Chapter 6 – First Time Off Ship

Daniel had been shown around the dormitory hall after his meeting with the General, and was then given his room. It was pleasant and the right size for him. The walls were a dullish grey color, the color of metal, though they weren't dismal. He had a comfortable-looking bed and a desk with everything he would need. He also had his own bathroom and wardrobe. It felt more like home than home had.

Laying back in his bed after changing into the nightclothes that were laid out for him, he allowed his mind to settle into the rhythmic rumble of the running engine of Karma, and fell asleep, feeling that he had finally found his place in life…even if it wasn't in the same dimension.

He awoke from a deep sleep feeling restful the next morning. Dressing, he could swear that he could sense that someone was lurking outside his room. Somehow, by doing something he didn't know he could do, Daniel closed his eyes and focused, willing himself to look through the wall, and sure enough, in his mind, Daniel could see that Damian was there, trying to look into Daniel's room.

Focusing on the man, Daniel thought 'Go away,' and Damian, with a slightly dazed, puzzled expression, immediately walked down the hall, turning the corner. Smiling, Daniel hurried to Joseph's quarters just off the Main Bridge.

"You're sure that happened?" Hoffman asked after Daniel told him what had just occurred.

"Yes!"

"Wow. See? I told you you'd have more! Could you show me?" Joseph seemed almost giddy.

Daniel looked around and saw Alex walking towards them to go to her science lab.

"Here, Alex will wink and clap her hands…right about…" Daniel made sure she was looking at them and was close enough when he thought the commands. "Now." Alexandra looked over and winked at them while clapping her hands once as she opened and entered another door leading into the hallway she wanted.

Joseph was grinning. "Maybe you can use that for an advantage with the ladies…"

Daniel looked over with a hard look on his face mixed with disbelief. "I don't think so."

"Hey, to each his own…"

Suddenly, the General's phone rang. Picking it up and after listening for a while, Joseph became pale and his olive-green jewel began to glow slightly.

"I understand, sir," he said, while closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. "Yes, sir. We'll go at once." He hung up.

Looking up at Daniel with determined eyes, the General said, "Well, it's going to be your first time off-ship. We're ordered to go checkout a planet, named P36-X79 by our computer. We call it "The Wasteland" because, well, that's what it is. We have word from our intelligence that a ship has crash-landed there and is thought to be Androidian."

"Are they sure?" Daniel asked, his face turning grim.

"No, but we'd better get you ready. It'll be your first time traveling in this dimension. It'll feel kind of weird and your mind will feel like it's ripped from the rest of you. You'll need to get used to it, though—it isn't as bad as when you first came here."

Turning back to his desk, Hoffman took out what looked to be something blackish-grey that stuck in the ear and followed the jawbone to the mouth, where it seemed to have a microphone. He handed it to Daniel.

"This is your standard issue comm. It connects to any of the crewmembers that are using them and you can talk to everyone at once, or just one at a time—you cannot have just a few at the same time, though."

Pushing the button on the side of his, Hoffman said, "Everyone, report to the Spacegate room. We're going on a mission to The Wasteland."

Letting go of the button, he made a gesture for Daniel to follow him and they left to go to the Boarding Room, Daniel placing the comm in his ear.

"What're our orders, sir?" John asked while walking into the room, Dagón right behind him. Dude, Alex, and Damian came a bit later.

"You're going off-world. John, you, Dude, Daniel and Alex will go. Damien, Dagón and I will stay here. All you need to do is check out a ship that crash-landed there. The President wants to know if it can be salvaged and if it's Androidian. That'll be your mission. I want you, John, to stay with Daniel and help him through his first mission off-ship."

John smiled. "Of course, sir. I know what it felt like on my first mission."

Joseph turned and nodded to Dagón, who, on being ordered, had gone to the dialing room. "Go ahead, Dagón!" he said and the alien nodded.

"Starting the dialing sequence to The Wasteland," Dagón confirmed, and Daniel paid attention to what was happening.

The inside of the Spacegate's ring, the part with the letters on began to spin clockwise. The giant triangle at the top stopped it at the Latin Ħ letter that was on their patch—Daniel correctly assumed that that was the symbol for Tierra, the point of origin for where they were in the galaxy.

Then, when it had stopped at the letter, a blue beam of light 'scanned' the letter, making it turn red from the dark green it used to be. From here, the information went into the computer where Dagón was.

"Alpha-One encoded, matey!" Dagón announced through the dialing room into the 'Gate Room through a microphone.

After scanning the symbol, the Spacegate's inner circle turned counter-clock-wise, and went to another letter, scanning that, as well.

"Alpha-Two encoded!"

The process continued until seven letters were scanned.

"Alpha-Seven encoded! Spacegate engaged! Opening the iris."

Over the open space through the Spacegate was a see-though Transsteel covering, though it wasn't the clearest Transparent Steel ever made—Daniel guessed that that was the iris. It wound around itself and looked like it could be opened easily, though if an attack came, it would hold.

All of a sudden, the Transsteel unwound at the middle and disappeared inside the Spacegate's frame. Then, a split second after that, the swirling 'waters' came again and spun outward, making the link to another Spacegate.

"Whoa," Daniel muttered.

"Yeah," John said. "And it's quite a ride, too."

Looking around, John then said, "All right, everyone! Let's do this! The sooner we get there, the sooner we get back.

"Dagón? Just the normal combat pack—nothing special, except put comms in there. Yeah…and maybe night-vision goggles. Did you get all that?"

"Aye, John. I got it. And ye'll have them once ye get there."

"Good," John said and signaled for his team to go through the Spacegate.

After Alexandra and Dude had gone through, John walked up the ramp with Daniel. "We'll show you how it works when we get back. Come on, let's go."

Bracing for impact, Daniel stepped into the water portal and was instantly met with a faster-than-light ride through various star galaxies before stepping out of another Spacegate far, far away from Tierra.

Looking around as he walked down the ramp on the new planet, Daniel found that the General was right. He was sick to his stomach and his mind was reeling. He hadn't realized that he had fallen to the ground until John, Dude and Alex were above him, asking him if he was okay.

"I think so," Daniel said. "Did you all do this your first time?"

Everyone nodded.

"The first ride is always the hardest on the body. After that, it's used to it, so the ride back isn't this bad."

"That's good," the linguist replied and stood up from where he had been lying.

Looking around, the planet lived up to its name. There was literally nothing there for as long as the eye could see. The land was, well…a barren wasteland. No trees, no buildings, nothing…except dirt.

"Whoa," Daniel said again.

"Yeah. The planet seems to have that effect on people. There're no trees. Are you okay?" Cocking his gun, John looked over at Daniel. After the shaken man nodded, John then said, "All right. The crashed ship is this way."

As they walked, Daniel began checking out the gear he now had. He hadn't noticed it before when they had stepped onto the planet—and didn't even pay it any attention when he had been on the ground. Rummaging through his now-rigged overcoat, he found that he had guns—lots of guns, though they weren't of the regular kind.

Taking one out, he looked at it. It was the normal blackish grey of the regular automatic ammunition guns, though there was one difference. On the sides, there was an oblong, oval, and glowing protrusion that was changing from an acid blue to a darker blue and white as he watched it.

"What the—?"

"That's a plasma gun," Alex said from beside him.

Daniel looked up, surprised because he hadn't noticed her there before.

"What? How does it work?"

"Well, John says I explain things too complexly, so I'll try to keep it simple. The gun, on the inside, takes small pieces of the inside of the battery and heats it up so intensely and quickly that the matter changes phase from a liquid, to a gas, and then to a plasma in a small fraction of a second. This is part of the Guardia technology that we've found. We call them Plasguns. They can pack quite a wallop."

"And what are these?" Daniel asked, holding out two smaller guns that were shaped like coiled-up cobras.

"Press that button," Alexandra said, after Daniel put one away.

Daniel did as he was told, pressing a small camouflaged button on the cobra's belly. The head of the snake jolted forward, as if to strike, while its hood flared. The eyes started glowing a yellowish gold. The tongue of the snake also stuck out as the jaw opened.

"Whoa! What's this called?"

"That is called a Sartilientanel, but we just call it a Sartgun—it's John's christened name for them because he couldn't pronounce Sartilientanel. We've discovered that they're an advanced form of Zat'nikatels from the time before the Dark Ages. These new weapons were Dagón's discovery when we had been on an Androidian ship. The Machiá use them when they are in battle. When we were on the ship, we found an entire box of them! While we escaped, we took a few of them with us, so we have quite the arsenal once we scanned them into the computer."

Daniel looked at her in confusion. All this stuff about the weapons and how they 'scanned' them into the computer was really scrambling his brain. Alex realized she was explaining things too greatly and needed to backup quite a few steps to be on the same page as Daniel.

"Okay. Did the General give you the metaphor about how The System is a computer program?"

Daniel smiled. "Actually, he used it in simile form, but yes, he did."

"All right. Well, in essence, The System really is a great big network, like the ones computers in companies or schools use to save and access vast amounts of information simultaneously. Well, when we are 'uploaded' into The System, we are a part of a special network and can travel throughout it as we please, using the Spacegates somewhat like USB ports so we can get data—basically, that's us and everything else we upload—to and from places.

"Because of that fact, we are able to 'scan' objects in and replicate them, giving us the advantage over many of the obstacles that we find. That's why General Hoffman and Dude usually stay behind—the General gives the orders to send the stuff, and Dude—not excluding Dagón—is probably the only one who can actually send them. Well, besides me, of course. In due time, you'll be able to get the training, if you want it, to be able to use The System's Code, too."

All of a sudden, Daniel saw a flash in his mind of a sort of computer screen with a black background. In front of that background, there were the symbols he had seen on the Spacegate and many more of other different languages—they were red and moving down, as if trickling over a sort of slow waterfall. There were occasional gaps in the information, but from what Daniel could see, there wasn't really any coherence in the text.

"Wait a sec. Is The Code a bunch of red letters in different languages falling downwards on a computer screen?"

Alex looked taken aback. "Why, yes, it is. The General told me that he wasn't going to show you that yet…"

"He didn't," Daniel admitted. "I saw it in my mind. My powers are beginning to show themselves."

"That's great!"

Daniel looked over at her. "Not really. I really don't know what they're supposed to be. The General told me about some of the ones that I'll get, but I just don't know about the whole thing. I'm glad I made the decision to get reincarnated in this new dimension, but this whole power thing…well…it feels like a terrible burden—like I shouldn't be here, or that it shouldn't be happening to me.

"And, what's more is that with the added anticipation of Hoffman doesn't help. I mean…I came here because I wanted to, and I thought that I'd be treated as an equal. But I find that instead of being like everyone else, I'm supposed to be this Preserver to all of you. I have no idea of what to do with that! I mean, I have no new knowledge, no knew abilities that tell me what I can do to save the humans of every dimension from the Androidians, and yet Hoffman expects me to suddenly just wake up with a fool-proof plan!"

"I know how you feel, Daniel," she said in response to his ranting. "I was thought to be the Preserver when I came to this ship, though it was a false alarm. Hoffman will eventually take you to see the Sage, though—she is the wisest and oldest person in the entire Universe. She has psychic abilities and is somewhat like a prophet. She can help you, but you'll be brought to her when Hoffman thinks you're ready."

"What did the Sage tell you?" Daniel asked, genuinely curious about what this old woman knew.

Alex looked uncomfortable. "She told me that I'd meet The Preserver," she said while looking straight ahead. Daniel could sense a slight disturbance in the back of his mind, as if she was lying to him. He let it slide. "She had said that I'd meet him sometime in the next few years…and I think her prophecy was right."

Daniel sighed and was just about to ask her if she believed he was the Preserver when John announced, "Kids, we're here."

The linguist looked up and was surprised at what he saw. The man had been thinking that it would look like the rockets that had been on Earth when he had actually been on Earth. But, instead, what was before them wasn't like anything that Daniel had ever seen, besides the ones in science-fiction movies.

What was left of the ship was huge. Towering well over fifty feet, it was the color of copper, except the black places where it had been burned on impact. All around it there weren't any portals, though Daniel found out later that the walls themselves could actually turn translucent, so portals to the outside were useless.

The ship looked like it had been made out of paper and a reckless child had just slammed it to the floor. One entire side of the ship was caving in to form a gaping hole to the inside. The only thing that was entirely preserved on the outside was the tail end, which was sticking up into the air, unscathed by the impact.

On the side the crew could see, Daniel could discern some symbols, though they were alien to him. Walking up to them, John gave him the go-ahead.

"Daniel, we need that language deciphered. Keep your comm on just in case we need your help with something. We think this ship is one of the Sinnart, though we're not entirely sure. There still might be Sinnartians stuck on board, so we're going to go in and look. Dude, Alex, let's go."

"Yes, sir!"

Left alone with his comm on, Daniel began to look over the text he found on the side of the ship. There was an abundance of it, so he didn't know if these Sinnartians liked to give their ships really long names, or if it was just a bunch of letters to serial-code it.

Suddenly, his head felt weird, as if a giant computer had been connected directly to his brain. Pressing his hands against his head, Daniel closed his eyes and tried not to yell from the weirdness and slight pain he was feeling. As suddenly as it started, it passed, and Daniel looked back down at the writing.

As he scanned his eyes over the symbols, they slowly began to make sense to him. The alien letters and words seemed to change so that he was reading them in English. This transformation began to go faster and faster; the translation was done within minutes.

"'In deathly sleep we shall forever stay; until we come to Fetrot, or break of day,'" Daniel said aloud, as he read the script. "'But those who disturb us, be forewarned, beware! You'll come out having more than one mind and care.'

"It's a warning," Daniel breathed after he read it again. "They must not disturb the people in there!"

Pushing at his comm button, he yelled, "Guys! Get out of there immediately! The alien text up here was a warning!"

Releasing the button, Daniel waited. There came not a sound from the ship or his comm.

"Guys?"

A minute later, and his comm had remained silent.

"John? Alex? Dude?"

No response.

Thinking that something bad had happened to them, Daniel ran down the hatch the others had used and started searching the halls, calling their names out. At last, he came upon John.

The Colonel was lying on the ground, face down, seemingly unconscious. When Daniel approached him, however, John stirred and opened his eyes.

"Ah!" the Colonel exclaimed as he found himself looking at the floor, his arm flailing up while he pushed himself over onto his back.

"What happened?" Daniel asked, wondering what had happened to render the Colonel unconscious.

"I-I don't know," John said while accepting Daniel's hand in getting up. "I heard your warning about the ship and was just about to get out when this bright flash of light appeared and the next thing I remember, I'm face down with you standing right there.

"Where're the others?"

"I don't know," the linguist replied. "I was looking for all of you when I stumbled upon where you were lying. I haven't found them yet."

"Ohhhh…" came a groan of pain from the next room and the two men quickly walked in. There, on the floor like the Colonel was, lay Alex, rubbing her head where she had hit it when she had fallen unconscious.

"What happened, sir?" she asked.

"We're not sure, Major," John said. "Do you remember a bright flash of light?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Well, we think that's the cause of your guys' unconsciousness," Daniel replied. "Anyone see Dude?"

"No, but did you guys check this out?" Alexandra asked, indicating the room.

"No," the two men said and began to scan the room.

On the walls—all the walls—were mini-chambers, each housing a person apiece. The people, they found, had been cryogenically frozen for some reason, their life suspended as they slept in the icy cold. Some of the chambers, however, were cracked and the people inside them weren't people anymore…but skeletal remains of what looked to be a most painful-looking death.

"Cryogenic freezing stops all life, and stops people from aging, let alone living for quite some time," Alex said quietly. "They look like they haven't woken up and most are perfectly preserved."

"Yeah, but I wonder what happened to those who didn't make it. I think that either their chambers broke while they arrived here, or maybe on impact," John replied as they walked down the rows upon rows of the chambers. "Anyone seen Rick?"

"No, sir," Alex said.

"Unh," Dude's moan rose up from somewhere at the end of the room. All three crewmembers raced to where Dude was lying, a trickle of blood pooling on the ground from the cut above his eyebrow and the back of his head.

"Dude! There you are! We've been looking all over for you, man!"

Rick opened his eyes slowly and stared at his three crewmembers. "Who is this Dude?" Rick's voice, though it was his normal one, was full of disdain, arrogance, and haughtiness…one so much different than his real one. "Whydo you call me that? You should at least have the courtesy to call me by my real name: Gerrati, Crown Prince of Dulanter, soon to be King of Fetrot!"

"What? Dude, are you okay? Rick?"

"I said stop calling me that!" the man howled and threw himself at Alex. Daniel caught him and held onto him as John walked to where they were. All of a sudden, Rick closed his eyes…and when he opened them, he started screaming.

"Who are you?" he demanded in his voice that was terrified beyond all reason. "What do you want with me? I am but a lowly mechanic on this ship!" He then proceeded to scream once again in fear.

John looked at Daniel in disbelief and determination. "We're taking him home."