Atlantis Rising (11 page)

The queen returned to her duties
once again, directing the smaller drones, and building the needed part for the
repairs.

Brad stood in the midst of chaos,
as the few engineers and he, scrambled to get systems back online. The spiders
were currently repairing the downed catwalk, and cleaning up the debris. A
small pink line, what was left of a gash on his cheek, was disappearing. It
itched as it healed, and he absently scratched it.

One of the spiders beeped at
Brad, as he filtered through the AI routines.

Brad turned and looked at the
medium spider and rolled his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you to go down and check main
power conduits?” Brad asked it.

A small hologram popped up above
the spider as it zoomed into a series of power relays. Half of them were marked
offline.

“That’s fine, repair them first,
and then check the main power conduits. I don’t want any surprises,” Brad said.

The spider warbled, turned, and
ambled off to do the task it had been given.

Brad turned his attention back to
the lines of code scrolling before him. Something was odd about it. However, he
couldn’t quite put his finger on it. This was his brother’s area of expertise.
It looked as though Atlanta was in hibernation of some sort, and secondary AI
routines were in the process of booting up.

“Ensign Daniel, come over here,
and look at this,” Brad called.

Daniel was one of the newer
computer techs attached to Mike’s department. The guy had been studying
everything he could get his hands on ever since getting to the base. He was the
second best computer tech on the ship, Mike being the first.

“What do you have, Sir?” Daniel
said.

Daniel leaned in and took a look
at the code scrolling across the screen.

“What can you make of this?” Brad
said as he stepped out of the way.

Daniel studied the scrolling code
for a few seconds. He opened a few more files and scanned them, too.

“This is strange. It’s AI code.
However, this isn’t Atlanta,” Daniel said as he continued to scan the code.

“It’s a different AI altogether?”
Brad said.

“Well, not altogether different.
It has similarities to Atlanta, certain routines are the same while some are
new,” Daniel said.

“Could the Invaru have implanted
the code before we jumped?” Brad asked.

“No, there’s too much and the
system doesn’t show any breaches. That was one of the first things I checked,”
Daniel said.

{
Chief.
}
A
female voice said.

{
Yes Ensign.
} Brad
replied.

{
I think we found the main
engines, and the jump-fold drive.
}

{
Good, where are they?
}

{
Two decks down. Remember that
sealed door that wouldn’t open?
}

{
Yeah.
}

{
They’re located behind it,
were running diagnostics, now.
}

{
Okay, you’re in charge. Keep
me informed; when I’m done here, I’ll be down.
}

{
Yes sir.
}

“So what do you think is going
on?” Brad asked.

“I think there is another AI
coming online. The main routines are loading now, but it hasn’t accessed recent
memory yet,” Daniel said.

“Atlanta is in a type of
suspended animation and a completely new AI is coming online?”
Brad
asked
.

“As far as I can tell, yes,”
Daniel said.

“This could be bad,” Brad said.

“A new AI that doesn’t know the
events of the past week is waking up. Yeah, I would say if it has as much
control as Atlanta, it could be very bad. It wouldn’t know who we were or how
we got here. It would look as if we just took over, like invaders,” Daniel
said.

“Can you stop it or wake
Atlanta?” Brad asked.

Daniel shook his head, “Nope. I
already thought of that, whatever has started can’t be stopped.”

“Great,” Brad muttered. He
glanced back and watched the spiders finish the repairs of the catwalk as he
thought about what they had just discussed. “Okay, keep
an
eye on it and let me know if anything changes. I’m going
to go look at these engines and see what I can make of them. I don’t have any
information concerning these new systems that have come online. That handicaps
us, and I don’t like it. Lieutenant Anders will be here to pick up the prisoner
held in my office. No one is to go in there, but him.”

“Yes, Sir,” Daniel said.

Brad turned and walked over to
the transport tube, and stepped on. He arrived two levels down in a matter of
moments. He contacted Andie as he walked around the catwalk towards the newly
opened doors.

{
Andie.
}

{
He’s fine, Brad. The nanites
have the break almost completely repaired. I set the bone while I was there,
and by the time we got him back to Medical he was already able to put light
pressure on it.
}

{
Thank, God.
}

{
He should be back down there
in an hour. Now if you don’t mind I have a few more patients to take care of
here.
}

{
Thanks, Andie.
}

{
Hey no problem, if it was my
brother I would be worried too. Sorry to cut this short but I have a job to do
and the chatter is distracting.
}

{
Talk to you later.
}

{
Bye.
}

Andie moved from person to person
as she set bones and checked on deep lacerations. There were a few who wouldn’t
make it. The nanites just couldn’t repair that type of damage fast enough. She
made them as comfortable as possible. She was standing over one of those people
now.

“Hey Doc,” the female Ensign
said.

Andie reached down and held the
young lady's hand. “How are you feeling?” Andie asked.

“The pain has mostly stopped. I just
get a twinge every so often,” the Ensign said.

An explosive blast burned the
young Ensign’s golden hair completely off the right side of her face. The blast
charred the once beautiful woman’s
face so
bad the bone showed through in places. Blood seeped from
the severe wounds. She was missing her right leg from the knee down and she had
lost her right eye, the heat making it burst. Thankfully, most of the damage
occurred after she passed out. The medical technicians had found her
unconscious, and had transported her to medical.

She could not leave the section
where the blast hit right before their jump. She reported three crewmembers
blown out into space, before the emergency force barriers snapped into place
and saved her.

The damage was so great the nanites
were working overtime trying to repair it. They could heal small wounds and
burns, but something this extensive was beyond their ability. It was only a
matter of time before the Ensign’s body gave up from her other internal
injuries.

“Doc will you stay with me?” the
Ensign asked.

“Sure, Marcella can take over my
other duties,” Andie said. Marcella, who had been assisting Andie, nodded and
continued her rounds.

“I know you have other patients,
it’s just ... I don’t have anyone here and I’m afraid,” the Ensign said.

“Well, Ensign
…”
Andie said.

“Megan ma’am,” Megan said.

“Well, Ensign Megan, it just so
happens I was going to take a break and this is just as good a place as any,”
Andie said. She smiled and winked at Megan.

Megan laughed, which turned into a
coughing fit as she spit up blood.

Andie cleaned her face as she
continued to speak, “So what is your occupation?”

“Botanist, I work in the upper
gardens with Kelly Martin. We brought in almost every type of seed you could
possibly imagine growing. It’s been hard work but we have the area pretty clean
now. I had gone down to one of the storage bays to get some grass seed so we
could start replanting. I was going back when the fight broke out. I got caught
in the explosion,” Megan said.

Andie adjusted some of the
controls on the bed as Megan continued.

“You’re Bill’s sister aren’t
you?” Megan asked.

“Yup,” Andie replied with a
smile.

“Kelly can’t stop talking about
him. She thinks he is so cute. I agree he is kind of cute. But, man to hear her
go on, it’s like there’s not another male on the base…” Megan said.

“Starship,” Andie said as she
winked.

“Yeah, sorry, starship,” Megan
said.

Megan drifted off to sleep for
fifteen minutes. Andie was still holding her hand as she
woke
up
briefly then lapsed into a coma. Megan died one
hour later. It took Andie half an hour to stop crying while she continued her
rounds.

The bots had almost completely
repaired the bridge when Jon watched the planning table come online and display
their current location. Jon made a note to have Brad get the catwalk reinforced
so that a collapse wouldn’t happen again. A couple of the stations were still
out
and
the
technicians told him that they required a
complete overhaul.

“Nearest I can figure is we’re
somewhere on the other side of the galaxy,” Science said. “We’re about twenty
thousand light years from home.”

“Wow,” Jon said astonished. That
far in such a short time, he thought.

Carla looked at her display as it
beeped. Their speed was steadily increasing as their heading changed.

“Sir, were moving,” Carla said.
She and Terri were manning the Helm stations for now. They had figured out some
of the controls on their own, but a lot of it was beyond their grasp. Terri was
having an easier time because it was very close to flying a shuttle.

“What do you mean moving?” Jon
asked.

“She means the ship has picked a
heading and is turning us in that direction. It looks like we’re heading to
this point,” Terri said. The hologram shifted and showed their destination.
“The fold drives are coming online and prepping for a jump.”

“Well, stop it,” Bill said.

Carla shook her head as she
glanced over at Terri who just shrugged her shoulders. “Helm isn’t responding
sir. The controls have been locked out,” Carla said.

“Engineering?” Jon asked looking
at the Ensign.

“She is correct. Brad is working
on it,” Engineering said.

“Well, who the hell…” Jon said.

“I did,” a voice said behind him.

Jon spun around and came face to
face with Atlanta. Well it looked like Atlanta but her hair was blonde and her
eyes a starling blue.

“Atlanta?” Jon asked.

“Who are you and where is Captain
Daneos Itcar?” she asked.

“I’m Commander Jonathan Hunter
and as far as where that other person is I have no idea,” Jon said.

“Commander Hunter? I have no
record of you being stationed on board this ship,” she said.

“It was a base when I was
stationed here and Atlanta transferred command to me,” Jon said.

“Ah, the base AI, accessing those
records now,” she said. “Yes, I see now.”

“Now if you don’t mind who are
you?” Jon asked. Everyone was staring at them as they waited for orders.

“I’m sorry Captain Hunter. I’m
Atlantis, the controlling AI of the
Starship Atlantis
. The
Atlantis
is a Heavy Battle Cruiser of Eutharan design and it looks like one of the last
around. I can see the Invaru have laid siege to your world. That is
unfortunate,” Atlantis said.

“Yes, it is and as soon as I can,
I plan on going back,” Jon said.

“That would be a mistake, the
shape I’m in we wouldn’t last for a minute in a major battle. The crew
complement you have isn’t enough to run a ship this size effectively. I’m in
need of major repairs and as such I’m taking us somewhere to get those repairs
done,” Atlantis said. “We will be folding in one minute.”

“Uh, I don’t know about that, the
last time we jumped…” Jon said.

“Folded,” Atlantis corrected.

“Folded, it didn’t go so well,”
Jon said.

“That is because the inertial
stabilizers were offline. This fold will be much different,” Atlantis said.

“Okay, but where are we going?”
Jon asked.

“Ghost Station, if it’s still there,”
Atlantis said. “It is a large military base where starships were constructed
under an automated process. It is capable of repairing me, and assisting you in
pushing the Invaru back.”

“Well, I guess we have to trust
you,” Jon said.

“And I have to trust you,”
Atlantis said. “Retrieving remote drones, nice addition, who came up with the
concept?”