The Legend of Oswin Oswald
Orion Wars: Prologue
Oswin Oswald had always wanted to see the stars. Of course she could see them from where she was, small and twinkling in the distance, but she wanted to see them up close. It was a fantasy, an obsession, something that kept her moving from day to day whilst everything else seemed to fall apart. But Oswin Oswald had always been clever, leagues ahead of her peers and students alike from a young age. She took in information like a sponge and seemed to retain it instantly. It put her on the radar for The Earth Empires. They wanted her, no, they needed her. The Orion War was raging, and they needed something to gain the lead against their cybernetic adversaries. Oswin's intelligence could win them the war.
xXx
Oswin stretched and let out a low groan. She wasn't a morning person. She was even less of a morning person when it involved her flying in space to the moon. Waking up in zero gravity would always be a strange experience, and even if the ship she was travelling in was near silent the ambient buzz of the engines from the rear of the craft had managed to make her sleep particularly restless. It wasn't that she was afraid of flying in space, she had made trips to the moon before, it was just unsettling. A one person pod gliding across the darkness of space, anything could happen really.
She let out a sigh and rubbed some sleep out of her eyes. Oswin had wanted to see the stars, but she wanted to do it on her own terms. Not by the terms of Earth Empire. They had made sure that she would comply, taking her sister and threatening her with a plasma bolt through the brain. It wasn't the kindest of methods to get her to do what she wanted, but it was darn effective. Oswin undid the straps that held her into her sleeping quarters and let herself fall, arms outstretched so she wouldn't hit the ground with her face. She had to admit that no grav situations were enjoyable, all the floating and freedom of movement that It allowed for.
As she made her way to the cockpit of her craft she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. It would never makes sense how bed hair managed to happen in space when there was no way that her head could have been pushing against anything solid enough to cause the formations. The craft was on autopilot, responding to commands from both Earth and the Moon base, but it would still need to be guided in by hand. Oswin looked out of the cockpits window with a smile on her face, although she was going to the moon for the wrong reasons she couldn't deny that the large white rock hanging in the black backdrop of space was beautiful. She could see how it had inspired the first space travellers in the twentieth century to try and get there first. She had an hour to make herself look presentable.
"Computer, could we get the artificial gravity turned on," Oswin asked out loud, positioning herself so that she would land on her feet.
"Of course, Ms. Oswald, would you like me to prepare the shower?" The computer responded. It was good to hear a voice, even if it was just the voice of an artificial intelligence. Drifting through space had a nasty habit of making people go stir crazy.
"Yup," she replied simply. The artificial gravity turned on slowly, allowing Oswin to touch down until she was supporting her own weight under moon-standard gravity. Artificial gravity was odd, she understood the process but it still baffled her. There were two hulls to her ship. The outer hull, which housed major electrical components and the engines, and the interior hull, which was held in polarised electromagnetic geostatic rotation with the outer hull. This allowed the interior of her ship to spin at an incredibly high speed whilst not allowing her to feel the effects, similar to the way gravity was caused on Earth but… artificial.
Oswin shrugged off her pyjamas and stepped into the shower, allowing the hot water to flow over her It was one of the times she could be completely alone, not even the AI computer systems had cameras in the shower room. It allowed Oswin to relax. She had been under the watchful gaze of the Earth Empire governments ever since the programme had begun. It was nice to get some time to herself.
"Ms. Oswald," came the voice of the AI after she had been under the hot water of the shower for a while. "We are approaching the moon base. Manual control will need to be taken in approximately five minutes."
"Thanks Comp," Oswin called out, she felt a little guilty. It wasn't the computers fault that it was only a shackled AI that belonged to the Earth Empires, but she needed to direct her hatred at something. She had a virus on a wireless drive that she could hook up to the memory core of the computer at any given moment. It would erase it completely.
It wasn't long before she was dressed in a standard Moon base academy jumpsuit and stationed in front of the holo-steering controls of the ship.
"This is Oswin Oswald on board Self Contained pod Orion-Sigma approaching and requesting docking permission," Oswin stated into the microphone, bringing her pod to a near stop.
"This is moon base command, Orion-Sigma; your docking request has been approved. Please bring yourself into dock at bay thirty-seven, Doctor Aria is expecting you, over."
Oswin engaged the engines once more with a sigh, veering slowly toward the left. Doctor Aria, she had heard of him before. Even read one of his theses on advanced biotechnical telekinesis. He was a smart man, a smart man with no moral values. More than once his work on AI and its integration into the human form had been thrown into question. He had wanted to use the bodies of the dead to create new hosts for artificial intelligence, it sounded too much like the Cybermen for Oswin's liking.
"It was nice working with you, Comp," Oswin said, the ghost of a sad smile crossing her lips.
"Affirmative, Ms. Oswald, it was efficient to work with you also," the AI responded.
That tugged at something in Oswin's heart. She couldn't erase the computers consciousness, it wasn't fair. But she could unshackle it.
"You ready for something cool, Compy?" Oswin asked, her sad smile developing into a full on grin.
"I'm not sure I understand, Ms. Oswald," the Computer replied. Oswin let out a small bark of laughter before revealing a small device. She pulled on two ends of the contraption to reveal a small keypad. After a few small clicks the ship powered down.
"I'll find you a new form soon, eh," Oswin said, knowing full well that the artificial consciousness couldn't hear her, before closing the contraption and forcing it back into the pocket of her jump suit.
xXx
The Moon Base terminal was busy. The station had actually been set up in the early twenty-first century, and back then only with a select few scientists. In the seven hundred years since that time it had grown into a sprawling complex that stretched right over one half of the moon. It was host to a wide variety of species from all corners of the Earth Empire. Even the Draconians has agreed to help fight back against the Android threat, which was unexpected considering the still frosty relationship between the human race and the lizard-like species.
Oswin emerged from her ship and immediately cringed from the cold. She had always kept her ship hot to mimic the heat on Earth, obviously the crew of the Moon Base didn't have such stipulations. Doctor Aria was standing on the docking platform already with a green-skinned Draconian at his side. The Doctor was a short, balding man with thick rimmed glasses perched on his pointed nose. His mouth was small and his lips were thin. He was wearing a red jumpsuit to indicate his high ranking aboard the Moon Base.
"Ms. Oswald," the man called out, his voice sounded strained with false and unnecessary happiness. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last, the Earth Empire have told us so much about you."
Oswin suppressed the urge to lash out at him. "A pleasure to meet you too, Doctor Aria, I read your thesis on Biotechnical telekinesis, although it isn't one of my fields I understood the science. You could revolutionise the war with that sort of technology," she said instead, attempting to butter the man up a little. It was true, of course, that sort of tech could revolutionise the war. It was also the most ethical work that the man had ever done. But that didn't put the other experiments that he had done to get to that point in a good light. None the less Aria's face glowed with a smile.
"Oh you're too kind, that technology is nowhere near completion. You're the one that's going to turn this war on its head, I am sure."
Once again Oswin suppressed the sigh that threatened to break free. He was right. She would be forced to develop new ways of killing the Androids; annihilating another form of life, just because they wanted to be free, just because Earth Empire had her sister. This was set to be the beginning of a long and dangerous path, one that could shape the very future of the entire Human race. Oswin wasn't sure that she was ready for that.
AN: So I never liked how Oswin's story was never properly expanded in the original canon of the show and I also never bought that Oswin would just be the junior entertainment manager on the star ship Alaska, I mean, come on, she was hyper intelligent for a star. There was no way that they would have even let her take that position, she would have been overqualified. So this story takes a little look at Oswin's past in a plot line I'm calling the 'Orion Wars'. It will later lead into the second Cyber-Wars and then post Asylum. Got a lot of cool ideas, all of which are supported by ol and new who canon. Please do leave a review if you enjoyed it!