My apologies to Beyogi my haste to merge chapters resulted in his previous reviews being attached to the new chapters preventing him from posting a new review for the new chapters.
Beyogi's review for chapter 4: I definitely liked the way you used those mayan aliens. Were they the Furlingers? I'm not so sure about that no-life-Galaxy, but whatever. The interesting part is that there are apparently others in another Galaxy. I gather that's the Milky Way. I hope to learn more about those.
Anyway, good luck writing :)
If they aren't the furlings they are at least close cousins or representatives for the furling race. The no-life galaxy is that way because of two things. It's a satellite galaxy of their home galaxy. Meaning it's smaller and closer than other galaxies, and the cluster at the center of the galaxy is unstable in that as it rotates it irradiates the stars in the galaxy with harmful radiation that breaks down life. The omeyocan may also have something to do with that. I'll probably put in some dialog explaining better when they reach the other side of the galaxy and talk with the again Omeyocan. As for the others, there are two additional groups. The closer of which our city-ship will be sent to join shortly, the further one we may not meet for a while depending on how things work out but they aren't in Avalona or the milky way galaxy.
I need to start including dates or something… Alteran date system: counting years since leaving home galaxy.
Chapter 6 – Suspicions
1 day after cloning. Alteran date: year 6, month 4, day 3, time 14:00
"Ianas, the council is concerned with your defiance of the restrictions we've placed on this area of research, the results of which we see on the screen before us." The councilor motioned to the display which showed the research lab where the clone of Arwen was sitting calmly.
"And it worked He is demonstrating that not only does he have the physical appearance of Arwen but has also accessed the memories of the original donor. His brain activity shows only minimal deviation from that of the original Arwen." Ianas spoke enthusiastically and with a passion that befits one who is devoted to scientific pursuits with no regard for consequences.
"Enough, I will not have you or anyone else treating sentient life lightly." High Councilor Tyrien stood hands on the council table.
"No one is treating sentient life lightly." Ianas interrupted in the pause but this was probably a mistake for him to have done as the High Councilor glared at him.
"You are!" His voice filled with contempt as he gestured at the video feed. "Now we have this!"
"Ianas you leave this council with no further option than to restrict your computer and lab access from any and all materials related to biology and cloning immediately." One of the female council members shook her head as she pressed the buttons on the control console in front of her which would carry out the sentence.
"After Arwen has been cleared by medical he will be reintegrated with the crew."
"Behave Ianas." Tria looked at him sadly.
Ianas let the council room for his quarters feeling conflicted.
Alteran date: year 6, month 4, day 3, time 14:30
It was almost comical the first time he tried to stand up his legs had given way underneath him and he'd fallen flat. Ianas and Tria had to help him with his clothing. He thought he was getting used to his body but it would be a while before he truly felt comfortable again.
He'd been sitting here in a meditative pose for about three hours now since the council had informed Ianas that his presence was required. Hopefully he'd be able to get out of here soon.
Arwen had been sitting in the lab for some time now and he was getting bored. He needed to eat and exercise to build up his strength. He could feel his weakness and the instability of the new body. He cursed inwardly it was going to be a long road to conditioning himself back into some semblance of fitness. Sure he had all the muscles and they all gave the impression that he was fit. But every cell in his body was brand new and he was still unsteady on his feet. His brain needed time to become familiar with all the nerves and muscles in his body.
He was just about to lie back down on the medical bed when the door opened revealing two security personnel and a medical team followed by Councilor Tria.
"Sorry about the wait Arwen. Ianas wasn't supposed to clone you at least not just yet. In doing so, he disobeyed a direct order from the high council and things happened."
Orvin one of the medical personnel looked at Tria oddly. "We've yet to determine if he maintains enough of Arwen's original baselines to be Arwen."
"If the body is simply hardware, and the brain contains the software then all that was Arwen has been downloaded into the hardware before you." Tria replied smoothly.
"We know that is not truly the case as the earlier attempts to do just that failed miserably as the Hardware as you put it failed to even start."
The other medical person from the team had pulled out his tablet and begun interfacing with the bio-bed that Arwen was sitting on. "Everything is indicating a match with pre mission recorded vitals of Arwen. Though, I'm detecting a slight atrophy in the arms and legs, and slight nervous system instabilities. I would suggest some exercise in the gym to counteract it."
"Good proceed with the cognitive tests then we will schedule the aptitude tests for tomorrow."
After an hour of answering questions Arwen was beginning to show signs of irritation. He asked after the third tissue sample, "How much more poking and prodding can you do?"
"Oh you don't know, Tyrien is livid I wouldn't put it past him to order a complete dissection." One of the medical team muttered.
"Seriously what's so interesting that required you taking three tissue samples?"
"Well, aside from the fact that all your cells look as young as those of a five day old baby. They start to deteriorate almost immediately after being separated from your body. You're stable as far as I can tell. But the samples age rapidly after we remove them."
"Best I can do right now is to keep an eye on it. If they start showing better resilience after a few days then I declare you human and fully capable. 'Till then you're my guinea pig. I expect you to stop by my lab daily." He nodded to security to make sure they understood, and then turned to Tria. "He's clear"
"Good, next stop lunch, then quarters." Tria announced dragging Arwen out the door.
"You'll be scheduled for aptitude testing tomorrow."
"But I already took aptitude tests."
"Not in this body you haven't besides. You may find you're better suited to another department, like mine."
"Fine…"
Alteran date: year 6, month 4, day 3, time 18:00
Eating was less than interesting; his stomach was new so they had to start with something like a milkshake. Which was bland at best, but he chugged it down. He would be on an almost baby food diet for the next few weeks until the doctors where confident his internals could handle more solid food.
The fun part was the stares he got from people; here was Arwen back from the dead. Not everyone was aware of what had happened with Ianas and the cloning lab.
Arwen spent most of that week between building strength and sleeping.
Alteran date: year 6, month 4, day 17, time 16:34
Tav walked into the mess for breakfast, while it wasn't morning according to the clocks, it was morning for him. His schedule had him set to be active for the last 8 hours of the day and the first 8 hours of the next.
He got his food from the dispensers and moved to his usual table. Sitting down without really paying attention he started to eat. It took him three minutes before he finally looked up and saw who was sitting across from him.
He froze not sure of what to say. Staring rather intently at the impossible person sitting there drinking his nutrition shake. "Can't be…"
"You died." The half formed whisper fell from his lips.
"Huh? Well the reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." Tav coughed at the response.
"You… How… you don't… you look exactly the same." Tav barely managed to say this having apparently come down with a rare and sudden case of stuttering.
"I don't remember you. Should I?" Arwen asked from across the table.
"You saved my life and four others."
Arwen's clone appeared to be the same age as Arwen was when he died on the planet. If he were to use Arwen's birthday to determine age he'd be twenty-eight now, but as a clone his age was little over 15 days. He appeared however to be the exact same age as Tav sitting across from each other.
Arwen lifted his head up at that announcement eyes wide open. "That was your memory." Ianas had somehow included Tav's memory of the original Arwen's death.
Tav seemed a bit confused before remembering when Ianas had asked him two years ago for a copy of the memory from his escape. "So it worked then."
"I'll say. Though Medical won't let me out of their sights for longer than an hour or two."
Tav knew how bad the Medical people could be with their pet projects. "Ach, I know how they can get. Should have seen them fussing over me after I scraped my knees on that mining world a few months ago. Something about wanting to make sure I didn't get infected with some unknown bacteria."
"So, how long since I've been gone, and how long have we been out here?" Arwen asked as no one had seen fit to tell him.
"Um, we left three years after you rescued us; we've been traveling for six."
Tav watched Arwen process all this. He trusted Arwen when Arwen first found them ten years ago. He'd been eight then, barely managing to escape the ridiculous soldier that had invaded his home with Thelya. He didn't regret it, and he still trusted him now.
"I'm supposed to get the updated results from my aptitude test back sometime today." Arwen looked grim. "They won't let me do anything until then."
"I've got another hour or two until I need to be to my lab. Want to go bug Aikino? He's my roommate."
Arwen looked at him; Aikino was something like a little brother to Arwen. "They put you with that trickster?"
"Hah, I give as much if not more as I get from him."
Alteran date: year 6, month 5, day 1, time 10:00
The captain was particularly annoyed that morning, as his usual shower had been freezing cold. On requesting repair teams check it out, he had discovered that all the showers on his deck were cold that morning.
His first thought that morning was to call the two tricksters of the city up to his office to see if they had anything to do with the situation. Normally they would at least send him a notification of their plans but he had to be sure.
"Aikino, Tav" he looked both of them in the eyes, "Did either of you have anything to do with the cold showers this morning?" He asked after motioning for them to sit in front of the desk.
"No sir." Both replied one after the other.
"We would have notified you in advance sir, and would have made certain that it wouldn't affect your quarter's sir." Aikino replied politely.
Fenri sighed. "Just wanted to make sure, I know you boy's keep me in the loop on your pranks if it is something that could affect ships systems. If you didn't I would have locked down your computer access years ago. Thanks for that."
"With your permission sir we'll investigate the computers and see what we can find." Tav offered.
"Do it. Send me a message first thing." Fenri dismissed them from his office.
Later in the day the ship had come to a screeching halt, again, dropping out of FTL. Luckily, this time there were no coolant leaks and all the civilians where accounted for in their quarters. They had just gotten the FTL back up and were on their way again when the lights in the hallways started flickering.
Fenri arrived at ops shortly after. "Give me a status report."
"Someone is going through the database captain. We've managed to lock them out of sensitive areas. But a section of the research database has been compromised we had to manually disconnect it from the rest."
A few moments later the lights on the bridge visibly dimmed brightened for a moment then went back to normal.
"What was that?" Fenri asked going over to the ship operations console.
"One of the four main generators just shut down the computer reports that it detected an overload and initiated shutdown procedures to prevent damage to the ship."
"My ship is falling apart people and I want to know why." Fenri stood at the command chair on the looking around at the men and women working at the stations around the bridge.
They'd just picked up the last gate after cleaning up after themselves on the small planetoid removing what traces they could of the mining operation before shuttling the gate back up to the city. They were just a months away from the last stop in this galaxy, which would propel them onward to meet up with the other two ships that the alien pyramid's sensors had detected.
Alteran date: year 6, month 5, day 1, time 12:00
Tav still a bit groggy from sleep sat up quickly bumping his head on the bed above him. Groaning he reached over and hit the com answering the incoming call.
"Tav, Aikino report to my office soon as you're both awake."
"Yes sir." Tav responded half yawning.
Tav woke Aikino up and told him the captain wanted to see them in his office as soon as possible.
Alteran date: year 6, month 5, day 1, time 14:00
Tav and Aikino were both digging their way through a list of access commands that had been issued throughout the ship for the past week. Some of the secondary subroutines had been corrupted; Tav marked them for restoring from backup before moving onto the next in the list.
Aikino was getting worried looking at the growing list of damaged or corrupted system files. Someone had been sabotaging these for a while now. But they still didn't have the access code of the person who was doing it.
They were getting close when they triggered something in the database which tried to self-destruct the program they were tracking. Aikino quickly hit a button on the screen which issued a command to forcefully disconnect the links between the databases, before sending a message to the bridge that the research database had been compromised.
One advantage to the distributed system they had was that faults in one section of their network could be quickly quarantined without affecting all the computers on the ship. The only central part of the system was a server which contained credentials for all the users its programming could only be edited by physically pulling a chip out and rewriting the pathway with a specialized tool.
This was annoying but it narrowed down the list of suspects to those who had access to that particular database. And even further to those who had the knowledge to program such a thing.
Aikino looked grimly at Tav they had managed to pull the plug just in time to prevent the malicious little script from taking out the reactor safety protocols.