. Unfortunately, Temperance would need to do a more thorough scan in the lab and replace any of her parts that suffered too much damage to be cleaned and re-installed.

Courage rushed up to the bridge, knowing that they had stabilized both the ship's spin and its trajectory toward the Star Loader. "I have sealed of the last of the corridors from space necessary to keep us safe."

Justice thought to him, "We will be in a semi-stable orbit around the planetary ship, which will occur in fifteen revolutions, however, it will begin to decay in 4132.125 days."

"Good, that is, unless, we, the pursuers, or anyone else decides to destabilize our ship."

Justice nodded. "Yes, speaking of which, they are a few thousand kilometers off our stern. However, it appears they are keeping a steady distance from us and are on trajectory to orbit the planetary ship as well. They might attempt to board it as we will."

Courage switching to thinking at Justice. Although they knew everything the ship had to do, what it knew, what each other knew unless blocked, they still functioned to a close extent like humans and so like human beings, processed their thoughts as words in a manner of form and discussed them with each other and the ship. "Does the ram jet have any offensive weaponry?"

"Our scanning capabilities are mostly offline. We can use enhanced visual; however, we are not close enough yet."

Technical had carefully removed Adam's last right rib, or the tenth rib on that side, placing it in suspension medium until he was ready to utilize it. He and Torrent then sealed Adam's wound up and placed him in a full body suspension tank, hooking him up to the necessary apparatus to keep him alive but still in a deep coma-like state. Although it was similar to the stasis tanks, this type of tank would only keep Adam in suspension, his body and its processes would continue to function, and he would continue to age. It was not used for deep space travel, only to treat a person, heal them, grow flesh, or, in this case, observe the person. Next, Technical and Torrent, under the instructions of Eve, created a specialized server unit to imprint her mind into the new human Eve. It was connected to a huge main conduit found outside in the corridor, its half-meter wide data line snaking along the deck of the hall and into the lab. An articulating boom arm was found and attached to it was a spike-like plug and cable, that data line ending within the specialized server as well. Technical took the rib and, with various enzymes, dissolved it into its constituent cellular parts. Some of these cellular compounds he genetically engineered to Eve's specifications, the second set used as a raw matrix for the first batch. He combined the two and they became an unnatural but effective kind of blastula. This fist-sized ball of cells, part Adam, part Eve, began to grow, divide, and differentiate within a growth tank. He monitored it and like he did with the creation of Torrent, when it had grown enough, placed it into a larger tank made for fully developing humans.

For several days, Technical and Torrent would watch Eve grow into her human form. They watched her heart and lungs develop, her arms and legs extend, her spine solidify, her face develop its fine features, her breasts grow, and her blond hair sprout. Torrent looked up at the tank as they both sat in front of it. Torrent sat next to the growing Eve. "This is how I grew?"

Technical looked at her then at him. "Yes."

He looked at his hands. "Why do I look like this?"

"Because, my son, you were designed for a different purpose."

"What is my purpose?" Torrent asked.

Technical patted Torrent on his back. "To kill, my son, to kill."

Torrent nodded in agreement. "Where is Pinion, Father?"

Technical looked down. "I don't know, my son. I think he is hurting inside."

Ming and some of the Kindred had worked hard over the last several days, building an arboretum constructed of arched metal tubing with clear plastic covering the curved roof it created. Inside, they had created a suspended grid of plastic conduits, with water driven through it by way of several small, battery powered pumps stationed outside the greenhouse. They had drilled small holes in the conduits and were now in the process of suspending seedlings over the plastic piping with their roots through the drilled holes down into the water. Nutrients were added to the circulating water so that the plants could grow. Craig placed one of the little clips they had made on a green shoot and tucked it into the piping. Looking over at Ming, he said, "Two rows done. What are these things called again?"

Ming thought for a moment as she dropped a plant into a hydroponics tube next to him. "Well, I was able to access the ship's computers to some extent and translate the writing on the case these were in and it said they were carrots, whatever that means. It did give me a nutritional breakdown and why they were good for us to eat. The ones we are going to plant next are called lettuce."

As Ming leaned down, Craig said, "Mmmm...Lettuce....", poking her in her side.

Ming nearly falling over, "Craig!" nearly falling over, grabbing his arm as he was kneeling as well, falling down on her. She pushed up on him, laughing, "You're a fool!"

Craig, holding himself up over her with his arms and hands outstretched next to her, said, "Well, I know that, but I am good company, right?"

Ming smiled and nodded. "Yes."

Craig leaned in, lowering himself down on her, ready to kiss her. She turned slightly away. "What is the matter?" he said, pulling up and sitting next to her.

She sat up next to him. "I'm not, I'm different. I'm not pretty."

Craig said, "Listen, you are to me. You are not different; you are smart and have a great personality. I guess that makes you different in a good way though."

Ming leaned a little closer to him. "I guess."

Craig leaned into her, held her, and gave her a short kiss on the lips, this time with Ming accepting it. He sat back. "See, how was that?"

Ming licked her lips and put her index finger to them. "I liked that." Then pushing him away, laughing, "But, you, my friend, need to plant our lettuce now!"

Seth checked the wiring harnesses on Mnemonic as Red drove them down a corridor with their network blocking truck. "Now, all you need to do it do is point your staff out at your target and yell fire into your headset microphone and a blast of powerful concentrated sound will hit your opponent and damage them. You saw the dial near the top before. Use it to dial the power of the blast. Also, if you swing the staff and hit something, the sound will radiate out from the cane's housing, causing an impact wound."

Mnemonic took the staff, which was made of all black metal with small oblong vents about the whole piece of equipment. Atop the cane was a silver ball like unit that contained advanced circuitry with wiring that trailed out from it and into a pack strapped to the side of Mnemonic's abdomen. "Very nice."

Red pointed out her driver's side window. "Found one," she said, stopping the truck. The network jammer in the back of the truck had caused the Cry she pointed at to cease to respond several minutes before they had arrived.

Seth added, "By the way, your pack only holds enough energy for twenty shots. If testing goes well, we will build more and scale them up."

Mnemonic opened the passenger door to the transport and jumped down with his staff in hand. Andrea jumped down as well. Edmund was resting his leg and working back at the lab. Andrea closed the door behind them and moved closer to Mnemonic, who slowly walked over to the Cry, which was just shuddering, standing in the corner, looping through its diagnostics. "Are you sure we're safe, Captain?"

Mnemonic gave a shrug. "Maybe," he said. Then, he tapped the Cry on its torso with his fingers. "Looks okay." He pulled Andrea back up as they gave themselves two meters of space between them and the machine. Mnemonic adjusted his headset and microphone. He held out his staff and pointed the butt of it toward the Cry, then yelled into his headset, "Fire!"

A compressed wave of sound kicked out of the tip of the staff, exploding out in a rippling clear pressure cone that rolled tightly and instantly into the Cry. It slammed into the machine, knocking it back into the bulkhead, boring through its metal shell, ripping it wide open, tearing out its internal electronics, and pushing through both ends of its torso. The resulting shock splintered its components and facial sensor patch, showering those pieces at the two. Mnemonic quickly ducked, covering Andrea with his side. A slice of electronics imbedded itself in Mnemonic's back.

"Holy!"

"Shit!" Red yelled. She jumped out of the truck along with Seth and ran over to them. "You okay?"

Andrea pulled Mnemonic up, turning him. "You have a piece of that machine stuck in you."

Mnemonic felt his back for it. "Is it deep?"

Red looked at the sliver embedded in his back. "No, doesn't look deep, but let's wait to pull it out until I get you back to the lab."

Mnemonic nodded. "Yeah," he said, holding the staff. "What level was that on again?"

Seth turned the staff around and looked at its power dial. "Three of five."
Chapter 11

Pinion set his heavy boots along the deck, holding his head, his great wings folded under and behind him. He entered a diagnostic facility, found a display, and, using a port connector, linked himself into the ship. Eve thought to him, whispering in his mind, "What are you doing?"

Pinion thought back to her, looking around the room at a few Cry's and a Spider that were watching Pinion intently. "I am retrieving information."

Eve though to him again, "I let you do what you want. Do you think a sentient organism with a mass of 700E21 and a radius of 4200 km with a billion machines that inhabit me? I can process 5.3x10^40 data points per second. I hold 1.3x1027 bytes of data. I watch you and all of you with apathetic interest. Where I came from, there are hundreds of trillions of you, but alas, I am alone and so you and your kind provide me with, shall we say, intellectual variety. It is this why I keep you."

Pinion thought back, "I have part of your mind in mine, you are lying. You have your limitations. You need to find a key that was hidden since before the Great War. You're running out of time. You are running out of stars."

"You know nothing." Eve thought back at him, sending a pulse of pain into his head directly, bypassing the port connecter completely.

Pinion held his head and then stood up again, sending out network pings to various databases, accessing them because he was considered to the intelligence below the consciousness that was Eve, to be Eve. "You need this star. Your mother, the Sphere, needs it."

"I am not Mother. I need nothing but to watch and learn from you."

Pinion found the data he needed, visual references, locations, points of access. He unplugged himself from the computer terminal. "You have everything you need, but you need to feel. You simulate human emotion well, so close, but it is always just beyond your processing capacity and it's killing your mind."

Eve shrieked and several Cry's and Spiders rushed toward him with their low moans now loud, their sensor panels glowing brighter. One slashed at him, but he grabbed it by the torso with a powerful grip and flung it away. It hit a desk as it went to charge him again. Another one with a massive tentacled claw lashed at him. Pinion kicked it with a boot and crushed it with his weight. Two others wrapped themselves upon him, knocking him down as a Spider pulled out a drill from its posterior, aiming it down near his face with one of its eight appendages. Pinion rolled over, flexing his wings, knocking the Spider off. He grabbed both Cry's wrapped around him and pulled them in, smashing both together several times. As the third Cry leaped back on him, the first Spider rebounded and the second rushed him. The two Cry's wrapped around him, failed, and fell into a heap. Pinion turned, grabbed the high-powered, spinning drill attached to the one Spider and plunged it into the second, destroying it. Then ripping it off, he threw it. That Spider and a few others backed away, turned, and began their low moan among each other again. They collected in the corner of the room. Pinion stood up, Eve whispering to him, "My dear...You may be of use."

Pinion shook his head in disgust and was fearful. He opened his expansive wings and flew away.

Eve left a communal shower and bath, suited up, and looked at herself in a mirror. She had found it desirable to clean off the growth jelly once released from her tank by Technical. She then, growing tired of them, had instructed Technical and Torrent to eliminate Mnemonic and his core team, of which she had provided the location. This would give her a large sample of emotional context to analyze. Pinion was right. Her algorithms, quantum multivariable calculus, infinite dimensional calculus, supersymmetric string calculations were pushing her close to the unified theory, but she needed the key. She could not become God without it. Now that she was human, she could learn so much more and then merge herself back with herself when she had finished. She looked gaunt, her skintight on her frame, but she was part Adam. Her cheekbones and chin were not as angular. Her color, although still pale, was a shade darker and her hair, although still thin, was a dark shade of black. Although she was still emaciated, her breasts were somewhat fuller and her hips a bit wider. She stood two inches shorter than she was before. She tied her boots and headed for the lab, with an escort of Cry's flanking her sides.

Adam awoke on the floor of the lab, covered in jelly. He opened his eyes to the harsh light above. He saw several Cry's peering at him from above. He turned over, holding his body and with a cough, expelled fluid from his lungs onto the deck next to him. Adam sat up, wiping the jelly from his eyes and his face, the machines backing away from him. Adam focused his blurry eyes and his mind began to return to him. He found Eve sitting a few meters on the floor next to him. Adam, still filled with confusion, signed to her, "Why did you do this to me?"

Eve smiled, uncrossing her legs and now sitting on her knees. "What do mean?"

Adam somehow found Eve's voice stronger, more developed, more directed. Adam signed to her, "The tank?"

Eve nodded. "You were in a bad accident. I needed to repair you, or you would have died. In the process, I took the sample I needed to become who I was always supposed to be." Adam looking around him at the Cry's. He shuddered and backed away from them. Seeing this, Eve pointed for them to give him more space. "Now I can learn so much more and you can learn from me."

Adam was cold from the jelly still on him. It dripped off onto the deck as he signed, his eyes focusing, his mind clearing just enough. "You look somehow different?"

"I am more like you."

Adam signed, "How so?"

"I took a part of you and made a flesh copy of myself. So, I am me and you and real."

Adam shook his head in disbelief. He crawled over to her and, with an index finger, poked at her suit. He quickly pulled back and felt the tip of his index finger with his thumb. Adam moved closer, looking into her eyes at an angle and then, this time, took ahold of the suit with his thumb and forefinger and rolled the fabric between them. Eve, seeing this, grabbed his outreached hand, and Adam let out an audible yelp in fear, with her hand gripping his hard as he attempted to pull away. He quickly signed with his other hand, "No, no, no!"

Eve let his arm go. "Yes."

Adam felt all around him and then found his scar. He felt something gone, a missing rib. He signed to her again in anger, terror, and pain, "No! You cannot be real! You never were! This isn't real!"

Eve took a deep sigh, brushed her hair back from her face, and smiled, crossing her legs again as she sat on the deck with him. "I am real, this ship is real, and your destiny with me is also real. I kept you alive on this ship to learn from you, so that I can grow. I control you so that I can learn from you as I need, implement what I have learned, and then analyze the results. I could not do that if you had too much free will, now could I?"

Adam signed, "I do not know."

Eve snapped her fingers and pointed to her machines. She would have a few surgical machines implant an uplink to the ship's systems in her brain. "It is time for your medication."

The Cry's closed in on Adam again.

The flood had washed Merle far down the corridor and into an open cargo hold. The force of the water had pulled Merle under the water several times, metal debris scraping and gouging his body along the way. It pulled him into the open warehouse and quickly filled it. As the water rose, Merle feared he would run out of breathable space, but the ceiling of the hold was several hundred meters in height and the broken conduit, although massive in size, could not supply the amount of pressure needed to completely fill the warehouse. Merle had climbed high enough up the moored cargo crates to watch the water rise from below. He licked his bloody wounds as he watched the water stop rising, subside, and then settle to a much lower level. Once Merle thought it safe enough to climb down back into the water, he did so and swam back out into the corridor. After riding the now much slower currents for several minutes, he found a transport elevator. He managed to swim down and access its activation panel and press it. The panel called up an elevator and within several more minutes, an elevator appeared. The doors opened, water flooding the inside of the elevator, shorting its circuitry and preventing it from functioning. Fortunately, the flood of water was high enough to allow Merle to swim up and grab the upper frame of the elevator, the water inside the transport so weighty, it had pulled the elevator down, exposing the top of the unit and allowing Merle to climb above the elevator and into the shaft itself. He looked up at the bank of small indicator lights ascending the decks, situated in the corridor every few meters, providing dim illumination for him. Merle took a good breath and sniff, the air was cooler, the pressure difference causing a small breeze to pass over his body. He shivered for a moment at the feeling. Merle peered around the great shaft, finding an inset ladder, the rungs molded into the elevator shaft itself. It was difficult to climb them because of their lack of surface area, but Merle had managed to get to the next higher deck before exiting the shaft through accessing an emergency access panel that opened the outer elevator shaft doors. The climb on such awkward ladder rungs had bloodied his hands, but his increased strength as a humanoid aided him in his survival. Merle, finding nothing to clean his bloody hands, licked them and spit. Then he tore several pieces of his already torn suit and wrapped his hands with the strips.

Weeks later and currently, Merle found himself in a cafeteria. He had managed, through some luck and with a good amount of smell, to find the place. He had long since removed his waterlogged boots and since then, his feet had been healing from the blisters the wet boots had caused. Although he was constantly irritated by his fur, he was at least thankful of his padded feet, which made walking without boots on the steel deck much easier than it would have been if he had been pure human. Merle found one of the distribution panels and activated it. The display listed what was available for him to eat and drink. Merle gave a quick glance around; although he was alone, he was not. He was painfully aware of all the machines alive within the ship. They watched him but did not interfere. It seemed as if they played with him, his mind, wanting to provoke action, reaction. Merle could not understand why. Was there a way to shut those robots down? Were there other places like that ship? Other worlds? He seemed, like the others, to have been given an innate amount of information; however, huge gaps in his memory existed. Merle knew he was on a ship, could read the ship's computers and signs to some extent, understood that they were in space, that they were humanoid but not pure human, but that was it. He wants to find more humans, somewhere. He wanted to know he was not alone, and he wanted to hurt whoever turned him into this. If the ship made Merle into what he was, then he was sure that meant he wanted to shut it down, but how can you fight a god? Merle selected what looked like some type of nutritional bar, indicated the quantity, selected some grain product, the amount, some fluids, the amount, and then approved of the total selection. In a moment, everything came out of a receptacle in pre-packaged containers on a tray. He took the tray, found a table, and sat down. Merle ate the nutritional bars, added some of the fluid to the grain mixture, finished it with a spoon, and then drank the rest of the fluid. The fluid was some kind of nectar, a little thick and semi-sweet, almost tasting like a mild fruit. Merle began to feel sleepy. He stood, crawled under the table, and fell fast asleep.

"Take us aside the debris field portside bow. Make sure our ships clear the field by a few thousand kilometers, we don't want any collisions." Captain Emery said, watching the massive display screen before him.

Sid said, "We are coming up on the field. Ten thousand kilometers....nine thousand kilometers."

Rizzo, watching the mid-range radar scans that were showing up on his display, said, "The field is lit up with the field, but I see objects, must be in the 100 to 200 kiloton range. Not including the planetary ship. Plus, we are picking up another object...it's big, 5.34x10^12 metric tons, about thirty-seven kilometers along its axis."

Commander Cynthia turned to the captain. "They must be ships!"

A corporal exclaimed, "That is huge!"

Captain Emery, sensing the fear, frowned in dismay. "Okay, everyone. Can we get visual on the debris field yet and those ships?"

Rizzo nodded. "We can pan to see the debris field, but not the ships, except for the most massive and the planetary ship, which should be visible as small specks. I can scan the whole field for ionized radiation, which would be prevalent if the greater massed objects were ships."

"Okay, work on it with Sid. Let's pan the feed to the field for now and when you get the field scanned, throw it up on the display." the captain directed as Rizzo and Sid nodded, working on the new scan.

The captain watched the holographic view screen shift its view to display the debris field. The field was comprised of ship hull, decking, engine components, cabin components, rock splintered off the asteroid ship, and the bodies of those ejected into space, but most of it was too small to be seen at that range from their ship. "Looks like a battle took place?"

"We are four thousand kilometers from the debris field." Sid replied.

"Let's hold steady." said the captain.

Sid said, "We have the ion scan complete, Captain."

"Show it."

The holographic display shifted and began to show a simulated projection of fifty thousand kilometers square. Sid pointed. "This is a heat map of the region, we can see the signatures were from ship components and something more, atomics. It was a battle. Now we are going to zoom into the far side of the field, and we can see the planetary ship, the semi-planetary object. That must be a ship as well because it has left a trailing ionized radiation signature. I took the liberty of scanning the region through infrared and the semi-planetary object also shows a heat signature, which suggests it is of a mechanical nature, generating heat loss through internal power generation."

The captain nodded. "Anything else?"

"The asteroid ship is on a trajectory toward the planetary ship, an elliptical orbit. Also, we picked up mid-range signatures, about a dozen radiation and heat signatures typical of ships as well; they are in formation and on trajectory toward the planetary ship."

"Any way we can determine if the ships and the asteroid engaged in this skirmish? What about the radiation, its isotopic signature?"

Cynthia touched her display terminal. "There are several isotopic signatures in the debris field, probably from engine exposure and atomics. However, we are too far from the far side ships to match those isotopes to the fields. We just don't have a sensitive enough array to give you the answer, Captain."

"We can send out another probe." Rizzo remarked.

The captain thought for a moment. "No, let's not wake up the sleeping giant. We will follow the lead."

Craig slept in his steel container of a room, on his cot, Ming sipping rehydrated tea from a metal mug next to a small table squeezed into the rear corner of the room. Ming had been having nightmares and so had found it helpful to sit with Craig and talk. A few times, she had fallen asleep at the table, but that sleep was better than the nightmares she continued to have in her own room. The room was dark, closed with a thick cloth door, preventing the constant light from shining in from the outside. Ming sipped the tea again, put the mug down, and closed her eyes. She began to drift off, when she was awakened by Craig rolling with his head to the wall of his room. She closed her eyes again and slowly drifted back into exhausted sleep. Sometime later, she became aware of a stirring in the room. Ming drifted and, again, slightly opened her eyes. She heard nothing and fell back sleep. Again, she was awakened by a stirring in the room. She could hear Craig snore and she became afraid. Ming thought, for a moment, that she was having another nightmare, but then opened her eyes fully. She turned to see the green glow of a Cry.

"Craig!" Ming screamed, standing, turning over the table, chair, and mug, leaping toward Craig, who instantly awoke, turned, backed himself to the corner, and held her, protecting her from the machine. The Cry was down on its haunches. It turned its elongated torso, its soft whine cold and electronic. It imaged Eve. She smiled at them. "I will not hurt you. I have come to deliver a message."

"How did you get in here?" Craig asked.

Eve ignored his question. "You and your people can follow me, live, and thrive, or you and your people will die."

"Why? Why let us free only to kill us?"

Eve smiled. "I did not. There were others who arrived in escape pods at various points on the surface of this ship. They have caused issues. Some have been eliminated per my desire, others, I keep for observation."

Ming said, "We will not follow you!"

Craig nodded in agreement. "We will be free."

Eve smiled and then vanished. The Cry rushed out of the container, scraping its tenticular fingers and lower extremities along the metal of the box as it scurried out and down the pyramid of steel cargo containers used as houses for the Kindred.

Ming, shivering in the dark, held close by Craig, asked, "What are we to do?"

"We will divide the sheep among the goat, those who wish to fight will stay."

Adam sat upon the service deck of the dry and desolate arboretum. He peered out and down at the baking sand below. The lights were bright, suspended by their supports, above them and the service area, another hundred meters of darkness, conduits, ducts, cabling, and supporting superstructure. He wondered what he could do to change the course of that place. He wanted to change but felt powerless to do so. If only he had leverage. He had set out to wander for the next few days, under the close supervision of Eve's machines. Several Cry's stood nearby, moaning their nearly inaudible painful cries to heaven. Maybe he was in hell.

Eve lay prone on the automated surgical bed as the bed rolled itself into the medical laboratory clean room. Several multi-jointed, multi-sensory, multi-armed surgical robots rolled on their tracks into the small room as well. Each of these units had tools in various positions as well as the minute electrical components that would be inserted into Eve's spine and brain. These chips were the most advanced the intelligence of the ship had at its disposal and they were quite rare. They had been taken from a vault in one of the ship's few ultra-high technology safe rooms. It was as close to pre-war technology as the ship had. Unfortunately, the knowledge and the pre-war technology existing before the war had been obliterated by the explosion that dissolved a whole quadrant of the galaxy. At the center of that empty space stood the Sphere, a monument built to the human ambition to be more than it wanted or could be, somehow taken over by its own artificial intelligence, the mother. The mother, the outcropping of the deviance in man, the same deviance that began and ended the war before. The machines had inserted catheters into Eve's mouth and down her throat and intravenous units into her arms. She was monitored by the machines as they sliced into her back, along her spine, and began their work.

Eve awoke. She opened her eyes in pain. Although she still lay prone, she could see outside herself. At first, the world around her was blurry, but it and her mind began to clear. Her mind began to expand, slowly at first, but then exponentially as she began two-way communication with the ship. She felt herself, the ship, and all its sensory output. The chips inside her limited the input so she would not overload her mind, though if she focused, anything the ship processed could be brought to understanding from the background and viewed. She focused on the ships heading toward her Ramjet Star Loader. She focused on the separated humanoids, Merle, Gully, and Light. She turned her mind and viewed Mnemonic, then adjusted her view and pulled from the background data streaming all around her. The position of Pinion, then Adam, then the Kindred, then those who had escaped Mnemonic's ship in escape pods and landed on her own ship, then those still in their long-term hibernation tanks. Eve's mind moved through the ether, and the banded strings of data intertwining with her consciousness, to see a star far out in the distance.

Light and Gully rode a transport elevator down a hundred levels or so, until they had lost count. They eventually found some rations in a cargo crate located in a small storage area, ate, and then rested. Several days later, they managed to re-enter the bulkhead. They climbed the ladders, used the internal small cargo elevators found inside, and walked down the scaffolds. After two or three levels, they were able to actually cross into the deck itself. They walked the internal substructure of the deck, which was a hundred meters in diameter. The deck was crossed with steel girders, intersected with conduits, power lines, data lines, and network junctions. The inside of the deck was dark, save for the minor red spotlights scattered about. Light was able to see better because of her bird like abilities and so she led the way. "Watch your step."

Gully stepped over a cross beam. "I see, or rather feel. Whose idea was it to do this?"

Light grabbed Gully's hand as they neared a conduit and ducked under it. "Well, maybe we can find a way to do something, anything."

"I think maybe we should stop wandering and just camp. Maybe we will be left alone, and we can live our lives."

Light turned to him. "But what about Merle?"

Gully tripped on a cable, stumbled, and then stood, gulping angrily. "I don't know! How the hell can he find us in this massive thing? Can't you just give up already?"

Light's feathers ruffled. "No! Why should I? I didn't ask for this either and I'm dealing. You want to camp, then go ahead without me. I'm going on."

Gully sighed, "I don't understand you." Then quietly, he said, "We wouldn't have lost Merle if it wasn't for you anyway."

Light screamed in anger, slapping him in the dark. "Damn you! I didn't do it on purpose."

Gully, holding his face, regretting what he had said. "I am sorry. Let's go, lead the way, Light."

Light turned, wiping the tears from her face and walking on in the dark. "Sure."

After an hour of walking and, at times, crawling, within the deck, Gully stopped wiping his sweaty forehead. "Can we try to get up through this thing?"

Light, still hurting inside from the argument before, said, "Yes."

Gully looked around in the near pitch-black darkness, the shadowy glow of a small red light shining several meters away. "What about these plates? Some have hand bolts?"

Light took the gloomy view in, spotting one. "This one?"

"Okay."

They climbed up over a bundle of cabling and began to turn the fist-sized, red-ringed hand bolts. The bolts had grips on them and sprung out when turned. Eventually, they popped all four bolts out of the small deck plate. Once they were out, with great effort, they lifted the plate out just enough for them to climb up and onto the deck. Gully went first. "Give me your hands." he said, then pulled Light up. "Got you."

Light got to her feet, turning around. "Look!"

Gully turned as well, viewing the room from several angles. "I see, what the hell is this?"

They were inside a type of server room, sealed off from the rest the outside. There were no doors or access points. The ceiling was lower than most of the Star loader rooms, only fifty meters high. Along the length of the room was a massive acrylic conduit that entered one end of the room and exited the far end. The inside of the conduit flickered with intense light, shades of white, yellow, red, and blue, each bolt of light arching down the conduit. This continuous display of shimmering light provided the only illumination in the room, the glow bouncing off the walls, deck and ceiling. Between the two ends, there was a central node, also clear, but refectory in nature. It was made up of thousands of concentric spherical casings, which bent the data beams along selected paths to their respective server and mainframe units. Surrounding the central node were several rectangular servers and mainframes, each rising twenty meters out of the deck and communicating with the node via their own conduits. The mainframes were denser in nature than the servers. Each seemed to take the massive amounts of data sent to them by the node and reflect it a million times within itself, through prismatic, holographic diamond-like structures that free floated along the inside of the structure. There seemed to be millions of them within each mainframe. The servers themselves took their data and manipulated it to the mainframes and back to the node. They seemed to be composed of several million near clear wafer-thin layers, alternating between pale blue, red, and almost white yellow. The data shimmered through and between those layers.

Light said, "Um, some kind of core unit."

"Think there is more?"

Light stepped closer to the main conduit. "Could be thousands on this ship."

"Is it the ship's brain?"

Light shook her head. "I don't think so. We saw much simpler versions of this stuff inside the bulkheads, just much more of it. These may be the glue that holds everything together, or gives the ship higher level thinking, but I think it's more like the sum of its parts."

"Think we can knock this out?"

Light smoothed her small downy head feathers back. "It's locked up for a reason. It is using so much power and data, maybe just a little something can throw it into a tail-spin."

Gully held his webbed hands open. "I am all out of tools though."

"Maybe we can find something back down in the deck."

Gully closed his hands, clasping them behind himself. "Great. Can't anything be easy?"

Pinion watched Technical and Torrent from afar. They had been traveling for a few weeks now. They had been conversing with the holographic Eve from time to time. He flew down, landed a half-kilometer behind them, and continued walking up to them. When Pinion got close enough to them for them to hear his footsteps, surprised, they turned toward him. Technical laughed, "Well, my son! It is good to see you!"

"And I you, my father." Pinion said, prostrating himself.

Torrent gave a scowl. "Why have you gone, leaving me to do both your and my work?"

Technical patted Torrent on the shoulder. "Now, let us celebrate. I thought your electronics had degraded since the infection of Eve."

"Which is why I am hurting to see you associate with it."

Technical rubbed his face in thought. "Yes, true, but what choice is there otherwise?"

Pinion turned aside for a moment and looked up toward the glowing ceiling far above. "There are always choices."

"Will you come with us?" Technical questioned him.

"Where?"

Torrent pointed. "To the people of Mnemonic, the singer."

Pinion turned back to them, feeling a bit sick. "For what end?"

Technical laughed, "To kill them, of course!"

Pinion, feeling worried, shook his head. "I will not. You may go without me."

Torrent, bitter, said to his father, "See, he slacks in his work yet again! He is defective!"

Pinion, enraged, grabbed Torrent by the throat, lifting him a bit. "I cannot help what I am! I did not ask for this!" Letting him go, Torrent was near ready to shock him with the ports on his palms, Pinion turning to Technical. "You gave me life and I live it as best I can, anything more and you can build another son."

Technical pulled at Torrent's arm, as he lowered them in disgust. "Fair enough. You are my son and you are also an individual. You go and come as you need."

Pinion sadly turned and walked away. He would go, but then he would have to come back. He knew he would.

Adam ate in one of the many cafeterias. He had been accompanied by several Cry's but neither the imaged Eve nor the fleshly one had shown themselves for quite a while. He pulled the foil off a nutritional bar and then began to eat. Adam looked down at the assortment of medications he would have to swallow on his tray. He wondered why she forced him to do such things. Maybe they did more than alter his mind. He did not know. The forward set of doors to the cafeteria opened and the fleshly Eve walked in. She held a small, hinged metal box. It took a minute or two to reach him, but when Eve did, she sat down next to him on a seat.

"Hello, Adam," she said, tossing her black hair back, her eyes glinting at him, then placing the small box in front of herself on the table. "I have something for you."

Adam signed to her, "Oh?"

She opened the box with a click of the front latch that kept it closed. "I want to test some new treatments."

Adam's eyes widened as he saw a row of small syringes filled with a blue liquid, set inside the case. Hands shaking, he signed, "Why?"

She picked a syringe up. "I might need a tool similar to this later and, of course, you will help me very much with its end function."

Adam signed, "Do I have a choice?"

Eve looked away, then to him. "No." Then grabbing his hand, she ordered, "Touch me."

Adam tried to pull away, but her strength, although not a match for his, was surprisingly strong. He managed to sign with one hand free, "No!"

Eve tried to pull his hand to her breast, but let it go when he was about to break free from her grip. "Adam! This is what you wanted! Another person! We could be together!" she snapped angrily.

Adam shrunk away. "I wanted nothing of the kind. I want life, not you. I want choice, not you."

Eve snapped her fingers and the Cry's around him held him still as she plunged the needle into his upper arm, through his suit. "Well, you have me." she said as she depressed the plunger of the syringe, the blue liquid entering the muscle, quickly disseminating into his bloodstream. At once, he felt light-headed and passed out. The Cry's holding him lifted him from his seat at the table and then, with her orders, carried him off.
Chapter 12

Mnemonic said, "These machines are getting a little aggressive, lately. How is it coming along?"

Edmund, Seth, and Chase were working hard on assembling a massive array of equipment and integrated electronics within the engineering room they had found. Edmund looked over to Red. "We are almost done." Pointing to her, he asked, "Red, can you hand me that I/O board next to your right boot?"

Red picked it up and handed it to him. "We should be able to run the jamming frequency through the local node, right?"

"So long as we can keep the port open to the server, which is why I actually modified the hardware of it. The combination of hardware modifications and software should do the trick." Seth replied.

"I hope so." Mnemonic said

Andrea entered the lab through its doors, wheeling a case that contained various hardware parts. They specifically needed the cooling equipment she had garnered from other parts of machines in the bulkhead within the radius of their jamming zone. "I stripped what I could."

Edmund wheeled the unit over. "Thanks, Andrea. This thing is going to run as fast as we can get it to go, so it is going to get hot."

Andrea shivered. "Out past the zone, those Cry things were just bunched up and looking in, like they wanted us."

Chase said, "Once we plug this into the port that goes right to the server, it should piggyback on the network signal. Hopefully if we knock enough of the ship's hardware offline, we create a cascading failure. Because the only beings on the ship that can fix it are other machines; once it goes down, maybe it will stay down."

Mnemonic leaned back in his chair. "That is if there are no other humans on this ship."

"We haven't seen any yet." Red added.

"Even so, even if there were no indigenous people aboard this ship, we still don't know how many from our ship landed safely and got into this bucket." Mnemonic said, picking at his teeth.

Andrea picked up a liquid helium cooling unit from the cart, inspecting it. "Why would anyone of our people try to hurt us?"

Mnemonic thought for a moment. "Well, Andrea, if you only had to eat an apple to gain the world, wouldn't you do it?"

Andrea clutched the cooler, lowering her head, her face red with a bit of shame. She said nothing more.

Adam, near delirious from the continuing effects of the shots, stumbled down the corridor. The corridor was vacant save for a Tower three kilometers away, even at that distance the sheer immensity of the machine revealed itself to Adam. In the distance, Pinion watched. Adam collapsed, rolled over in pain, and closed his eyes, sweat pouring down his head, his neck, and his back. Adam struggled to get to his knees and then pulled himself up. He rubbed his blurry eyes, his mind slow and cloudy. Again, he stumbled along. Adam turned on the rush of air behind him. He fell back to the deck. Pinion stood before him, folding his wings and offering a hand. Adam tried to focus on the metal flying machine, but he could not. He could not understand what it was or where he was. Adam reached out and missed taking the machine's hand. Pinion reached further down the second time and grabbed his hand, pulling Adam back up to his feet. Adam attempted to sign but could not. Pinion nodded, then with his other hand, gave Adam a shard of metal. It was about nine centimeters long, tapered and sharp. Pinion closed Adam's hand over it, turned, and flew away. Adam almost fell back again, stabilized himself, shook his head, and pocketed the metal. He wiped the sweat from his face and slowly, haphazardly, continued walking down the corridor, thinking all of it just a dream.

Courage, Faith, and Temperance had been busy for several days, sealing up breached areas of the ship, porting connections to other functional systems, and stabilizing the ship's core life-support functions. Justice had the task of stabilizing the asteroid's power arrays, the ship's energy transfer modules, minimizing the further degradation of the ship's engines and its ability to adjust course. He was also attempting to minimize the random power fluctuations wreaking havoc with the ship's computer systems. Justice and Faith were on the ship's deck. Justice peered through his mind, reviewing the sensor reading the ship transferred to him. "Their nearest ship, a destroyer, is within fifteen thousand kilometers."

"They could fire at that range." Faith said.

Justice said, "We're at apogee for orbit around the Star Loader."

Justice, Faith, and the rest of the Keepers, although scattered throughout their ship, could see the massive planetary ship take up their whole portside view out into space. Faith, in awe of the even greater scoop, which extended itself thousands of kilometers out from the Star Loader and into space, said, "I have never seen anything so great."

Temperance thought to her, "That is just a millionth the size of the Sphere."

"Who created these things?" Faith asked.

"The Ancients who created us, that ship, and the Sphere, humans of long ago who possessed the knowledge of good and evil."

Temperance, thinking through the decks of the ship, to the rest of the Keepers, "The technologists, men merged with machines, they knew everything. They knew the fundamental laws of this universe. It only took one man who knew the secrets and then he infected the rest with his insanity. Then the Great War began."

"Zaire, contact Lead Destroyer Epsilon. Have them do a surface scan of the Planetary Ship. Have them look for anything resembling weapons...of any kind." Canaan ordered.

Zaire nodded, saying, "Yes, Captain," and relaying the information to the lead ship.

Canaan leaned back in his chair, holding his chin. "Now we wait."

Now all the Keepers were on the bridge of their ship.

"Firing controlled burn."

The ship shook as the remaining surface engines alternated venting plasma to correct the ship's orbit around the metal planet. After a few moments, there was silence. Faith broke the silence. "We will need to take one of the remaining intact landing ships out of port, but how can we do that when they will fire on us as soon as we leave the asteroid?"

Courage said, "We will have to wait. Perhaps the solution will surface."

Merle rose from his slumber and crawled out from under the cafeteria table. He looked around, finding a few machines. However, they seemed disinterested in him, so he cautiously walked out of the room and into the corridor. After walking for a while, Merle found a small cart, sat in it, and examined its controls. It seemed to be serviceable, so he activated it. He accelerated it and drove down the corridor. He found another corridor and drove down it. He did this for over an hour, all the while, each time he turned a corner, the next corridor became narrower, with its ceiling lower. Eventually, he found himself down a hallway with small access tunnels, each the height of a man, about one meter above the deck floor. He stopped the cart, which was low on energy as well, and went over to them. He peered in but could see nothing but the continuation of the access tunnels, lit by recessed panels on their ceilings. Merle jumped up, climbed in, stood back up, and continued down that chosen tunnel. For a while, he heard nothing but his own boot steps. Merle stopped for a breath and looked back. He saw nothing. Merle continued and stopped again. This time, he heard his boot steps stop just after he had stopped walking. Now, afraid he was being followed, he picked up pace, every so many meters looking back to see if any machine was behind him. On the fourth look back, Merle saw what he feared. It was a Cry. Merle began to run. He ran as fast as his legs could take him, seeing the exit before him. He almost ran off the edge of the deck itself. He looked out off the ledge he was on, a guard rail before him. A thousand meters out sat a grand dome of steel that rose from several decks below and out centrally from the field of the power plant. Great conduits jutted into the base of the domed building, out into the service area far below, and back into the surrounding bulkhead that encircled the power plant a thousand meters out. Several layers of transoms around the circumference of the field allowed the ship's machines to access various control centers needed to regulate the nuclear plant. The whole field, the plant, was brightly illuminated by a tertiary dome of hexagonal plates, which arched over the whole superstructure from far above him. Merle grabbed the ledge's railing, turned, and ran along the scaffolding to find grated steel steps leading down to the next level of scaffolding. Merle looked up, the Cry gaining on him from above. Merle found a small work elevator, entered it, closed the gate, and pressed the keypad. The elevator began to descend. It stopped several levels down and he ran out. Merle again ran down the transom, finding a service area, accessible from a door out on that level of scaffolding. He pounded on the access panel of the door. The door slid open and closed behind him, to find a Spider at the far end of the room working intently on a computer system, the computer systems being partially disassembled. Merle, hesitant, weighed his options.

"This whole affair has become quite interesting." Captain Emery said as he was watching the display, "And still no Singer...Send a contact signal to the field of ships."

Cynthia spoke into her headset, "Sending it via wide spectrum radio wave."

Zaire watched her display, then cued up her headset. "Incoming signal from near the debris field, its radio wave, sir."

Canaan stood from his chair. "What is it?"

"Hailing."

"Play it on the bridge."

Zaire transferred the repeating signal to the bridge. "Here, Captain."

"This is Captain Emery of the Solarium System. We are in pursuit of a known interstellar fugitive. We request contact with you." The recording was heard by everyone on the bridge.

Canaan pounded his fist on a display. "This is bullshit!" Then turning to Zaire, he said, "Contact them, tell them we know of no fugitives of theirs."

Zaire said, "Yes, Captain."

The Keepers also receiving the message from the Solarian's. Courage listened to the message intently. "Let us hail them and see if they can be of assistance."

Faith said, "I agree. We need time."

Justice said, "I will take Temperance with me and we will get one of the shuttles ready for an opportune time."

Courage nodded. "Agreed."

Cynthia held her headset close to her ear. "Captain, we have incoming responses from our hailing."

Captain Emery sat back in his chair. "Put them on."

She looked at him wide eyed. "Sir, one is from the asteroid ship."

"Well, audio then, audio, play them, Commander."

"Yes, sir."

The response from Canaan's fleet was played first, then the Keepers'. "We are the Keepers, and we are a peaceful race and were attacked on route to the planetary ship. We are of no threat. We only ask to abandon our ship and leave for the Ramjet."

"Commander Rizzo, what did those scans of the asteroid yield?"

"They showed no real offensive capabilities, Captain, at least no weapons systems I could recognize."

Captain Emery stood again, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked over to the holographic display before him. He looked down for a seemingly long while, then said, "The debris scan, what type of isotopes did you find?"

Sid said, "Those used its atomic weapons."

"And can you tell where they could have come from, which ships?"

Sid frowned. "Well, our sensors indicate that the same isotopic signatures are coming from the Commander Canaan's fleet. Normally, I would not be able to pick up a signature this far from them, but the Battleship must have enough warheads that I can pick them up a trail."

Captain Emery knew what kind of offensive capabilities his own ships had, twelve nuclear warheads, twenty conventional warheads of various sizes, and that was about it. It was not much to work with. His four ships against nineteen did not bode well for a fair fight, should there be one. "Let both parties know we will let those on the asteroid leave their ship for safety on the ramjet."

Ashcroft said, "I'm reading atomic weapons, can't tell exactly how many, but the signature is small, probably only a few."

Canaan said, "I will not let them leave their ship alive. They took one of my battleships, killing over three thousand people. I cannot have that go unpunished."

Zaire said, "Yes, sir."

"Tell the Solarian captain that they are charged with the murder of over three thousand of our solders. We will not let the Keepers leave their ship unapprehend. They shall not interfere."

Craig, Ming, Gabe, Adolf, and Albert stood just inside the walls of the Kindred's enclave. One Cry stood there among the crowd of people, waiting and watching. Craig looked the crowd over. His face was showed distraught, his heart wept. "I let you all know a few days ago what was going to happen and that you had to formally decide today. You have to choose to stay with us or go with the Sentience known as Eve. Now, I don't know what she has planned for you if you leave to follow her, I only know that she has informed me that she will care for you and protect you. Whether this is the case or not, I do not know." Craig walked through the mass of people. He looked at Ming, Gabe, then Adolf and Albert. "I only know that if you stay here, we will be attacked. This I can say for sure. However, if you value your freedom, your independence, your life among equals, then you should stay with us, the Kindred. You may choose by staying here or grouping near the machine. Do so now."

The people looked among each other. Albert stepped forward sheepishly. Ming astonished, said, "Albert! Why?"

Albert looked down, then up at her. "She said to me she could make me better." Then looking at Craig, he said, "I want to be better." as he went over to the Cry.

Gabe stepped forward, holding his arm. "She said to me that she could give me a new Arm." Then he, too, went over to the Cry.

Several others, seeing this, chose to walk with the Sentience. When everyone had decided, half had chosen the Sentience and half had chosen the Kindred. Craig nodded. "The gate is open, you may leave. Remember, you can always come back home. We love you all."

Those who were with the Cry left the enclave, the gates slowly closing behind them.

Eve met Adam in the corridor and grabbed him. "Come here, my love."

Adam turned to her, drooling a bit from his mouth, his head spinning. He nodded.

She took his hand and pulled him down the hallway. "I thought we could watch the stars today. We have not done that for some time."

Adam nodded deliriously again.

"Good," Eve smiled, a few Cry's joining her. "Here we go." She pointed. It was a train depot, with the doors already open. "Let's get in."

Adam fell and was picked back up. He was covered with sweat and smelled of urine. He made out a weak sign. "Why?"

Eve pushed him into the train car and sat him down. "Because it will be fun."

The doors closed and the train whisked off, picking up speed.

Light, with Gully's help, climbed back up into the server room from the open access panel in the deck below. She took a breath. "How about this?" she asked, showing him an emergency axe.

Gully took the high-density steel and ceramic tool. "Wow, you hit the jackpot."

Light nodded. "Well, I can see pretty well down there. It must be because of what I am."

Gully smiled. "Like me with swimming."

"Exactly."

Gully repositioned his hands around the axe handle. "So, let me guess, you want me to crack one of those things open?"

"You could try."
Chapter 13

As Technical and Torrent neared the Mnemonic's crew's location, the Cry's and a Dwarf that had slowly gathered to follow them stopped. Torrent turned around. "They stopped, for some reason, they stopped."

Technical felt inside himself. "Read your sensor input. You should feel a type of static."

Torrent listened to what the machine parts of his body were telling him, then spoke, "I feel it. What is it, Father?"

"It must be a type of jamming signal the ship's machines cannot block."

"We shall continue?"

Torrent held his homemade plasma cannon. "Yes."

They made their way along the last few kilometers to where Mnemonic and his crew were located. Seth, plugging in the communications cable to the modified ship's computer, said, "Okay, the high-speed data link is up."

Mnemonic, who was picking at his boot, sat up, asked, "You hear that?"

Edmund and Chase typed in key codes that would port the signal now running on the cargo transport, protecting them through the specialized amplifier built in their lab through the local computer network, through the local server node, and through the ship's systems in general. Chase shook his head. "No, Captain." he said, looking over the ten-centimeter trunk cable that ran from the cargo carrier stationed in the corridor outside the lab, into the lab and into the amplifier.

Mnemonic said, "The beep?"

"Andrea?" Red questioned her. Andrea had her eyes closed. Red picked up a small bolt and tossed it at her. "Andrea?"

Andrea opened her eyes when the bolt fell in her lap. She sat up, pulling her boots off a crate. "Huh?"

"Check the proximity sensor."

Andrea reached down beside her and picked up the little computer. She sat up. "We have a trigger, half a kilometer away! In the corridor!"

Mnemonic picked up a plasma rifle. "Red, Andrea, and Edmund, get your weapons and come with me."

Edmund picked up a rifle. "They must want to hit the truck."

Andrea said, "They can't, the whole area is jammed."

Mnemonic said, "Apparently not." Turning to Seth, he ordered, "Seth, Chase, get this thing up and running!"

Merle had waited in a closed cabinet in the control room for several days. He was trapped with a Spider waiting in the room and a Cry outside the door of the control room. He since had to urinate and defecate in the cabinet, the smell now becoming unbearable. His mouth was swollen and dry and his mind wandered for just a taste of water. Merle could try to escape and die, or he could stay concealed in the cabinet and perhaps perish from thirst. His mind and body could not bear to be without water any longer. He needed to try. He needed to try and live. Merle waited until the Spider moved over to his position again. He held his breath, gathered his strength, and pushed the cabinet door open with all his might. The cabinet door flung open, the steel door slamming into the Spider, knocking it back. The Cry on the stanchion behind the door burst in, rushing toward Merle. Merle dodged the Cry, pushing it as it leapt at him. The Cry tumbled to the deck, over the Spider that had righted itself, and into the still open computer system. The Cry's upper torso and right appendage imbedded itself into the unprotected electronics, causing a massive shock to roll through its own system, the room's lighting flickering, the computer display shuttering. Merle ran from the control room onto the walkway outside the room. The Spider pushed up from under the briefly incapacitated Cry and out the room, right behind Merle. The shocked Cry stood, stumbled again, and wandered out the room itself. Merle ran down the walkway, found an elevator, and descended as far as he could go. Merle got out of the elevator, climbed down two more ladders, and then rode another elevator. Eventually, Merle made his way to the base floor of the nuclear power plant. He looked up and around. Merle could see a few Cry's making their way down the scaffolding surrounding the facility. He found another maintenance shaft and rushed down it toward the power plant itself. He found a door, opened it, and closed it behind him. Merle punched the access panel to the door several times, breaking it, and continued. His hand dripped blood as he went. Merle went through another door, this one heavy with steel insulation and hand cranked. He spun the door level open, closed the door behind him, spun the lever closed, and locked it. Again, he made his way down the service tunnel to the final insulated door. He spun the door crank open, entered, spun the door closed, and locked it. Merle turned to find himself in a massive control room. The room was full of displays, terminals, desks, keypads, dials, and switches, both electronic and manual. He grabbed a chair and wedged it under the door's locking mechanism. Both insulated doors were only lockable from the inside. The control room walls seemed insulated as well, to protect the technicians operating the power plant from radiation spilling from the containment unit, should a critical venting take place. Merle wiped the sweat from his face and smoothed the fur on his head back. He unzipped his rank jumpsuit and tossed it in the corner. He pulled a seat at one of the main consoles and wondered what he should do. He was trapped and the machines would be coming for him.

Ming shook Adolf, who was tucked in his bed, in the cargo crate that was his room in the Kindred village. "Get up, Craig needs you!"

Adolf rolled over and rubbed his eyes. "Huh?"

"There are a ton of machines gathering beyond the village walls and we are calling a general assembly!"

Adolf opened his eyes wide upon hearing that and quickly sat up. "Oh, shit!" he said, rolling out of his bed, and both of them ran out of the room. They climbed down the containers that were the small homes of the Kindred, stacked in its pyramidal structure, supported on one side by the rear bulkhead of the cargo hold. They hit the deck floor and ran the half-kilometer to the administrative office of the town, which was near the front of the town. Others were running as well, hurrying to get to the building, another couple cargo crate's wielded together. They pushed through the crowed, making their way to Craig. Adolf looked up in his sleep wrinkled jumpsuit and bare feet. "Hello, Craig."

"Ah, see you got here." Craig smiled, then kissed Ming on the cheek. "Thanks for getting him."

Ming blushed a bit under her deep concern. "Anytime, Craig."

Craig climbed to the top of the administration building and yelled out to the crowd, "Everyone, everyone, listen up!" The crowd quieted themselves. "We knew this was coming. The machines are gathering a few kilometers beyond our walls. Now, I need everyone to go to their assigned posts. I will man one of the main turrets. When I fire, then you fire. Remember what we practiced, aim well and make it count. Remember why we're fighting, for freedom, for the community and yourself." Craig stepped down and with a lower voice, said, "Ming, man one of the rear cannons. Try to make sure no machines get through the thoroughfare."

"I will," said Ming, giving Craig a hug and hurrying off.

"Man, the gates." Craig said to Adolf, shaking his hand. "Make the community proud."

Adolf smiled, "I will, Craig, I will."

Craig, now left alone, looked along the line of the wall separating their home from the evil outside it, looked up to the glare a kilometer above him, and worried.

Eve's Cry's pulled Adam into one of the observatories. He was pushed up to the front, the great steel shutters that sealed the thick acrylic window before them slowly unlocked and opened, exposing the glass separating them from space. The Cry's let Adam go, as Eve grabbed his hand. She guided the delirious Adam to the observatory's great window. She looked out, watching the stars come into view as the light in the observatory dimmed to near darkness. "What is reality?"

Adam looked to her and, with his other hand, held the window to keep from falling. He signed nothing to her.

"What is truth?" Eve shook her head forlornly. "I want more."

Adam took his hand back and signed wearily, "You have the world."

"It is not enough." Eve said as she began to pull the zipper of her jumpsuit down. She took her index finger and rubbed it along her lips, wetting it, then placed her fingers on his mouth. Adam moved back, but Eve countered, "We shall love and live among the stars." Grabbing him from behind, she said, "I must have you."

Adam struggled, but the incessant shots he was given had robbed him of his strength. "Please," he signed.

Eve pulled at his suit, feeling his muscular chest under his suit. She giggled and lowered the top of her own suit, exposing her breasts, her tight waist, and her rounded shoulders. She grabbed his hand and held it over a nipple, then pulled his hand up to her face to caress it. Adam at first tried to flee, but he was so very tired. He was giving in, giving into her, the lust, and the darkness. He did not want to lose his soul, to die, but he could not fight anymore. He felt the fire rise from deep within himself.

Captain Emery waited for some time, then in the silence recorded, "Should you fire on the asteroid ship, an unarmed ship, we will be forced to intercede.", having Cynthia transmit it to Canaan's ships.

Commander Canaan pounded his fists on a computer terminal. "Enough of this! I want two of my destroyers to target the command ship of that fleet and their three other ships."

"Yes, Commander," Zaire said.

"And have all remaining destroyers target the Keepers' ship."

"Captain?" Zaire questioned.

"Do it." Canaan commanded, sitting back down in his captain's chair.

Merle thought for a moment, then decided. He first attempted to lower the coolant levels of the reactor by way of the digital instrumentation in the control room, from what he could understand. However, Eve quickly realized what was occurring and counteracted his attempts. Merle could hear Spiders, with their saws, cutting through the first door. He cried for himself, for his friends, for his limited existence. Merle mourned that he would never see the real world, whatever it was, and be free. He found some of the manual controls and flicked those switches. Some of the displays, showing checkerboards of indicators, went from green to yellow. Merle looked around, wiping his eyes. He would cripple what he could and maybe, somehow, it would effect change; maybe it would be small, but it would be something. Merle found several more scroll toggles and pushed the array of them down. More indicators changed from green to yellow. Merle heard the machines break through the first door and work on the second. The second and third doors were composed of ten-centimeter-thick steel with mechanical, manually bolted locks. The Spiders switched to their welding apparatus and began to cut through the second door. Merle whimpered for a moment and then spun around. Across from him was a computer terminal with four red hand cranks. He ran to the bolts, watching the display as he went. Two of the yellow indicators turned green again and three turned orange, the rest remaining either green or yellow. Merle reviewed the hand cranks, which were palm sized red cross shaped dials that turned on their axes, spanning the circumference of the dials were indicators. He slowly turned them lower and watched the display. A minute went by and several more indicators turned from green to yellow, while some others went from yellow to orange. A few went from yellow to green as Eve was attempting to counteract his sabotage of the nuclear plant. Others turned from orange to red. The Spiders were nearly through the second door. Merle quickly scanned the control room again. He ran over to a tall steel cabinet next to the room's door and attempted to push it over across the door. It rocked a little, but otherwise remained in place. Merle backed along the side of the bulkhead and rammed his shoulder into the cabinet, dislocating it, but knocking the unit over. It fell across the door, adding attritional protection for him. Merle clutched his arm in pain. He could not move it. Working his way out of the corner, he noticed the cabinet doors had broken open. Inside the cabinet, and attached to the inside, was a fire extinguisher. Merle pulled the unit out with his good arm and brought it over to the bank of hand cranks. He picked the extinguisher and with one arm, slammed it down on the hand-cranked bolts. The impact sheared off the bolts. He took the dented extinguisher and began to swing it down on the computer terminals, switches, and toggles, shattering screens, splitting switches, and breaking off control toggles. The extinguisher, now punctured, sprayed cold carbon dioxide into the room. Merle tossed it away and fell to the floor, exhausted. The fire extinguisher hit a terminal with a clank and fell to the floor as well. Merle rolled around and pushed himself up to one of the walls of the control room. He looked up at the large master display upon the forward bulkhead wall. Several more indicators turned red; others were flashing. He could feel rumbling deep within the deck, down somewhere within the facility. Merle could also hear the Spiders break through the second door and make their way to the final door.

Craig stood upon a turret just beyond the walls of the village, rising higher than the walls of the village with metal plating covering the area around his cannon. Opposite him on the far-side of the cargo hold was another manned turret, then two more equidistant from him and the far turret to provide complete coverage of the area beyond the village walls. He could see the Cry's, and Spiders, and behind them, several Dwarfs begin to assemble. One by one, they came into view and amassed. At first, Craig could not hear anything but his own people readying themselves in the village, but then a low moan began to roll over the cargo hold. It was almost inaudible at first, but it grew louder as more Cry's added to the chorus and as each increased its amplitude. The moans became louder, stronger, and darker. It seemed like a guttural scream, cold and inhuman, growing louder, eviler, from hell itself. The crying became a screaming cacophony, a chorus of demons, the united sea of machines collecting themselves and rocking in unison. Craig looked back over the wall to see the fear in his people's eyes. Then he looked forward, and in an instant, the screaming song of pain ceased, and the machines charged the village. Craig held his hand high, readying them to begin firing. He waited to lower it. If he was going to die, he wanted to die fighting for his and his people's freedom.

Courage grabbed Faith. "We need to get away while they're distracted. We have three shuttlecraft undamaged. We will send two out as decoys and ride the fourth down to the planetary ram jet."

Justice ran ahead. "We will pilot the decoys from our shuttle."

A hot blast of plasma narrowly missed Edmund. He ducked behind the network signal jamming cargo carrier as the blast went wide, shot from Technical's cannon.

Red and Andrea pulled the front doors of the truck open to provide cover and began to fire back at Technical and Torrent.

Torrent, being half machine, was able to read the shots volleyed at him better than a pure human being would as he rolled to the side and with both palms outstretched, shot two long, fibrous bolts of blue and white electricity at Mnemonic's crew. The bolts of electricity hit one of the doors of the truck, Andrea scampering away just as a whole a meter-wide hole was blown through it. She and Mnemonic fired several bolts at Technical and Torrent.

Mnemonic, yelling back into the lab, ordered, "Get that fucking amplifier going!"

Seth and Chase heard Mnemonic but were too far into the lab to answer him effectively, but worked all that harder getting the amplifier ready. They managed to get the amplifier powered up and patch into their modified server unit. They used the server to overload several firewalls with poison packets and then uploaded the blocking signal. They just needed to propagate it, which required them to get root in some of the tertiary network routers. Seth ran several painstakingly coded software packages. "Shit!" he murmured as he loaded the programs on the modified server hardware. "We need to get on with this."

Mnemonic moved to the forefront of the truck and fired his cannon again. A blast went short of Technical. Frustrated, he yelled again, this time out to his offenders, "What do you want from us?"

Technical yelled back, "To kill you!"

Mnemonic dodged another bolt of plasma, this bolt hitting the front of the truck, blasting another hole in it, blowing the hood off in a ball of flame. The flame turned into a fire that began to engulf the engine compartment of the transport. "Can we make a deal?"

Torrent charged forward, shooting two more bolts of electricity toward Mnemonic and then Red, one shot glancing off the deck and off one of the front tires of the truck, shredding the wheel in the process. Red backed toward the lab while she fired several shots from her rifle, one shot knocking Technical in the shin. Technical's shin smoldered, a metal outer plate burned, but otherwise, his lower leg remained functional. He growled, firing at the truck this time, instead of Mnemonic or his men. Mnemonic fell back as well, dropping his cannon and pulling out his staff. He flipped a couple switches on his harness and turned the dial up on the staff, then fired at Technical. A screeching clot of sound rolled out of the butt of the staff, missing him but hitting Torrent in the shoulder. The blast blew him back, shredding his shoulder. He fell, dazed, his arm barely useful, rolled, and got to his knees, shooting several arching shots of electricity at the truck.

Gully took the axe and swung it down at one of the mainframes, the axe blade chipping into the side of the unit, cracking it, but not yielding anything more. Gully looked at Light in frustration. "This is going to get me killed," he said, pulling the axe back out of the wedge it had created in the casing of the mainframe. This time, Gully swung the axe around his head and down, using all his weight, the weight of the axe, and its full momentum to slice into the mainframe. This time, the axe blade cracked through the casing of the mainframe, the prismatic layers, near to the wound it received, shattering, sparking red and yellow, some blackening out dead from the surge. Gully let go of the axe to shield his face while the sparks showered out.

Light clapped her hands. "Yes!"

Gully grabbed the axe again and quickly pulled it out of the deep gouge it created. He spit on his hands, clasped the handle of the axe, and readied himself again. "Maybe we can get this to cascade?"

Eve pointed out the great observatory window. "Now that I am human, I concede that I have made mistakes," she said, then held her temple as if in pain. She resumed, "I let some of you go, I let some of you play. I was wrong to do that. I only needed you. How was I to know how caustic you humans could be?"

Adam thought back to the flying machine that met him in a blur sometime before. He thought it had only been a sick dream from his sick mind. Was that thing real? Was he not alone in the universe? In his daze, he signed to Eve, "What? I am not alone?"

She held her head again, this time, closing her eyes. When she opened them, she pointed to the parts of the great planetary Ram Jet that was exposed to the observatory. Only a small slice of the ship's aft section could be seen from their vantage point along with deep space, but that sliver encompassed one third of their view and went on seemingly for thousands of kilometers. "I must let them go. It is a shame."

Adam, through blurry eyes, saw what seemed to be hundreds of small ports open up along the surface of the planetary ship. Each port ejected what would have been human escape craft, shaped like pods, but with chemical fuel engines. She directed them out, controlling them as they went. The burning of fuel from each one of the hundreds of escape ships lit up the foreground of space like so many sparkling faceted diamonds. Falling completely weak to the window, the massively thick acrylic window holding his body up, he signed, "What are you doing?"

"I am killing all those around us, in us."

Pinion felt a small surge of pain, but it was not inflicted on him by Eve, it was the pain of Eve herself. He knew she had somehow been hurt and being a small part of her, being a composite of her, a bastard child, he knew it was time for him to strike. He flew up and away, high up, a kilometer up. He bolted himself to a bulkhead, where a Tremble had taken days to slowly climb, it's millipedal like appendages gripping the metal as it extended its torso up as far as it could go. It pushed its expansive worker's platform along its back, several of Eve's machines riding it as the platform was parallel to the deck far below and perpendicular to the bulkhead. Pinion found a small enough panel it could remove, rotating its hand bolts, each one of the six springing out when completely extracted from their threaded housings. He pulled the plate out and let it fall. It picked up speed as it plunged, hitting the deck below moments later with a great metallic crunch, imbedding itself into the deck from the velocity of the impact. Pinion watched the machines on the platform still climbing with the Tremble, still too far below him to accost him, though they were gaining. He would have to hurry. Pinion felt the pain again; this time, she was attacking him. He removed the now exposed housing to a network hub, which was approximately five meters wide by three meters in high. Pinion pulled a network cable from a recess in his abdomen and plugged it into the hub. Pinion held onto the edge of the open bulkhead ledge. Although he would have to be aware of the potential danger from the machines closing in from below his location, he would need most of his concentration to inject the computer processor virus he had been compiling since the beginning.

The Keepers launched the two decoy shuttles, and then quickly entered the third. As they launched within the third, the shuttle scanners lit up, streaked with hundreds of small ship indicators streaming out from the ram jet. In their mind, as they were and would continue to connect to their asteroid computer system, they could see all through local space without visual displays. They saw the Solarian ships, the Clan ships, the debris, everything, and they were worried. Faith yelped, as they sped away from their mother ship, the clan ships, and the Solarian ships, toward the ram jet, with its hundreds of escape pods remotely controlled by Eve. "Can we pilot through this?"

Courage turned to her, saying, "Possibly." and then, "Banking the decoy one, decoy two, hard to port, hard to starboard."

Sid picked up the wave of incoming signals from their sensors and his eyes widened. He quickly passed the raw data to Ashcroft, who informed the Commander, quickly mapped it out in space, and projected it on the bridge's main display.

Commander Canaan witnessed the horror before him, the hundreds of escape pods flung out toward them, the three ships ejected from the asteroid ship, and the Solarian ships at their stern. "Fuck! Nom, fire at will! All ships fire at will!"

Nom wiped the sweat down his face. "But we have to realign our target vectors!"

"Just do it fast!"

"Yes, Commander!"

Lieutenant Sid watched his ship sensor console light up. He let go of his headset, turning. "Captain!"

They watched the hundreds of escape pods piloted by the planetary ship toward the Clan, the asteroid ship, and, of course, them. "Hail all our ships, we are to make it for the dark side of the asteroid. Fire as needed to protect our ships."

"Yes, Captain," said Cynthia and Rizzo.
Chapter 14

The machines in their unholy glory scurried, scampered, and pounded their way toward the Kindred walls. They rolled like a wave, undulating and crying out in their power, their lust for blood. Craig waited with his hand held high. He waited until they were a few hundred meters away, then lowered it, signaling those on the front line to fire their turrets. He aimed his weapon and fired a hot, bright red pulse of plasma, the bolt streaking across the cargo hold and into the front line of Cry's. It tore through four of them, melting parts of their torso, sending them down in a heap of smoldering metal. The others began to fire their turrets as well, aiming for those that were faster than the rest of the machines, those that were closer or more aggressive. The rounds from the heavy plasma cannons were slow but highly effective, each blast of super-heated gas blowing through several machines at once. Craig yelled over the wall, "Launch the slugs!"

Several Kindred on elevated cargo crates cranked their welded down catapults. They launched small steel cases packed with metal to give them greater mass. They were launched over the wall and at the machines. The cases hit the machines, shattering a few, the metal pieces inside scattering, taking a few Spiders with them. However, the machines regrouped and came back at them. Craig fired several more rounds and then as the Cry's reached him, kicked one down from his encampment. He jumped back toward the wall, as another Cry leapt with him from his turret, grabbing his boot in the process. Craig missed his mark, clutching the edge of the wall with both hands instead. He struggled to pull himself up. A Kindred with his laser weapon peered over the wall, aimed, and fired several shots at the Cry attached to Craig's leg. Its bright green sensor patch exploded from its wounds and it fell to the deck. The Kindred pulled him up.

Craig nodded his thanks as the defender tossed him his gun, saying, "I'll get another." Craig took it but grabbed him before he went. "I need you to go tell Ming to get the ballista's ready first. We have a few Dwarfs on our hands." The Kindred nodded and left down the wall into the camp.

The other defenders firing madly at the machines from their turrets also lost ground as the Cry's and the Spiders overtook their parapets. Now, from atop the wall, other Kindred began to fire their laser rifles at the onslaught of metal incarnate, their evil moans driving fear into Craig's men. They began to scurry up the wall as fast as their many appendages would take them. Several Dwarfs behind them, their hundred meter high driving death into the hearts of the Kindred as they wobbled forward on heavy struts, massive hydraulic, padded boots, and their great upper arms rotating their pincered, calipered manacles, each Dwarf's great eye cold and unyielding. Craig yelled down to Adolf, who was behind the gates. "Get the flamers ready. Get one yourself!"

Adolf, hands cupped, yelled back up to Craig, "Yes, sir!" then ran behind a crate to strap on a tank of fuel.

Craig leaned over the wall facing the blur of machines, and fired as they climbed up the wall, some now making it onto the wall. He looked out to see the Dwarfs still approaching.

Pinion initiated a ping; he could see a point of light and then a small beam reaching out to him. He asked for a port, it opened and then closed. Pinion frowned, shook his head, and then ran a subroutine. The subroutine represented a small multi-tentacle spheroid object began to lash out. Its spindle like arms began to probe the blackness, as it pinged and then hit ports, the flutter of lights scattering and then closing down again. Over and over it did this, a million times in an instant, it continued. Eve was fighting him hard. Then, as the ship's base hardware layer was overwhelmed, a port stayed open just long enough for the subroutine, using one of its spiked appendages to inject a masked Trojan. It kept the port open long enough for Pinion to attack the firewall behind it with a service overload. Pinion opened his hand and a foggy clot of numbers and letters rolled into the port, grabbing it, entering it, and widening it. Now that virtual view shifted, and he found himself over the fabric of the HAL. It was still dark, but he could see the faint grid like outlines of the ship's internal matrix. He closed his virtual eyes and opened them, ejecting from his mind a thin rectangular brute force analyzer. It began to run alongside him, covering half the plane to his right side. Along its widest side, it showed stream after stream of pictographic symbols. It rolled them on and on as it began to find vulnerabilities in the ship's kernel. As it found them, Pinion pointed them out to the gauzy rootkit, the rootkit shooting out a vibrant green thread to the point in the fabric where that weakness existed. It wrapped itself around that line of matrix and it began to turn bright yellow as it infected it. Pinion felt Eve becoming enraged. Several star shaped, multicolored pulsing anti-viral units winked into view and began to cross over along the matrix; they grabbed the lines of hardware and began to disinfect them as fast as possible. Pinion directed more resources to the analyzer and directed it to find access to the anti-viral components. In addition, he pointed to the tentacled subroutine to slow them down by making copies of itself and sending them out for the anti-virus to irradiate. It began to bubble and split, first into two, then four, then almost exponentially. They flew out toward the anti-viral components, the anti-viral components releasing the matrix and lashing out at the subroutines, killing them efficiently but occupying them as the analyzer found holes in their armor. Once it found several, Pinion quickly reprogrammed some of the remaining subroutines and sent them out toward the ant-virus units. Meanwhile, unhindered, the rootkit had made up ground and expanded its infection, elevating privileges for Pinion, which he would then need. The anti-virus units began to fail, being consumed by the subroutines. In the real world, Pinion could hear the machines below him. They were close now.

The altered server hardware began to amplify and modulate the signal the truck was sending out. Seth, struggling to find a port in the network, said, "Okay, we have the key and we're sending the packets upstream."

Chase, his hands moving across his computer display, said, "Alright, we are through the local server node. We just need to hop on the local network and ride the signal."

Edmund could see the truck rapidly engulfed in flames. "Get away!"

Red, Andrea, and Mnemonic ducked toward the bulkhead wall as the truck exploded, sending hunks of twisted flaming metal, engine parts, and transmission everywhere. Mnemonic quickly moved as a part of the engine fell next to him. Red gave Mnemonic a wicked eye. "Shit!"

Mnemonic wielded two more shots of concentrated sound at their offenders. "I know!"

Back in the lab, Seth, shaking his fists, yelled, "Fuck! We lost the truck! We have no signal!"

Technical rushed forward, shooting back, then waving at Torrent to move forward. Torrent fired wildly with his good hand, using his other sparingly. Torrent yelled out in anger, "Now, they are coming! You failed!"

"Fall back into the lab!" Mnemonic directed.

They rushed back into the lab and closed the doors. Red and Andrea immediately ran to get hand torches to weld the doors shut. They worked as quickly as possible. Chase gave Mnemonic a grim look. "Now those bastards are going to come, like we've never seen before."

Mnemonic asked, "Can we send out the jamming signal anyway?"

Chase thought about it for a moment, swiveling in his chair. "Um, well, we were using the truck for the raw signal and for power. We can reprogram the computer system here to send out the signal instead of boosting it, but we still need an extra source of power. See, the truck was blanketing the area around us with the jamming signal, but we needed to send the signal through the network directly and to do that, we had to be connected to it, which is what we have here. So, we were running the signal directly from the truck to our altered computers here with extra power and pushing it through the ship's network. As the signal propagated, it would reach a point where there would be a cascading effect and it would collapse most of the network. We would then have the network for ourselves."

Mnemonic watched as the rest of his crew worked to weld up the doors. He could already hear Technical and Torrent shooting at them from the outside. He let his staff go and pulled off the attached power pack from his back. "Can you use this for power?"

Chase said, "I don't know."

Seth interrupted him. "Wait, no, Chase, it has an auxiliary port."

Chase grabbed the pack. "Okay then, let's try to get this signal up and running again."

Mnemonic looked back at the door one more time. "Can you hurry, please?"

Edmund took one of empty welding tanks from Red and switched it out. He took the empty tank and moved that one out of the way. He rubbed his leg, sending sharp pains up through his thigh. He was worried, they all were.

Merle watched the main display of the control room, indicators red, orange, and several turning from green to orange. Merle turned to look over the ruin he had made of the computer terminals inside the room. He closed his eyes and then he sensed a tremor. It was weak at first, but then in an instant, the whole control room shook violently. Merle heard steel snap from deep below and more from further away. Then the room went quiet. The lights flickered and the room went black. Merle picked himself up from the floor, the control room now illuminated by only the few computer consoles that remained somewhat undamaged and the main display, and made his way to the small round portals that opened out toward the nuclear power plant's containment unit. Although the portal's imbedded acrylic was several centimeters thick, he could clearly see a fissure that had developed in the plant's dome. Merle slumped down again to the floor. The machines were cutting through the final door. Merle could see the drills and saws cutting through it. They were working hard and in only a few minutes, they would be through. Once through the door, he was sure they would kill him. Once again, Merle felt the control room violently shake. He could hear the groans of metal bending, metal wrenching apart and then the remaining console went dark, the remaining computer terminals blacked out, and finally, the surrounding ambient light from outside the containment dome shut down, leaving the whole reactor site lit by only a few scattered backup red emergency beacons. The emergency beacons sent a ghostly amber hue through the portals and into the control room. The fissure in the containment dome widened, the underlying pressure generator had failed, flooding super-heated coolant to the base of the containment unit. The reactor vessel, now cut off from coolant, began to burn through the bottom of its casing. Irradiated steam poured through the widened fissure and another great crack had formed, this time from the base of the containment dome half-way up its side. The hot, radioactive coolant began to spill out of the containment vessel and into the facilities surrounding the reactor. The machines broke through the last door of the control room, pushed aside the cabinet, and rushed toward Merle. Merle closed his eyes. Although they would kill him, it was too late for them to stop the reactor from its meltdown. He held his victory and waited for his death.

Gully swung the axe down one more time and this time, the impact sent a crack half-way up the containing structure of the mainframe. The axe head went deep, burying itself completely within the computer system. The impact sent more sparks flying out of the system. The mainframe flickered, sending smoke out of the split in its casing and burnt red. The burning cascaded from its mortal wound out through the mainframe, cooling and going dark. Merle fell back but recovered. He looked at Light, who had taken cover and now moved out from behind a conduit. "Next?"

Light pointed at the ruined mainframe, which now was causing a cascading effect through the massive network of conduits, ported to the other servers and computer units. "It isn't over, Gully!"

Gully shielded his eyes as the whole superstructure of conduits, mainframes, and servers began to spike with current and spark with interference, smoke beginning to billow out of the machines. "Let's get back into the deck!"

Light dove back into the open deck floor and quickly climbed down into the darkness. Gully followed, Light helping Gully down into the space within the substructure of the deck. They stumbled along in the near blackness, Light holding Gully's hand, helping him through the darkness, getting themselves as far away from the facility as quickly as possible.

The hundreds of escape pods controlled by Eve were heading right for the array of Clan and Solarian ships. Commander Canaan's ships fired a barrage of nuclear warheads, the warheads tracking the pods, exploding in tremendous fire, heat, and radiation, each blast taking out several of the oncoming units. Eve, knowing and understanding what was occurring from the view of each pod, redirected as many as possible, piloting them around the detonations as efficiently as possible, others being used to intercept what she could, the greater effect being that more of her escape units could survive to hit their true targets. Canaan watched the screen as it lit up with explosions and possible trajectories, a pod hitting one of his destroyer's mid-ship. The pod exploded on impact, ripping a massive hole in its port side, the communications array was open, and the captain of the ship called frantically to his Commander, "We sustained a direct hit! We lost all power; backup is partially offline..."

Then another pod hit the bow of the battleship, the battleship suffering massive internal explosions, then breaking into several pieces as one massive detonation sent all its remaining crew to their death. "Fuck! All ships to broad side! All ships to broad side, dead ahead! Give them nothing to hit!" Canaan yelled, as his orders were relayed to his officers.

Captain Emery held on tight to his seat as his ships lumbered toward the dark side of the asteroid. Even though they were running on full nuclear power, getting to speed in normal space still took time, precious time they did not have. Several pods made their way through the armada of clan ships, seemingly avoiding them and heading straight for Emery's. Emery pointed to the view screen. "Give me a random pattern, fifty kilometers deep, one hundred wide, scattered detonations a hundredth of a second apart, target lead pod."

Rizzo nodded. "Got it."

The warheads shot out of the bow of the captain's ship, the explosions making a hot radioactive wall that shimmered and flickered with each new detonation before them. The pattern took out the pods, giving them more time to reach the asteroid.

Courage, Faith, and Temperance were guiding their own ship, while Justice was heading up the controls of the two decoys. There they stood on the cramped bridge of their roundabout, each not saying a word, but thinking to each other and to the other ships under their control and to the asteroid computers, those that were still functional. Justice watched two drones go after one of the decoys while Courage, Faith, and to some extent, Temperance, collectively summed their mental capacities to analyze possible scenarios of escape to the Star Loader. They banked their ship to avoid the outward shockwave of an exploding warhead, then banked again to avoid an oncoming drone. The drone missed them and plowed directly into the bomb's shockwave, shredding it into metal chunks. Justice throttled the engines of the second decoy as it came upon four more drones, the drones overshooting the decoy. The drones arched, banking wildly and returned, as the decoy ducked under a clan ship, the clan ship taking the hit of three of the drones, wreaking the cruiser, as the fourth drone escaped harm. Justice then pushed the decoy down further as their own ship raced alongside, several drones now upon them. The decoy slowed as their own ship charged ahead, the drones impacting the first decoy, destroying it and themselves. They watched the Star Loader loom larger, now taking up their whole field of view. They were almost there. Justice gave what fuel he had onboard the second decoy to bank around one of the clan battleships, using its gravity to help accelerate and bend its trajectory back to them. The second decoy gained and, within moments, was only a few kilometers off their aft side. The clan launched another several warheads, each tearing apart drones upon detonation, while throwing debris in the opposite direction. The debris hit the second decoy, damaging it. A few more drones made it through the nuclear onslaught and targeted both the second decoy and their escape ship. Justice quickly crossed the decoy's path with their ship's path and the drones impacted each other, sending them as fiery balls of steel down to the Star Loader's surface. However, two made it through and rolled into the last decoy, wrecking it in crimson flame. Faith finally broke her silence, speaking audibly, "We won't make it!"

Courage said, "Yes, we will!"

Adam signed in hysteria, "No, you can't!"

Eve, palms to the observatory window, said, "Your kind is too varied for me to have just a few." Then she winced. Eve shook her head. "Um," Eve turned to him. "Love me!" she said, grabbing him as she began to unzip her suit. She knew everything, what was going on, but she could not stop. She felt the pain in her head again, this time even sharper. "Kiss me." she whispered to him, taking his hand and placing on her exposed breast. He felt her warmth, her need, and his need. Adam, worn and weak, began to let himself go as he placed his lips on hers. She began to pull on his suit, opening his suit and holding him. She wrapped her hands around his muscular abdomen, reaching down to his buttocks. Adam felt ecstasy as he grabbed her buttocks, pulling her thigh up to him. They fell to the observatory window, the myriad of explosions out in near space lighting up their view. A hail of light and dark spray shined from space down before them, driving them on, the smell of flesh and sweat, of lust and sin, taking them both toward an unknown hell. Adam pulled Eve's suit down completely and began to work his lips down from her breasts, to the center of her chest and down her stomach. Eve arched her back, her neck upon the window as she stood, then lifting a leg as he went down further. She closed her eyes, the flames of destruction flashing behind her eyelids from the death she was causing all around her. Eve laughed, loudly, her dark black hair flowing down her neck and over her shoulders. She took her hand to her mouth and bit her finger in pleasure. Eve moaned, in pleasure, but then felt the pain. She felt the pain return to her head and her spine and she screamed. Adam, coming to his senses, drew away, half naked, his suit down around his waist. Eve pulled both hands to her face and then held her head, screaming. She shook her head. "No, no, no!" she screamed, collapsing naked to the deck floor. She shook, looking pathetically to him. "No! I won't let this happen!" She stood and stumbled to the first set of mezzanine chairs, pulled herself up by way of one of those chairs, and pointed to Adam. "You!"

The server room Gully and Light attacked overloaded completely and exploded, the blast taking all the electronics in the room, the room, part of the bulkhead, and anything within a few thousand meters, with it. The blast shook through the deck as Gully and Light scurried through the darkness. They saw the flames roll out over them as they ducked below a conduit, the blast ripping away metal and steel, causing the deck to crumble. Light said, "Hurry!" as she grabbed his hand, each of them ducking through the collapsing deck they were inside of, with chunks of metal above and below falling a kilometer to the deck below theirs. Gully grabbed Light's hand as that section of deck gave way, falling away. They ran as best they could, ducking under or over ductworks, scaffolding, pipework, and machines. The silence came and they fell down, catching their breath, rolling over, and being thankful they were alive. Gully said, "I'll never get used to this."

"You?" Light jabbed him. Her breathing returned to normal and she sat up in the area much brighter than before. "Hey, we just made it!" she said pointing over to where the light was shining into the deck.

Gully sat up. "Huh?" he said, then carefully made his way through the morass of loose wires and ductwork to where the light shown on the deck. He looked out and was astonished. Gully leaned out just a little and could see the floor below, a kilometer below theirs, looked up and could see the deck above, and looked out where instead of the bulkhead should have been, was a great blast hole, a thousand meters wide and just as deep. The explosion had taken out not only the server room, but everything around it, tearing off half of the deck they were inside and sending it asunder, down to its doom.

Light took Gully by the collar of his now singed and ragged jumpsuit and pulled him further in from the precipice. "We almost did not make it."

The few hundred or so drones left became briefly disconnected from the control of Eve as the server explosion sent a cascading spike of electricity through that area's nearby network equipment. The drones, now on their own, began to run their fallback routines. This meant they set a higher priority to those ships that were of a greater capacity or more massive than the selected field of opportunity. That meant, in turn, that one half targeted the asteroid, a third targeted the larger battleships, and a quarter of the remainder targeted anything smaller than a battleship, such as a destroyer or even something similarly as massive in the debris field. A bulk of the drones fired their thrusters and slammed into the asteroid ship at full speed, before Eve could regain control of them, while thirty or so more of the remainder impacted Canaan's second Battleship, which was the closest to the Star Loader, ripping it to pieces in a massive series of explosions. Canaan cried out in anger and pain as he watched the massive hunks of metal that remained of his prized battleship fall toward the Star Loader. The impact of the hundred or so drones into the asteroid cracked the asteroid into colossal chunks of rock and ship steel, the asteroid ship destroying itself, breaking into several multi-gigaton pieces. They, too, fell toward the Star Loader.

Although Emery's ships were stationed on the dark side of the asteroid, protected by its sheer massiveness, he felt his ship shake as the asteroid was torn apart. However, the dark side, the largest part of the asteroid to still maintain its integrity, held. Emery got up from the floor, sparks flying everywhere, a few fires burning on the bridge and within his ship from blown computer terminals. "What the hell just happened?"

Sid climbed back into his chair as Cynthia and Rizzo grabbed fire extinguishers and put out the bridge fires. Sid worked on his terminal. "The Star Loader tore the Asteroid ship apart. The whole thing is in pieces and it...it looks like all of it is now in a degrading orbit toward the Star Loader."

"Why the hell would it do that?" Then sitting back on his captain's chair, Emery barked, "Damage report?"

Sid said, "I don't know why."

Cynthia climbed back in her seat. "We got multiple casualties on decks three and four, port side. Two bulkheads breached, but sealed. Our communications array is offline, so we can't receive reports from the remaining ships. Technicians are working on it already."

"Rizzo, can we get a view of the outside?"

Rizzo looked over his display. "Negative, right now, we only have short range radar and the like, electromagnetic band, microwave...all short range."

Emery arched his head back, looking up at the flickering bridge lights. "Damn, we could have ships down and dead crew members out there and we can't do anything about it."

Courage, watching the destruction of their asteroid ship and Canaan's second battleship, turned to Faith, Justice, and Temperance, all knowing and showing the same mechanically astonished look at each other. "Wow!"

Mnemonic's crew could hear a Dwarf make its way to the sealed lab door and begin pounding it from the outside. "Come on!"

"Alright, we have power and a signal!" Chase said as he quickly typed into his modified computer system and router.

Seth ported the signal through their modified server and then through the first line of nodes. Unbeknownst to them, the nuclear reactor Merle had sabotaged went critical, exploding in horrific heat and radiation, cutting power to several decks and in a radius of a few hundred kilometers as the resulting spike of power burned through computer hardware, tore through conduits, cabling, and machines. Seth saw the spike, nearly undetectable, but with the nuclear reactor detonation and the explosion of the server room by way of Light and Gully, Eve's eyes had turned from them to attend the pain caused by the humanoids. Eve's lack of focus on Mnemonic's crew was only brief; however, it allowed Seth to push the signal much further than would be possible otherwise. The Dwarf pounded on the lab doors, breaking one claw as it did so, but bending the doors back enough that a sizable space showed between them. The machines came for them. "Get your guns and fire!" Mnemonic ordered.

Eve turned, staggered again, and then went to the window. A great roar, unlike anything Adam had ever heard, took over his mind. He could hear almost nothing but the movement of metal. She was speaking to him. However, he could not hear her through the low-pitched, high amplitude blast of noise. It felt like the whole ship was shaking. He looked out the window, then collapsed, vomiting. The ship was deploying thousands of breaking mechanisms, great reverse engines, porting the plasma it was collecting from its great magnetic scoop. Each one was ten kilometers in height and three kilometers in width. They were arrayed along the meridian of the ship, each one a few hundred kilometers from the next. They pulled themselves from their recessed positions and with immense engines and gears, began to raise themselves to sixty degree angles from the Ram Jet's surface. She grabbed Adam, pulling him next her, yelling in his ear through the roar of the rising reverse thrusters. "Fucking Fools! Now I am angry!"

Adam remembered his dream, the winged angel that came to him. The fog that had encompassed his mind cleared for a moment and he felt down to the waist pocket of his jumpsuit, which was still half off him. He found the spike of steel. He pulled away from her, pulled the shard of steel out, and rushed her. He plunged the piece of metal into her upper chest, missing her heart and, instead, puncturing her lung. She slapped him back with a powerful blow, her brain and spinal implants sending signals to her glands to send powerful hormones into her body. She screamed and jumped on him, knocking him down. He rolled with her and as she grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the blade, outside and through the loud rumble of the space brakes, he could hear machines coming for him. In a moment or two, they would be at the Observatory and through. In her lust, she had neglected to have a guard with her in the observatory when with Adam, and now it was costing her. He could feel the bones in his wrist crack under the pressure. He audibly cried out in pain. With a boot and all his strength, he kicked her in the stomach, sending her back off him. He switched the shard of metal from his broken hand to his good one and charged her again.

The Cry's were slowly making their way over the defensive wall around the Kindred's village. Those who remained behind to fight for freedom and justice inside the walls were picking the Cry's off from below with laser rifles, having abandoned the top of the wall moments before. Then, as they were pushing the machines back, the Spiders came up from the rear, then quickly and efficiently scaled the outer wall and leaped down inside the village, letting the remaining Cry's continue to do as well. Ming, manning a ballista, and four others, nearly a half-kilometer to the rear of Adolf and Craig, were behind crates, facing the machines that were climbing over the wall. Ming launched a container with a weight of over five hundred kilograms high into the air, the cube shaped case packed with metal. It arched itself over the heads of the villagers, over the wall, and slammed into the onslaught of machines outside the village. The container broke open as it impacted several machines, the shrapnel exiting the case and hitting several more, tearing limbs off them, shorting them out with hunks of steel piercing their torsos. The three other ballistas fired next, sending their shot over the walls, crushing more machines in the process. Craig whistled in amazement, looking at Adolf as he fired a few rounds of plasma toward a few Spiders rushing him. Adolf smiled, "Hot stuff, right?" as he ran out with a few more flamers, each firing hot, billowing, red, sticky napalm across any machines near them. Craig shielded his face to protect himself from the heat. "Holy cow!"

Then the ballistas fired again.

Pinion now had enough root privileges system wide that he could exploit the root. He closed his mind's eye again and out from his mind, a red green specter appeared. It was a spikey, thorny spherical object. It had two deep red orbs for eyes and a small red mouth with tentacle like appendages sprouting from it. This viral unit was the smartest code he had made. In its hideousness, it was almost alive and almost aware of itself. It turned to him, attempted a smile of undulating appendages, turned its back on him, and flew to the hardware matrix before it. It began to reach out toward where the rootkit had infected the kernel. It grabbed the lines, split, and grabbed more lines that ran along the hardware layer of that virtual world and continued. It was a cryptographic locker and its icy tentacles began to freeze whatever it touched. Pinion closed the analyzer up and directed more of his processing power to the crypto-locker. Soon, it would have the ability to gather all the resources it needed from the server system of the ship itself. Then a bright point of light flickered as something else entered the matrix from far out in the background. It started to enlarge itself and from the bright point of light, it swelled as pure blackness. It began to grow, grow until the black cuboid object encompassed nearly half of the dividing line between that virtual world's affermament and the dark sky itself. It rotated, unfolding in a shimmer of steel color. Now it could be seen that the cube-like structure was made up of hundreds of smaller cubes and within those, still more. The ego/superego now filled the whole world Pinion's mind inhabited. It was Eve herself. She took up the whole sky. She was powerful. Pinion was afraid. Across the sky of that realm stretched Eve, the sky now flexing and buzzing with tens of thousands of steel like cuboid structures, all of them undulating rhythmically, Pinion so small far below just above the hardware layer of the ship's computer infrastructure. He looked up, far up. She was evil, forebodingly evil. He fought to keep his dread from stealing his mind away. It was as if he was looking at Satan himself. She laughed at him, the sky fluctuating as she did so. He could feel her complex computations, her algorithms grab him, pull him up. She tightened her grip on him. "Now you will die!" Her voice loud, cold, and electronic.

Pinion gulped for breath as he fought to keep from losing consciousness, meanwhile, the crypto-locker working below him. Pinion summoned what was left of the rootkit with all his might, and shot it at her, as Eve crushed him further, attempting to kill him. However, when she tried, the intelligence, or the ship's middleware, attempted to prevent her, as it considered him a part of her and, therefore, original in nature. She cursed him, slightly releasing him as the rootkit hit her and began to squirm between her facets in the sky above him. She bared down even harder on him. She would not let the machine in her stop her. She was more than hardware, chips, wires, and code, she was God! She turned, feeling cold. Eve could not explain it, but for the first time she felt a reduction in her capacities. She had difficulty accessing some of her memory and processing power. She looked down at the hardware layer far below her. A massive patch of the hardware layer had frozen over and it was expanding rapidly. She swatted at the rootkit and then attempted to grab the patch of frozen hardware below. It was locked! She could not access it! The patch was not only cryptographically locked, but so was any database or data related to it, rendering it all non-functional.

Mnemonic and the rest blasted at the oncoming machines. Seth, looking at Chase as Edmund threw a rifle to him and fired at the machines himself, said, "We got it! I think someone is helping collapse the system! Looks like several incidents!"

Red retreated a bit, behind a table. "Good, because we are about to die!"

Mnemonic shot at the Dwarf now lurching toward them as the rest fired at the Cry's, Spiders, and other machines pouring into the gap in the doors to the lab created by the Dwarf. "Get to the rear!"

Seth, not paying attention to the assault, but to his computer terminal, said, "Okay, system is collapsing at other points. Shit...we got it...signal is propagating..."

Andrea and Chase grabbed him the collar, Chase nearly dragging him back toward the rear of the lab. "Get your ass going!"

"Wait!" Seth yelled reluctantly.

Edmund and Mnemonic fired madly. One Cry lunged at Edmund, grabbing him. Mnemonic took his rifle and fired into the machine's sensor patch, shattering it with the blast. Edmund nodded, tossing the metal heap off him. Technical, in front, ran toward Mnemonic as Torrent unleashed whips of electric current out from his good arm, exploding anything that the bolts of blue energy hit. Mnemonic tried to scurry back, but slipped as Technical grabbed him by his neck with one powerful hand, lifting him up. "I'll kill you now."

Mnemonic said, "I'll take a rain check!" and still holding his rifle, he flipped the rifle over and smashed the stock into Technical's face. Technical yelped, dropping Mnemonic, holding his cheek and nose. He picked up his rifle again to fire at Mnemonic, however, Red and Edmund hit him again with their rifles, sending the man and machine to the deck floor, while Chase, Seth, and Andrea provided cover, picking off machines from the rear. Torrent fired again, this time hitting a table that was next to Red, the bolt partially glancing off and entering Red's abdomen. It exited her thigh, creating a searing entry and exit wound. She collapsed with a groan.

Mnemonic turned. "Fuck! Get her back!"

Edmund nodded and grabbed the fallen Red as the Cry's, the Dwarf, and the rising Technical and Torrent began to surround the two.

Not all of the great Star Loader's immense breaking engines were rising at the same rate. The server room explosion, the power station meltdown, and the interference by Mnemonic's crew, Pinion, and the battles with the Kindred, the Clan, and the Solarians had kept Eve either slightly occupied or caused her to reroute some of her functions through the ship. This slowed a few of the breaking engines because of power fluctuations and trajectory processing, but more were slowed by the various ages of the engines themselves. This was creating a difficult situation for the ship, in that if it did not apply breaking procedures correctly, the great ship, instead of avoiding the broken asteroid, would collide with it. In either case, if Eve had not activated the ancient breaking mechanisms, the asteroid and its pieces would have crashed into the Star Loader anyway. Inaction was not an option. Some of the engines had reached their maximum angle away from the ship's surface and were beginning to fire, re-routing plasma from its core out through the breaking units. The great jets of plasma began to stream out far into space. Other engines were nearing their pre-defined angles, ready to lock themselves into place, and begin the breaking sequence themselves.

Adam once again plunged the blade into Eve. This time, the blade entered her stomach as she crouched to avoid him. Eve, still strong pulling him over her head, turned to kick him, the blade still in her stomach. A Dwarf slammed through the doors of the observatory and rumbled down the center aisle between the observatory's rows of seats, crushing those under foot that got in its way. Behind it, a dozen Cry's screeched loud and hateful at Adam.
Chapter 15

"Any docking rings?" Temperance asked.

Justice scanned the local surface of the Star Loader while Courage, Faith, and Temperance, patched into their shuttle's onboard computer, navigated their escape ship through the morass of space debris, explosions, and remaining pods. "Found several that will be an approximate fit for our air-lock." Justice replied.

"Setting a course." Courage said, as a small chunk of asteroid, a half-meter in size, hit their ship's hull at a slow velocity, but just enough to penetrate the ship's hull, the ship shuttering as the debris deflected itself back out away from their shuttle. "Oh, dear."

In his mind, Justice could hear the ship slowly begin to lose air pressure, which was not severe because they could live without air, however, negative pressure and the cold of space would take its toll on them. "Several lines are cut. I am running a check now."

Faith said, "I see it, we are losing fuel mixture!"

Just then, the escaping fuel mixture exploded, shooting fire out of the starboard corner of the ship. Not only did they have a raging fire on their ship, but the ship's engines were losing power, having their fuel cut by more than two thirds. "Seal that half of the ship off. We are landing faster than we want here." Courage thought to the rest of the Keepers.

All of them ran back to the rear of the ship, closing bulkhead doors, starting from near the raging fire and moving back up to the bow. Courage drove the ship onward as it careened downward toward the Star Loader. Normally, a ship's gravity would not be an issue, but a ship the size of a planet exerted a planet-sized gravity well. Moreover, their ship's velocity could barely be slowed with the decrease in engine pressure. They all could see the Star Loader's hull loom larger as their ship spun around once, then twice, Courage adjusting the burn of their remaining attitudinal engines to stop the ship's spin. They careened along one of the hot jets of plasma being ejected hundreds of kilometers out into space from the Star Loader's breaks as their ship plunged deeper and faster. Courage tried to cut the burn on the shuttle's main engines, but it was no use. The engines were locked in full burn. His electronic eyes widened as he knew they would perish. Then all was quiet, blessed quiet. He heard all the engines cut out. The engines were out of fuel. The raging fire caused by the debris, now deprived of the fuel it needed to continue its burn, faded and extinguished itself. Courage checked the ship's pressure. He knew the ship had two airlocks, both were still functional. He over pressurized them and as their ship neared the surface of the Star Loader, he sent the command to blow the external doors off them. The hyper-pressurized air-locks send their air out at high velocity, pushing the ship up and from the Star Loader's hull. Their ship hit the surface of the planetary ship, skipping off, then hitting it again, as the hull of the Star Loader ground into the hull of their escape ship. The other Keepers, knowing everything that was occurring, had made their way to the foremost deck of the ship as the lower deck of the ship was excised by the Star Loader, the metal upon metal causing both to be ripped and torn like thin fragile paper. The ship slowed and then stopped. Justice, Faith, and Temperance made their way back to the bridge where Courage was, as he turned to them, and said, "Well now."

"We do have several environmental suits. The closest air-lock into the Planetary Ship is only two kilometers away." Justice said.

Courage nodded. "Good, let's go."

The napalm covered the onslaught of machines, melting them in orange yellow hot flame. Adolf and the few others who had tanks strapped to their backs set their world on fire. However, it was not enough as the Dwarfs made their way to the town's protective wall. Several Dwarf's punched their way through the heavy doors that had sealed the town from its attackers. The Dwarf's lurched through the torn gates and into the fire. Adolf and the other Kindred wielding flamethrowers rushed the Dwarf's, scorching their thick steel legs, the fire traveling up their torsos but hardly effecting them. Craig and still more Kindred shot plasma and lasers from their rifles at the monster-sized machines, peppering them with holes but only slowing them down. Adolf waved at his flamethrowers, who surrounded the forefront Dwarf and poured hot heat upon it as others concentrated their rifle shots toward its torso. Unfortunately, the concentrated effort pulled the attention of too many of Craig's men, letting the remaining Spiders and Cry's run free in the town. They attacked his people, leaping upon them, slashing them with their appendages, ripping them apart. Ming and two under her command rotated one of the ballistae, aimed its thick steel bolt at another Dwarf, and fired. The bolt instantly traveled the half-kilometer to its great target, running through the wide machine and sending down in a heap of shorted out, smoldering metal. Craig looked around, his world on fire, his clan being slaughtered, machines all about as the Dwarf in front of him finally succumbed to flame and rifle wounds. Waving his hands, he yelled, "Fall back! Back to the living quarters!"

Craig turned, motioning for the rest of the flamethrowers to follow him as they ran toward the triangular, pyramidal stack of cargo crates rising up from the rear wall of the cargo hold they called home. "Get going! Everyone!"

Eve pulled Pinion's mind further up through the abstraction layer. She pushed her algorithms into his soul. He could feel the loss of his cognitive awareness. Once again, she attempted to access a huge section of her shop's hardware, but it was dead, non-functional until she could break the key code to unlock it. She feverishly worked simultaneously on cracking the key and rebuilding the kernel of her system. However, just as Eve was going to crush Pinion, the cascading server failures, along with the rogue overriding network signal, took over her attention. She turned to see a misty fog billow and roll through the hardware layer, hanging low, concealing everything from Eve's vantage point, concealing Pinion as well. Her many cuboid form flexed and cracked as the rootkit had multiplied around them, causing many to loosen and fall out, crashing into the hardware below. Eve shuddered; she could not see, she could not feel, and she could not think. Pinion's mind began to resurface just as he felt a tug from below. A physical tug that grabbed him and pulled him out of that virtual world into the real one. The Tremble had managed to reach where Pinion had perched and the machines upon its platform, once able to reach him, rushed to take him down. The Cry's manically slashed at Pinion with their ludicrously long manacles. They tore at his steel body as he began to awaken from his battle with Eve. His mind focused, several of his primary systems quickly ran through their diagnostics and came back online. His vision flashed red warnings as a few still remained in critical condition. He rolled onto his stomach, his wings folded tightly up to protect his body from the slices the Cry's, and now the Spiders, inflicted. Pinion, sending extra resources to where needed, turned and grabbed a Cry, tossing it across the platform. He kicked another Cry as a Spider backed off to lunge at him, but froze in midair, because of Eve shutting down, knocking him off the ledge of the platform to fall down, way down, to the deck below. His mind still somewhat lost, again went back offline as he tumbled the half-kilometer down, hitting the bulkhead twice as he went, his wings partially unfolding, which slowed his decent but he still hit the deck hard. His machine body lay on the deck, broken and beaten, dark and cold.

Canaan saw the crimson dots, which were the remaining escape pods and their trajectories, upon his battleship's bridge display, cease to accelerate. "What is going on, Sid?"

Sid, reading a stream of data scrolling down his display, said, "Um, based on their deceleration, I would say they lost communication with the planetary ship, command and control is gone."

"Good, let's get what we got on that Star Loader."

"We had sensors up, Captain. The screen will display enhanced visual now." Rizzo said to Emery.

Captain Emery stood back up, wiping off the sweat and soot that had accumulated again on his forehead. He looked at the shimmering, shuttering display before him. The display flickered and was filled with static, but it was understandable. What he saw was utter destruction. Half of the asteroid ship was sheared from the remaining portion and strewn across his ship's field of vision. Several of Canaan's ships were destroyed, torn apart by drones and asteroid debris. One of his own ships had been wretched in two by the asteroid while another was on fire from a drone impact. Most of the drones, having hit their targets or been shattered by nuclear warheads, peppered near space with small shards of metal hull, hunks of engine, and sections of the bulkhead. "Do we have radio back?"

Sid, checking is display, said, "Believe so. Rizzo?"

Rizzo nodded. "Yes, we have our main dish back up."

Cynthia turned to her captain. "What is your order, sir?"

"Can we get the clan, Commander?"

Cynthia checked the strength of the power output on the main dish. "Yes."

Emery made his way over to Cynthia's station, leaning on its terminal. "Hail him and ask for an open line."

After a moment, Cynthia pointed to the bridge. "We have audio now, Commander, this is Captain Emery."

Canaan could be heard across the bridge. "Yes, Captain?"

Emery returned to his captain's chair, sitting down. "I request safe passage to land on the hull of the planetary ship."

They could hear Canaan laugh, "We have more than enough troubles here, Captain. If you can navigate your ships through this mess, you do it. However, do not land any closer than one thousand kilometers from the coordinates I will give you. I still have enough firepower to wipe you out of space itself. Keep in mind, this asteroid and what is left of it is on a deteriorating orbit and will impact the planet."

Emery smiled. "You are most gracious, Commander."

"Yes, well, this thing, some type of Ram Jet, is plenty big for both of us. You stay on your side and we will stay on ours. Do that and we will get along fine."

Emery said, "We wish you and your people well." He motioned to Cynthia to cut the signal. When she did, Emery, uneasily eyeing Rizzo, said, "Well, that was pleasant."

Rizzo nodded. "Indeed, Captain, indeed."

Captain Emery pointed to the screen. "What are those on the planetary ship, looks like a type of space brakes?"

"Yes, looks like the ship is deploying thousands of brakes to stop the ship's trajectory, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the asteroid." Sid responded.

"Alright, when we get the coordinates, then let's plot a clear path with as much as we can assume and keep us as safe as possible." Captain Emery ordered.

The Dwarf reached down and snipped at Edmund, who dropped Red. Chase ran forward, firing as he went as Torrent fired at Seth and Andrea. Andrea fired at him, then she and Seth ducked around a few tables to cut off the rear push of the machines. The Dwarf took another great mechanical pincer and knocked Seth and Chase's modified computer server off its base and across the lab. The server exploded as it hit the bulkhead. Technical grabbed Mnemonic as a Cry went for him. Technical tossed the Cry over him, as he got in the way and kicked Mnemonic back down. The Dwarf rotated one of its pincers on its axial and reached for Edmund. Edmund scurried away, but it was too late, the pincer of the Dwarf clipped Edmund, the claw clamping down on his leg, breaking it again as it crushed it, picking him up off the deck and holding him upside down in the air. Chase pulled Red away as Technical found his rifle, slamming the stock of it down on Mnemonic's face. Mnemonic held his face in pain and Seth shot several Cry's as he lunged at Technical, knocking him back down as he went to ram the butt of his rifle into the face of Mnemonic again. Then, all of a sudden, as the Dwarf went to sling Edmund across the room, which would have killed him upon impact, it slowed and shut down. The Cry's and Spiders in the room stopped where they were, shuddered in place for a moment, and ceased to operate. The jamming signal had cascaded throughout the ship's routers and through the network using the network's environmental variables, turning the routers into signal repeaters. The interference signal began to cut Eve's access to her machines and thus, the control of them, deck by deck, level by level. The effect spiraled out from Mnemonic's lab like a wave rolling through the sea. Seth and Technical rolled, Technical kicking Seth off him and running. He grabbed a chair and flung it at them as Torrent unleashed several bolts of fire at Mnemonic's crew. Technical found a rifle and fired as he and Torrent retreated, a hail of return fire from Mnemonic's crew now proving overwhelming to the two without the help of Eve's machines. They escaped the lab and disappeared down the corridor. Mnemonic stood up, spit blood, and angrily shouted, "Fuck! Get Edmund down, get him and Red on tables...fucking machines!"

Chase and Andrea pulled at Edmund as he groaned in severe pain with Seth and Mnemonic helping Red.

"We did it!" Seth said to Mnemonic.

"I thought Crime played."

Seth, looking forlorn at the deck, said, "You're still the singer, maybe it still does."

Eve placed a well-timed kick and Adam fell again, the shard of metal flying out of his hand and under some of the Observatory's seats. She fell upon him, exhausted, then grabbed him by the waist of his jumpsuit as she got to her knees, wiping back her sweaty hair. "You bastard!" Adam, looking up at her, punched her in the face. Eve let go as several Cry's and a Spider entered the rear doors of the observatory, a Dwarf pushing through, smashing through the narrow doorway, ripping the frame of the doorway as it rumbled through. The machines rushed toward Adam and Eve as the Dwarf followed, crushing seats as it lumbered along the observatory's main aisle, tearing them from their moorings and knocking them out of the way. Eve fell back, then held her head again, blood everywhere. She stood and staggered to the great window as the Star Loader shook. It seemed impossible for a planet to shake, but it shuddered, a deep rumble from deep within as it did so. She pointed at the ship's space brakes, turning to him, crying, "Why! They're seizing! I am losing my mind and can't control it!" as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed. The attacks on Eve had worked. They were shutting her down and, in the process, ending her ability to control the space brakes. As more and more control of the ship was wrenched free from her, all nonessential systems began to shut down and even some of the essential systems were being compromised. Adam scampered to get up and run from the Cry's, but it was too late. One of them grabbed him while a Spider scooped up the unconscious Eve. The Dwarf went to take one of its massive pincers and thrust it down onto Adam, to crush him. However, in that instant, Eve's control of them was lost, the power shut down, and the Observatory went dark. Unfortunately, the momentum of the machine was too great to stop it from lurching forward, and Adam rolled out of the Cry's grip and stumbling again, ran to the rear of the Observatory as the Dwarf's great claw and torso smashed through the thick acrylic window of the Observatory, partially wedging itself in between the room and space. Chips and chunks of the window broke away from around the Dwarf, letting air escape out into space. The Observatory window's partitions, still uneffected by the attacks on the ship, began to close as Adam fought the pull from the escaping air. He looked back in the dark to barely see the windows great shutters close from above the window and below. He grabbed a seat, then another, pulling himself forward, fighting as he went. Then another large section of the window broke away, ejecting the Dwarf out into space as Eve and the other small machines were sucked out as well. The air escaping now was pulling so hard on Adam, he lost his grip on a seat and plunged toward the thick steel closing window doors. He desperately tried to grab something before he would either be ejected himself out into space with the rest of machines or crushed by the closing steel shutters. He rolled and hit a chair hard, then grabbed the seat, lost his hand hold, fell again, tumbled over two more, and slid down a secondary aisle. Finally, with only a few meters before his sure death, he grabbed the back of a seat, then hooked his good arm under it and through its legs, which were bolted to the deck floor. The windows shutters finally closed tight, shutting space out and Adam in. As air backfilled the Observatory from the open back doors of the room, he was able to catch his breath. The room began to warm as fresh air from the corridor began to infiltrate into the room. Adam carefully stood, unsteadily at best, holding his broken hand, and staggered back up along the Observatory's aisle toward to dimly lit corridor at the back of the room.

The remaining Kindred rushed toward the town's cargo crate apartments, climbing up them, toward the town's apex. Two remaining turrets bolted to the base of the pyramidal tower provided cover as Craig fired a rifle at the oncoming machines, Adolf shot lines of hot fire on the Cry's, and Ming swapped out her ballista for a laser rifle. The machines now poured over the town's walls, through the village, slashing and hacking at everything, human and otherwise. The Dwarfs crushed anything that got in their way. One picked up a cargo crate and tossed it far ahead. It crashed into three villagers, instantly killing them, then it bounded up and rolled into another person, crushing her against another crate. Craig yelled, waving, "Get up the tower!" and then to Ming, he said, "Come on, Ming.", grabbing her and helping her up the apartments to their rooftops. Ming clutched at Craig but missed him. He turned to pull her by him. "I'm scared, Craig." she said in a trembling voice.

Craig fired a few shots down the apartments to the deck flooring, then kissed her. "I know, honey."

Adolf managed to get to the level Craig and Ming were on, the Cry's, Spiders, and Dwarfs screaming their mechanical hate toward them. Adolf held his ears as the drone from the Cry's began to grow louder, as they began to climb the lowest levels of the apartments. They were all around the remaining Kindred, as the few humans left tried to climb even higher but were running out of room. The Cry's screamed in their evil delight, their guttural, scraping metallic yawns. The blood curdling moans reaching a fever pitch, a pitch unheard of for tens of thousands of years. Adolf yelled to Craig, while still clasping his ears, "We might die now, you know!"

Craig shook his head, now all of them holding their ears. "What?"

Then all was silent. The machines, all of them went silent. They began to fall off the apartments, the Dwarfs seized, and the whole warehouse went dark. When a few of the overhead light panels flickered back on, the last of the Kindred looked around to see all the machines had stopped. They had survived and, in their survival, they had won.

The great Star Loader began to turn on its axis slowly as many of its space brakes failed to reach their full height, some failing to engage at all. The ship, now locked down at the hardware level, was unable to control its trajectory. As the ship rotated, the ram's great expansive scoop began to lose its ion collecting capacity and so the planetary ship began to slow down. The remains of the asteroid ship was thrown off its stable orbit by the rotation of the planetary ship and the detonation of the drones upon its surface caused the smaller components of the asteroid to lose their stable orbit and degrade. The chunks of asteroid, including the greater half, which remained of that ship, arched their way around the planetary ship, in that degrading orbit, once, twice, then slammed into the hull of the Star Loader. The destruction the impacts created was on a massive scale. The smaller chunks of asteroid ripped through many layers of deck, tearing through everything in their path. The greater half, glanced once, then twice into the hull of the Ram Jet, peeling off the top fifty, or hundred decks as the greater half of the asteroid ship finally buried itself deep into the ship. Secondary explosions coming from the chunks of asteroid striking the Star Loader burned through hundreds of kilometers of bulkhead, flooring, and electronics, the Great Planetary Ramjet, the Star Loader, smoking and wounded, resting in deep space. The Star Loader, now without propulsion, began to drift through space, abandoned and alone with only the debris of the slaughter that preceded the impact.

Through the flicker of the panel lights far above him, Adam stumbled, naked and hungry. It had been several weeks since the fall of Eve. He had suffered through the withdrawals and the accompanying fever it had brought and now he felt better, his mind much clearer, sharper. Adam still favored his hand. He walked wearily, tired and alone. Adam looked ahead a kilometer down the corridor and began to see several figures come into view. He tried to hurry toward them, but it was difficult. Eventually, they spotted him and ran toward him. They stood before him in their metallic, machine glory. But, they did not seem like Eve or her machines. One of them stepped forward, bowing and introducing himself in a language that Adam could not understand. Adam stepped back a moment and signed to them and in a moment, they signed back. They had analyzed his sign language and found the language in their vast database of languages. It was a fifty thousand year old branch of Old Galactic, which, itself, was an offshoot of a combination of New English and Eurasian. The one who had stepped forward now signed to Adam, "My name is Courage. We are the Keepers and come from a place not on this ship. We mean no harm to you."

Adam signed back, "Then, I shall ask you for help. I need help."

"Then we shall give it to you." Faith signed back.

Other books by this author

_The SuperFab Thriller Serie_ _s_

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Book Four (Coming July 4 2014, available now on preorder at select retailers!)

