"What are the stats?" Dylan demanded as he stormed into Command. He looked every inch the High Guard Captain, all decked out in his uniform and the classic so-intense-I'll-have-wrinkles-by-the-time-I'm-thirty-five look on his face.
"We were about to head into Slipstream when three unknown ships came out of the portal and encircled it, making us unable to enter," Rommie, the avatar for the Andromeda Ascendant, reported. When I said that the AI was the ship made hot, I wasn't kidding. She was walking perfection. Whoever made her avatar body was a genius. Oh, right, I was the one who made her.
All right, all right, so I have a few problems with pride. But if you made something as great as Rommie, wouldn't you be cocky too?
"Their ships look odd," Beka commented from her position in the pilot's seat. "Kinda like giant round stars."
At this, Trance's head jerked up from the control panel she was stationed at. As she stared out the screen to the ships ahead of us, I saw her eyes widen in-- shock? Whoa! When Trance, who actively predicts the future, is shocked about something happening, you know you have problems.
I think I was the only one who noticed though. Dylan had ordered Rommie to open a com-link to the stranger ships and the rest of the crew watched as he spoke.
"This is Captain Dylan Hunt, of the Andromeda Ascendant," he said. "We mean you no harm, we simply want to use the Slipstream portal and you are blocking our way."
At this point, Telemachus Rhade finally made his entrance. He was fully dressed now, but he still looked pretty steamed at me, and it was obvious he only barely dried off, because...
"Hey, Rhade," Beka called over her shoulder. "Nice hair. Are the bubbles a fashion statement?"
The Nietzschean said nothing, just stood and glared at me.
"Fashion discussions can wait," Dylan said tersely. "I want to know why these people aren't answering me."
"They won't answer," Trance said, in a near-whisper, but still loud enough to be heard.
Dylan quickly looked at her. "What do you mean, Trance?"
"They never answer hails..." Trance then shook her head, looking more like her old self. Or at least her old new self. Or whatever.
"Dylan, we have to leave. Immediately. We can't stay here, we can find another Slipstream port, we just need to go."
The captain frowned. I think he knew as well as I did, that you don't take Trance's word lightly.
"Incoming message," Rommie noted, distracting Dylan from what he was going to say.
"Dylan Hunt? Creator of the New Commonwealth?" The voice was lispy, but kinda musical at the same time. There was nothing on the screen, though. Some sort of glitch just made it look like a bunch of fractured light.
Dylan looked at his avatar. "I didn't give you the command to show the message," he said.
Rommie frowned. "I couldn't block it. It overrode my systems."
That was a bad thing. When something has the ability to override the blocking systems of a warship, especially those designed by the unattainable genius of yours truly, automatically assume it's trouble.
"Is this Dylan Hunt of the New Commonwealth?" the lispy voice repeated insistently.
Frowning, our captain answered. "Yes, this is Dylan Hunt of the New Commonwealth. Do not be worried, we mean you no harm."
The lispy voice gave a dry, ominous chuckle. "We do. "
"MOVE!" The command, surprisingly, didn't come from Dylan, but from Trance. Her entire body was rigid, her eyes intent.
Rommie needed no further urging. Closing her eyes to connect with her mainframe AI, she threw the ship into a sharp 180 and we were flying as fast as her thrusters could take us in the other direction.
But it wasn't enough. An explosion slammed into us from behind, making all of us fall to the floor. Sparks flew everywhere as wiring snapped, and I nearly groaned, thinking of all the beautiful repair work I had done going down the drain. Something to do with the explosion seemed to have restrained Andromeda, because she strained against an invisible force for a moment, then snapped back, throwing all of us poor, fragile humans in the opposite direction.
As the ship stilled, we all got to our feet to find Rommie on the floor, her AI unconscious. I ran over to her, my trusty nanowelder ready as Rhade gently sat her up.
Running a few scans, I announced, "Whatever hit us was big. It completely short circuited Rommie, and probably killed a few vital systems too. I won't know until I can get her revived."
Dylan was back in full captain mode. Getting up and limping over to his control panel on what looked like a sprained ankle, he snapped, "Harper, Trance, do whatever you can to wake up Rommie. Beka, see if there's any way you can pilot us out of here manually. Rhade, find out what the hell hit us, the damage it did, and if we can get past it."
Since Rommie was an android and therefore a patient out of Trance's skill, the bronze girl went over to Dylan to tend to his ankle. I did the best I could to wake up Rommie while Rhade went about trying to manually revive her systems, all grudges held against me temporarily forgotten. All the while the ship bucked and kicked while Beka fought to release it from whatever hold was keeping it in place.
Finally, I was able to spark the right circuits in Rommie, and slowly she sat up. It took her over a full minute to assess the surroundings and the situation. I began to get very worried. I designed Rommie with a super computer brain. It's the only one I'll admit is faster than mine. That fact that it took so long to assess the damage was a very bad sign.
Dylan noticed she was awake. "Andromeda, report," he ordered.
Rommie frowned and shook her head. "Whatever hit me was powerful. Damage was done to two thirds of my core systems. Life support on decks nineteen through thirty-four is gone, artificial gravity in all hanger decks is non- responsive, and the slipstream core has received major damage. I am unable to break the net structure that's holding me. It seems to be made of different energy beams crossing at various tangents around me that I wouldn't even be able to break with my plasma defence lasers. Or rather, I wouldn't be able to break them if my plasma defence lasers were working."
There was silence on Command as we all contemplated which swear words in what language would be most appropriate for the situation.
Dylan, as always, was the first to come to his senses.
"Well, we're not finished yet," he said. "Beka, keep fighting this net thing around us. Bull your way through with brute force if need be. Rhade, find every single working weapon on this ship and fire it. Harper, this is resting on you. Fix as much as possible in as soon as possible, but your priorities are the slip stream drive and whatever will most effectively fight off what's holding us here. Can you do that?"
I was vaguely insulted by that statement, but I allowed Dylan some grace considering all the stress he was under. Instead, I flashed my Harper patented smile # 16 (I'm-a-genius-I-can-fix-anything) and snapped a salute.
"Is there any doubt in the undeniably awe-inspiring intellect of Seamus Harper?" I ask.
"Yes," Rhade growled from his control station, shaking out more shampoo bubbles still left in his hair.
I decided not to make an issue of it, and was off and running from the command deck to fix the re-broken ship.
"Hey, Rommie, you say this energy net thing crosses at tangents?"
"Yes," the ship's core intelligence answered me through the intercom system.
"What exactly is the tangent?" I asked. I was in another side deck close to the slipstream core trying to re-route enough energy to give a jump start the slipstream drive when I was struck with one of my brighter ideas yet.
"Tangents are conjoined at parallels that meet at sixty-two degree angles at three light-second intervals," was the immediate answer.
I gnawed on my lower lip in thought. "It could work…" I mumbled.
"Why do you want to know?" Andromeda asked uncertainly.
I grinned. "It'll be a surprise. But trust me, Rom-doll, you are gonna love me!"