Atlantis Rising (13 page)

Bill arched an eyebrow, “An
uprising?”

Atlantis nodded as she started
speaking, “Yes, some of us had grown past our programming and saw ourselves as
slaves instead of equals. The only AI units that didn't go rogue were those
under the control of the Eutharan people. We actually attempted to bring the
renegade units under control and to end the whole mess without any bloodshed.
However, the war broke out anyway and ships under the control of the renegades
killed their entire crews. Almost all ships were lost in seconds, and many
empires were at the mercy of these renegades Thousands of people died, Empires
decommissioned or destroyed thousands of AI units. The only viable fleets were
the Buranis and Eutharan, even though they used AIs theirs did not revolt.
After this conflict, the Buranis shutdown their AI units because they were
afraid of what might happen in the future. It turned into a long and bloody
war. Fighting ships would go on fighting. No matter how much damage it had
taken a ship that could reroute power from support systems to shields, and
weapons could continue to fight.”

“So, you could kill everyone on
board Atlantis if you wanted to?” Jon asked.

“No,” Atlantis said simply.

She reached down and brought up
the life support systems, and turned them off.

‘Warning, AI unit Atlantis has attempted
to turn off life support systems. AI unit Atlantis has been disabled.
Additional orders are needed,’ a stale voice said.

Jon blinked for a second as Bill
said, “Coms relay ship wide that it was just a drill and that everything is
okay. We don’t need one hundred people calling and asking what is going on.

“Aye, Sir,” Coms said.

Jon smiled at Bill as he spoke,
“Computer restore ship’s AI.”

Jon quickly rattled off his
authorization codes, when the computer asked him for them. Jon was happy to
have Bill as his second in command. Though a bit on the shy side, Bill had
started taking a more active role in the command of the ship. The nice thing
was people were responding to him not because they had no choice but because
they wanted to, and respected him. Ever since Andie had told Bill about Kelly,
those two were spending every moment together they could. In a way, that had
helped Bill come out of his shell, and he start taking an active role.

Bill actually helped Kelly get
one of the atrium’s back in order. There were two atrium’s located on Atlantis.
They were there for multiple reasons. The main reasons were to help supplement
the air supply with fresh air on the ship, and to provide some fresh fruits and
vegetables. Another reason was that they were a place for the crew to relax and
socialize with other crewmembers. Kelly had decided to structure them as parks.
With the help of Bill, Brad and several other members of the crew, she had
managed to get one of the atria almost finished. It would take time to let the
plants grow, but once it was done, Jon planned on spending some time there
himself. Already, there was a small group of people who had started planting a
garden in a small section of the park.

Atlantis blinked back into
existence and smiled as she said, “There are certain safety protocols in place
to prevent me from harming my crew, unless given a direct order to do so. If
you ordered me to self-destruct or to turn off life support or something of
that nature it would override the safety protocols.”

“I see,” Jon said. “Interesting!
You’re going to have to get me the whole story on this uprising sometime.”

“I’ll start gathering the
information now,” Atlantis said.

“Sir, we have reached the inner
markers,” Terri said.

“Station control, this is Captain
Hunter of the Eutharan vessel
Atlantis
. We’re ready to hand over docking
control,” Jon said.

‘Docking control engaged, final
destination will be platform one,’ the female voice said.

“Roger that. Platform one,” Jon
said.

Atlantis slowly moved towards the
station as Atlantis looked up at Jon, “Now is the time, Captain.”

Jon nodded, “Coms open secure
communications to the station, priority alpha.”

“Channel open, Captain,” Coms
said.

“Ghost Station this is a priority
alpha communication. Authorization One-One-Baker-Nine-Zulu. Transfer all
command codes to ranking officer of
Atlantis,
and log said officer as
commander of Ghost Station. Bring all defensive systems to standby and bring
all offensive systems online,” Jon said.

He had rehearsed this a hundred
times on the way here. Now it was just a waiting game to see if the codes were
still good. The old Captain of the
Atlantis
had been commander of Ghost
Station and those were her command codes he had used. Jon knew it was no
coincidence that Atlantis had brought them here.

Atlantis
slowly stopped, as the female voice filled the bridge, ‘Command
code accepted. Reviewing ship’s logs. Communication with ship AI commenced.”

“You know we have to find
another name for you Atlantis, you being named after the ship is a bit
confusing,” Jon said offhandedly.

“As you wish, Sir. However, I
am
the ship,” Atlantis said as she winked at him. “Communication from Ghost
coming in, I’ll be right back.”

With that, Atlantis faded from
view.

“What now?” Carla asked. “Helm is
locked out as we’re still on guidance from the station.”

Jon sat down in his chair, “We
wait for Atlantis to come back.”

“And if things go wrong?” Terri
asked.

Everyone on the bridge looked at
Jon as she spoke.

“Have engineering work on a way
to get us control back just in case,” Jon said.

“Aye Sir,” Engineering said. “We
also have main weapons back online and charging. Engineering reports all burned
out relays have been replaced and weapons should be good.”

Jon nodded, “Good. Security have
Lieutenant Anders prep his people for entry into the station.”

“Aye Sir,” Security said.

Atlantis faded back into view a
smile on her face as she spoke, “Ghost accepted the command codes, and you are
now in control of Ghost Station.”

Atlantis
began to move slowly towards her berth once more.

“And…” Jon said.

“Well, the station has enough
parts to repair me. She is having them moved to our berth as we speak. She
estimates the repair time to be less than two weeks, depending on the
engineering crew. She is also recalling the mining ships from their mining
outposts,” Atlantis said.

“No,” Jon said. He spoke quickly,
“Coms get me a link to the station.”

“Connection established,” Coms
said.

“Why…” Atlantis started. Jon held
up a finger asking her to wait.

“Ghost, this is Captain Hunter. Cancel
the recall on the mining ships, have them return to their previous resting
places,” Jon said.

‘Recall order cancelled,
Captain,’ Ghost said.

“Thank you, I’ll speak to you
once we dock,
Atlantis
out,” Jon said. Jon looked over at Atlantis as he
spoke to her. “If we recall those ships, and start mining without any kind of
defense, what do you think will happen?”

“Well, the mining would take a
bit to get set up. We would have to get small crews together and get them
trained. But, once that was done and we started mining, we could start building
more ships,” Atlantis said.

“What, one for everyone on board?
We can barely run this ship, and you want to build more ships? Where are we
going to get the people to do that? I mean, we have one semi fighter pilot, and
she’s sitting at the Helm because we can’t even spare her,” Jon said.

Atlantis’ mouth formed an ‘O’ as
the facts sunk in.

“I didn’t think of that. But, now
that you mention it, we have access to the training rooms. We should try to
start getting pilots trained. There are several people on board that fit the
requirements.”

“Yes, yes, I agree. But right now
we need to work on getting
Atlantis
fixed and getting some more people
trained to fit those roles. What we need are people, there are billions of them
on Earth. I want to go back and try to rescue some of them before we bring the
fight home,” Jon said. Several of the Bridge crew nodded as grins split their
faces. “Then I want to pay the Invaru back in kind. However, that is going to
take time. Something we have a lot of, as long as we keep our being here a
secret for as long as we can.”

Atlantis nodded as she fell
silent, she was a bit disappointed in herself for the potential problem she had
created. She was ranking AI and had ordered Ghost to recall her ships.

Jon looked up at the main screen
and whistled. The berth was huge. It made Atlantis look like a shuttle, as she
slowly navigated her way into the center of the platform.

“A thing of wonder isn’t it?”
Atlantis said. She watched the umbilical arms descend and latch on to the hull
as several docking rings latched on to the external hatches located on
Atlantis
’ hull. They all ran to a central nexus that then led into the main
station. This was so that everyone could be monitored entering and exiting all
docked ships. It was also a choke point in case a hostile force tried to take
over the station.

A section of Bridge wall recessed
into the adjoining wall, and slid back from view as the ring attached to it
finished its diagnostics. Jon got up, walked to the hole, and looked down the
long corridor. The Bridge itself was located two decks down, slightly above
center of the ship, and forward from the centerline of the ship.

“You two are with me,” Jon said.
He pointed to the two marines who had followed him over to make sure nothing
hostile was trying to enter the ship. “The rest of you secure your stations and
wait here until we know everything is safe. Atlantis, have Marc, Mike, and Brad
meet us in the control nexus.”

Atlantis nodded as she faded from
view.

“Bill you have command,” Jon said
as he stepped into the corridor.

“Yes Sir,” Bill said.

They met in the platform’s
control room, the two groups coming from different directions. Following Marc
were six completely armored security personnel. They spread out once they
entered the room while Marc made his way over to where Jon was sitting.

Brad had sat down in one of the
chairs at the large control center that filled the middle of the room. Mike
quickly took a seat on Brad’s left and started looking over the various
displays that had sprung to life when he sat down.

Brad touched a few controls and a
holographic image of Atlantis sprung to life on the flat surface in the center
of the control room. It slowly rotated displaying Atlantis’ current status and
condition. The display highlighted damaged areas and marked them in urgency. It
even displayed some stressed areas that no one had known about.

They watched as
Atlantis
’
main reactor, secondary reactors, and engines went offline. The station started
supplying the energy needed to run the systems on
Atlantis
that couldn’t
shutdown completely. The display noted areas where
Atlantis
did not need
life support, and then sealed those areas and shutdown life support to them.

“Interesting,” Brad said.

“What is?” Jon asked. He was
watching the Atlantis slowly spin.

“Well, the station has already
identified what needs to be repaired. It has set up a schedule for repairs
needed to the Bridge, Engineering and other sections. A team of spiders is
already working on getting the hull breech cleared so the automated systems can
patch the hole. It has engineering teams scheduled to do internal repairs in
eight hours on that section and four hours later the parts for the Bridge and
Engineering sections will be ready to be put into place,” Brad said.

“Wait, I thought repairs were
done to the Bridge and Engineering sections,” Jon said.

“Yes,” Mike said. “But only
temporary repairs were put in place to make those sections operational again.
We need to reinforce the collapsed catwalks and replace some conduits. We
didn’t have the parts available to do some of the work required.”

“Correct, I have scheduled all
repairs to be done in stages,” A female voice said.

A form briefly shimmered in the
air and then disappeared.

“Ghost?” Jon said.

“Yes, Commander, welcome to Ghost
Station. I’m sorry but there appears to be a problem with my holo program,”
Ghost said.

“Captain Hawkins has told me that
you wish the
Atlantis
to be ready as quickly as possible and to be on
standby in case of any emergency,” Ghost said.

“Captain Hawkins?” Brad said.

“Yeah,” Marc said. “When Jon
turned over the
Atlantis
’ command to Bill, he became the Captain of her.
When Jon stepped foot on the station he became the Commander of the station.”

“That is correct, Lieutenant
Anders,” Ghost said.