Published: 4 Apr 2019

Present Time

After a time, a nagging buzzing penetrated the fog in my brain and I began to search for it’s cause. Slowly it resolved itself into the distinct beeping of my comlink. “A comlink?” I questioned myself. “How did a comlink get into my hypersleep chamber?”

As I began to stir, I could feel the cold steel floor panels against my face and hands. Pushing myself up with my arms, I looked around and was at first puzzled not to see my hypersleep chamber anywhere. I turned my head and saw the burned out ruins of the holounit and everything came flooding back to reality. I almost retched and my heart sank. “How long have I been laying here?” I wondered. Finally I realized my comlink was still beeping. As I reached for it, I found that I was cold, stiff and sore from lying on the hard steel.

“This is Jared.” I said, activating my comlink.

“Finally. This is the Beirland Emergency Med Center. We’ve been trying to reach you for almost three hours. The young lady, Samira Corby, that you asked us to notify you about, is awake and has been asking for you. Can you come down right away please?”

“Ah… Samira… Ah… OH! You mean Sam. Yeah sure, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ve got a bit of trouble with my ship but I should be able to come in about an hour. Okay?”

“Certainly, that will be fine. We’ll let Ms. Corby know you’re coming.”

“Thank you. Oh and she prefers to be called Sam by the way. I’ll see you soon.”

I disconnected and then put through a call to the security office at the spaceport. They sent out an investigator and she sent for an entire team when she saw my ship. They promised to examine everything carefully. They would also be looking at the vids. They’d let me know what they found and if they got any leads. I left them to their jobs and took an airtaxi to the medical center. It only took a few minutes to find Sam’s room.

“Hey there slugger. How’re you doing?”

“Shit, I feel like I’ve been run over by a Slygarian Tergid.”

“Yeah. You kinda look like it too.” I chuckled. “Anything broken?”

“No, thankfully. That brute really connected good a few times though. I’m going to be stiff and sore for a while.”

“Well, he’ll never do it to anyone else! You saw to that, for sure.”

“So I did get him then?” she whispered.

“Yes, twice. That was… um… well placed that.”

“Good and good riddance, I say. So, what happened to my … you know?”

“I kicked it down the sewer drain outside. I didn’t think it would be good to have that particular item seen by … them.”

“Damn. Oh well, you’re probably right. I guess I can squeeze down there and retrieve it later.”

“Or, I can send one of my little bots to get it discreetly. It could go in down the line a mile so it wouldn’t be seen.”

“Cool. So, how’s my shop?”

“Well… I’m afraid I’ve got bad news there. It burned everything pretty much. I think there may be a few things that survived but not a lot.”

“Shit! I hate pirates! What the fuck were they doing here anyway? I’ve never seen pirates hit right out in public.”

“I’m afraid that was my fault and I’m really sorry you got caught in the middle.

“What do you mean? How’s it your fault?”

I spent the next hour explaining about the princess and what I had done. I told her about my ship too and how we were both screwed.

“So anyhow, those guys have the princess and my adopted son. My ship’s a wreck. My boss is pissed enough to have me arrested if I show up there. He has sent out Kelvidian hunters who won’t care about Ryan, only the princess. My name has been blacklisted in the space traders’ guild. Essentially, I’m broke and grounded with nothing I can do about it. Goddess, what a mess.”

Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero. You saved my life. If it weren’t for you I’d either be dead or back being use…! Well anyhow, the least I can do is help put your ship back together. Besides, I need a new place to live. Without my shop I can’t even pay the rent.”

“Well, I could use the help but I’m afraid it will take more than a broken down old space trader and a teenage girl to fix that mess.”

“Hey! Don’t go judging me by my age. I make or repair most of the things I sell, remember! I’ve been fixing ships for years now. I think I can handle it!”

“Well… um… okay. If you feel that strongly about it… I suppose we can give it a shot.”

We talked for a while longer. Then the nurse came in and said I’d have to leave. They said Sam would be free to leave the next day but would need to return three times a week for about a month for treatment. I agreed to pick her up the next day and left.

Returning to my ship, I found they had completed most of the examination but was told not to touch anything until they said so. The only thing they allowed me to do was to put an energy screen where the hatch had been.

I was exhausted by now so I went to my own quarters to sleep, forgetting that they were wrecked too. I ended up in one of the guest quarters and crashed out for a few hours.

The next day I picked up Sam and we went shopping. I hadn’t wanted to but she insisted. She needed new tools, some clothes and a few other items. We stopped at her habitat and packed up what she had there. Then after having it delivered out to my ship, we decided to stop by her shop.

While Sam picked through the remains, I dropped a tracker chip down the sewer to guide my bot to the old gun. We worked for about three hours, scrounging up what we could salvage. By the time we got back to the ship we were both covered in ash and muck and smelled of burnt charcoal and smoke. We agreed to just crash for the night and look over the ship the next day. I checked with the investigator and was told we were clear to go ahead with repairs. They had collected all they could but still had no leads on the pirates.

Over the next week we cleared away everything that couldn’t be repaired or used elsewhere. Sam was as good as her word. I found her to be very intelligent, bright and creative.I don’t know how she did it but it only took her one day to get the AI up and running. She claimed they had used an old pirate trick to scramble the AI. It hadn’t actually been damaged and if you knew how, it could be unscrambled.

There was nothing she could do to restore the holounit or C.H.I.P.. I would need to buy a new unit. Sam was puzzled why the pirates would destroy a holounit until I explained C.H.I.P. and how he would have reacted to them.

“I’m really sorry you lost him again.” she said. “I can’t restore something that no longer exists though.”

“You haven’t found any trace of his program?”

“No. I’m sorry, it’s just not there.”

“That puzzles me. It’s not like Chip. I would have thought he’d find a way to save himself.”

“Maybe you should just let him go. You’ve got Ryan now. Concentrate on finding him.”

“You’re right, I know. It’s just hard. He has been a part of my life for so long. It still hurts to think of him as gone for good.”

“You claim to believe in the Goddess. Maybe she knew you would need all your faculties to find and raise Ryan. Maybe she took Chip to push you into a real life with a real son.”

That hit me like an A-Bomb. Sam was right. I had spent so much time thinking about and grieving over Chip that I hadn’t really allowed myself to worry about Ryan like he deserved. As we worked, talked and ate together, Sam helped me spend time working to find the princess and Ryan. One afternoon she returned from the market and literally ran into the engine room, calling for me.

“Jared! Jared, where are you?”

“Back behind the impeller unit.” I called.

“I’ve got some info on the pirates!” she said squeezing in beside me.

“Really? That’s great. Tell me.”

“They weren’t just regular pirates. They were hired to grab the princess. They took Ryan because he tried to save the princess. I was told to find Treybor on Garlac station. The info says he can tell us where to look.”

“Excellent. Now I have something to take to Kay-Lar. Maybe he has cooled down by now.”

“Why not find Treybor ourselves?”

“Kay-Lar has certain… um… abilities we don’t. He will be able to extract the info we need easier than we can.”

“Oh. Okay. If you think it’s best.”

I went out to Kay-Lar’s place later that afternoon. I was right. He had cooled off and was ready to talk. I gave him the info Sam had gotten and also told him what had happened in the week since Ryan and the princess had been taken.

“So you see, I have a vested interest in finding them too. Sam and I have put in every spare minute we had this week. Between repairs and searching for information we haven’t had time for much else, including sleep. We’re both exhausted and could really use your help. Kay-Lar, I know I let you down. I thought what I was doing was the right thing to do. No one ever recognized the princess for almost two weeks. I think we must have had a leak from inside.”

“Are you trying to zay it iz vone of my people?!”

“I’m not accusing anyone but I think it would be foolish to assume anything. I realize how careful you are when you select your people. It’s not likely but we need to rule out ANY possibilities. We’ve got to find them and fast!”

“Zo you zuspect vone of zee prinzesses own people zen?”

“It seems the most likely place to start. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yez. Alright, you go speak with all zee prinzesses people and zee vhat you can find. I vill find zis Treybor and make him talk. I vill contact you later. Oh and I vill zend zome of my people to help vith your zhip.”

I did as he asked and spent the rest of the day interviewing each one of the princesses staff. I found three that sounded unsure and couldn’t account for their time the day Ryan and the princess were taken. That night I did some digging down at the Night Market. I found one of the ladies from earlier, there in the company of a man. She broke down and confessed that she had been with him that day as well. The guy confirmed it, as well as several people who saw them together. Since all the princesses ladies are supposed to be virgins and dedicated to the princess alone, it explained why this one had been unwilling to give account of her actions.

By the time I got back to the ship it was almost the next morning. When I walked onto the bridge, I got a shock. Sam was standing with one foot on a console and the other on top of a ladder with her head and shoulders up inside one of the access panels. That wasn’t what shocked me though. She had nothing but a pair of panties and a T-shirt on. In her position there was little left to the imagination.

“Uh… um!” I said, turning my back. The ladder slipped and crashed to the floor. Sam let out a squeal then started to curse.

“God damn it. You think you could announce yourself a bit earlier! How about a little help!?”

I turned around to find her hanging from the open hatch. I helped her down and apologized. “I’m really sorry I startled you. However, you really did the same to me. What in blazes are you doing running around in your tuh-duhn-tah-duns?”

Sam began laughing.

“What? I don’t find it funny.”

She only laughed harder.

“It’s not funny little lady! I walk in here and get an eye full of you… your… well… you know!” I said turning red. “How do you think that made me feel? Huh?”

By this time she was sitting on the floor holding her stomach and rocking side to side. She was laughing so hard she had tears running down her cheeks.

“Just put something more on from now on!” I said and stormed out.

Later, Sam found me working in the engine room with a couple of Kay-Lar’s men.

“Hey Jared, you got a minute?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right down.”

I climbed down out of the engine housing and down to the main deck.

“Okay, what’s up?”

“I’m sorry about earlier.” she said. “I wasn’t laughing about the clothes thing though. It just hit me funny when you said ‘tuh-duhn-tah-duns’. There are few people who would even know what that means. I couldn’t believe you used such an old Earth phrase. Then you got all flustered and embarrassed and it made me laugh even more. I just couldn’t help it. I did try to stop but you know how it is sometimes when no matter how hard you try, it just makes it worse.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there. I’m not mad. It was just a surprise. Why were you dressed that way anyhow?”

“It’s just more comfortable, that’s all. I work better when my clothes aren’t getting all bunched up or tangled in the wiring.”

“Alright, I get it. I still think it would be best if you wore something that covers a bit better. Okay?”

“Okay, I will. Would a pair of tights or leotards do?”

“Yes, I can live with that. As long as they’re opaque!”

“Right. Got it.”

With the help of Kay-Lar’s people, we had the ship ready to launch in just three days. Sam turned out to be a treasure. She did almost half the work herself. She put in a few things that were even better than the original parts. She told me that even though the ship would fly, there was still a lot of work it needed, My bots needed a program upgrade, the engines could be made more efficient, the AI was still glitchy, there were areas of the ship that looked like my repair bots had ignored them for way too long, the hypersleep chambers had some bad parts and needed work. In fact, she said it surprised her those chambers were still working at all. When I mentioned the dreams I always had during a sleep session, she laughed at me again.

“Have you ever even looked at the dream inducer to see where it’s set?”

“Dream Inducer?!?” I said, puzzled. “I didn’t know such a thing even existed.”

I felt so stupid when she showed me how it worked. All these years I had it set to help review past events in my life. That’s why I had been having all those dreams of Chip, my old ship, being in the military, etc. I couldn’t believe I had never known about it or even seen those particular controls. I began to wonder about it and couldn’t let it go. Finally I tried asking the ship’s AI.

“AI acknowledge please.”

“Acknowledged. Proceed.”

“Are you aware of the Dream Inducer controls on the hypersleep chamber?”

“Negative.”

Now I was really puzzled. If the AI didn’t even know about them, how was I supposed to?” Find and display all technical manuals for the S300 EZ Hypersleep Chamber.”

“Working, stand by… now on console.”

I spent several minutes looking but was able to find the “Dream Inducer” controls and instructions. When I queried the computer, I was even more confused by it’s answers. “Please explain these controls.” I said, pointing them out in the manuals.

“These controls are used to select the mode and duration of dreams during a sleep session.”

“You told me you were unaware of these controls Now you’re telling me what they do. Are you aware of them or not?”

“I cannot answer that question.”

“What do you mean? Explain.”

“I am restricted from answering questions about these controls.”

“Restricted? By who?”

“That is also restricted.”

“But you just told me about the controls when I pointed them out in the manuals. How can you be restricted and still tell me about them?”

“You asked a question about a technical manual only. I am not restricted from giving information on technical data.”

“Have you ever tampered with the settings on my hypersleep chamber?”

“Negative.”

“Then who set them?”

“That information is restricted.”

“Damn it! Who restricted it?!”

“That infor…”

“Oh shut up!”

About this time Sam stepped up to the AI controls and said, “Here, let me try something.”It took here a few minutes but she finally backed away, “Okay try it again.”

“AI answer. Who restricted you giving information about my sleep chamber?”

“I am… am… restriction placed by… Ch… Chi…” and it stopped.

“AI listen and comply. You will disengage and erase any and all restrictions placed by the holoprogram named C.H.I.P.! This is a priority 1A command, code Zeta Zeta Two Nine Five Gamma Pi!”

“Working… stand by…” There was a wait of several minutes, then, “Command acknowledged and accomplished.”

“Now, tell me who has been tampering with the Dream Inducer settings on my sleep chamber and who restricted that information.”

“Both were done by the holoprogram C.H.I.P.”

“Explain to me how a program can do these things! A program, mind you, that you run!”

“That information has been deleted from my memory core.”

Once again my holoprogram had managed to do things it should not be able to do. I was frustrated and confused. Sam and I talked about this for weeks afterwards and could never figure it out.

It had now been 10 days since the abduction. The ship was ready to fly but we still had no destination and Kay-Lar had not made contact. I was getting worried so I called him. “Kay-Lar, have you been able to find Treybor?”

“Yez indeed. Ve had a long talk. He did not enjoy it very much.” he laughed. I knew exactly what he meant. “Zo anyvay, he vas very helpful. Zee piratez who took Ryan and zee princess uzed a ship called “Zee Harveztor.” Zey are zlaverz and vere hired to capture zee prinzess. Zeir next ztop vas to be Bindell Five but zey are mozt likely already gone from zhere. Zat is az far az I could track zem. You vill need to ztart zhere and zee vhat you can find.”

“Great. We’ll be lifting off within the hour. I’ll do all I can to find them. I don’t know how long it will take, so I’ll check in from time to time and give you updates.”

“Zat vill be goot. I vill avait your reports. I vish you luck and may zee goddezz guide you.” Forty five minutes later we hit space and set course for Bindell Five.

Are you enjoying this story? You might want to let Jared know by emailing him at: Jared at CastleRoland dot Net